the soldiers and horses have not moved, so explore the horses first. The first step of marketing is market research. However, market research often makes the bosses who do planning, marketing, sales and advertising a big headache. Inviting a professional research company to do it requires a lot of already tight budgets, and it is not sure about the accuracy of the research results. I always feel powerless to do it myself, and I am worried that I will not be professional, and I will not get really valuable information and data.

In the practice of marketing planning in recent 7 years, I have gradually put into practice a set of simple and effective market research methods, and now I will share it with you:

The core of this survey method is:

1. Grasp two contact points:

1. Product contact point. It refers to every point and every link that the product touches in the whole process from the product to the user. Our investigation is to follow the process of product movement to consumers from the perspective of products, to understand what happened at each contact point, what problems, what characteristics and what enlightenment;

2. Consumer contact points. It refers to every point and link that consumers come into contact with from the generation of demand to the use of products. Our investigation is to track the process from demand to use from the consumer's perspective, to observe, listen and experience, and to understand what happened, what problems, what characteristics and what enlightenment there are in this process.

Second, actively use two major survey tools:

1, eyes, in-depth observation;

2. Listen with an open mind.

3. When necessary, you need to use your hands, nose and mouth to touch, smell and taste.

survey methods:

1. Insight into the market

1. Internal interview

Internal interview is the first step of your survey, which paves the way for a more in-depth and comprehensive survey later. People in all aspects related to marketing in an enterprise are full of information and data you need, so you need to go deep into the enterprise and ask them what happened.

You might as well make a list for the enterprise, from the boss to the employees (mainly salespeople), and choose the key representatives of all relevant links in the marketing campaign from products to consumers, so that they can be interviewed by you one by one. Basically, the object of a visit is limited to one person, and it is best to arrange it in a separate room, so that the interviewee can speak without scruple and without being influenced by others. Therefore, I call it "interrogation", because this one-on-one interview process is just like interrogation, and it needs to use various skills to get to the bottom of it and dig out valuable information.

During the interview, you should be flexible and ask questions. At the same time, you should follow a clue in the object's answer and sometimes remind and inspire him with language skills, so that you can get more in-depth information.

during the interview, you need to take notes quickly, and you can prepare a recording pen if possible, but the recording pen can't completely replace the notes, but can only be used as a supplement to the notes. After an interview, you need to give yourself some time to sort out your notes, sort out clear and organized words, and it is best to input them into the computer for sorting.

2. External insight:

From products to consumers, many people and units outside the enterprise are involved in the movement process. The so-called outsiders are clear, and these outsiders often hold a lot of information that the insiders do not know, which is of irreplaceable value to the enterprise's market strategic decision. Therefore, you need to follow the footsteps of enterprise products, go deep into the market, visit people who are dealing with products, listen and observe. The targets of this visit are: dealers, retailers at all levels, salesmen who are fighting in the front line, consumers who are buying similar products at the terminal site, and some products have to start your visit from raw material suppliers.

in view of the objective conditions outside the enterprise, the method of access will be somewhat different from that of internal access, but if it is possible to conduct one-to-one individual access, we should strive for it as much as possible. If you can't, you must improvise and ask questions flexibly according to the environment and the object. Especially, the on-site consumers won't be interviewed for too long, so you need to be patient and get in touch with more consumers. It is best to ask questions alternately in helping him or her provide product descriptions and purchase decisions. If possible, use a recording pen as much as possible, and immediately after an interview, write down the main points of the information you interviewed according to your memories.

This time, you should not only listen with your ears, but also actively observe with your eyes, such as observing the packaging, the display, the work of the promoters, the whole store, the overall market environment, the people, climate, geography, humanities, folk customs, language and so on. If possible, it's best to take a camera, take some photos properly, and collect similar product packaging and advertising materials as much as possible. It's best for you to replace the promoters in the store and sell the products to consumers in a day or two, so that you can gain the first-hand experience in the market.

After internal interrogation, a series of visits and observations from external insight, and sorting out all your notes, you have accumulated thick original notes and other relevant materials. At this time, I believe that you have basically understood the main situation of the enterprise in the market: sales content (not only referring to goods, but also including the value of goods), target groups, sales channels, competition, sales methods, promotion methods, means of communication, etc., and have a basic outline of the advantages and disadvantages of the enterprise. This has laid a basic foundation for your further and more purposeful investigation activities. At the same time, the information you obtained in these two-step surveys also prepared the basic information for the final enterprise marketing decision.