Understanding your target audience with consumer polls
Tools & Resources
Key Learnings
- Don't ignore your potential customers when developing your business.
- Undertaking market research at the start can validate your business's goods or services.
- Early market research can save you time and money in the long term by highlighting areas of concern from the start.
- Gauging your potential customers' opinions can also help you develop smarter objectives.
- Launchpad Research offers a free consumer poll tool that will give you a quick steer on early-stage decisions for business operating in the consumer sector.
Many new businesses undervalue the importance of market research in validating their product or service from the outset. They assume it as an unnecessary cost. But when you think that less than 40% of UK start-ups make it beyond five years (Statistica, 2023), it's essential that you get as much information as possible from your potential customer base - as early as you can - to give your venture the best chance of success.
Here are some of the benefits of early market research:
Click each box for more information.
1
Validation
You may think you have the best product in the world, but what do your customers think? By using market research, you can gain a better perspective and understanding of your target audience.
2
Minimise investment risk
By spending a relatively small proportion of your initial investment on researching and testing the market, product, concept or idea, you can dramatically reduce costly mistakes further down the road.
3
Strengthen your position
Small businesses' growth can be hampered by many pitfalls, which can lead to failure if they are not addressed early on. Market research can help identify threats, opportunities and emerging trends, and discover your business's and your competitors' strengths and weaknesses.
4
Identify business objectives
Researching the market will help you identify any gaps in consumer needs enabling you to align your business objectives to that of your target customers.
5
Provides a holistic view of the market
A third party can give you an unbiased and a more accurate picture of the market. This can give you more valuable insights, which can lead to actionable ideas and better decision-making.
Next Steps...
There are a wide range of experts who can work with you to design customer polls, perfect for obtaining feedback for your business questions to give you a steer to support internal decision-making or presentation needs.
Companies like GWI offer a range of plans, based on your research needs. They can help zero in on your target audience with plenty of ways to tailor your customer profile, delivering custom surveys based on data from global markets, not just the UK- ensuring you get the answers you need to get your business on the right track from the start.
Or, if you already know who you want to send your poll to, try one of the free online survey-building tools available, to create one yourself in minutes.