Bulletin Vol. 1 No. 5 September 4, 2002

B U L L E T I N

Tools and Resources for Data-Driven Market Research

Vol. 1 No. 5 September 4, 2002


	IN THIS ISSUE: Marketing on a Tight Budget Take Our September Survey Focus Group Reviews the Market Research Tools	Bulletin Archive

FROM THE EDITOR

Marketing on a Tight Budget

My inbox brought this plea from a user. Let me share her question and my response with you.

"I have been in business for 12 years. But something seems to be standing in the way of success. Could it be poor marketing? Should I hire a market adviser to help? It seems like a major expense for a very small business. Please help with any suggestions of what I need to do to get the most success from my business."

Here is my response.

There are many factors a business must get right in order to succeed; marketing is surely one of them. If you have taken a close look at your operations, personnel, and finances, and find no weakness there, then the problem most likely lies with your marketing.

How can you strengthen your marketing activities without breaking the bank? That's the key question.

First of all, you might find this bCentral article useful: "Need a marketing specialist?".

Another idea – if you've been in business 12 years, you have current and past customers who may hold the key. You might try surveying your customers, or simply analyzing your customer list, to learn where your best customers are coming from and why. You will find several articles about this on our bCentral topic area; go to our articles and do some reading. And if that interests you, you might be interested in the Customer Characteristic Analysis we offer.

In your situation, I would definitely check out what resources might be available through S.C.O.R.E. (Service Corps of Retired Executives) or a Small Business Development Center in your area. Both of these offer some free and low-cost marketing advisors. Contact your nearest office of the Small Business Administration to find out more about these programs.

It would be interesting for you to know what other businesses like yours spend on marketing. Some businesses budget a percent of sales for marketing; others simply create a plan, cost out the elements in it, then adjust the plan until the budget fits the resources available. To find out what a reasonable budget for marketing would be, ask your banker, financial advisor, or a representative from your trade organization, if you belong to one.

Okay, readers, how did I do? What advice would you have for this business owner? I’d like to hear from you.

Resources:
Article "Need a marketing specialist?"
    www.bcentral.com/articles/demographics/121.asp
Articles index
    www.bcentral.com/articles/demographics/default.asp
Customer Charateristic Analysis service
    cca.thirdwaveresearch.com
Service Corps of Retired Executives
    www.score.org

SURVEY

Tell Us About Your Customer Lists

We really want to know about your use of customer lists. So, we are continuing this survey. And we are offering an incentive – one respondent will be chosen at random to receive a prize: Jim Novo’s book Drilling Down – Turning Customer Data into Profits with a Spreadsheet. Click here to participate.

Tell a Friend

You can help a friend with just one click! Click here to send the link to this issue to a friend or colleague.

I look forward to your feedback. Click here to write to me and I will try to respond promptly.

Best regards,
Sarah White, Editor, the Bulletin
Third Wave Research

To Change Your E-mail Address or to Unsubscribe

About Your Privacy

Click here to read the Market Research Tools privacy policy.

About Third Wave Research

The BULLETIN is published occasionally by Madison, Wisconsin-based Third Wave Research. Editor Sarah White and other associates of Third Wave Research write articles that appear in bCentral's "Demographics" and "Market Research" topic areas. For information about Third Wave Research's services, click here.

Our Sponsors

Businesses like yours reach prospects nationwide by sponsoring the BULLETIN. Put your message where interested small business people will see it. If you are interested in purchasing a sponsor message, e-mail the editor.

TOOL BITS

Focus Group Reviews the Market Research Tools

Take a look at American Demographics magazine’s September issue – you will find an article on Third Wave Research and the Market Research Tools. In preparing that article, writer Sandra Yin conducted a focus group with small business owners. I would like to pass on to you some of their feedback about our Tools.

Several participants commented that the Tools seem heavily weighted toward business-to-consumer activities. This is true—right now. We are readying more business-to-business features for the Market Research Tools. And in our articles on bCentral, we try to serve up plenty of advice for the B2B reader.

As you probably know, to use any of the Tools, you begin by selecting a geography of interest. Some of the focus group participants wanted to approach the data set in other ways. Users would like to make queries like "Where are the places in the U.S. with the most growth in population?" or "What metro area has the highest educational attainment?" We are planning to include new types of queries that go beyond geography-based research.

One participant stated he would like to pay a set fee rather than pay by the report. "I just want to be able to do the search and not be hampered," he said. Lucky for him, we have already instituted volume pricing. If your business uses demographic reports frequently, you get convenience and discounted prices when you use our Points Program.

Thank you, Sandra Yin, for conducting the research and allowing me to share the results.

Resources:
Articles index
www.bcentral.com/articles/demographics/default.asp
Points Program
bcentral.thirdwaveresearch.com/AcctPtTerms.html

SPONSOR MESSAGES

www.JimNovo.com
Do you have customer data but don't really know how to get value from it? Wonder which data is most important to driving profits? There is a book that will teach you a framework for organizing your customer data so you can finally determine which data is most important to driving profits. You know it costs much less to retain customers than to recruit new ones or win back lost shoppers. Use High ROI Customer Marketing techniques to drive higher revenues from current customers while decreasing promotional expenses. To find out more, click here.

Customer Characteristic Analysis
Could you use a mailing list that improves your targeting by 30-80%? Third Wave Research offers a service that takes the names of your current customers, merges and matches them with our master database, and finds thousands of new prospects who look like your best customers. Start sending less mail and getting more results. To find out more, click here.