Market Research Alaska

Market research is a necessary tool that all Alaska business owners should implement at some point. It is commonly used during the start-up phase of an operation, but marketing research is also done by established business owners in Alaska who are planning to introduce a new product or service.

Today’s business owners in Alaska, start-ups and established, are acknowledging the advantages of market research, and are more then willing to invest the time and money that it takes to do it right. The future of their business, and the impact it can have on them financially has created an entire industry to service this need. Finally, there are many companies and individuals who offer consulting and marketing research assistance to businesses around Alaska.

Market research is a way for Alaska business owners to learn about their customers, and by doing so, they are better able to understand what it takes to make them buy. So for a business to boost their profit making potential, it only makes sense to do the research that will, literally, tell them how!

Marketing research is part of a sound business plan. If you want to get future loans for your business, you are going to have to know where your business stands and where it will be in the future. Determining your business’s market is all part and parcel of the business loan process. If you want to be approved, you will need a firm handle on your market research.

Market research may seem like an insignificant business task, but in reality market research is essential to business success. What is so important about market research? Isn’t market research just a waste of precious work time? No; market research is the perfect way to figure out who will buy what you’re selling. For example: Starting up a cake decorating business only because everyone thinks your cakes are great doesn’t mean it will be successful in Alaska. Market research is needed to help you determine if there is a need for cake decorating, who your competition is, what people are willing to pay, and if you are in an appropriate location.

If a business takes the time to do the foot work before launching a new product or service, they can easily avoid a lot of unnecessary expenses and hassles, not to mention failure. According to statistics, 80% of new businesses go under in the first 5 years, why is this? Perhaps there wasn’t enough market research being done to ensure start-ups of their product, or service’s potential for success. For all intents and purposes, a business owner puts everything they have into a business, so it only makes sense to take precautions by doing the market research that will ensure financial stability, a secure future, and an unwavering reputation.

Is market research expensive? Will you have to cough out a significant investment to get quality market research? Will investing in a marketing research professional be worth your investment? In reality, market research can be as inexpensive or as costly as you want it to be, and depends entirely on your needs.

For example: A woman in a small town near Alaska wants to open a daycare facility, but she’s not sure if she will be able to get enough children to turn a profit. She needs to find out if there is a need for childcare around Alaska, who, if any, her competition is, and how much people are willing to pay for her services.

Market research will help her answer these questions, and before she invests her time and money in starting this business. To find out if there is a need for childcare in her town, she may want to write a survey with appropriate questions, such as:

Are you or someone you know, looking for quality childcare? If yes, for how many children?

Do you need part-time or full-time care? What hours?

How much are you willing to pay for professional childcare and why?

If you currently use professional childcare, would you consider moving your children to a new daycare facility if:

It costs less money?

Has a better educational program?

Includes extra things that your current program doesn’t offer, like meals or certain activities?

This survey is an inexpensive way for her to get her questions answered. The survey can be mailed, or she can talk to the local schools about sending one home with each child, or she could even create the survey on a door hanger and hang them on the doors of resident’s homes around her town. Then depending on her method of getting the surveys to her potential clients, she can include pre-paid postage and have them mail the surveys back, arrange to pick them up, or even set out boxes so people can simply drop them in.

Once the results are in, she will know better the need for childcare. If it turns out that there is too much competition, either from another facility or many home daycare operations, or that there simply isn’t the need for a professional daycare facility, she will be saving herself a lot of money and trouble. Instead, she may consider doing her business on a smaller scale, such as a nursery school or home daycare.

Because her business is in the planning stage, there is no risk involved and doing minimal, inexpensive market research is all that is needed.

There are however, other situations that may require more costly marketing research.

For example: A family owned bookstore in Alaska is considering an expansion to add on a coffee shop and deli with an eating area, as well as a sitting area complete with a fireplace for customers to relax after browsing for books. But because the expansion will cost a lot of money, and possible downtime, they want to know if their customers will purchase items from the coffee shop/deli, and stay around long enough to make use of the sitting area.

This could mean hiring a marketing consultant to find out how popular other coffee shops, restaurants, and cafes are in the area, what kinds of people frequent them, how long they stay, and what sort of items they purchase. They may make phone calls to all the store’s customers to ask them directly how they feel the changes. In store observations can determine the actions of the customers, such as finding out how much time they usually spend in the store.

Learning the potential for a successful expansion can be both time consuming, and costly, due to the amount of market research that must be done to find the answers, and hiring outside help. But because they will be investing a lot of money into growing their business, it is certainly worth the expense of finding out whether it’s a viable idea.

Your market research costs will depend entirely on your individual needs and business situation.