Small Business Research
SB research is basically a procedure of gathering information and opinions from different employees, particular subgroups and consumers that are required for better decision making and minimizing the risks related to business. Market research is a crucial element of this process that can not be neglected. People can conduct sb market research by following techniques.
Secondary Research – Secondary search comprises of looking at the information from some published sources such as magazines, surveys and books. Acquiring data or information by secondary research is a good means to understand attitude and needs of customers. The main resources of doing secondary research are colleges, trade publications, libraries and newspapers. Some govt. agencies and trade associations are also good sources of rich information including U.S Library of Congress, U.S Small Business Association, The Business Research Lab, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and American Marketing Association.
Primary Research – Primary research includes telephone surveys, panel studies, observations of customer behavior, experiments and direct questionnaire with the customers. This research is basically classified into following two parts.
Reactive Research - It involves interviews, questionnaire and surveys.
Non-Reactive Research - It involves observation of customer’s behavior in the real market.
The main source of primary search is United States Small Business Administration.
The following are the ways by which one can conduct primary research.
Talking to Customers Directly – It is a direct and inexpensive method of conducting primary research by doing face to face conversation with customers.
Mail Survey – It is also a less expensive way of conducting primary research but quick responses are less in this case. It requires a lot of time and cannot be conducted when one wants rapid responses.
Telephone Survey – This is an expensive way of conducting a research but gives immense results.
At the end, it can be said that every small business requires conducting a research to establish good marketing strategies and scale new heights.
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