Know Your Market - Seeing the Big Picture with Google Tools

By Kai Rostcheck © 2010, All Rights Reserved Selling can be a pretty complicated process because customers rarely make intellectual purchasing decisions. The fact is, that as consumers we typically buy based on emotion. We might like this product over that one for some whimsical reason that most marketers would be hard-pressed to discover. So what’s a business owner to do? How can you be sure that you are offering the right product or service — the choice that will attract customers and keep them coming back? The first step is awareness. You need to know what your customer’s choices are and understand how your offers are differentiated. In other words, be clear on what makes you stand out from the crowd! Otherwise, if you’re just like everybody else your business will blend in with your competition. That means low customer loyalty and fewer profits. The most important thing you can do is understand what your customer wants. In my case, when I order pizza I’m usually not even doing it because I actually want pizza. What I really want is a night off from cooking and a way to easily satisfy my whole family. There’s a huge difference there! How many pizza places do you know that satisfy your perceived need by offering pizza? Umm… all of them, obviously. But how many pizza places do you know of that are purposefully creating solutions to your actual need for a simple break from meal preparation? None. Here’s an idea then: if you own a pizza place how about sponsoring “Family Night?” Offer special pricing (perhaps a buffet), maybe include some games (like a “Family Feud” style competition that involves everyone and awards prizes) and perhaps even include child-watching services so parents who are running around can drop off some of the kids for a little while. They’ll be happy knowing that the children are fed and entertained. They’ll pay for this and then return. The point here is not to convince you that every pizza place should run right out and start family night. Heck, maybe it’s a terrible idea. The point is that you’ll never know if you don’t do some market research. Find out what your customer’s unmet needs are, then create solutions that fill in the gaps. The really cool thing is that once you’ve identified which products and services your customers really want, they’ll start Tweeting about them and posting on FaceBook. This is a good example of how market research and social media go hand-in-hand. • Start with a standard Google search at http://www.google.com/. This basic search is particularly helpful because it allows you to see where you (and your competitors) rank. As mentioned previously, the goal of your Internet Marketing campaigns should be to get multiple rankings in the top ten results. Notice that you can click the “Advanced Search” link from any Google tool, to filter results, eliminate terms, etc. • If yours is a product-related business then another good way to search is through http://images.google.com/. Here you can see clear pictures of competitive products, and link to sites where they are being sold, reviewed, etc. • Another really useful site for comparing products is http://www.google.com/products. Each image there brings you directly to an ecommerce shopping cart. This is really useful because it allows you to see who your competitors are, where they sell and what they price at. • Now use Google’s Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/Keyword-ToolExternal) to determine how frequently people search for your offerings and which keywords your competitors are optimized for. With these tools alone you can quickly figure out how much web traffic there is for your industry, who your main competitors are and what price points they sell at. You could even look at what kind of intellectual property exists using http://www.google.com/patents. From here you can make some educated business decisions about general market opportunities for your company. Think of some ways that you can use this process to evaluate your real market.