Market Research Questions

1- Are there other businesses similar to yours

that are currently operating in your market?
Existing businesses like yours is not a bad thing,
it means there is a market for your business.
2- How do these businesses appear to be doing?
Do they look like healthy, thriving businesses?
3- What are these businesses doing well?
4- What are these businesses doing poorly?
5- What could you do to compete with these
businesses? How would you stand out? Is there
an opportunity to create a competitive advantage
here?
6- How much competition is there? Does the
market appear to be saturated?

7- If yes, are there ways that you can alter your

business plan to suit a niche market?
8- What kind of people would want to buy your
product or pay for your service? Whats your
ideal customer profile?
9- Are there enough of these types of potential
customers living in your community to support
your business? Where are they located? Will
they frequent the area you plan to be in?
10- Can the economic profile of the community
support your business? Are you selling a
premium service with prices to match? Can the
community support this type of business? Be
sure your product or service matches the
economics of the community.
11- Are these people the type of customers who
are likely to become repeat customers? If so,
why?

Strategy question
1.
2.
3.

What about this job, work, or organization are you passionate about?
How does this business serve a higher purpose for you and your customers?
What value do you really bring that benefits your market in ways that your competitors wouldnt
dream of proposing
4.
Whats the dominant personality trait that you need your customers to associate with your
business?
5.
What does an ideal client look like?
6.
What is the simple 10-word core message that explains and excites?
7.
How will your market become aware of your business?
8.
How will your market come to trust that you have the answers?
9.
What are the revenue sources that you can tap to grow this business?
10.
Can you describe the perfect customer experience throughout your organization?
11.
What resource gaps and constraints do you need to overcome to achieve your strategy?
12.
What partnerships do you need to create in order to achieve your strategy?
13.
What would the result of using this strategy model to run your business look like?
Planning
Overall Objectives
1. What are our quarterly, one-year and three-year goals? What results do we expect?
2. What are our sales and revenue goals?
3. What key metrics will we use to determine success?
4. What market share do we want?
Positioning/Branding
5. What is our brand?
6. What differentiates us?
7. What is our competitive advantage? How are we unique?
8. Why should anyone choose to do business with us over everyone else in our market space?
9. What are our areas of expertise?
10. What is our unique value (or selling) proposition?
11. What value do we provide to our clients/customers?
12. What specific benefits do our customers receive?

13. What problems do we solve for our potential customers?

14. What needs/wants do we meet for them?
15. What hurts do we help heal?
16. How can we dominate our market?
17. What makes us stand out from the crowd?
18. What do we stand for?
19. To what question are we the answer?
20. What would cause someone to say, Get me ________! Or, We need ___________!
21. Whats our core message? Whats our unique POV (point of view)?
22. What makes us controversial?
23. Is there too much competition to be competitive in this market space?
24. What kind of image do we want to portray?
25. What could make us hot or viral?
26. Whats our risk reversal strategy?
Target Market Analysis
27. What is our target market? What is in our niche? Who needs what we offer?
Our Primary Target Market is
Our Secondary Target Market is
Our Tertiary Target Market is
28. What percent of our target market is aware of us?
29. Who are our ideals customers?
30. Who are our top 30 (or 50 or 100) prospective clients/customers?
31. What do we know about them?
32. What are their primary motivations?
33. Who is the primary buyer/influencer in the purchasing process?
34. What demographic and psychographic data do we have on them?
35. What are the people in our target market writing about on message boards and forums?
36. What magazines and books are they reading?
37. What topics are being addressed in what theyre reading?
38. What topics are being discussed at their conferences?
39. Where do they network?
40. What are their top conferences?
41. Where are their businesses located?
42. What are their hot buttons?
43. What are their primary needs and wants?
44. What are their primary problems and challenges? What frustrates them?
45. What would fill their needs/wants/problems/challenges?
46. Why do we think that our offerings are the best offerings for them to solve their
need/want/problem/challenge?
47. Whats missing from our competitors offers? Or what cant they find in other places or with other
businesses?
48. What value do we provide for them? What results do we produce?
49. Where is our market underserved?
50. Do the people in our target market have a strong need/desire for what we offer?
51. What are the people in our target market willing to pay for the value we bring?
52. What are the reasons people in our market buy?
53. Are there any adjacent markets we ought to target?
54. What associations fit in our target market?
55. What trends are on the horizons we can take advantage of? What new opportunities might we be able
to exploit?
56. Reverse engineer: Based on what we just learned, how should we change what we do or how we
market?
Competitor Analysis
57. Who else in our market are we competing against?
58. Who else in the country is doing what were doing?
59. How are our competitors different than us?
60. Which of our competitors are the buyers in our market aware of?
61. How do those in our market, market themselves?
62. What products and services do they offer?
63. How do our products and services rate in relationship to theirs?
Products and Services

64. What services do we (or will we) provide?

65. What products do we (or will we) offer?
66. What products will help us create a herd/following?
67. How can we create deluxe options?
68. What is our irresistible offer?
69. Why should our customers act now? Whats our call to action?
70. What kind of guarantee will we offer?
Possible Marketing Tools: Review each of the following tactics and ask, Should we use this tactic this
year? How?
71. Name
92. Set design
112. Take one boxes
72. Slogan/Brand
93. Handouts
113. Sales letters (long)
73. Business Cards
94. Merchandise displays
114. Door hangers
74. Website/Internet
95. Product catalogs
115. Catalogs
75. Blog
96. Reputation
116. Word of Mouth
76. Networking
97. Auto-responders
117. One page sites (to get
77. One Sheets
98. Coupons and discounts
leads)
78. Voice mail
99. E-mail
118. Sponsorships
79. Newsletters
100. Ad specialties
119. Joint Ventures
80. Ezine
101. Speaking
120. Pricing
81. Letterhead
102. One-on-One personal
121. Celebrity Spokesperson
82. Free downloads
contacts
122. Mini-courses
83. Direct mail post cards
103. Signs
123. Home study courses
84. Thank you cards
104. Sweepstakes
124. Free seminars
85. Consistent look/color/feel
105. TV
125. Articles
86. Phone calls
106. Infomercials
126. Books
87. Video
107. Talk shows
127. Teleseminars
88. Reprints of articles
108. Banners
128. Webinars
89. Testimonials
109. Tradeshows
129. Live events
90. Attire
110. Classified Ads
130. Seasonal promotions
91. Multi-media
111. Billboards
131. Referral promotions

Attention Strategy Questions (Getting to First Base)

132. What is our lead generating system?
133. How can we better leverage our networks?
134. What ten (or more) tactics can we use simultaneously to attract new customers?
135. How can we build our potential customers interest in our product/service or business?
136. Who are the key people we need to stay in contact with?
137. How will we stay in contact with our network?
138. Who might be sneezers for us?
139. What organizations should we be involved with?
140. How will we respond to new contacts?
141. How will we make sure that our target market knows about us?
142. How can we become the #1 choice in our market space?
143. What keeps potential customers from using or contacting us? What objections do we
need to overcome?
144. How can we let potential clients test drive our products/services? What can we give
away to build trust?
145. How can we become newsworthy? What are our hooks?
146. Whats our referral strategy?
147. How can we motivate potential clients to contact us?
148. What message is our website communicating? Is it attractive?
149. What businesses or individuals could open us to potential customers?
150. How well designed are our marketing materials? Do they speak from the potential
customers point of view or ours?
151. What PR efforts would attract the attention of our potential customers?
152. What is our typical client acquisition cost?
Establishing Credibility Strategy Questions (Getting to Second Base)
153. How can we begin to establish trust to convince prospects to buy?
154. What qualifies us to do what we do?
155. Where do we need to submit articles?
156. From whom should we get testimonies (i.e. proof)?
157. Do we have testimonies to back up every claim we make?
158. What proof do we have pictorially (especially before and after)?
159. What proof do we have in writing?
160. What proof do we have digitally (video or mp3)?
161. Do we have any celebrities in our network?
162. Who can we align with? Who can we partner with?
163. What is our PR/Media strategy?
164. What should be the image/personality of our company?
165. Are all of our marketing tools and messages in alignment? If not, which are out of
alignment?
166. How can we leverage our current customers to attract new customers?
Sales Strategy Questions (Getting to Third Base)
167. What are the biggest barriers for our potential clients to overcome?
168. How will we figure out who our economic buyers are?
169. Is our marketing focused on features or benefits?
170. How does someone in our target market decide with whom theyll buy?
171. Why do they buy?
172. How can we make it easier to buy?
173. How can we better qualify prospects?
174. How elastic is price for our potential customers?
175. Is our price the best price for our customers and for our profitability?
176. How will we overcome their objections?
177. How can we increase their sense of urgency?
178. Whats our retention strategy?
179. Whats our upsell strategy?

180. Whats our cross sell strategy?

181. What could create a short-term sales surge?
182. What conversion rate are we shooting for?
183. How can we maximize total customer value?
Customer Service Strategy
184. What would be remarkable service for our clients? What would delight them?
185. What will our service standards be?
186. What systems do we need to create?
187. How can we turn our customers into raving fans?
188. How will we keep them happy?
189. What gifts/benefits can we offer for referrals?
190. How can we raise customer loyalty?
Planning
191. What tactics are we going to use this month? This quarter? This year?
192. When we will we use them (i.e. calendarize them)?
193. Who will be responsible?
194. How much money will your plan require?
195. Whats available to execute your plan?
196. Whats our plan for this year? (Create a detailed plan for each tactic and strategy)
Excution
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Is our execution consistent?

Is our content relevant?
Are we promoting on the right channels?
Are we listening to our audience?
What are our competitors doing right?

Evaluation
6. Are we getting what we want and need?
7. What can we do to have better result