Defining goals for market research

If you’re an estate agency you may consider undertaking market research in a range of circumstances.

It may be that you are considering rebranding your agency, or that you want to test the usability of your website. You could be thinking about offering a new service or moving into a new location.

Whatever your reason for commissioning market research, the key to making sure that it is successful is clearly defining your goals and objectives from the outset.

Identify the problem or opportunity

Before thinking about questions or audiences, clearly define the problem you are looking to solve, or the opportunity you wish to take advantage of.

This could be very straightforward – “I am thinking of acquiring a second office in a specific location, is there demand for what we offer?” Or “I want to know how our existing customers perceive our service”.

Who do you need to ask?

To make sure that you get the answers you need, it’s imperative that you are asking the right people. For example, there is no point in surveying existing tenants if you really want to get a feel for what local homeowners want from an estate agency.

Looking back at the problem or opportunity – whose problem are you solving, and who offers your business the opportunity?

Create a hypothesis

When you are defining the objectives of your market research, it’s worth thinking on terms of hypothesis. What do you expect the outcome to be? You can then start to structure your questions to either prove or disprove your hypothesis (though be aware not to introduce any element of bias into your questions).

Ask the right questions

Once you are clear on what you want to prove or disprove, make sure that your questions set out to answer this in a clear way that is not too open to interpretation. At a top level you can choose to undertake qualitative or quantitative research. You may choose to use a mixture of both at different points in the research period.

Act on the research

When market research results don’t give you the answer you expected, it can be tempting to ignore them and plough ahead with the original idea anyway. Don’t do this!

If you have set clear objectives and carried out the research with the right audience, and with clear questions, you have to take on board the feedback. It may be that a few tweaks to your offer will make all the difference.

Here at KnowYourMarket, we help estate agents put together and implement a comprehensive market research plan. We can help you to define your goals and undertake the research on your behalf to drive your business decisions forward.