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lawless23456

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lawrence
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hi all

im looking into doing some market research for a possible business venture i have, i just wondering what is the best way of doing market research? the things i wanna know are things like if people thing said idea would be a good one etc? i was thinking maybe a questionaire of some kind?

if this in the wrong section please move it


thanks
lawless
 
My thoughts would be to aim directly at your target audiance, eg if you are going for baby photos then contact your local mother and toddler group; if you want to do car shots then talk to a car club etc see if you can attend one of thier sessions to talk to people.

It is pointless stopping people in the street and talking to people outside of your target customer base and getting irrelevant data.
 
If it's a photography business I'll leave it here, if it's not I'll move it. Any clues? ;)
 
You need a better definition of market research. there is a huge difference between people thinking something is a good idea and them being prepared to pay a decent fee for whatever service.

You need to understand the market, the price elasticity, the barriers to entry, etc, etc.

Tell us more....
 
dod said:
If it's a photography business I'll leave it here, if it's not I'll move it. Any clues? ;)
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yes its a photography business idea

who? said:
You need a better definition of market research. there is a huge difference between people thinking something is a good idea and them being prepared to pay a decent fee for whatever service.

You need to understand the market, the price elasticity, the barriers to entry, etc, etc.

Tell us more....
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the target audience is familys with children, its going to be on a couple of fronts one is going to be similar to when a women has a child she has a monthly photo done you ever heard of that? well noone round here does it and i was thinking if for a set price for the first 2 years of the childs life a monthly photo which would then be put into a well presented bound book, on the other front i would be offering to follow a family round if they were going on a day trip to somewhere for example one of these farm attraction type places and photographing the family all toghether as i have often found when out with my family that someone has to miss out on being in the photo

hope this gives you some idea of what i want the market research for as i dont want to go jumping head over into this if its going to fall flat on its ass.
 
As who? says you need to carry out some proper market research -is there any mother and toddler group in your area? If so then a focus group drawn from it's members would be the best way to get some feedback on your idea and give you an idea of whether it is feasible or not.

You also need to take into account the socioeconomic make-up of the area you propose to work in.The price you can charge will be restricted by the disposable income of your potential customers, which in the current financial climate may be somewhat limited.

Another factor to be taken into account are your overheads - can you charge enough, particularly for the "all-day" shoot to justify it, bearing in mind that many public parks etc require licences and payment to use their facilities? Sure, you could just try and dodge the parky, but I doubt somehow that would give your client a very professional impression of you, especially if they are paying handsomely for your services!

It could well be that you are onto something and it will be a great moneyspinner, but most times when it's easy to spot what looks like a huge gap in the market there is a very good reason why no-one else is servicing it, usually because it simply isn't commercially viable and that's why you need to ensure that your market research has covered all the bases.
 
I think I'm with FITP.
most times when it's easy to spot what looks like a huge gap in the market there is a very good reason why no-one else is servicing it, usually because it simply isn't commercially viable
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I suspect that neither of those ideas are financial goers (but I am very conservative in my approach to new ventures).

How do you value your time? I'm not sure that I know many people prepared to spend a couple of hundred quid on having someone follow them around for the day. And when I think of the overheads and time involved - PP work could easily take what ? half a day? A day? more? - then add insurance, fees, travel costs, etc, and I cant see a huge market - of course you might not need a huge market - but how many people would want a load of photos of a day out ? To me the better approach is to be in with a venue or event organiser - I suspect that I'm right because this is a common scenario.

If you do happen to be an excellent tog then you may have a market with a particular market sector, but then you need to look at how you are going to access those people and again I think you will do better aiming to do this for a specific event rather than a day out.


The one a month is more interesting, but you need to sort some form of insurance to cover costs if you cant complete the full period. And again what would you expect to charge per session? £30? £50? I wouldnt pay unless I was going to get good photos, and that will take time - unless you are just going to do a posed shot. Again I think you are looking at a small market and remember your costs - travel &time. Perhaps you could do this in conjunction with some regular event - like a pre-school group or parent and toddler group - that would get you a number of potential clients all in one place at one time. But how many people would pay for a photo/month? Look at the togs who go round the pre-schools - and ask them about conversion rates (we never take the photos from the pre-school out daughters went to - one of the staff members took much better candid shots over the year)

A very common fault when people set up a new venture is to underestimate the cost of being in business and then to underprice and/or undervalue.

And dont be taken in by people claiming that they would, in principle, be happy to pay x. The reality is always that the numbers fall dramatically when it comes to actually giving you £x.
People may say they would spend £50 for you to follow them for the day taking snaps - but how many would pay £100 or £150? or £200?
 
who? said:
And dont be taken in by people claiming that they would, in principle, be happy to pay x. The reality is always that the numbers fall dramatically when it comes to actually giving you £x.

People may say they would spend £50 for you to follow them for the day taking snaps - but how many would pay £100 or £150? or £200?
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For £50 a day I wouldn't even do snaps in that case, never mind real photographs :nono:
 
Flash In The Pan said:
For £50 a day I wouldn't even do snaps in that case, never mind real photographs :nono:
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Indeed, I'd still be curled up under the duvet ;)

I just wanted to make the point about price elasticity and supply/demand curves. :gag:

A lot of stuff applies to the 'wedding' threads as well. The issue of proper costing of time/work. My wife uses some forums where lots of people do fancy knitting and felt work etc and they are constantly having the same arguments, the amateurs doing stuff for pleasure (and in many cases the low charges mean that they are almost paying people to take their work) which devalues the skills and material costs to the point that many of those who are trying to earn a living are hitting price resistance and having real issues.
 
who? said:
Indeed, I'd still be curled up under the duvet ;)

I just wanted to make the point about price elasticity and supply/demand curves. :gag:

A lot of stuff applies to the 'wedding' threads as well. The issue of proper costing of time/work. My wife uses some forums where lots of people do fancy knitting and felt work etc and they are constantly having the same arguments, the amateurs doing stuff for pleasure (and in many cases the low charges mean that they are almost paying people to take their work) which devalues the skills and material costs to the point that many of those who are trying to earn a living are hitting price resistance and having real issues.
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If you start quoting Kotler I'll scream :bang::lol:
 
:bonk::bonk::bonk::bonk:
 
I'm not sure how helpful this will be as I' a newbie to photography and don't have a business but I do like the idea of taking repeat photos of a baby once a month for a year, would be lovely to have their progress professionally recorded but I agree that you would have to go to a mother and baby group or something similar to make it worth the travel and setting up etc. and still offer them at a reasonable price.
Just thought I'd put a slightly more positive point of view.
 
CatB said:
I'm not sure how helpful this will be as I' a newbie to photography and don't have a business but I do like the idea of taking repeat photos of a baby once a month for a year, would be lovely to have their progress professionally recorded but I agree that you would have to go to a mother and baby group or something similar to make it worth the travel and setting up etc. and still offer them at a reasonable price.
Just thought I'd put a slightly more positive point of view.
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yeah i agree with you on this i think im still going to pursue this avenue as it seems a good idea and the few pregnant women i have spoken ft and suggested the idea to seemed to like it
 
It's something I did for my stepdaughter. I've put together a book of her first 5 years and now working on the second 5 (She's 6 going on 16!)

It's a great idea but as the others have pointed out it's difficult to get the access to record the major milestones. I'm lucky that I have access to birthday parties, holidays etc so I do have a book for her full of memories. With limited access the shots may not have the same meaning?
 
You may not get the major events but family and friends will do that anyway you could try to make sure that each portrait includes their current favourite object or toy and outfit so that when the parents look back through it, it brings back memories of that 'phase' rather than a single day?
 
CatB said:
You may not get the major events but family and friends will do that anyway
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Hmmmm, if you were doing a book for them you could actually get them to submit some of their fave pics too?
 
Good market research is horrendously expensive and only large Companies can afford to do it well. And if it isn't done well then it can produce very misleading results...

Back in the early eighties a dog trainer produced a video on how to train dogs. Good trainer, good product - but his 'market research' consisted of asking his friends whether they would buy a video on dog training and how much they'd pay for it. The only problem was, he and his friends were affluent and had videos - most people didn't at that time!

And there's the well known poll by the American Republican Party, many years ago. To keep life simple they conducted their poll by phone and came back with the answer that just about everyone was going to vote for them. The only problem is, the only people who had phones at that time were 99% Republican voters! They lost by a landslide.

When I had the idea of selling tutorials on photography I simply listed them on Ebay - run the flag up the pole and see who salutes it - and didn't bother with market research because I couldn't afford to do it properly. Once the Ebay sales demonstrated that it was worth doing I did it properly.

There's something to be said for starting small and seeing what happens. The other advantage of this approach is that just about every new idea needs to be changed in response to customer feedback, and it's better to make the mistakes BEFORE you get established.
 
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