Read about Business Insight: a new tool to drive successful business decision-making on yourBusinessChannel.
It’s full steam ahead with the Million Dollar Challenge.
This week we launch yet another MDC campaign – called Business Insight – which illustrates perfectly how the internet in general, and web 2.0 in particular, have transformed the way small and medium sized businesses can operate.
Here’s what we mean…
At one level, the function of Business Insight is similar to traditional market research. The aim is to gather reliable intelligence about the preferences and behaviour of a target market, in advance of launching a new product, campaign, or business.
All the experts on the Million Dollar Challenge have repeatedly stressed to us the critical importance of making sound decisions based on solid data, at the outset of a new initiative.
Business Insight delivers just this. It provides a means for Million Dollar Challenge participants to collect invaluable information on key factors like:
- Who will buy from them
- How much they’ll pay
- How long they’ll continue to buy
- Ongoing growth in demand
- Impact of competitors
It all comes down to getting to know your customers and target market extremely well: what their key problems are, what products they want, and why.
And this is where web 2.0 tools have completely revolutionised what businesses are able to achieve in this area.
There was a time not long ago when only this kind of research would have been prohibitively expensive for most businesses. But today there are tools online which make it possible to conduct market research in a way which is more accurate, faster, and more cost effective than traditional methods.
Here are a just couple of examples.
First, it is now possible to design and run surveys online, at little expense. If you already have a website, you can post a survey on your site and reach existing customers. Typically, online survey software will also include powerful analytical tools to assist you in crunching the numbers once the responses have come in.
Secondly, the emergence of online social media and social networking applications makes it possible for businesses to actively listen to the conversations of their target audience. Take blogs, for example. A quick search on Google can teach you vast amounts about what your customers are saying about you. A more sophisticated approach is to monitor Twitter for keywords relevant to your business and products.
Business Insight draws on social media and other tools to reveal what the world is saying about Million Dollar Challenge participants, their products, and their markets.
In next week’s blog, we’ll provide another update on some of the great results Million Dollar Challenge businesses are already experiencing.
