I recently had a 3 week project focusing on market needs. My main objectives were to better understand my audience and their needs, and to define products that would resonate with my target. All of this can also inform how to fine tune my brand so my messaging (visual and language) really resonates with my target segments. Here is how to go about your own branding market research:
Quantification: Market Sizing
Determining your market size will end up helping you fine tune the characteristics of your segment. This should be a typical TAM / SAM/ SOM exploration (here is a great article on how to do this). My project is for personal branding so some of the typical items I would utilize in market sizing are not going to work. However, I still went through the process because it’s a great activity to consider all the things that will scale down your addressable market due to things like competition or the channels you have selected.
Qualitative: Interviews, surveys
Time to get out of the data and start getting real world data for your branding market research. This should not be about having people tell you what they need. Just remember this quote by Steve Jobs:
“Some people say, “Give the customers what they want.” But that’s not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, “If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!'” People don’t know what they want until you show it to them. That’s why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.”
-Steve Jobs
Market research is important and Steve isn’t saying don’t do it. He says he never RELIES on market research for product innovation. Leverage your research to understand their wants, needs, desires, habits. Let it be a foundation for your own creativity. Don’t ask them what they want, ask them what they love and hate. What’s on their mind?
Also, keep it short. If you send a survey, try just 1-2 questions of what you want to know the most. It’s better to get 20 people answering a 1 question survey than 3 people asking a 10 question survey.
Value Propositions
After you define your target and learn more about their needs, it’s time for creating the promises of what you will deliver. This is key to the branding and your overall marketing strategy. Ultimately the value propositions are created out of a foundation in market research, but it’s still a guess. The best thing you can do is consider your value propositions a hypothesis that needs testing. Before you go all in to creating a multitude of resources behind the value prop you create, test it out! Testing can be as simple as interviews or even an MVP to gauge interest.
The book “Testing Business Ideas” by David Bland and Alex Osterwalder is fantastic for working through this process. It lists tons of ways you can run experiments to learn in an iterative style about what really resonates with your audience.
Find a balance between data and creativity
For my project, I was very data and scientific focused. At the end of my sprint I realized I was too formulaic about it and had not allowed more room for creativity. This was a determent to the value proposition because ultimately it’s a value prop for why you should stand out from the rest. I needed to add more of my voice. To hear more about my personal process, check out my blog post on personal and professional development.
In your own project, consider if you have created enough market research AND enough of your own creative vision to let your brand really sing.
If you would like assistance in your brand development or market research, contact me about consulting.