How Small Nonprofits Do Market Research

How to Conduct Market Research

Here is the simplest way to conduct market research.

Use the available data to know the supply and demand situation in your market.
Perform surveys by asking your customers.
Establish a focus group to determine what your customers think of the proposed strategy.
Do a one-on-one interview.
Test your product or service.

The Nonprofit’s Guide to Market Research

Develop a goal or determine what information you want to collect.
Identify the available sources of your business.
Understand your research approach.
Create a survey questionnaire.
Test your survey questionnaire.
Execute the survey.
Evaluate the data.
Develop a plan to address what you’ve learn
Review the data to see if it is working.

8 Ways to Do Market Research for Small Nonprofits

Observation. Pay attention and take notes of what successful people say at the meetings, gatherings, special events, convention, and activities. Train your marketing personnel to observe what the people are saying.
Mystery hopping. Mystery shopping is a great tool to identify the competing organization what they do differently and better than your organization.
Transactional surveys. Get feedback from the customer immediately after every transaction, this way the experience of the customer is still fresh on their minds and the can discuss it in detail.
Focus group research. Establish a focus group research to know what they think of the strategy and to answer questions about your organization.
Customer advisory panels. This is very useful to gather data that are needed to make crucial and major decisions.
One-on-one interview. Conduct a one-on-one interview, either through a phone call or personal interview to ask follow-up questions about your organizations for detailed information.
Survey questionnaires. This is the most effective and widely used market research questionnaire. Survey questionnaire can be sent out to a large number of people and can generate results more quickly.
Marketing experiments. Track the response of your customer by sending them a promotional material, brochures, or newsletters.

Quantitative and Qualitative Research

There are two approaches in market research and no matter what type of market research your organization is conducting, you will need to determine what approach you are going to use.

Quantitative or qualitative?

Quantitative methods. This method measures or counts the data that are generated. It typically answers the question “How much?” The Average, percentage, means, etc. are quantitative data.
Qualitative methods. This method does not measure but it does identify, define and understand the feedback and opinions of the people. The qualitative method involves interviews, observation, or review of relevant documents. This is useful to gather multiple views of the people.

The Importance of Market Research to Small Nonprofit

Market research is the normal strategy when a company launches a new product or service. They have to make sure that it will be profitable and not a waste of money and effort. The market research for a small non-profit is mainly a way to reduce the risks. Similar to buying an insurance which also takes a lot of money.

Market research lowers the chance of investing too much on a project knowing that the expected result will be a failure. The market research also tailors the product to a target market.