What's up brand builder Stephen Houraghan here at BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this video you're
going to learn seven benefits of market strategy so you can uncover customer clarity discover
opportunity and more importantly steal your competitors audience
now if you're new to the channel and you want to build brands that go beyond the visuals using
strategy psychology and creative thinking then you're in the right place hit that subscribe
button and the notification bell if you want to fast track your results make sure you grab the
program strategy blueprint it's a free download and the link is in the description now when it
comes to building a brand there are plenty of elements to get excited about you can get excited
about the logo or the brand identity system as a whole you can get excited about the ux
design or you can get excited about storytelling market research on the other hand not so exciting
until you discover that market research is like panning for gold and if you spend enough time at
it you can uncover a nugget of gold that can be worth more than all the above so what is market
research well it's the proactive efforts to better understand exactly who your target market is
and what it is that they're looking for and to understand the competitive landscape as well to
identify what they already have as an option in the marketplace and this market research
throws up opportunities that exist they throw up gaps that are left by competitors so you can
give your audience what your competitors aren't so why is market research so important well the
reality is most businesses don't spend too much time on market research they spend quite a lot
of time on the visuals of the brand whether it's the logo the brand identity system or the website
but very little time in understanding exactly who their audience is and what they want but
without that research without that understanding of exactly who that target market is and exactly
what they want a brand is flying in the dark they don't understand what it is that their audience is
looking for and how to communicate with them how to give them what they want so it is critically
important to first understand who your audience is before deciding how you're going to look and
what you're going to say to them so now that you're sold on the importance of market research
i want to give you seven benefits that you can use in your conversations with stakeholders
or brand leaders number one discover customer clarity now as i mentioned before a lot of
businesses do tend to spend a lot of time on the visuals they tend to over invest
in the visuals in comparison to the market research but if there's any area that you
should over invest in it's your market research it's in understanding exactly who the audience is
so you can define what your brand is going to mean to them define what your message is going to be
and define exactly how you're going to communicate with them number two identify positional
opportunity now this market research is part of developing the positioning strategy for any brand
developing a positioning strategy is not done in a silo it's done by understanding exactly who the
audience is and exactly what opportunities or what options they have in the market already through
those competitors and it's only in understanding who the audience is and understanding what options
they already have can you identify gaps in the market and those gaps represent opportunities for
positioning that a brand can go in and fill number three uncover market demands now the more you
understand about your market landscape the better you can adjust your brand and adjust your offering
to meet the needs of that target market now a perfect example of a brand who didn't look at
their market research who didn't spend enough time researching the market and researching the trends
on the market and exactly what their customers were looking for was blockbuster now blockbuster
was absolutely huge they were the biggest video chain in the united states of america but they
took their eye off the ball they didn't look at the trends they didn't do their market research
because the market research would have told them that customers were looking for something
different they were looking for streaming services blockbuster didn't adapt to the changes and they
left the door wide open for netflix to come in so understanding your audience is critically
important but understanding the market landscape is also critically important that will tell you
exactly where the trends are going and exactly what your audience is looking for number four
identify content opportunities so if you begin to understand exactly who your audience is what
they're trying to achieve and the challenges that are standing in their way of achieving that then
you can create great content in helping them through those challenges a great way to do this
would be to survey your customers and ask them what their biggest challenges are and if your
customer base is big enough then their responses will give you exactly the type of content that you
need to go and create so identifying content opportunities is a really invaluable benefit
to doing your market research understanding who that audience is understanding their challenges
that they have and then creating content around helping them through those challenges number five
marketing efficiency now no business likes to throw away money but most businesses do that on
a daily basis they take the lion's share of their budget and put it into advertising before they've
done the sufficient market research but that is an expensive lesson because what they will learn
through their advertising without market research is that advertising without market research can be
very very expensive if you take the time to do your market research before putting your money
into advertising dollars every single dollar will go a lot further number six steal market share so
the crux of market research is understanding your audience and understanding your competitors now
when you understand your competitors and what they're offering you can talk to your audience
about what they like and what they don't like about what your competitors are offering or the
services or products that they provide when you understand what they're not happy with then you
can identify gaps and opportunities in the market that you can go in and feel you can address the
needs of your target audience what they don't like about your competitors and you can give them what
they're looking for and number seven clarity and goals now speak to most business owners
and they'll tell you that their goals are either directly or indirectly related to growth sales
leads market share etc but if you don't understand your market if you don't understand the size
of your customer base then you don't understand what percentage growth represents what percentage
market share you need to understand the size of your market what's going on in your markets so
you can define clear goals that are achievable now let's face it market research is not exactly sexy
it's not exactly exciting but it is an absolute necessity if you want to build a brand that
connects with who your audience is if you want to build a brand that resonates then you have
to understand exactly who that audience is and you have to understand what options they already
have in the market market research will do that for you and it will provide you with the tools to
better connect with who your audience is and what they want speaking of connecting if you want to
learn how to write copy that resonates with who your audience is then this video will give you
seven tips on how to do that until next time brand like a master and i'll see you in the next video
you