Customer Reviews

Market Research Made Easy (Self-Counsel Business)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I enjoy reading books about writing business plans and how to do the research necessary to write business plans. This book definitely fits the bill. It's short, sweet and has all the content to help a wanta-be entrepreneur or small business owner do the necessary market research to aid her in writing a sound business plan or to do strategic planning for that business.

The chapters in the book are titled as follows:

1. Why research your market?
2. Laying the groundwork
3. Setting your research direction
4. Secondary data: what's available?
5. Finding the secondary data you need
6. Primary data: you're already surrounded by it
7. Internet market research
8. Primary data: your survey methods
9. Writing a questionnaire
10. Analyzing and interpreting your data
11. When you need to hire a professional
12. Everybody ought to have a plan
13. The beginning
14. Accessing market research data

I would have liked the book better if the chapters had been organized as follows:

12. Everybody ought to have a plan
1. Why research your market?
2. Laying the groundwork
3. Setting your research direction
4. Secondary data: what's available?
5. Finding the secondary data you need
6. Primary data: you're already surrounded by it
7. Internet market research
10. Analyzing and interpreting your data
13. The beginning

Appendices
8. Primary data: your survey methods
9. Writing a questionnaire
11. When you need to hire a professional
14. Accessing market research data

I think chapters 12 and 1 should have been combined into one chapter. If that had been done the book's audience would have been better addressed and introduced to the book. I'm not sure it was necessary to include Chapter 11 at all since the book is geared toward an audience that should have no reason to need to hire a professional - and probably wouldn't want to pay for it even if there was a need.

I was disappointed with Chapter 7. It was too basic and I didn't know what the author was talking about at pages 63 and 64 when he compared search engines to pay-per-click search engines. They are the same thing!

All in all, this book has content! And content is king! I think someone who is involved in creating a new business plan will do himself or herself a favor by getting this book and reading it. Don't expect this book to explain all there is to know about market research. That subject is best covered in a different book for a different audience. 5 stars!

For uninitiated readers who know little about the subject and how to do a real market research, this is a VERY good title. The case studies at the end of each chapter clarifies ideas covered before. This book contains good tips on how much a market research could cost for a small business, and has names and addresses of Canadian resources as well.

I took a variety of marketing courses in college but forgot some of the basics on marketing research. A project was coming up soon on the subject, and I need to have something to refresh my memory. This book was very helpful in that regard. It is an easy, quick read to give you a good overview or refresher of the field.

The book is well organized and helpful. I would recommend that your read it fast though.

The one short coming is that it is a print book about an online phenomenon. The methods seem to be changing very fast.

Take for instance this new site,[...]. It seems like it will change the way most people do research online. Check out the link to the wireless telecom industry:

[...]

New tools, and new sites just seem to be coming out too fast for print media to keep up.

I was going to give the book 5 stars. I think it wasn't perfect because it was week in talking about market research on the internet. It wasn't as current as it could have been. However, I learned a lot and I like that it wasn't repetitive and it was very technical. I recommend it.