Same topic, new update. A few weeks ago, I shared my personal experience with getting a marketing research plan done… for free. Well, I am doing it AGAIN! I cannot stress the value of this to your business, as well as a collegiate student’s resume. Another win-win for everyone!

I am leveraging the power of my virtual staff to help facilitate a free comprehensive marketing research study for my business, and you can too. I can’t stress this enough: marketing research is a huge value-add resource and you will do some form of this at some point in the future anyways. Universities from all over are looking for companies like us- startups and new businesses- to help grow and build, paired with their very own skills. A student force can assist you in learning more information about how you can better serve your market with your products, price points, colors, features, benefits, where people buy, a little bit about competition, etc. These students will help you understand your consumer behavior.

In this next phase, my company TechLok Solutions is going to participate in a free focus group study that’s professionally moderated by a local university, Ferris State. Typically, these reports are valued from $10,000 to $30,000 depending on the length of the semester and the amount of students involved.

After many discussions and meetings set up by my VA over the past few months, we now have a whole team leading a 16-week study with different subject groups. We are having this student team focusing specifically on the collegiate consumer market for tech gadgets. Five groups of students are completing different methods of consumer surveys.

Our goal is to better understand the following:

• Where do the college kids buy?

• Is it their parents that are making these purchases? Is it the students?

• What are their thoughts on the colors, the brand, the product?

None of this market research could be possible without some leadership on your end. You will have to personally facilitate this project however your VA can be your right hand man (or woman, such as in my case). This is one of my main projects that I am currently working closely with my executive assistant (VA) Kristina. Here is how I utilized her skills to make this happen:

1. Kristina did all the research needed to obtain 10+ university contacts.

2. She filled out every application online to showcase the company to prospective colleges.

3. She coordinated all meetings, calls, on-site visits, and more. I just had to show up!

4. She built a PowerPoint specific to our audience (college students) that included a high-level overview of the business and details on the questions we were hoping to answer through student research.

5. And finally, she maintained all of these tasks by being the point of contact for any and all questions, comments, and concerns while I could focus on the tasks that only I could do.

You want to make sure you are getting consistent feedback, monitoring project tasks that are getting completed, and communicating monthly, at a bare minimum.

I would say bad data is worse than no data at all. TechLok Solutions will gain so much insight from this compared to no consumer research at all. Do not waste your time marketing to a group of consumers that don’t want or need what you have to offer.

Focus on a marketing research project for your own business. Sharpen that focus by seeking assistance from someone like Kristina. The devil is in the details and someone like her will be there to make sure the project is seen through. Again, I can’t recommend this FREE marketing research hack enough. You will save $10,000 to $30,000 so why wouldn’t you give it a shot? Get out there, get a little creative, and knock on some doors at your local universities!