Missteps In The Early Market Research Process with Laura Hazzard

Protect your brand, product or invention from the hazards of consumer product launching and go from idea to product to big brand. With guidance from retail product design and development experts Tracy and Tom Hazard. Get the insider secrets to put the right things in the right order with the right resources so you can out design, outsource, and out profit your way to retail success.

Hey there, product launchers. Welcome back to another Office Hours. This one is with Laura Hazzard, our market research consumer market research expert on all things quantitative and qualitative market research. Hi, everyone, this is Laura Hazard, your resident market research expert here. I'm so excited to be chatting with you today. Today is about secondary research, which sounds like, very nerdy and not fun, but this is actually, I think, one of the most critical steps. No matter where you're at in your product launch phase, if you're just creating prototypes or if you're out in the market, it's important to take a step back and understand and make sure you really have a pulse on what's happening out there. So, yeah, we're just gonna dive right in. I know your time is limited, so I'm gonna kind of hit the major bullet points, and then there will be a blog afterwards that can kind of create a checklist for you on what to do. So first things first. What is secondary research?

I know I've mentioned this very briefly in past videos, but secondary research is just information in the marketplace that's already out there. It's research that someone else paid for, someone else spent the time doing. And all you're doing is summarizing the relevant information for you and your product.

The great thing is a lot of it is free. It just takes time. Obviously, your time has value, but you can do a lot of this from home. And I'm going to kind of walk through all the different phases. So it's important to kind of take a step back, look at the marketplace, know who your competitors are, what brands are important, and also really understand who your potential customer is. So if you don't understand who's buying your product, how can you make a product for them? And that's sort of what research is in a nutshell. But the secondary research is kind of understanding what exists, what's out there. You want to be able to have an edge over your competition as well. And secondary research, if you spend the time and energy doing it, you can know more than the big brands. I mean, some of the biggest retailers and brands out there are spending millions of dollars a year on research. So obviously it's Important. And they do a ton of secondary research as well. So this can definitely have an edge over the competition. And as I kind of said briefly in the start, you can do secondary research. And I recommend doing secondary research at all phases of your product launching. It affects the features and the usability of your product, the colors, the styles, the packaging, and also the marketing. How you talk, what you say in your advertisements, learn in secondary research. All right, so a lot of people very quickly jumping over a lot of these things I'm going to talk about today. And it's important to take the time. It's a huge misstep. I'm seeing a lot of times inventors I meet feel like they're already experts. They know their products, they know their marketplace, but I always challenge them to put their money where their mouth is. Write it down for me. Tell me a story about your customer and the market. And I think a lot of times they stumble because they don't know who the key players are, what's important, and all the kind of details we're going to talk about today. Point being, it's extremely important to take a step back. So let's start. Number one, define your marketplace. Even if you don't know what's out there or who your target buyer is going to be, write it down. Because then we can test it. We can know if you're right or wrong. So what I mean by defining, okay, so open up a Google Doc or whatever. Write down who is your main competitor. Just write them. Make a list. Seriously, this is going to be a task of list making, and I promise you it's going to be worth it. Make a list of all your competitors, all the retailers that you could sell your product in. Write down everything you know and also write down what prices you think people are paying and also your target market. So I want you to create a paragraph of who you're optimal buyer is. And even if you're in the marketplace, let's do this task anyways because you might find that you might be a little off. So for this office hours, I'm going to be talking about makeup just because it's something that lots of people understand, kind of skincare, all of the bath and beauty stuff, just for some. Just some context. So, for example, if I created a new makeup product, maybe my optimal customer is an older mom who maybe has several teenage kids, who's working, who lives in the city. And what she's missing is something that's really easy on her face. It doesn't look like too much. It covers up maybe some wrinkles or blemishes and she can just do it really quickly like one and done. Like it's on and I'm done. Five minutes. Maybe that's who your consumer is. So that kind of like brings you to life, I bet you. All right now listening. Are you have a picture or you know someone maybe who fits this? If you're struggling with this exercise or just your brand list or computer list, things like that, talk to the experts. There is a wealth of knowledge and the people in this group know about all categories. So feel free to send them a note and be like here's what I'm thinking. This product is going to be sold to. I would just love your expertise on if I'm missing something. Okay, so you've written all of it down. Right now we're gonna like start to immerse ourselves. So like I said earlier, secondary research is stuff that already exists out there. So we've got the Internet. Let's start reading, reading, reading, reading. I know it, you're really busy, I get it. But you really need to know what's going and so many people have already put this and put decks together PowerPoints, you can find them on the Internet. So literally if you go to Google and you sear and I wouldn't search just makeup, search like makeup trend research guarantee you're going to find some really cool unique articles reports. Click the little news button on Google and it'll show you a bunch of interesting things that have been happening recently. So with Google specifically I always recommend creating a Google alert for your product categories. So that can also I wouldn't just do broad, you have to be specific because there's tons of news alerts that are going to come to you. So I'm in makeup. Maybe my Google alerts are set to like color trends for moms or makeup trends or non toxic makeup. Things that you think are kind of surrounding can really narrow you into news articles. And the great thing about the Google news alerts is it'll just feed it to your inbox once a week. It's kind of your daily download or your weekly download. But you need to know what's happening, what cool things are happening, what's hitting the news, what's newsworthy, what's buzzworthy, all of that you need to know. Once you set your Google app and kind of got some reports going you've read through, go on social media, there's a wealth of knowledge that you just sort of have to condense. So follow on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, all of the key competitors. Remember you wrote them earlier. Go back to that list, find them on all social media platforms, sign up for their newsletters. You can organize your email because it'll get overwhelming. But it's important to do the skim and look through what are they pushing, what are they promoting, what are they finding new and different.

And also how are they talking about the category. So go on social. You need to know and be really ingrained in what your competition starts doing. And also not just follow brands, but also follow retailers. So where do you want to be? Do you want to be sold at Sephora? Do you want to be sold at Target? So you need to go online and kind of follow the retailers as well. So don't forget about them. And then lastly, a misstep I see oftentimes is not following influencers. So identifying influencers can be difficult for a lot of categories, especially if you're new to it. You yourself may consider yourself an influencer, which is great. Then you're poised to create awesome products and new stuff. But you kind of have to dig through so you can find influencers. By just doing a general search on YouTube, you're going to find everything about makeup. The Bethany Motos of the world are going to rise to the top. Or the people that are really popular doing your makeup tutorials are going to rise to the top. You can also use hashtags on Instagram to find influencers, see what's getting likes, who's talking, because these people not only could sell or review your product, they have a pulse on what's trendy, what's cool, and people are looking to them. And influencers have been around for several years. But I think more and more, especially in specific categories, are becoming the advertisers. I mean, it's constantly changing. So you do need to find influencers. Again, that's another place the experts in this panel can help you with. As you read through all the different products that they've worked on, ask them who's important, who do you need to follow? Who are the young and old, not just actors, by the way, people out there that are talking and being followed, getting to know these influencers, interact with them, send them a lot of influencers, especially on YouTube and Instagram and all that, they interact, they're very heavily involved, comment like their things. You're setting up a relationship that potentially you're going to have them promote your product. You never know. That's what we can hope for, right? Okay. Another place to find that you need to kind of do with your online searching is you need to subscribe to subreddits. A lot of people are kind of scared of Reddit. I get it. It's like you have this idea and when you go to the website, it's boring. It's like all just text. But that is where consumers are talking in an unfiltered setting without the influences of social media. Lots of. And so for example, if I'm talking about makeup, like subscribe, you can hit the subscribe button on Reddit and follow all of these communities where they're talking about makeup. And maybe there's some specific to moms and makeup or anti aging or easy coverage or affordable or something like that. Going in and listening to the consumer just kind of in a passive way will really help you start to understand how they're talking about your product. This is all in that secondary research. We're just learning about it. We're understanding what people are doing and saying. So it's critical that you know the lingo. How are people talking about your product? You may, from a scientific point of view or an adventurer's point of view, know all the acronyms and all of the like specific science behind it. But if you don't know how consumers talk about your product, you're never going to reach them in an advertisement. Another thing you can find in Reddit is complaints. People love to complain on social media. So you'll start to understand where the holes are in the marketplace. What's missing, what do they like, what do they dislike? And where can you outsmart your competition and have an edge because you know them better than anyone else? I really think that all brands and these kind of smaller product launches really know the consumer the best. I mean, you look at some of your biggest brands, have you ever gone to the store you love or a brand you love? You look on shelf and you're like, what were they thinking? Who's gonna buy this? They're out of touch. You do not want to be that person. You cannot be out of touch with your consumer. And it takes work and it takes time, it takes maintenance to stay in touch with your consumer. But it's so critical. And all of these tools, by the way, are free. So there's no excuse, it's just time. If you don't have time, you got to pay someone to do it. Because it's so important to know who's out there and what they're doing. Once you've kind of gotten your whole what you're doing is you're creating a database. You are adding open up a Google Sheets and just start writing what you did on Facebook, who you're following. Start to kind of, you know, anything that sticks out to you, write it down, because you're going to forget it. Because there's tons of information, articles you find, reports you want to save for later when you're on the plane, save all of it. Create a database maybe invaluable to you. All right, so once you have finished kind of your passive reading, listening, you need to start being active and getting out there. You need to start your shopping. So this takes a ton of time. I'm not saying it's easy. And there's lots of experts in this group, myself included, that can help you with this phase and can kind of give you the specs of everything that's out there. So what we're doing is we're doing the mystery shopping. We need to know exactly what is out there, what is on shelf, what does it cost? I always recommend doing this firsthand, at least getting your feet wet. So my target market that we talked, that target consumer we talked about earlier, maybe she has no time to go shopping, so she's just going to Amazon.com and sephora. That's sort of like her go to. So look back at that list of retailers and just start checking it off, going there and seeing within your category. Maybe you're creating a lipstick. Go to the lipstick. What's for sale, what brands are being promoted, what brands are getting the most reviews. That's another way to know. You don't have sales data for Sephora, but you can look at reviews. And if one product has three reviews and one has 300, that should tell you something. One, it's been longer on the market usually, and one, it might be more successful. So just do your research, look through it. So go in and see exactly what's there. Take photos, take screenshots, add it. You need to know who you're up against because your product ultimately will be right next to them on Sephora. Right? So you need to know, and especially if you're going out to investors, like what's out there, they're going to ask for the stats, what's the price when it goes on promotion, what are we charging? You're creating a database and not just products and prices, but also colors, textures, pattern, different specs and features, all of that.

What is the whole category? So if you don't know how to start or you don't know how to create A database. Let's jump on a call, let's talk through it. We can work through it together and get you set up for success. Because going out there and going into a store, walking through the aisles of Target, can take time. You really have to kind of be laser focused to get all the details and not skip over it. All right, so we have now a whole huge database of research that we just did, which is awesome. So now you're thinking, now what? So depending on where you're at in the product launch phase, you're going to start to pull information from all these places. So, for example, if you are in just a prototyping phase, haven't really made something yet, or you have a prototype, you can start to finesse it and change maybe features or packaging based on some things you've learned. This also will help you in doing your own primary research, which we'll talk to in the future. So that's your online surveys, your qualitative research. It kind of just gives you your context and your starting place. So when you're creating a new product, you know how to speak their language already. So when we go into a focus group, we can talk to them like we're in it with them. Makes you much more relatable and your results will be much better. Also, if you're kind of a little bit further in. So maybe you've started selling, you have your website up and whatnot, you're trying to get distribution or stores, you can check back on that secondary research and maybe figure out what you're missing or how to talk about an advertisement. What words should I use? You probably shouldn't use premium lipstick. You want to use something cooler and more relatable. What people are going to look for on shelf or maybe what they're going to type into their Google search bar. But you know that answer now because you know so much about it. I feel like it's never ending. So that's another question I get a lot is how do I know when I'm done? When can I stop looking? And the answer is, I'm sorry, but you can't. You always have to be an expert or you need someone on your team who has a pulse on what's going on the second you lose sight on what your consumer wants. And even if you think they're never going to change, I guarantee you they will change. I want to share a little great example, especially in the makeup category. So obviously we have these huge, huge brands in the makeup category that have been selling for years. Your Grandma wore Clinique, and now you're putting on Clinique foundation. Right. So an interesting kind of disturbance that's happened recently in the last couple years is the Rihanna line. For those who don't know, everyone knows who she is, but her team sort of discovered what was missing. And what was missing in the marketplace. In a crowded, crowded, highly competitive marketplace, who wants to start a makeup line? It's very difficult. She and her team and her experts realized that we were missing colors, missing shades. I mean, so basic that you would think, of course we need all shades. Of course we need. I think she's got, like, 45 shades in her foundation line. She has a huge line. They were like, you know what? The marketplace is not fulfilling this need. We're going to do it. So she came out with this incredible line of makeup that is all these different shades and colors, and it has just exploded. And the great thing is it's at a good price point, so it's priced well. And so I think that is a great example of if we go back to Clinique, for example, they've been around for how long, and how did they not know that they should have all of these colors or at least have a bigger assortment? You can read through the stories and the conversation around this makeup line, and it's just incredible. And you hear about these people saying, for the past 30 years, I've been embarrassed. I haven't found the right thing for me. It's emotional, and that's really what you're looking for. And I think when you start to sift through the information you find online and start to really get to know your consumer, you're going to find where the holes are and where the struggles are and where the complaints, what's affecting their life. Even if it's something simple, maybe you're not making something that you don't think is emotional, but you're going to have to find the emotion in there somewhere to spell. And so when you start understanding and having all that background knowledge, there's going to be a light bulb. And that's essentially what happened with Rihanna's line. And, I mean, look at the explosion of makeup that's happened. It has completely changed the industry, the way things are marketed, the types of women we're seeing in advertisements and the product assortment that is available now is changing, and makeup's been around forever. So not all of that came from secondary research. But I guarantee you there was a hint of this out there, because you talk to any woman, they're going to share with you. And these complaints have been around a while. So secondary research is really find the hint, find the specs, and to know what's happening today and helping you hypothesize what will happen in the future. That's really how you're going to beat all your competitors, beat everyone to market and really kind of sell the most and make a splash. So obviously there's a lot more to do beyond just reading some online articles and going to some stores. But this is the great, really strong foundation that you need to have a successful product and then you need to continue doing it every year all the time, to continue to sell and to continue to appeal to consumers. You should always come back to that database and refresh it, try new things, look at new people, adjust your Google alerts to find new information so that you always are ahead of the game. And then the rest will just kind of lay out your research plan, your online surveys, your focus groups. We're going to be feeding from this information in every conversation. So if you've collected all of this in a database, I'd love to look at it with you and kind of provide my thoughts on maybe what you're missing. Also, the experts in this group know a ton already, can save you a lot of time. So they may even be able to share some industry secrets, some knowledge. For example, I just saw getting ready to log in and I saw that Tracy had a recent color trend report for the holiday season. What an incredible resource that you have here. I mean, doing color trend analysis can take so much time and energy and money, and that's something that's already here. So a lot of this secondary research you're going to find here, if you can't find it, talk to me. Let's find it together because it's really going to set you up for success. So I blew through that quickly today. So if you have questions, please feel free to reach out. And I'm excited to do this with you. And if it's a category that I haven't worked in, I'm excited to learn with you. And from here, we'll be moving into the primary research. That's what you have to look forward to coming up. Thank you so much for listening today. I really appreciate it and I'm so excited to hear from you guys and to continue on this journey. All right, take care.

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