Focused market research
You want to hear from your actual customers or potential customers.
You want their feedback and opinions on your product.
You really want to know what they want to buy.
You want to know what they need but can’t find.
You want to know what features they want to see, where they want your company to go and what products they want next or how to change your products to be better for them.
In amongst the mainstream or specialty markets is your niche. Your actual customers. That’s who you want information and opinions from.
What you don’t want is a whole heap of feedback from those that do not buy your product and will never buy your product.
For example: If you are making a plant protein do you want the feedback from someone that drinks ice breaker every day and has never bought a plant protein powder and never will but insists on providing feedback on how they prefer their milkshakes? Or would you rather get the feedback from people that buy plant proteins and consume them regularly as part of their diet knowing that they will become a customer, an advocate, promotor, formulator, marketer for your product?
You may have a diet and exercise program you want to test and measure. You want to get the feedback from people that are actually going to follow your instructions to give feedback, and from people who have a point of reference for comparison, are they capable of understanding if it is good or bad if they do not diet and exercise.
You may have a theory regarding food intolerances and need to test it on people with food intolerances.
This all seems obvious, however many market research companies will not want “biased” information. They may insist that asking the general public and getting a random sample of the population is better science and more reliable statistics. And they will put an add in a paper or recruit participants and offer them $25 to $50 per hour to taste test products or trial for a period of time and give feedback. But how valuable is that feedback really. You may be asking the totally wrong social demographic with the wrong level of income and shopping habits, you may be asking meat and 3 veg eating, beer drinking ice coffee smashing students about your premium price point plant protein. How valuable is the feedback when they are not actual customers and do not have the base level of knowledge or experience to provide useful feedback. Is it worth paying for?