Market Research

Assessing Customer Needs.

Know your customer!

What do your customers think about the library and the services you offer? How do they "perceive" the library? Marketers say that perception is reality. Market research helps you see the library through the eyes of your users. It is a way to quantify, to actually measure what your users want -- or find out what keeps some community members from using your services.

Typically, market research looks at a specific marketing problem or a product assessed in the marketing audit. You want to know what is or will be your users' response to a product or service. Market research is not an internal assessment -- instead you're looking at users. Traditionally libraries look at distinct groups of users (market segments) or "publics." Users are not all alike in their needs or expectations of the library. Despite those days when everybody seems to have an opinion, not all of your users are letting you know what they really want!

Internal vs. External

Marketing audits assess internal capabilities, but marketing research is external, gathering information about the needs and wants of users or potential users. Market research identifies possible opportunities, but also finds the problems and challenges, or external barriers to successful marketing of the library to the community.

Methods depend on the product, but also on staff and budget resources. Formal market research methods may include print surveys, telephone surveys, pilot tests, focus groups, user surveys, Internet polls, etc. Do market research sensitively -- if you ask people what they want, they tend to expect you to give it to them! Learn more about market research in Module 2.

Market research focuses on the customer. Before preparing a marketing plan, find out what your customers want and how they decide on which products and services they will use. Use the information you've gathered to develop a plan that targets specific groups or emphasizes a service the research indicates that users want.

Have you ever participated in a market survey? Do you respond to mailed or emailed surveys? Have you been part of a focus group? Do you fill out cards in restaurants or hotels about quality of service? Do you find it easy or difficult to tell businesses about poor service or good service? Do you respond to online surveys or polls?

• During the next week, keep track of all the times your opinions are solicited -- on the Web, in stores while running errands, with telemarketers, by mail, on the back of trucks (How am I driving?), etc.

• Think about your users. Which method do you think would get the best response from them: a focus discussion group, a telephone survey, a web survey, or a written survey to fill out at the circulation desk?

The market plan