- Tasnin Moon
Conducting Market Research to Improve Your Business Development Efforts
Updated: Mar 30
Conducting market research is an essential step for any IP firm looking to inform their business development efforts and gain a better understanding of their target audience. It is also another aspect of understanding the legal marketplace and your firms competitive position. Follow these key tips to conduct market research:
1. Define Your Target Audience
Before you begin your market research, it's important to identify who your target audience is. Understanding your target audience will help you tailor your market research efforts and ensure that you are gathering information that is relevant to your business development efforts. Once you have successfully identified who your target audience is, you can create a character out of the attributes and characteristics and finally name the character (your Client Persona).
As an example, our client persona is called Mark , and has the following attributes:
He is 45+ years of age
Partner of an intellectual property firm
Very well educated (a lawyer in most cases)
Medium-high income
Values trust in relationships
Expert in law, but not in marketing or sales
2. Identify Your Research Objectives
With your target audience in mind, establish specific research objectives that align with your business development efforts.
For example, understanding the needs and concerns of your target audience, identifying potential areas for growth, or gathering feedback on your firm's services. The more you know your client the better.
3. Choose Your Research Methods
There are various methods of market research. The method you choose should be based on your research objectives, budget and the type of information you aim to gather.
If you want to gather information, you can use surveys, focus groups, interviews, etc. The best way to know what your clients need is to ask them.
4. Collect and Analyze Data
After selecting your research methods, collect data from your target audience through surveys, interviews, or data analysis and carefully analyze them.
Review the data to uncover patterns that will inform your business development strategies. For example, summarize your findings with statistics and interpret the results.
5. Use Your Findings To Improve Your Business Development Efforts
Once you have collected and analyzed your data, you can use your findings to improve your business development efforts. This could involve developing new services or marketing strategies, or identifying potential partnerships or collaborations. By incorporating the insights from your market research, you can make more informed decisions about how to grow, advertise, talk about, and develop your law firm.
For instance, for every service you sell should keep your client persona in mind and ask yourself if this is something your persona will really need, and what they would value the most from the service. Use this information every time you are looking for and talking to prospects.
Stay tuned for the next blog on Business Development series next week! Here you can read the previous blog on Identifying Your USPs and Value Proposition
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