Queen of All She Surveys

A crucial element of any successful entrepreneurship is understanding your market. Good luck selling your products or services, your ideas or your creativity, if you don't know to whom you're selling or the circumstances in which they find themselves. You can never do too much market research, in my humble (?) opinion. This is particularly true during times of economic uncertainty, when people put even greater thought into their spending. So when we were ready to turn Crazy Savvy from dream/favorite conversation topic/late-night wistful thinking into reality, one of the very first things we did was conduct a whole slew of market research.

One of the nifty ways we were able to do this was via survey (thank you, modern technology!). Erin and I drafted, and she engineered, a ten-question survey (powered by Survey Monkey, which is a pretty sweet tool indeed) examining trends in the communications and marketing field. We tried to be as strategic as possible about the questions we asked, because we knew the answers would shape how we set up shop, how we'd tailor our services to the needs of our clients, and even how we talk about ourselves. Put simply: We already knew what we can do. We wanted to find out how these capabilities, these services, these talents would best dovetail with the needs and opportunities our clients are facing right now, and in the coming months and years.

The results, while not exactly surprising (we like to think we stay pretty on top of what's going on in our industry!), have been both informative and reassuring. There's a definite need for our services, now more than ever. In fact, the majority of communications and marketing budgets of those surveyed were either staying the same or actually growing in the coming year -- wonderful news for us, and wonderful news for our clients, who understand that conveying messages to their constituencies clearly and effectively is even more imperative when the economy is weathering some challenges.

But for market research to be truly effective, it must be ongoing -- a way of thinking, a habit that translates into informed action and decision-making. In that spirit, I post our market research survey here. Feel free to take it and add your insight to the pool, or just sneak a peek and see our approach. It takes less than five minutes and is, of course, completely anonymous.