How well do you know your market? I mean, do you really know your market? I learned years ago that you can live in a market your entire life and not really know the market.
When is the last time you did some hard market research? When I first started in the industry, we didn’t have the internet. This meant doing it the old fashion way of going to the library or the chamber of commerce. I used to pull every demo and stat sheet I could find. This didn’t mean I would use them all in my marketing plan. But it’s always better to have too much information then not enough.
You would be surprised at what you can find out about the market by doing a little research. For example, I learned years ago that St. Louis has more bowlers per capita then any other market. The bowling hall of fame is in St. Louis. I took this information and did a promotion with it.
Today, we have Google and the World Wide Web to assist us with market research. But are we using it? More importantly, can we really learn everything about a market from the internet? Isn’t it even more important to experience the market first hand? The other day I wrote how face to face communication is your most important selling tool. The same goes for market research.
Should market research happen before or after the tour is routed? If the show or event is playing in a market that doesn’t have a strong demo, should it play in that market? We have all heard the line: “the show has to play somewhere”. But does it? Wouldn’t it make better business sense to play where the business is versus where it isn’t?
