By Leo Mazur, Past President 2009-2014

So many inventors have no idea of how to gather marketing information. Many resort to hiring very expensive specialty companies to do this work for them. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for hiring a Pro to do what you Don’t Know (how to do yourself). However, I strongly suggest you do some preliminary work and get some hands-on experience BEFORE you start spending the big bucks.

Simply apply the standard market information gathering techniques to your EXPO. In most cases it is best to work in teams. One person will be the Interrogator, the other will be the Observer. You can have more then one team or switch off positions. Sometimes the Subjects (the people you are going to confront) feed off of the Interrogators’ personality and may give less then their personal opinion. 

Prepare a form with certain demographic data such as gender, approximate age, race, attributes like, well dressed, average, sloppy, or articulate, average, uses slang heavily, as multiple choice, so it is easy for the Observer to check off answers for each category.

Don’t feel you are being judgmental or prejudice, you are simply trying to categorize your Subjects. This is also a way to avoid asking all of those embarrassing questions like “What income bracket are you in”? There is NO quicker way to end, what could be a very valuable interview, than that question.

Try to keep this demographic data in the same categories as gathered by the Census Bureau so you can correlate it later to achieve “Hard Market Numbers”. If 80% of the target market showed a strong interest in your product and the Census defines that demographic to be one million people you have a good chance of attracting the interest of 800,000 people.

You can quite possibly find a surprise and therefore an unexpected market to exploit. Let’s say your item is a health product. We expect that this will appeal to young women, with above average income, above average education, in above average physical condition and most probably a stay at home mom. However, you find middle-aged men who seem to be of average income and social standing, in definitely below average physical condition showing an interest because it is a natural weight reduction potion. WHAT A GOLD MINE! Not only has your product found a huge secondary market but it WILL cause a huge increase in the traffic coming into the stores where it will be available.

Next on the form should be the questions the Interrogator plans to ask, in sequence, also set up with multiple-choice answers. The idea is to make it easy for the Observer to mark down the information and keep the answers in a format that will be easy to tabulate later.
Keep your questions to a minimum having the most important ones near the beginning just in case the Subject loses interest. One of the most important questions to ask is, how much the Subject would pay for your product.

To formulate your questions properly, you will need to decide whether you want the interrogation to be Leading or Passive. By Leading the interrogation you will control the way the target is thinking about your product and therefore get more defined answers to your questions.

For example you can start the conversation like this, “Do you have young children? If the answer is NO, identify a secondary market, “Do you have grandchildren?” or if the person appears to be too young for that question, “Do you have nieces or nephews?”

Then you can begin to lead the conversation with, “Is it hard to get them to brush their teeth? I developed this product for my kids and it worked great. Do you think it would work for yours?”

Alternately, you can start with a direct confrontation to observe a cold reaction, “What do you think of this?” Show them the product, then ask, “Can you see what it does?” Can you see how it would fit into you life or those around you?” That may not sound so Passive but you are NOT leading their thinking. If people consistently think your mousetrap is a shoehorn, then … there is something drastically wrong with your packaging or display.

Another quantifying experiment would be to allow the Subjects to view your display and confront only those that show an interest. Here you will need a Counter. Someone who can click off or mark down the number of people passing and the number of those who showed an interest. You will have the number of those encountered and their answers from your Observer.

Later you can tabulate the relationships. 100 people passed by. 60 stopped for a better look of which we interviewed 30. Of those interviewed, 20 said they would buy the product and 15 signed up to be notified when the product was on the market. Thus, we can conclude that 60% of the population showed an interest in the product. Having interviewed 50% of that group, over 65% said they would buy the product and of those who said they would buy the product, 75% wanted to know how and when they could buy the product. These are pretty impressive numbers to an investor, potential licensee or retailer.

If you get lost in the numbers, don’t worry. Just collect the data, then write or call me and I’ll walk you though it the first time.

This brings up the subject of gifts. You should do something very special for your “counter” especially if they do a good job. It is the most mind-numbing experience I have ever had and they DO deserve something for their time in Hell.

However, there are also gifts for the participants that can go a long way. Let’s say you have a baby product, you can ask people to fill out a questionnaire, it is best to make it multiple choice and limited to approximately 10 questions tops. You can ask some demographic information and add some humor (if you like) Single, Married, Divorced, none of your darn business.

All entrees will be included in a drawing for a $50.00 gift certificate. One of your questions could be what store they would prefer: Target, Babes R Us or Big Lots. Not only will this tell you a lot about their buying habits but it could be used to target the best retailer to approach. You would actually be providing valuable marketing information to a particular retailer if you could tell them, “We did a survey at the ISSF EXPO and 87% of those interested in buying our product said they would prefer a gift certificate from YOUR STORE!”

The survey must appear quick and easy to complete with minimum contact information (phone and email or phone and street address in case one is difficult to read). Here you can add a box to check if they would like to be informed of where your product can be seen or purchased.

Let’s say you have a new food product that you are already selling in your store. You can offer a 2-for-1 coupon to anyone who signs up for your email list. Number the coupons. Now you can tabulate ratio of the number of coupons given out versus the number redeemed. Take that one step further and when someone redeems one, give them another in a different color to tabulate repeat business.

You can also use the EXPO to sign people up for a focus group. Plan a free breakfast or lunch for 10 people or so and the chance to win a $50.00 gift certificate. If at all possible video tape the event. Have a set of prepared questions but mostly let the group give you their impressions. Make sure the restaurant and gift certificate would appeal to your proposed demographic. A baby product would definitely appeal to a different crowd than a fishing lure.

I am sure you can see how valuable this type of information is, no matter what your ultimate goal is for the product. Whether you plan to run it as a cottage industry or license it to a major corporation, everybody you will encounter wants to know one thing. How much money will this thing make me?

Use these basic principals to develop a strategy focused on specific issues regarding your product to gain a wealth of very valuable information that you can later use to enhance the presentation of your product to a perspective investor, licensee or retailer.

The possibilities are only limited by YOUR Imagination. As inventors, we have a lot of imagination. Now you know how to harness some of that creativity to produce REAL NUMBERS for your business plan.