DIY Research Mistakes

Another interesting blog - Five DIY research mistakes that can lead to disaster - which highlights some common errors.

So what are the common mistakes:

1. You load the dice to get the answer you’re looking for
2. Right questions, wrong people
3. Right questions, wrong environment
4. Failing to corroborate the evidence
5. Good evidence, bad decisions

These research mistakes are most likely to occur where you are entering into a market which has limited public data and you are trying to identify a niche market.

An example is the gay and lesbian travel market where RainbowTourism.com markets. While there is some research a lot of the research is self selecting i.e. it captures a "visible" part of the market who read a certain magazine. The research in this area also tends to be biased towards gay men and to North America. However the good news is the internet means this research is getting broader.

The other lesson is that even with the best research you should test the market to see what works. The good thing with the internet is you can test different ads, web pages, etc to see which gives you the best click through and buy rate. The cost isn't huge but it does need to be trialled over different periods to see what works/doesn't work.