Thorough marketing research is critical to the success of most value-added businesses. Farmers are accustomed to market the type of products where there is always a buyer. They may not like the price, but they can usually sell their products into a market just a few miles down the road.
This is not the case with most value-added agriculture projects. Thorough research needs to be conducted to see if anyone will buy your product. And if they will buy it, will they pay an adequate price for you to make a profit. Sometimes you will direct market your product directly to consumers, in which case you need to study consumer needs and behavior. Other times you will sell your product to a middleman or as an ingredient for another product. Regardless, the consumer will be the ultimate buyer of the product and you need to know the consumers needs and desires, in addition to the structure and needs of those taking the product to the consumer.
Before you embark on an effort to do marketing research, you need to understand the process. Conducting Marketing Research can help you understand the basics. If you are going to do your own marketing research you need to know the Marketing Research Tools available to you. If your research involves surveying customers and others, reviewing Finding your Facts – A Quick Guide to Developing a Questionnaire will help you quickly get the information. Your research may involve tools like Conducting Focus Groups.
Where to Find Information for Doing Marketing and Business Studies is helpful if you have trouble identifying information sources. Value-added groups often hire a consultant to do their marketing research. Reading Marketing Research – Finding the Best Consultant to Hire will help you get the most out of your research dollars.
The recently released 2002 Census of Agriculture provides a wealth of new information that will help frame production, marketing and policy decisions about American agriculture. This AIC Issues Brief presents some information on the census history and data collection methodology and highlights a few major findings of the 2002 Census of Agriculture for the United States and California.
Additional marketing research information is provided in the box at the right.