I ran across some good advice from Forbes magazine’s entrepreneurial expert Kern Lewis on Friday, “Market Research On The Cheap” advising business owners to act smart when their budgets tighten, and seek free data to keep sharp.
The article – the first of a two-part column – offers some practical advice to entrepreneurs on the value of “actionable data” and where to find it. Lewis cautions that because a market can change quickly, savvy marketers need to keep an eye on demographics, measurable preference data and behavioral trends in order to stay competitive – all things that the Yellow Pages industry has been tracking for years.
To find that important trend information, Lewis suggests general searches, government databases, and trade associations. And with that, I was jazzed to read his advice, saying:
Some associations are better data trackers than others, but be sure to browse what they do have. I’ve used information compiled by the Yellow Pages Association to advise my clients on the relative merits of advertising in print or online Yellow Pages.
All of us at YPA have been working with our members for a long time to support small- and medium-sized businesses. We are proud to be referenced here and will continue to provide consumer information and business data to American entrepreneurs. We know that data and metrics mean better ROI, and have built our industry around gathering and interpreting data to best serve our customers’ bottom line.
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