Fact: Top Performers Research Customer Preferences

In 2010, the management consultancy McKinsey published research about the difference between organizations that produced top-performing products and those that produced under-performing products. The use of marketing research was a striking differentiator:

More than 80 percent of the top performers said they periodically tested and validated customer preferences during the development process, compared with just 43 percent of bottom performers. They were also twice as likely as the laggards to research what, exactly, customers wanted. (Note: http://www.mckinsey.com/ insights/operations/the_path_to_successful_new_products)

Now imagine a small start up business that sells and rents bicycles in a vacation area. They think they know the market pretty well, so they decided to skip doing marketing research to determine the products they should sell (such as type or an cost of bicycles) and where they should advertise. Given that they have a limited budget, recommend three SPECIFIC market research tactics they can do to gather some inexpensive information that would be helpful. (Hint: Remember to consider both primary and secondary research options. Saying that you will do an online survey is not specific enough to earn points.)