Anyone who has worked for or run a small business knows how hard it can be to get good marketing advice. Everyone from the high priced consultant to the guy you buy your laptop from has advice on how to get ahead online.

Most of them are wrong. It can leave a small business owner so desperate for advice, they’ll take it from anyone. Even the guy sitting next to them on the plane…

This week, I happened to be “that guy.”

On a late night flight to Cleveland, I found myself sitting next to a woman and her young daughter. We were having a nice conversation when she mentioned she had started her own business but was frustrated with her website. Of course my ears perked up and my attention was captured. I’ve heard my fair share of stories of bad advice, but this woman’s story was right up there.

She spun a long tale of woe, recounting bits of advice she’d endured during her short career with this website. I sat amazed as she shared with me the advice she’d been given and the thing she’d been told to do.

I realized that many people offering advice about website marketing read an article or two and feel as though they have it all together. Others seem to be coming from plain ignorance. And the person who pays for the bad advice? The business owner, who is usually on a shoestring budget and just wants to run her business. She doesn’t have time for unfounded, groundless advice that could potentially destroy her business.
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Focus groups and phone surveys have been the traditional bastions of market research. And, despite everyone’s best efforts, they’ve always been expensive and out of reach for many businesses.

It left us with two kinds of businesses: those that can’t afford market research and those that can’t afford enough market research. If you’re ready to learn how any company can begin conducting market research using the Internet, read on.

Whether you are a big company or a small one, market research is the lifeblood of your company, because unless you know what your market wants, you can’t make it and you can’t persuade people to buy it. Although the Web has been lauded as a low-cost way to market and sell products, I think that it’s gotten too little attention as a cheap way to do market research.

So, whenever I think that a cheap way to do something has gotten too little attention, it’s time to roll out another in the series of Skinflint Internet Marketing Guides. To find out how you can take advantage of cheap (or even free) ways to collect market research on the Web, check out the Skinflint Guide to Market Research.
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