What information is important to you? What will you do with the marketing report after it is created? This process requires an investment of time and expense. Make sure that you have a clear plan for using the information that you collect. Market research is the process of evaluating how well your marketing efforts are working. Specifically, does your marketing get the attention and interest of prospects? Are you converting enough of those prospects into clients? Before you can identify your customer's need or problem, you must identify your target or typical customer. Your target audience is the specific customer profile your are trying to reach. This could be people of a certain gender, age, profession, interest set, group, or any other quality that you think makes a customer want to buy your product. In other words, these are the people who are most likely to buy your product and the people that you tailor your marketing to.  The more specific you can be about the identity of your customer, the better you can address their needs. Ask yourself, "Who am I targeting with this product?" and "What do they want?" Look at your current customers. What's the average age? Gender? Education level? Personality? Lifestyle? Hobby? Occupation? Marriage status? Values? Consumers buy products to solve a specific problem. Your customers will only buy when they feel that solving the problem is urgent. For example, based on customer surveys and your industry knowledge, you uncover a customer problem. In this case, customers are losing time working or studying when their cell phone dies. If they forget their charger, they may lose hours of productivity. Think about how exactly you went about responding to the customer's problem. Why did you solve it that way? What make you think about the problem in this way? What exactly does your product or solution do or include? For example, to solve the problem of dying cell phones, you create a phone charger built into a backpack. Your customers use backpacks to store computers and other work or school items. As a result, the worker or student can always charge their phone. Figure out whether or not your product has reduced the impact of the problem you saw. This is also a good place to determine whether or not your problem needed solving in the first place. If sales are consistently low, this may be a sign that your solution was unnecessary. Over time, more customers buy your backpack and like using the built-in phone charger. These clients also believe that your product is different and better than competing products. You are building brand equity with your customers. To find out more about brand equity, see how to build brand equity. Examine your competitors' products and how the solutions that they provide differ from your solution. In other words, look at what your product is able to provide to customers that your competitors' products cannot. What makes your product unique and better? The goal here is to identify a competitive advantage and focus on that advantage with marketing efforts. If this advantage can be sustained, it will lead to higher sales and greater customer retention. The idea of market research is to understand how you market now and how well clients respond. Analyze the steps you currently take to market your product. For example, if you market your product online, you may be using some of the following strategies:  You continually add blog posts, articles and other content to your website. Adding content drives traffic to your site. Your content also keeps a percentage of your audience coming back for new content. Your site offers an opt-in button for readers to subscribe to additional content that is emailed to them. This group gets a weekly email from you with new content links. You have an attractive home page that includes a picture of someone using your backpack phone charger. The site allows the user to easily navigate to your content page and to web pages with product information. You provide an e-commerce option for customers. Clients can buy your product online and receive their backpack in just 2-3 business days. This should also include information about the sales channels used, like online, bricks & mortar, types of retailers, etc. Analyze how well your product is doing in each of these channels. Is marketing doing a good job of getting your product information to potential customers? If you are using blog posts or articles, are they actually being read? Determine if your marketing efforts are actually leading to traffic to your website and then if this traffic is converting into sales. If not, you may want to include ideas for a revised marketing strategy in your marketing report.  Note your market share compared to competitors and market share trends. Are you gaining market share, losing it, or holding your own? For more on market share, see how to calculate market share. The results of your market research should be compiled and detailed in a market report. A market report includes a 1-2 page executive summary and a longer detailed report section.  Your report should include such items as definition of the market size, competitors and their marketing size, as well as estimates of market share. You can use the market report to make changes to your marketing process. These changes can help you get more business from the time and money you spend on marketing.
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One-sentence summary -- Consider why you should perform market research and write a report. Identify your customer. Evaluate your customer’s problem. Detail your solution to the customer's problem. Determine how well your product solves your customer's problem. Identify your competitive advantage. Examine how you currently market your product. Evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing. Summarize your findings for your marketing report.


Sleep paralysis can be terrifying, and you may feel the need to fight against it, especially if you feel as though you are being held down. But the best thing you can do is to try and relax. If you feel like you are being held down, don't try to push against the force — allow yourself to be pushed. This may help you wake up or slip into a dream. Try memorizing a statement like, “I am in sleep paralysis, a natural condition, and I am in no danger.” Repeat the affirmation if sleep paralysis occurs while going to sleep or waking up. Understanding sleep paralysis may help you to relax when it occurs — if you know and understand what is happening, and that it is only temporary, it may be easier for you to relax when it happens. Sleep paralysis can be a sign of a rare condition called narcolepsy, but it is usually not indicative of a serious disorder. When you are asleep you experience something called "atonia," which is your brain keeping your body still and relaxed (possibly so you don't act out what is happening in your dream and injure yourself or others.) Sleep paralysis is when you are aware of is state.  Scientists believe sleep paralysis may occur when you do not smoothly transition out of REM sleep You may experience hallucinations, including thinking someone is in the room with you or holding you down. Remind yourself that these are just hallucinations, and a normal part of sleep paralysis, and you are not in danger. Some people may be able to break the paralysis by moving an extremity. Try focusing all your attention on your toes or fingers and try to wiggle them or make a fist. Another method is to try scrunching up your face as though you just smelled something foul. Repeat these actions several times and you may be able to wake yourself up. If you share a bed with someone, talk to him about what you are experiencing. He may be able to help you wake up from an episode of sleep paralysis. If your partner notices you breathing heavily and irregularly, ask him to shake you awake. This may or may not work — your partner may end up just waking you from normal sleep, but it's worth a try. Most people cannot speak while experiencing sleep paralysis, but talk to your partner about signaling him when you are having an episode. If you focus on your throat you may be able to whisper "Help" or cough, which can signal your partner to wake you up.
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One-sentence summary --
Try to relax. Understand that you are okay. Wiggle your toes, scrunching your face, or making a fist. Talk to your partner.