STUDYING your market is probably the most important first step to becoming a successful entrepreneur and it continues to be critical to stay in touch with your customers and emerging market trends.

Defined as the collection and analysis of information about consumers, market niches and the effectiveness of marketing programmes, market research will help you to answer important questions. Is there a market for your product? What will prospective customers be willing to pay? How are customer preferences changing? Are your products popular with customers? Are competitors' products loved or hated? Are today's customers demanding better service levels? How is technology actually changing the market? Will there still be a market for your product in five years' time?

In business, long-term survival and growth result from the successful exploitation of new market opportunities, opportunities that are discovered by listening and learning, which is essentially what market research is.

One of the most important ways of conducting market research is communicating with your customers, competitors, the media and other industry players continually.

Perhaps the best and worst thing about the technology sector is the pace of innovation. Even established companies often find that their research is out of date almost as soon as it has been collected and analysed.

Nonetheless, the biggest threat to small technology companies is not the market position of their competition but what the industry gorillas and unknown Silicon Valley start-ups have under wraps in their research labs. We have witnessed more than one clever technology company go under as a result of surprise launches by competitors.

If you don't have a market research budget you are not alone. Research suggests that as many as 59% of firms do not have a budget. Yet research does not need to be expensive or complex.

You can do much of your market research with a broadband connection. The opposition's websites are there in full view. You can read industry publications online. You can pick up industry trends just by using Google. Moreover, the big market research houses and consultancies often offer free research to those who register with them online.

It remains true that, once you understand your customers and market properly, the rest of your marketing will follow.

Serandos is MD of Pure Communications, a Johannesburg based public relations and digital marketing agency.