AboutChris Hawkes Expertise I can help people to understand whether or not market research might help them address the
business decisions that they are facing. I can also help them consider the different types of
research that might be appropriate in their situation, and can help them estimate the costs of
the different methdologies, and the pros and cons of each approach.
Experience I've worked in a Fortune 500 company, as a market researcher for the last 8 years. I've managed dozens of qualitative and quantitative market research. I've conducted extensive market research in the US, and in over 20 other countries around the world as well.
Organizations American Marketing Association
Publications MarketResearch101.com and EzineArticles.
Education/Credentials I have a degree in Finance, which I realy haven't ever used, except to try to understand how my mortgage payments were calculated.
Expert: Chris Hawkes Date: 4/10/2008 Subject: # of registered motorcyclists. Divided by country or region.
Question Hello Chris,
I am starting a series of web-sites for athletes and the sports fans who look
up to them. Although we have lots of sports planned, I am just focusing on
one sport at first so I don't spread myself too thin. Can you give me a push in
the right direction for me to source out the information in the title? If the
first sport is motorcycle racing, I would like to show my potential investors
the tremendous rise in motorcycling over the last decade. Just to give you
some idea of the growth- in 1995, about 250,000 new bikes were sold in the
United States but there have been over 1,000,000 new bikes sold here in
2003 and every year since then. Also, 15 years ago in Vietnam, there were
just 500,000 motorbikes in operation, now there are 15 MILLION! So as you
can see it is not an accident that I have picked motorcycling as the first sport,
I believe there has been a similar growth everywhere. In fact, I am most
interested in what"s happening outside of the United States because the site
will be quite global, of course.
So there you have it, if you need more information from me regarding my
question let me know. Thank you so much for donating your time here.
Regards,
Tobias
P.S. I resisted asking you how to find #'s of spectators at racing events, or
viewership of televised races divided by country. I thought I'd start with
something easy and then graduate to the tougher stuff but perhaps it's all not
so tough? I just wanted you to know how far I am planning to take all of this.
Answer Hello Tobias,
Wow, you've really got some big plans. I think that you may very well be onto something, but you'll probably have to segment motorcylclists into a number of groups in order to know what they want on an aggregate level. For example, a lot of the sales of motorcycles in third world countries (I'm in China doing research right now) are very low power motorcycles that are used just for transportation. Then there are the Harley crew in the States that ride much larger and more expensive motorcycles on the weekend as a way to get away from the rat-race (not racing, but "touring" maybe). I don't know enough about motorcycles, but I do know that segmentation of any market is very fundamental to business planning - who are is your target customer (what are they looking for?) What might you be able to sell them?
Then there is the question of existing competiton - I'm sure that there are web sites that seek to serve at least some of these groups already. Before you select your sport you might want to consider the competitive factor - some sports probably have hundreds of web sites and others may be "underserved" - lacking any dominant website.
I have a website that is targeted at small business startups and what needs to be taken into consideration before starting a business. I'm just about ready to start selling my first e-book called "Assessing and Planning your Business Like a Harvard MBA". It's a 30 page PDF document, and I would be willing to send you a copy for free if you'd give me some feedback on what parts are helpful and why and which areas are not well covered - or what remaining questions you have after going through it. My website is currently being redone for about the 5th time, and I'm having some e-mail trouble. If you send me a note asking about the Business Assessment book, I'll e-mail you a free copy in the next day or two (I'm heading to Japan tomorrow, so it will be a busy day). To be sure that I get your e-mail, send it to two addresses: chawkes@marketresearch101.com and chris.hawkes@mac.com and I'll get you a copy of the document to you in the next couple of days. (If my document is hopeful, I'd really like to get a testimonial about how it helped you, that I could put on my website.)
In the mean time, I'd recommend doing some searches to see what websites already exist on motorcycle racing (since it sounds like that's your focus).
