| |
Over the last twelve months, Ian Campbell has developed a website focused on Small Cap Canadian Mining and Oil & Gas stocks. The site went live in early December.
If you check in the usual places, you'll find that for more than 35 years, Campbell has been viewed as a leading Canadian expert in the rendering of independent business valuation opinions. He wrote the definitive Canadian books on it. Doing my own research for this article, I found that Campbell has recently been honored by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Business Valuators. They have named an annual research grant after him.
I interviewed Campbell and asked him why he conceived the website. He responded that his own frustration with the data overload on the Internet, coupled with the untold hours it took him to manage his own portfolio, led him to realize he could do much better.
Campbell did not fall into the trap of building a service based only on his needs. He first talked to dozens of investors. Next, he conducted objective market research. The result is a special membership site for investors, their advisers and analysts who want to systematically research investment ideas.
But knowing that you can save yourself time and money with your way of researching and conducting your own due diligence ' as if you were a company acquirer ' was just not enough. To test his site concept, he had to conduct market research. Campbell had a seasoned market researcher work with him to craft and distribute a detailed questionnaire directed at thousands of individuals in the U.S. and Canada. Each had at least $100K in the market and was interested in individually managing or having an investment adviser handle his portfolio. What he learned helped him refine the actual 'service offerings' in the concept.
But for me, it's about how the website provides member access to a proprietary patent-pending 'due diligence' questionnaire that includes more than 200 questions organized by topical headings. The questionnaire searches through company documents by key words.
The searches are linked to company documents. This enables subscribing members to link directly to that response as it appears within the same context within the company documents. Once the search is concluded, a customized questionnaire is available for the member's review and follow-up. Subscribers have an opportunity to quickly and systematically learn a great deal about an individual company ' without having first to read unending corporate documents. (In market research, when you ask 'open-ended' questions, you're not sure what the respondents are going to say; but this is usually where the real diamonds are found.)
Interestingly, members now learn what the company has not disclosed that may be important to their analysis. All questions that do not yield a response to the special keywords search are reproduced in a 'follow-up questionnaire'.
Now flashback to that survey conducted earlier. "When we conducted the extensive research earlier this year, I kept hearing the words: unbiased, independent, and transparent", Campbell said. "I knew that if we were to get the attention and loyalty of those who wanted such an investment tool, we would have to ensure that we accepted no money from anyone except our own subscriber-members; that we offered unbiased information; that we would not provide any buying or selling advice. Moreover, this site had to be totally transparent", he added.
Now, nearly one year later, Campbell has organized his observations, conducted extensive research, laid out an interactive marketing plan; built a site...all according to what his target group said they wanted.
©Copyright, Roy MacNaughton, 2007
Learn more about this special site at: http://www.stockresearchdd.com Roy is a niche marketing coach and business writer. He's a seasoned marketer, with more than 30 years of international marketing and financial experience, including 10 years online. His blog is: http://www.UmarketingU.com
 EasyPublish™ this article - publishers click here
More articles by Roy MacNaughton
- Property Tycoons: Use Other People's Money to Fund Your Investments (Parmdeep Vadesha)
Becoming a property tycoon remains an unreachable dream for many. However, it is not as unachievable as you think it to be. One of the strategies that many property tycoons often resort to is using other people's money to finance their property investments. This article will provide concrete means of accomplishing the tasks that pave the way to becoming the next property tycoon. - The Two Faces of Buy to Let Mortgage Borrowers (Parmdeep Vadesha)
Buy to let in the current market conditions is deemed as unprofitable by some. However, sophisticated property investors may find the present property climate a profitable setting. This is because of the abundance of cheap properties brought about by the credit crunch. But if you are on the unfortunate side of the buy to let arena and you are finding yourself in a quagmire, there is still a solution you can count on. - Small businesses and the credit crisis in 2009 (Hannah Callen)
The FSB's New Year message, strategy and expectations for 2009, looking after your company's credit and following the Prompt Payment Code guidelines.
|
