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
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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
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