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How to Do Market Research: The Complete Guide

Learn how to do market research with this step-by-step guide, complete with templates, tools and real-world examples.

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What are your customers’ needs? How does your product compare to the competition? What are the emerging trends and opportunities in your industry? If these questions keep you up at night, it’s time to conduct market research.

Market research plays a pivotal role in your ability to stay competitive and relevant, helping you anticipate shifts in consumer behavior and industry dynamics. It involves gathering these insights using a wide range of techniques, from surveys and interviews to data analysis and observational studies.

In this guide, we’ll explore why market research is crucial, the various types of market research, the methods used in data collection, and how to effectively conduct market research to drive informed decision-making and success.

What is market research?

Market research is the systematic process of gathering, analyzing and interpreting information about a specific market or industry. The purpose of market research is to offer valuable insight into the preferences and behaviors of your target audience, and anticipate shifts in market trends and the competitive landscape. This information helps you make data-driven decisions, develop effective strategies for your business, and maximize your chances of long-term growth.

Why is market research important? 

By understanding the significance of market research, you can make sure you’re asking the right questions and using the process to your advantage. Some of the benefits of market research include:

• Informed decision-making: Market research provides you with the data and insights you need to make smart decisions for your business. It helps you identify opportunities, assess risks and tailor your strategies to meet the demands of the market. Without market research, decisions are often based on assumptions or guesswork, leading to costly mistakes.
• Customer-centric approach: A cornerstone of market research involves developing a deep understanding of customer needs and preferences. This gives you valuable insights into your target audience, helping you develop products, services and marketing campaigns that resonate with your customers.
• Competitive advantage: By conducting market research, you’ll gain a competitive edge. You’ll be able to identify gaps in the market, analyze competitor strengths and weaknesses, and position your business strategically. This enables you to create unique value propositions, differentiate yourself from competitors, and seize opportunities that others may overlook.
• Risk mitigation: Market research helps you anticipate market shifts and potential challenges. By identifying threats early, you can proactively adjust their strategies to mitigate risks and respond effectively to changing circumstances. This proactive approach is particularly valuable in volatile industries.
• Resource optimization: Conducting market research allows organizations to allocate their time, money and resources more efficiently. It ensures that investments are made in areas with the highest potential return on investment, reducing wasted resources and improving overall business performance.
• Adaptation to market trends: Markets evolve rapidly, driven by technological advancements, cultural shifts and changing consumer attitudes. Market research ensures that you stay ahead of these trends and adapt your offerings accordingly so you can avoid becoming obsolete. 

As you can see, market research empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions, cater to customer needs, outperform competitors, mitigate risks, optimize resources and stay agile in a dynamic marketplace. These benefits make it a huge industry; the global market research services market is expected to grow from $76.37 billion in 2021 to $108.57 billion in 2026 . Now, let’s dig into the different types of market research that can help you achieve these benefits.

Types of market research 

• Qualitative research
• Quantitative research
• Exploratory research
• Descriptive research
• Causal research
• Cross-sectional research
• Longitudinal research

Despite its advantages, 23% of organizations don’t have a clear market research strategy. Part of developing a strategy involves choosing the right type of market research for your business goals. The most commonly used approaches include:

1. Qualitative research

Qualitative research focuses on understanding the underlying motivations, attitudes and perceptions of individuals or groups. It is typically conducted through techniques like in-depth interviews, focus groups and content analysis — methods we’ll discuss further in the sections below. Qualitative research provides rich, nuanced insights that can inform product development, marketing strategies and brand positioning.

2. Quantitative research

Quantitative research, in contrast to qualitative research, involves the collection and analysis of numerical data, often through surveys, experiments and structured questionnaires. This approach allows for statistical analysis and the measurement of trends, making it suitable for large-scale market studies and hypothesis testing. While it’s worthwhile using a mix of qualitative and quantitative research, most businesses prioritize the latter because it is scientific, measurable and easily replicated across different experiments.

3. Exploratory research

Whether you’re conducting qualitative or quantitative research or a mix of both, exploratory research is often the first step. Its primary goal is to help you understand a market or problem so you can gain insights and identify potential issues or opportunities. This type of market research is less structured and is typically conducted through open-ended interviews, focus groups or secondary data analysis. Exploratory research is valuable when entering new markets or exploring new product ideas.

4. Descriptive research

As its name implies, descriptive research seeks to describe a market, population or phenomenon in detail. It involves collecting and summarizing data to answer questions about audience demographics and behaviors, market size, and current trends. Surveys, observational studies and content analysis are common methods used in descriptive research. 

5. Causal research

Causal research aims to establish cause-and-effect relationships between variables. It investigates whether changes in one variable result in changes in another. Experimental designs, A/B testing and regression analysis are common causal research methods. This sheds light on how specific marketing strategies or product changes impact consumer behavior.

6. Cross-sectional research

Cross-sectional market research involves collecting data from a sample of the population at a single point in time. It is used to analyze differences, relationships or trends among various groups within a population. Cross-sectional studies are helpful for market segmentation, identifying target audiences and assessing market trends at a specific moment.

7. Longitudinal research

Longitudinal research, in contrast to cross-sectional research, collects data from the same subjects over an extended period. This allows for the analysis of trends, changes and developments over time. Longitudinal studies are useful for tracking long-term developments in consumer preferences, brand loyalty and market dynamics.

Each type of market research has its strengths and weaknesses, and the method you choose depends on your specific research goals and the depth of understanding you’re aiming to achieve. In the following sections, we’ll delve into primary and secondary research approaches and specific research methods.

Primary vs. secondary market research

Market research of all types can be broadly categorized into two main approaches: primary research and secondary research. By understanding the differences between these approaches, you can better determine the most appropriate research method for your specific goals.

Primary market research 

Primary research involves the collection of original data straight from the source. Typically, this involves communicating directly with your target audience — through surveys, interviews, focus groups and more — to gather information. Here are some key attributes of primary market research:

• Customized data: Primary research provides data that is tailored to your research needs. You design a custom research study and gather information specific to your goals.
• Up-to-date insights: Because primary research involves communicating with customers, the data you collect reflects the most current market conditions and consumer behaviors.
• Time-consuming and resource-intensive: Despite its advantages, primary research can be labor-intensive and costly, especially when dealing with large sample sizes or complex study designs. Whether you hire a market research consultant, agency or use an in-house team, primary research studies consume a large amount of resources and time.

Secondary market research 

Secondary research, on the other hand, involves analyzing data that has already been compiled by third-party sources, such as online research tools, databases, news sites, industry reports and academic studies.

Here are the main characteristics of secondary market research:

• Cost-effective: Secondary research is generally more cost-effective than primary research since it doesn’t require building a research plan from scratch. You and your team can look at databases, websites and publications on an ongoing basis, without needing to design a custom experiment or hire a consultant. 
• Leverages multiple sources: Data tools and software extract data from multiple places across the web, and then consolidate that information within a single platform. This means you’ll get a greater amount of data and a wider scope from secondary research.
• Quick to access: You can access a wide range of information rapidly — often in seconds — if you’re using online research tools and databases. Because of this, you can act on insights sooner, rather than taking the time to develop an experiment. 

So, when should you use primary vs. secondary research? In practice, many market research projects incorporate both primary and secondary research to take advantage of the strengths of each approach.

One rule of thumb is to focus on secondary research to obtain background information, market trends or industry benchmarks. It is especially valuable for conducting preliminary research, competitor analysis, or when time and budget constraints are tight. Then, if you still have knowledge gaps or need to answer specific questions unique to your business model, use primary research to create a custom experiment. 

Market research methods

• Surveys and questionnaires
• Focus groups
• Observational research
• Online research tools
• Experiments
• Content analysis
• Ethnographic research

How do primary and secondary research approaches translate into specific research methods? Let’s take a look at the different ways you can gather data: 

1. Surveys and questionnaires

Surveys and questionnaires are popular methods for collecting structured data from a large number of respondents. They involve a set of predetermined questions that participants answer. Surveys can be conducted through various channels, including online tools, telephone interviews and in-person or online questionnaires. They are useful for gathering quantitative data and assessing customer demographics, opinions, preferences and needs. On average, customer surveys have a 33% response rate , so keep that in mind as you consider your sample size.

2. Interviews

Interviews are in-depth conversations with individuals or groups to gather qualitative insights. They can be structured (with predefined questions) or unstructured (with open-ended discussions). Interviews are valuable for exploring complex topics, uncovering motivations and obtaining detailed feedback. 

3. Focus groups

The most common primary research methods are in-depth webcam interviews and focus groups. Focus groups are a small gathering of participants who discuss a specific topic or product under the guidance of a moderator. These discussions are valuable for primary market research because they reveal insights into consumer attitudes, perceptions and emotions. Focus groups are especially useful for idea generation, concept testing and understanding group dynamics within your target audience.

4. Observational research

Observational research involves observing and recording participant behavior in a natural setting. This method is particularly valuable when studying consumer behavior in physical spaces, such as retail stores or public places. In some types of observational research, participants are aware you’re watching them; in other cases, you discreetly watch consumers without their knowledge, as they use your product. Either way, observational research provides firsthand insights into how people interact with products or environments.

5. Online research tools

You and your team can do your own secondary market research using online tools. These tools include data prospecting platforms and databases, as well as online surveys, social media listening, web analytics and sentiment analysis platforms. They help you gather data from online sources, monitor industry trends, track competitors, understand consumer preferences and keep tabs on online behavior. We’ll talk more about choosing the right market research tools in the sections that follow.

6. Experiments

Market research experiments are controlled tests of variables to determine causal relationships. While experiments are often associated with scientific research, they are also used in market research to assess the impact of specific marketing strategies, product features, or pricing and packaging changes.

7. Content analysis

Content analysis involves the systematic examination of textual, visual or audio content to identify patterns, themes and trends. It’s commonly applied to customer reviews, social media posts and other forms of online content to analyze consumer opinions and sentiments.

8. Ethnographic research

Ethnographic research immerses researchers into the daily lives of consumers to understand their behavior and culture. This method is particularly valuable when studying niche markets or exploring the cultural context of consumer choices.

How to do market research

• Set clear objectives
• Identify your target audience
• Choose your research methods
• Use the right market research tools
• Collect data
• Analyze data 
• Interpret your findings
• Identify opportunities and challenges
• Make informed business decisions
• Monitor and adapt

Now that you have gained insights into the various market research methods at your disposal, let’s delve into the practical aspects of how to conduct market research effectively. Here’s a quick step-by-step overview, from defining objectives to monitoring market shifts.

1. Set clear objectives

When you set clear and specific goals, you’re essentially creating a compass to guide your research questions and methodology. Start by precisely defining what you want to achieve. Are you launching a new product and want to understand its viability in the market? Are you evaluating customer satisfaction with a product redesign? 

Start by creating SMART goals — objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Not only will this clarify your research focus from the outset, but it will also help you track progress and benchmark your success throughout the process. 

You should also consult with key stakeholders and team members to ensure alignment on your research objectives before diving into data collecting. This will help you gain diverse perspectives and insights that will shape your research approach.

2. Identify your target audience

Next, you’ll need to pinpoint your target audience to determine who should be included in your research. Begin by creating detailed buyer personas or stakeholder profiles. Consider demographic factors like age, gender, income and location, but also delve into psychographics, such as interests, values and pain points.

The more specific your target audience, the more accurate and actionable your research will be. Additionally, segment your audience if your research objectives involve studying different groups, such as current customers and potential leads.

If you already have existing customers, you can also hold conversations with them to better understand your target market. From there, you can refine your buyer personas and tailor your research methods accordingly.

3. Choose your research methods

Selecting the right research methods is crucial for gathering high-quality data. Start by considering the nature of your research objectives. If you’re exploring consumer preferences, surveys and interviews can provide valuable insights. For in-depth understanding, focus groups or observational research might be suitable. Consider using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods to gain a well-rounded perspective. 

You’ll also need to consider your budget. Think about what you can realistically achieve using the time and resources available to you. If you have a fairly generous budget, you may want to try a mix of primary and secondary research approaches. If you’re doing market research for a startup , on the other hand, chances are your budget is somewhat limited. If that’s the case, try addressing your goals with secondary research tools before investing time and effort in a primary research study. 

4. Use the right market research tools

Whether you’re conducting primary or secondary research, you’ll need to choose the right tools. These can help you do anything from sending surveys to customers to monitoring trends and analyzing data. Here are some examples of popular market research tools:

• Market research software: Crunchbase is a platform that provides best-in-class company data, making it valuable for market research on growing companies and industries. You can use Crunchbase to access trusted, first-party funding data, revenue data, news and firmographics, enabling you to monitor industry trends and understand customer needs.

• Survey and questionnaire tools: SurveyMonkey is a widely used online survey platform that allows you to create, distribute and analyze surveys. Google Forms is a free tool that lets you create surveys and collect responses through Google Drive.
• Data analysis software: Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets are useful for conducting statistical analyses. SPSS is a powerful statistical analysis software used for data processing, analysis and reporting.
• Social listening tools: Brandwatch is a social listening and analytics platform that helps you monitor social media conversations, track sentiment and analyze trends. Mention is a media monitoring tool that allows you to track mentions of your brand, competitors and keywords across various online sources.
• Data visualization platforms: Tableau is a data visualization tool that helps you create interactive and shareable dashboards and reports. Power BI by Microsoft is a business analytics tool for creating interactive visualizations and reports.

5. Collect data

There’s an infinite amount of data you could be collecting using these tools, so you’ll need to be intentional about going after the data that aligns with your research goals. Implement your chosen research methods, whether it’s distributing surveys, conducting interviews or pulling from secondary research platforms. Pay close attention to data quality and accuracy, and stick to a standardized process to streamline data capture and reduce errors. 

6. Analyze data

Once data is collected, you’ll need to analyze it systematically. Use statistical software or analysis tools to identify patterns, trends and correlations. For qualitative data, employ thematic analysis to extract common themes and insights. Visualize your findings with charts, graphs and tables to make complex data more understandable.

If you’re not proficient in data analysis, consider outsourcing or collaborating with a data analyst who can assist in processing and interpreting your data accurately.

7. Interpret your findings

Interpreting your market research findings involves understanding what the data means in the context of your objectives. Are there significant trends that uncover the answers to your initial research questions? Consider the implications of your findings on your business strategy. It’s essential to move beyond raw data and extract actionable insights that inform decision-making.

Hold a cross-functional meeting or workshop with relevant team members to collectively interpret the findings. Different perspectives can lead to more comprehensive insights and innovative solutions.

8. Identify opportunities and challenges

Use your research findings to identify potential growth opportunities and challenges within your market. What segments of your audience are underserved or overlooked? Are there emerging trends you can capitalize on? Conversely, what obstacles or competitors could hinder your progress?

Lay out this information in a clear and organized way by conducting a SWOT analysis, which stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Jot down notes for each of these areas to provide a structured overview of gaps and hurdles in the market.

9. Make informed business decisions

Market research is only valuable if it leads to informed decisions for your company. Based on your insights, devise actionable strategies and initiatives that align with your research objectives. Whether it’s refining your product, targeting new customer segments or adjusting pricing, ensure your decisions are rooted in the data.

At this point, it’s also crucial to keep your team aligned and accountable. Create an action plan that outlines specific steps, responsibilities and timelines for implementing the recommendations derived from your research. 

10. Monitor and adapt

Market research isn’t a one-time activity; it’s an ongoing process. Continuously monitor market conditions, customer behaviors and industry trends. Set up mechanisms to collect real-time data and feedback. As you gather new information, be prepared to adapt your strategies and tactics accordingly. Regularly revisiting your research ensures your business remains agile and reflects changing market dynamics and consumer preferences.

Online market research sources

As you go through the steps above, you’ll want to turn to trusted, reputable sources to gather your data. Here’s a list to get you started:

• Crunchbase: As mentioned above, Crunchbase is an online platform with an extensive dataset, allowing you to access in-depth insights on market trends, consumer behavior and competitive analysis. You can also customize your search options to tailor your research to specific industries, geographic regions or customer personas.

• Academic databases: Academic databases, such as ProQuest and JSTOR , are treasure troves of scholarly research papers, studies and academic journals. They offer in-depth analyses of various subjects, including market trends, consumer preferences and industry-specific insights. Researchers can access a wealth of peer-reviewed publications to gain a deeper understanding of their research topics.
• Government and NGO databases: Government agencies, nongovernmental organizations and other institutions frequently maintain databases containing valuable economic, demographic and industry-related data. These sources offer credible statistics and reports on a wide range of topics, making them essential for market researchers. Examples include the U.S. Census Bureau , the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Pew Research Center .
• Industry reports: Industry reports and market studies are comprehensive documents prepared by research firms, industry associations and consulting companies. They provide in-depth insights into specific markets, including market size, trends, competitive analysis and consumer behavior. You can find this information by looking at relevant industry association databases; examples include the American Marketing Association and the National Retail Federation .
• Social media and online communities: Social media platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter (X) , forums such as Reddit and Quora , and review platforms such as G2 can provide real-time insights into consumer sentiment, opinions and trends. 

Market research examples

At this point, you have market research tools and data sources — but how do you act on the data you gather? Let’s go over some real-world examples that illustrate the practical application of market research across various industries. These examples showcase how market research can lead to smart decision-making and successful business decisions.

Example 1: Apple’s iPhone launch

Apple ’s iconic iPhone launch in 2007 serves as a prime example of market research driving product innovation in tech. Before the iPhone’s release, Apple conducted extensive market research to understand consumer preferences, pain points and unmet needs in the mobile phone industry. This research led to the development of a touchscreen smartphone with a user-friendly interface, addressing consumer demands for a more intuitive and versatile device. The result was a revolutionary product that disrupted the market and redefined the smartphone industry.

Example 2: McDonald’s global expansion

McDonald’s successful global expansion strategy demonstrates the importance of market research when expanding into new territories. Before entering a new market, McDonald’s conducts thorough research to understand local tastes, preferences and cultural nuances. This research informs menu customization, marketing strategies and store design. For instance, in India, McDonald’s offers a menu tailored to local preferences, including vegetarian options. This market-specific approach has enabled McDonald’s to adapt and thrive in diverse global markets.

Example 3: Organic and sustainable farming

The shift toward organic and sustainable farming practices in the food industry is driven by market research that indicates increased consumer demand for healthier and environmentally friendly food options. As a result, food producers and retailers invest in sustainable sourcing and organic product lines — such as with these sustainable seafood startups — to align with this shift in consumer values. 

The bottom line? Market research has multiple use cases and is a critical practice for any industry. Whether it’s launching groundbreaking products, entering new markets or responding to changing consumer preferences, you can use market research to shape successful strategies and outcomes.

Market research templates

You finally have a strong understanding of how to do market research and apply it in the real world. Before we wrap up, here are some market research templates that you can use as a starting point for your projects:

• Smartsheet competitive analysis templates : These spreadsheets can serve as a framework for gathering information about the competitive landscape and obtaining valuable lessons to apply to your business strategy.
• SurveyMonkey product survey template : Customize the questions on this survey based on what you want to learn from your target customers.
• HubSpot templates : HubSpot offers a wide range of free templates you can use for market research, business planning and more.
• SCORE templates : SCORE is a nonprofit organization that provides templates for business plans, market analysis and financial projections.
• SBA.gov : The U.S. Small Business Administration offers templates for every aspect of your business, including market research, and is particularly valuable for new startups. 

Strengthen your business with market research

When conducted effectively, market research is like a guiding star. Equipped with the right tools and techniques, you can uncover valuable insights, stay competitive, foster innovation and navigate the complexities of your industry.

Throughout this guide, we’ve discussed the definition of market research, different research methods, and how to conduct it effectively. We’ve also explored various types of market research and shared practical insights and templates for getting started. 

Now, it’s time to start the research process. Trust in data, listen to the market and make informed decisions that guide your company toward lasting success.

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Market Research: What It Is and How to Do It

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In other words, it’s the process of understanding who your business is targeting so you can better position your marketing strategy.

In this guide, you’ll learn:

• The role of market research in a marketing strategy
• When to conduct market research

Types of market research

• Market research methods and their benefits
• How to conduct market research (example included)
• Market research tools and resources

What is the role of market research in a marketing strategy?

A marketing strategy is a business’s overall game plan for reaching consumers and turning them into customers.

The key word in the above definition is “game plan”. Entering a market with a product is like starting a new game. Since you’re new to the game, you don’t know the rules, and you don’t know who you’re playing against.

This is exactly where market research comes in . Market research allows you to discover the rules of the marketing game by understanding your target audience. Moreover, it allows you to understand who your opponent is by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of your competition.

Research is what marketing pros do to plan their moves, and outperform their competition.  It’s also what marketing pros use to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their own marketing strategy .

But is market research the ultimate business oracle? Unfortunately no. Even companies that specialize in market research admit it - here’s a quote from one of them :

(…) it cannot be assumed that market research is an exact science, as it would be unrealistic and unreasonable to expect market researchers to predict the precise demand for a new concept, given that there are numerous variables that can impact demand outside of the market researchers’ remit.

That’s why market research with all of its significance is “only” a part of marketing, and it’s “only” an experiment.  It’s up to you whether you will conduct your experiment, and when you will end it.

For example, Crystal Pepsi seemed very promising in the market research phase, yet it failed when released onto the market (a similar thing happened to New Coke). Xerox’s idea for a commercial photocopier was a no-go in the eyes of research analysts; Xerox did it anyway, and the rest is history.

When should you conduct market research?

Paul N. Hauge and Peter Jackson in their book “Do Your Own Market Research” point to three specific situations when market research is really useful:

• Setting goals . Knowing things like the size of the market, or defining your potential customers can help you set your sales goals.
• Problem-solving . Low sales? Low profitability? Market research will help you understand whether your problems are internal, like a low-quality product, or external, like aggressive competition.
• Supporting company growth.  Understanding how and why consumers decide on products will help you decide what products to introduce to the market.

Another answer to the “when” is the importance of the decision that you need to make. The more important the marketing issue you’re tackling, the more market research comes in handy.

For example, launching a new car on the market is quite a big event, right? So maybe Ford could have avoided losing 350 million dollars with the Ford Edsel if they had done their research properly. I mean, with the right methods in place it shouldn’t be that hard to predict that consumers will deem the car overpriced and ugly.

That said, market research doesn’t always have to be a large, complex project. The relatively new trend of agile market research  allows you to research the market regularly and in a cost-effective way. This is where you employ bite-size, iterative, and evolutionary methods to react to fast-changing circumstances and adapt to unknown market territories.

Furthermore, if you’re working in startup conditions, especially if you’re developing an innovative product, you may be interested in customer development . In this methodology market research is at its “agilest” and it’s tightly woven into the product development process.

Take Ahrefs for example. We stick to agile market research hacks anyone can use. As you will see later in the article, we use simple (but effective!) stuff like social media polls, crowdsourcing, in-house competitive analysis, or just tracking the pricing of our competitors.

Case in point, just recently we asked our fellow marketers on Twitter how they go about researching the market. It seems that market research comes in all shapes and sizes:

Have you ever performed “market research?“ What was it for? — Tim Soulo (@timsoulo) May 3, 2021

Just because somebody does market research in a certain way doesn’t mean that you need to copy that. You should know your options, and they start with the different types of market research.

Primary research

Whenever the research is done by you or on your behalf, and you need to create the data to solve a given problem, that is called primary market research.

Examples:  Focus groups, interviews, surveys (more on those later in the article).

Key benefits: It’s specific to your brand and products or services, and you can control the quality of the data.

Secondary research

Whenever you’re using already existing data, such as that put together by other businesses and organizations, you’re doing secondary market research.

Examples: Second-party and third-party sources like articles, whitepapers, reports, industry statistics, already collected internal data.

Key benefits: Get a macro perspective of your marketplace, as secondary research includes other players in the market, and most probably utilizes a bigger set of data than your primary sources.

Primary research vs. secondary research

Primary and secondary market research are different but by no means opposite. It’s actually recommended to use both.

While primary sources will give you a focused, micro perspective of your business, secondary research will tell you how other businesses are doing and how your research findings compare to bigger research sample sizes. 

Market research subtypes

A bit more theory for all you marketing geeks out there. Professional market researchers distinguish between the following primary and secondary market research subtypes:

• Qualitative research.  Think interviews, open-ended questions, results expressed in words rather than numbers and graphs. This type of research is used to understand underlying reasons, opinions, and motivations.
• Quantitative research. Think surveys, polls, usually closed-ended questions, results expressed in numbers and statistics. This type of research is used to test or confirm hypotheses or assumptions by quantifying defined variables (such as opinions or behaviours) and generalizing results from larger data samples.

Overview of market research methods

Let’s go over some popular market research methods you can use yourself and/or outsource.

Internal data analysis

The data you’ve already collected in your company is an invaluable secondary research data source. The more time you’re in the business, the more data you have on your hands.

The best thing about your internal data is that it’s been put into practice in real-life market conditions, so you just need to find the patterns and draw conclusions.

Here are some internal data sources you can leverage :

• Website data (like Google Analytics)
• Past campaigns performance data
• Internal interviews with employees

Interviews allow for face-to-face discussions and are great for exploratory qualitative research.

In unstructured interviews, you have an informal, free-flowing conversation on a given set of topics.

In structured interviews, you prepare a detailed, rigorous interview protocol where you list every question you want to ask and you can’t divert from them.

You can also choose the “middle way” with semi-structured interviews which revolve around predefined themes or questions, but allow for open-ended discussion.

A word of advice here would be to always remain neutral and unbiased, even during unstructured interviews. Also, it’s helpful to perform a pilot test of the interview to quickly spot some defects of your protocol.

Recording the interview may influence the answers, so use it wisely.

Focus groups

Focus groups are where 5 to 10 people with common characteristics take part in an interactive discussion with a moderator. They’re used to learn how a particular group thinks about a given issue or to provide feedback on a product.

Now, you might know that Steve Jobs famously hated focus groups. He’s on record saying:

It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.

If you’re trying to create a leapfrog product like the iPhone, there’s probably some validity to this statement. But most of us aren’t wrestling with that level of ambition. We just want to know if customers will like a proposed new feature or not. For this, focus groups are super useful.

Surveys involve polling your audience. They’re usually performed online for customer satisfaction and loyalty research, and are one of the most popular and cost-effective market research methods.

Some of the tried and tested use cases of online surveys  are:

• Product feature desirability
• User satisfaction feedback
• Quantitative analysis of certain issue occurrences
• Identifying friction points in your customer journey
• Discovering the reasons to convert to or cancel your service
• During product onboarding to create a customer profile (and for marketing automation)
• Opinion about a recently made change

An interesting example of surveying the market is crowdsourcing . That’s what Ahrefs does to understand what features to build, how important they are, and what customers expect from them.

What’s unique about crowdsourcing is that it allows the users to add their own ideas, and upvote or comment on existing ideas rather than answer predetermined questions, so this method leaves less room for marketing myopia. You improve your business, and the users get a better product—everybody wins.

How we crowdsource ideas at Ahrefs

Social media is another great place to survey the marketplace.

How many of you have disavowed links in GSC this year? — Tim Soulo (@timsoulo) October 8, 2020

Market segmentation

Market segmentation is the practice of categorizing a market into homogeneous groups based on specific criteria, also called segmentation variables (like age, sex, company size, country, etc.).

If you think you’re building a product for everyone, think again. Not everyone will want to buy from you.

Smart companies pick their target audience carefully. They pinpoint groups of people or organizations that could be valuable customers for the business. That way they also discover their non-ideal customers and develop a plan to attract customer segments gradually. 

Ever wondered why Procter and Gamble creates so many, often competing, brands? You guessed it: market segmentation. P&G simply divides and conquers. Different people have different needs, so they need different products (and possibly brands).

Competitive analysis

Another powerful, yet often overlooked, market research method is the process of understanding one’s market environment. Seriously, if there’s only one thing you could do to learn what works and what doesn’t in your market, you should do a competitive analysis.

“Whenever we discuss building a certain feature, we would definitely research our competitors and see how they do it.” Tim Soulo, CMO

You’d be surprised by how much you can learn about and from your competition and how much of it can be done online. There are certain tried and tested techniques, hacks, and tools for this type of research, and you can find them in this guide .

Analyze commercial data

Secondary market research data is relatively affordable, fast to acquire, and easy to use. Think market reports, industry insights, and a ton of research data someone has already gathered and analyzed so you don’t have to.

The most reputable sources are Gartner , Forrester , and Pew . Apart from those, make sure to check if there is a trustworthy commercial data source specific to your niche.

Sites like G2, Capterra and Trust Pilot also count. Not only do they give you an overview of your industry, but you can also find some real gems in your users’ reviews and your competitors’ reviews as well. Ahrefs uses that data source regularly internally and externally, like for this section of our Ahrefs vs Semrush vs Moz  landing page:

Benefits of market research - a comparison

Let’s quickly summarize the above 7 different methods of market research by their key benefits.

How to do market research process in 5 key steps

So now we know what market research is, why and when to do it, and we’ve learned about all of the important types and methods.

Let’s see how we can use that knowledge to conduct any type of market research in 5 steps.  As an example of market research, I’ll tell you about some of my past experiences with a 3D printing company.

• Identify the market research problem
• Choose the sample and research method
• Collect the data
• Analyze the data
• Interpret and present conclusions

1. Identify the market research problem

This is where every research project starts. You will also find that market research, in general, follows the pattern of the scientific method . First, you need to establish what exactly you are researching.

Do you have a question about your business you want to answer? Maybe you see an opportunity in the market. Or maybe you’ve observed something curious about your product use and you have a hypothesis that you want to validate? State that in the first step of the market research process.

Let me share an example.

In the past, I ran marketing for a few companies, and one of them was a 3D printer manufacturer. Early on I stumbled upon two problems with that company.

First: one of our market segments was saturated with similar products of similar quality at significantly lower price (classic, right?). Second: more and more 3D printing manufacturers seemed to be drifting away from the hobby segment to tackle the professional segments with more expensive products, yet we remained in the hobby/DIY niche. So we were too expensive for hobbyists but too hobbyist for customers who could afford us.

The hypothesis that I wanted to verify was that if the marketplace was showing a trend towards more professional use cases of 3D printing, our company should follow that trend. In other words, I wanted to check the viability of shifting the brand positioning into the professional/premium sector.

2. Choose the sample and research method

We’ve already covered the main types and methods of market research. You should already have a good idea of the differences between primary and secondary research, or whether qualitative or quantitative methods would best suit your needs.

As for the sample of your research, this refers to the portion of the entire data source in question that you will use. For example, if you want to run a survey among your customers, the sample will refer to the selection of customers you will include in your survey. There are a few options for choosing a sample:

• Use the entire data source . Obviously, it’s not a sample per se. Nevertheless, if sending a survey to all of your customers is doable (and reasonable), this is a perfectly good choice.
• Choose a random sample. Systematic sampling is the easiest way to choose a random sample. This is where you select every x/nth individual for the sample, where x is the population, n is the sample. For example, if you want a sample size of 100 from a population of 1000, select every 1000/100 = 10th member of the population.
• Convenience sampling: choose respondents available and willing to take part in the survey.
• Purposive sampling: choose respondents that in your judgement will be representative or possess some other feature that is important to the research.
• Quota sampling:  choose some arbitrary quota of respondents, e.g. 10 non-paying customers, 10 paying small companies and 10 paying large companies.

Back to our example. As a method for verifying my hypotheses, I chose a mix of:

• Surveys sent to all of our resellers.  We wanted to see if they also had seen a paradigm shift in the market and what segment of clients they had encountered the most. We also wanted to know their perspective on the longevity of that trend, and whether they potentially be interested in a more premium version of our product.
• In-depth interviews  on the phone with our resellers conducted by our sales team. We used purposive sampling here. Our sample comprised resellers with which we had the best relations (we knew they would be more eager to share).
• Competitive analysis.  We were mostly interested in market players who tried to penetrate the professional/industrial segment, so this was our sample ( purposive sampling ). We were interested in stuff like: what features were they building into their 3D printers, what was their brand positioning, what was their pricing, what language they used to communicate with their target audience, etc.
• Wohler’s industry report, anything 3D printing from Gartner and the like, reports by 3D printing services providers, and basically any scrape of serious data we could find ( convenience sampling ).
• Internal data:  customer satisfaction issues, and just general current customer profile based on Google Analytics and Facebook data.

3. Collect the data

Once you’ve got your problem, method, and sample nailed, all you need to do is to gather the data. This is the step where you send out your surveys, conduct your interviews, or reach out for industry insights.

A word of advice, choose your market research tool carefully; it will greatly influence the amount of work you will have with analyzing the data. For example, Google Forms  automatically makes graphs out of quantifiable data (plus it’s free).

Here’s the data we collected for the 3D printing company:

• Reseller survey data (both quantitative and qualitative data).
• Reseller interview data (qualitative data).
• Customer satisfaction issues (qualitative data gathered through all customer support channels, we analysed about 200 issues and requests).
• Competitive analysis data (from about 10 competitors).
• We managed to gather 3 comprehensive, independent industry reports, a few smaller reports made by other 3D printing companies, and dozens of scrapes of data, like statistics and noteworthy insights. We pulled out data like: 3D printer manufacturer market share, market growth in time, market segmentation, key 3D printing applications, 3D printing adoption by region, key players’ sales numbers.
• Any demographic, sociographic and psychographic data on customers and website visitors we could find in our internal data.

4. Analyze the data

Now that you have your data collected, the next step is to look for patterns, trends, concepts, or often repeated words—all dependent on whether your method was qualitative or quantitative (or both).

Simple research performed on a small sample will be relatively easy to analyze, or even analyzed automatically, like with the aforementioned Google Forms. Sometimes you will have to use expensive and harder to master software like Tableau , NVivo , PowerBI , or SPSS . Or you can use Python or R for data analysis (if you have a data analyst or data scientist on board, you’re in luck).

Continuing the example: Google Forms made it easy for us to spot patterns in surveys since quantitative data was calculated automatically. The most time-consuming part was reading through all of the responses and manually looking for patterns (back then I wasn’t aware of any tool that could do the job). Both sales and marketing teams worked on analyzing some of the qualitative data to have more than one reference point.

When it comes to researching the competition, coming up with some kind of data structure makes the work more comprehensive (and saner). We put our competitors’ data in specific categories, like products & services (prices included), target market, benefits, values, and brand message. We also used something called a brand positioning map which looks like this:

Analyzing secondary data was probably the easiest part, as the data we needed was already prepared in ready-to-use graphs, statistics and insights. We just had to sift through the contents to look for answers to our questions.

5. Interpret and present conclusions

Analyzing the data is not enough. You need to compile your data in a communicative, actionable way for the decision makers. A good practice is to include in your report: all your information, a description of your research process, the results, conclusions, and recommended actions.

Summing up my 3D printing example, I hypothesised that our market was experiencing a major shift and that the company should follow that trend. The research we did verified that hypothesis positively:

• Our resellers were getting more and more inquiries about professional/industrial use cases and machines. As you can imagine, the budget of this kind of client was significantly higher than hobbyists but so were the expectations.
• Our resellers indicated that this phenomenon is here to stay. Moreover, they declared interest in a new 3D printer tailored to the needs of their more demanding clientele.
• Our customers were outgrowing their early-adopter habits and wanted something easier to use, something plug-and-play that just worked reliably. Tinkering with the printer was something only hardcore makers were interested in.
• The companies we were interested in had already started adapting to the professional/premium market both with their offer and smart marketing communication.
• We also found a ton of other interesting data that we used later on. For example, we found that apart from engineers and designers, an equally interesting segment was educational institutions.

Our initial market research lasted for about two months. We also came back to it whenever we had the chance (or the necessity) and reiterated it to see if we were on the right track.

Was it worth it? Let me tell you this: it saved the company. Our research showed us that this was the last call to reposition the brand and the product. Our original target segment was being gradually dominated by companies we couldn’t compete with.

It took us some time to get buy-in from key stakeholders and implement the conclusions throughout the whole company (eventually, we got it right). As a result, we increased sales, increased customer satisfaction and put ourselves on a more profitable growth track—a win-win for everyone. We even went as far as merging with another manufacturer to shorten the time to get to that sweet market spot.

Looking back, no one from our close competitors survived. They didn’t adapt as we did, and we owed everything to market research.

Whatever you do, avoid these common market research mistakes :

• Poor sampling.
• Ambiguous questions.
• Leading or loaded questions (questions that show bias or contain controversial assumptions).
• Unclear or too many research objectives.
• Mixing correlation with causation.
• Ignoring competitive analysis.
• Allowing biases to influence your research ( confirmation bias  being arguably the most common and the most dangerous one).
• Not tracking data on a regular basis.

Online market research tools and resources

Market research reaches back to the 1930s and it’s probably rooted even “deeper” than the 20th century. Everything you could do then you can do now better, faster and cheaper thanks to these online tools and resources.

SEO tools - research the market with Ahrefs

I’ve put together 3 quick wins that can help with your market research—and that’s only a taste of what you can do with Ahrefs.

1. Brand awareness

In the early 20th century, you’d have to hire market researchers to spend days or even weeks asking people “have you heard about brand X”. Today, you can simply look up the search volume for that brand.

So let’s say you run a drone manufacturing brand, and you want to check out your competitors’ brand awareness in France. Go to Ahrefs Keywords Explorer , input the names of the brands, select “France” as your market, and in a flash you get:

The branded keyword volume indicates the brand awareness of that brand in a particular market. You can also keep track of that data by performing this search regularly to see if there are significant changes over time (for example, impacted by a recent campaign).

2. Feature demand

The next game-changing feature for electric cars will concern batteries, charging time, and charging cost (and not autopilot). How do I know?

Well, I opened Ahrefs Keywords Explorer , typed in “electric cars”, and went to the Questions report to find out what people search for. This gave me an idea of what problems electric car owners have (and potential owners worry about). You can easily perform similar research for your niche.

3. Understand the language of your market

Gerald Zaltman in his popular book “How Customers Think” proposes the idea that one of the major erroneous assumptions of marketing is that consumers think in words.

On the other hand, when consumers Google something they have to think in words. And when we market to those consumers we have to think in words as well. The question is: which words?

Let’s say that you want to enter a new and innovative market in the USA, for example the synthetic fermentation-derived dairy industry, also called animal-free dairy.

To you, this set of words “animal-free dairy” may be the very center of your business and marketing efforts. But let’s see what other people think. Let’s use Keywords Explorer  to see how many people search Google in the U.S. just for that phrase:

Whoops! Looks like your product category has disappointingly low awareness. Does this mean you’re doomed? Not necessarily. 

Let’s try other words. Words that mean something different, but still closely related to your new product.

Now we’re onto something. People search for “vegan dairy” and “lactose free dairy” more often. Not the same, but closely related. Yet, look at the difference in search volume.

Words make a huge difference.  And Google knows that.

The only reason you were able to put all of those three phrases in the same bucket was that you knew the connection between those words. The problem is that your target audience may not know that connection; they may not even know that this kind of product exists. This quick analysis of search volume shows that you may want to make that connection, for example with content marketing .

If you create content around related higher volume keywords, you can potentially get more organic traffic than simply focusing on the keyword designating your product category.  Look, even though you might believe the main benefit of your animal-free product is something unrelated to lactose, e.g., cruelty-free production, you might want to address the problem of lactose intolerance to appeal to people with this condition.

But that’s not all. You may have noticed “low lactose cheese” in the bottom right corner. This refers to the nifty feature of Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer called “Parent topic”. Parent topic indicates that Google sees a given keyword as part of a broader topic.

If we click on this Parent topic, we uncover even more search demand:

We can see that the search for the topic “low lactose cheese” exceeds the “vegan dairy” topic by almost 300% in the US. Also, uncovering that parent topic gave us 879 potential keyword ideas (some of them have even higher search volume, like “lactose free cheese”).

Want to discover even more topic associations? No problem. You can dive deeper into this research by using other features of Ahrefs’ Keyword explorer. For example,the  Also rank for  report allows you to see which other keywords (and topics) the top 100 ranking pages for your target keyword also rank for.

This market research quick-win ties into the broader topic of keyword research. If you want to uncover even more keyword ideas and learn how to analyze them, read  our keyword research guide .

Source: https://hubspot.com

Customer Relationship Management software is used to manage and track interactions between a company and its customers and prospects. Usually, it works in tandem with sales or marketing automation software (or has integrations for them). If used properly, it is a true cornucopia of market insight.

As I pointed out earlier, it’s one of those primary data sources that you can leverage to discover patterns in your customer behaviour or characteristics. Popular choices are Hubspot, Salesforce, Intercom, but there is a ton of CRM software out there, so check out a software comparison like G2  to see what best suits your needs.

User feedback tools

This type of tool allows you to carry out our aforementioned survey research method online.

Create targeted, user-specific surveys and analyze answers with tools like Google Forms , SurveyMonkey , Typeform , or Qualaroo .  

Sending out your typical email with a survey is not the only option, for example with Qualaroo you can display surveys:

• In your digital product
• In your SaaS product
• Inside your web app
• Inside your mobile app
• On your website
• On your mobile site
• On your prototypes.
• On most public URLs. Even competitor sites

Need more? No problem, check out SurveyMonkey’s Market Research solution . It taps into the agile market research models we’ve discussed. They’ve got 14 online solutions that help you stay on top of your game, including customer segmentation, monitoring market dynamics, brand, creative analysis, feature importance, finding the right price for your products, and more.

So you think you have a tough business challenge? This daring gentleman is trying to disrupt… eggs. Extremely hard, but doable with market research on his side.

Website/app analytics

Tracking your website or app traffic is absolute marketing basics. Just look at some data dimensions Google Analytics offers:

• Demographics

Sounds familiar? Yup, that sounds like good ol’ market segmentation. Here’s the best part: it’s free, quick to perform and it’s based on your primary data.

If you’ve never dug deeper into Google Analytics, or similar analytics software (e.g., Matomo , Woopra ) here are some questions that this marketing technology can answer for you: 

• What do people search for once they’re on my site?
• What differentiates customers who have made a purchase from the ones that haven’t?
• What are my top countries by revenue?
• What are my best selling products?

If you’re already using Google Analytics, see if you’re not making these Google Analytics tracking mistakes. 

User experience research tools

Commonly used by UX designers, but just listen to the value propositions of these tools:

• “See and hear real people using your website, online shop or app.” ( https://userpeek.com/ )
• “Real-time feedback. From real customers. Wherever you work. So you can create experiences that get real results.” ( https://www.usertesting.com/ )
• “Scalable & Customized User Research” ( https://www.userlytics.com/ )
• “Record video and audio of your users, so you see and hear their exact experience with your product.” ( https://www.loop11.com/ )

Again, sounds much like our market research methods, right? And it’s no joke, thousands of companies use these tools.

User experience research tools allow you to get user feedback and insights on your products, prototypes, websites, and apps.

Testing is based on tasks your test-takers perform. You can either use your own user base or define a custom base using their services. You’ll get written reports and even recorded videos that you can incorporate into your market research and make sure you’re properly taking advantage of that market opportunity.

Ad planning tools

That’s right—the Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter ad planner you already use for running ads can give you some insight into the numbers behind the market segments you’re interested in.

30+ males with higher education interested in technology gadgets? No problem. Female C-suite decision-makers from Europe? It’s all there.

Census data

The availability of this kind of data may vary based on your target market. For example, in the US the Census Bureau  offers a free resource for searching the country’s census data. You can filter the data by topics, years, geography, surveys, or industry codes. You can also access premade interactive tables (which you can also download) or simply explore certain regions of the country using their maps.

Business intelligence tools

With business intelligence tools like Tableau , Looker or Sisense , you can connect to any data source to perform data cleaning, statistical operations, and data visualization. They are designed to allow you to glean insights into your data, and communicate effectively with your stakeholders. It’s like SQL combined with R, but you don’t need coding skills and you get a user-friendly interface.

Because these tools are overflowing with functionality and because they are usually pricey, they are overkill for small companies with basic market research needs. Often you will find that the tool that you are already using for your research method comes with some data analysis and visualization functions. And if not, you can always import your data to Excel or Google Docs and use Google Data Studio for a shareable interactive presentation.

Other noteworthy tools and services

• Think with Google
• Living Facts

Final thoughts

Market research is no easy feat. If you feel intimidated by it, you’re not the only one. But don’t shy away from it. The benefits of conducting even sporadic market research can have benefits for your business you simply can’t ignore. You won’t turn into a market research pro overnight, but the good news is you don’t have to. You can go the agile way (like Ahrefs), use affordable self-service online tools and resources, or you can even outsource your research. As long as you base your marketing game plan on valid data, you dramatically improve your chances for success.

Got questions? Ping me on Twitter .

THIS MONDAY APR 15TH 9AM US EASTERN Two-Day LIVE Summit With 20+ Ecommerce Trailblazers.

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Written by Mary Kate Miller | June 1, 2021

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Market research is a cornerstone of all successful, strategic businesses. It can also be daunting for entrepreneurs looking to launch a startup or start a side hustle . What is market research, anyway? And how do you…do it?

We’ll walk you through absolutely everything you need to know about the market research process so that by the end of this guide, you’ll be an expert in market research too. And what’s more important: you’ll have actionable steps you can take to start collecting your own market research.

What Is Market Research?

Market research is the organized process of gathering information about your target customers and market. Market research can help you better understand customer behavior and competitor strengths and weaknesses, as well as provide insight for the best strategies in launching new businesses and products. There are different ways to approach market research, including primary and secondary research and qualitative and quantitative research. The strongest approaches will include a combination of all four.

“Virtually every business can benefit from conducting some market research,” says Niles Koenigsberg of Real FiG Advertising + Marketing . “Market research can help you piece together your [business’s] strengths and weaknesses, along with your prospective opportunities, so that you can understand where your unique differentiators may lie.” Well-honed market research will help your brand stand out from the competition and help you see what you need to do to lead the market. It can also do so much more.

The Purposes of Market Research

Why do market research? It can help you…

• Pinpoint your target market, create buyer personas, and develop a more holistic understanding of your customer base and market.
• Understand current market conditions to evaluate risks and anticipate how your product or service will perform.
• Validate a concept prior to launch.
• Identify gaps in the market that your competitors have created or overlooked.
• Solve problems that have been left unresolved by the existing product/brand offerings.
• Identify opportunities and solutions for new products or services.
• Develop killer marketing strategies .

What Are the Benefits of Market Research?

Strong market research can help your business in many ways. It can…

• Strengthen your market position.
• Help you identify your strengths and weaknesses.
• Help you identify your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.
• Minimize risk.
• Center your customers’ experience from the get-go.
• Help you create a dynamic strategy based on market conditions and customer needs/demands.

What Are the Basic Methods of Market Research?

The basic methods of market research include surveys, personal interviews, customer observation, and the review of secondary research. In addition to these basic methods, a forward-thinking market research approach incorporates data from the digital landscape like social media analysis, SEO research, gathering feedback via forums, and more. Throughout this guide, we will cover each of the methods commonly used in market research to give you a comprehensive overview.

Primary vs. Secondary Market Research

Primary and secondary are the two main types of market research you can do. The latter relies on research conducted by others. Primary research, on the other hand, refers to the fact-finding efforts you conduct on your own.

This approach is limited, however. It’s likely that the research objectives of these secondary data points differ from your own, and it can be difficult to confirm the veracity of their findings.

Primary Market Research

Primary research is more labor intensive, but it generally yields data that is exponentially more actionable. It can be conducted through interviews, surveys, online research, and your own data collection. Every new business should engage in primary market research prior to launch. It will help you validate that your idea has traction, and it will give you the information you need to help minimize financial risk.

You can hire an agency to conduct this research on your behalf. This brings the benefit of expertise, as you’ll likely work with a market research analyst. The downside is that hiring an agency can be expensive—too expensive for many burgeoning entrepreneurs. That brings us to the second approach. You can also do the market research yourself, which substantially reduces the financial burden of starting a new business .

Secondary Market Research

Secondary research includes resources like government databases and industry-specific data and publications. It can be beneficial to start your market research with secondary sources because it’s widely available and often free-to-access. This information will help you gain a broad overview of the market conditions for your new business.

Identify Your Goals and Your Audience

Before you begin conducting interviews or sending out surveys, you need to set your market research goals. At the end of your market research process, you want to have a clear idea of who your target market is—including demographic information like age, gender, and where they live—but you also want to start with a rough idea of who your audience might be and what you’re trying to achieve with market research.

You can pinpoint your objectives by asking yourself a series of guiding questions:

• What are you hoping to discover through your research?
• Who are you hoping to serve better because of your findings?
• What do you think your market is?
• Who are your competitors?
• Are you testing the reception of a new product category or do you want to see if your product or service solves the problem left by a current gap in the market?
• Are you just…testing the waters to get a sense of how people would react to a new brand?

Once you’ve narrowed down the “what” of your market research goals, you’re ready to move onto how you can best achieve them. Think of it like algebra. Many math problems start with “solve for x.” Once you know what you’re looking for, you can get to work trying to find it. It’s a heck of a lot easier to solve a problem when you know you’re looking for “x” than if you were to say “I’m gonna throw some numbers out there and see if I find a variable.”

How to Do Market Research

This guide outlines every component of a comprehensive market research effort. Take into consideration the goals you have established for your market research, as they will influence which of these elements you’ll want to include in your market research strategy.

Secondary Data

Secondary data allows you to utilize pre-existing data to garner a sense of market conditions and opportunities. You can rely on published market studies, white papers, and public competitive information to start your market research journey.

Secondary data, while useful, is limited and cannot substitute your own primary data. It’s best used for quantitative data that can provide background to your more specific inquiries.

Find Your Customers Online

Once you’ve identified your target market, you can use online gathering spaces and forums to gain insights and give yourself a competitive advantage. Rebecca McCusker of The Creative Content Shop recommends internet recon as a vital tool for gaining a sense of customer needs and sentiment. “Read their posts and comments on forums, YouTube video comments, Facebook group [comments], and even Amazon/Goodreads book comments to get in their heads and see what people are saying.”

If you’re interested in engaging with your target demographic online, there are some general rules you should follow. First, secure the consent of any group moderators to ensure that you are acting within the group guidelines. Failure to do so could result in your eviction from the group.

Not all comments have the same research value. “Focus on the comments and posts with the most comments and highest engagement,” says McCusker. These high-engagement posts can give you a sense of what is already connecting and gaining traction within the group.

Social media can also be a great avenue for finding interview subjects. “LinkedIn is very useful if your [target customer] has a very specific job or works in a very specific industry or sector. It’s amazing the amount of people that will be willing to help,” explains Miguel González, a marketing executive at Dealers League . “My advice here is BE BRAVE, go to LinkedIn, or even to people you know and ask them, do quick interviews and ask real people that belong to that market and segment and get your buyer persona information first hand.”

Market research interviews can provide direct feedback on your brand, product, or service and give you a better understanding of consumer pain points and interests.

When organizing your market research interviews, you want to pay special attention to the sample group you’re selecting, as it will directly impact the information you receive. According to Tanya Zhang, the co-founder of Nimble Made , you want to first determine whether you want to choose a representative sample—for example, interviewing people who match each of the buyer persona/customer profiles you’ve developed—or a random sample.

“A sampling of your usual persona styles, for example, can validate details that you’ve already established about your product, while a random sampling may [help you] discover a new way people may use your product,” Zhang says.

Market Surveys

Market surveys solicit customer inclinations regarding your potential product or service through a series of open-ended questions. This direct outreach to your target audience can provide information on your customers’ preferences, attitudes, buying potential, and more.

Every expert we asked voiced unanimous support for market surveys as a powerful tool for market research. With the advent of various survey tools with accessible pricing—or free use—it’s never been easier to assemble, disseminate, and gather market surveys. While it should also be noted that surveys shouldn’t replace customer interviews , they can be used to supplement customer interviews to give you feedback from a broader audience.

Who to Include in Market Surveys

• Current customers
• Past customers
• Your existing audience (such as social media/newsletter audiences)

Example Questions to Include in Market Surveys

While the exact questions will vary for each business, here are some common, helpful questions that you may want to consider for your market survey. Demographic Questions: the questions that help you understand, demographically, who your target customers are:

• “What is your age?”
• “Where do you live?”
• “What is your gender identity?”
• “What is your household income?”
• “What is your household size?”
• “What do you do for a living?”
• “What is your highest level of education?”

Product-Based Questions: Whether you’re seeking feedback for an existing brand or an entirely new one, these questions will help you get a sense of how people feel about your business, product, or service:

• “How well does/would our product/service meet your needs?”
• “How does our product/service compare to similar products/services that you use?”
• “How long have you been a customer?” or “What is the likelihood that you would be a customer of our brand?

Personal/Informative Questions: the deeper questions that help you understand how your audience thinks and what they care about.

• “What are your biggest challenges?”
• “What’s most important to you?”
• “What do you do for fun (hobbies, interests, activities)?”
• “Where do you seek new information when researching a new product?”
• “How do you like to make purchases?”
• “What is your preferred method for interacting with a brand?”

Survey Tools

Online survey tools make it easy to distribute surveys and collect responses. The best part is that there are many free tools available. If you’re making your own online survey, you may want to consider SurveyMonkey, Typeform, Google Forms, or Zoho Survey.

Competitive Analysis

A competitive analysis is a breakdown of how your business stacks up against the competition. There are many different ways to conduct this analysis. One of the most popular methods is a SWOT analysis, which stands for “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.” This type of analysis is helpful because it gives you a more robust understanding of why a customer might choose a competitor over your business. Seeing how you stack up against the competition can give you the direction you need to carve out your place as a market leader.

Social Media Analysis

Social media has fundamentally changed the market research landscape, making it easier than ever to engage with a wide swath of consumers. Follow your current or potential competitors on social media to see what they’re posting and how their audience is engaging with it. Social media can also give you a lower cost opportunity for testing different messaging and brand positioning.

SEO Analysis and Opportunities

SEO analysis can help you identify the digital competition for getting the word out about your brand, product, or service. You won’t want to overlook this valuable information. Search listening tools offer a novel approach to understanding the market and generating the content strategy that will drive business. Tools like Google Trends and Awario can streamline this process.

Ready to Kick Your Business Into High Gear?

Now that you’ve completed the guide to market research you know you’re ready to put on your researcher hat to give your business the best start. Still not sure how actually… launch the thing? Our free mini-course can run you through the essentials for starting your side hustle .

About Mary Kate Miller

Mary Kate Miller writes about small business, real estate, and finance. In addition to writing for Foundr, her work has been published by The Washington Post, Teen Vogue, Bustle, and more. She lives in Chicago.

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What Is Market Research?

• How It Works
• Primary vs. Secondary
• How to Conduct Research

The Bottom Line

• Marketing Essentials

How to Do Market Research, Types, and Example

Joules Garcia / Investopedia

Market research examines consumer behavior and trends in the economy to help a business develop and fine-tune its business idea and strategy. It helps a business understand its target market by gathering and analyzing data.

Market research is the process of evaluating the viability of a new service or product through research conducted directly with potential customers. It allows a company to define its target market and get opinions and other feedback from consumers about their interest in a product or service.

Research may be conducted in-house or by a third party that specializes in market research. It can be done through surveys and focus groups, among other ways. Test subjects are usually compensated with product samples or a small stipend for their time.

Key Takeaways

• Companies conduct market research before introducing new products to determine their appeal to potential customers.
• Tools include focus groups, telephone interviews, and questionnaires.
• The results of market research inform the final design of the product and determine how it will be positioned in the marketplace.
• Market research usually combines primary information, gathered directly from consumers, and secondary information, which is data available from external sources.

Market Research

How market research works.

Market research is used to determine the viability of a new product or service. The results may be used to revise the product design and fine-tune the strategy for introducing it to the public. This can include information gathered for the purpose of determining market segmentation . It also informs product differentiation , which is used to tailor advertising.

A business engages in various tasks to complete the market research process. It gathers information based on the market sector being targeted by the product. This information is then analyzed and relevant data points are interpreted to draw conclusions about how the product may be optimally designed and marketed to the market segment for which it is intended.

It is a critical component in the research and development (R&D) phase of a new product or service introduction. Market research can be conducted in many different ways, including surveys, product testing, interviews, and focus groups.

Market research is a critical tool that companies use to understand what consumers want, develop products that those consumers will use, and maintain a competitive advantage over other companies in their industry.

Primary Market Research vs. Secondary Market Research

Market research usually consists of a combination of:

• Primary research, gathered by the company or by an outside company that it hires
• Secondary research, which draws on external sources of data

Primary Market Research

Primary research generally falls into two categories: exploratory and specific research.

• Exploratory research is less structured and functions via open-ended questions. The questions may be posed in a focus group setting, telephone interviews, or questionnaires. It results in questions or issues that the company needs to address about a product that it has under development.
• Specific research delves more deeply into the problems or issues identified in exploratory research.

Secondary Market Research

All market research is informed by the findings of other researchers about the needs and wants of consumers. Today, much of this research can be found online.

Secondary research can include population information from government census data , trade association research reports , polling results, and research from other businesses operating in the same market sector.

History of Market Research

Formal market research began in Germany during the 1920s. In the United States, it soon took off with the advent of the Golden Age of Radio.

Companies that created advertisements for this new entertainment medium began to look at the demographics of the audiences who listened to each of the radio plays, music programs, and comedy skits that were presented.

They had once tried to reach the widest possible audience by placing their messages on billboards or in the most popular magazines. With radio programming, they had the chance to target rural or urban consumers, teenagers or families, and judge the results by the sales numbers that followed.

Types of Market Research

Face-to-face interviews.

From their earliest days, market research companies would interview people on the street about the newspapers and magazines that they read regularly and ask whether they recalled any of the ads or brands that were published in them. Data collected from these interviews were compared to the circulation of the publication to determine the effectiveness of those ads.

Market research and surveys were adapted from these early techniques.

To get a strong understanding of your market, it’s essential to understand demand, market size, economic indicators, location, market saturation, and pricing.

Focus Groups

A focus group is a small number of representative consumers chosen to try a product or watch an advertisement.

Afterward, the group is asked for feedback on their perceptions of the product, the company’s brand, or competing products. The company then takes that information and makes decisions about what to do with the product or service, whether that's releasing it, making changes, or abandoning it altogether.

Phone Research

The man-on-the-street interview technique soon gave way to the telephone interview. A telephone interviewer could collect information in a more efficient and cost-effective fashion.

Telephone research was a preferred tactic of market researchers for many years. It has become much more difficult in recent years as landline phone service dwindles and is replaced by less accessible mobile phones.

Survey Research

As an alternative to focus groups, surveys represent a cost-effective way to determine consumer attitudes without having to interview anyone in person. Consumers are sent surveys in the mail, usually with a coupon or voucher to incentivize participation. These surveys help determine how consumers feel about the product, brand, and price point.

Online Market Research

With people spending more time online, market research activities have shifted online as well. Data collection still uses a survey-style form. But instead of companies actively seeking participants by finding them on the street or cold calling them on the phone, people can choose to sign up, take surveys, and offer opinions when they have time.

This makes the process far less intrusive and less rushed, since people can participate on their own time and of their own volition.

How to Conduct Market Research

The first step to effective market research is to determine the goals of the study. Each study should seek to answer a clear, well-defined problem. For example, a company might seek to identify consumer preferences, brand recognition, or the comparative effectiveness of different types of ad campaigns.

After that, the next step is to determine who will be included in the research. Market research is an expensive process, and a company cannot waste resources collecting unnecessary data. The firm should decide in advance which types of consumers will be included in the research, and how the data will be collected. They should also account for the probability of statistical errors or sampling bias .

The next step is to collect the data and analyze the results. If the two previous steps have been completed accurately, this should be straightforward. The researchers will collect the results of their study, keeping track of the ages, gender, and other relevant data of each respondent. This is then analyzed in a marketing report that explains the results of their research.

The last step is for company executives to use their market research to make business decisions. Depending on the results of their research, they may choose to target a different group of consumers, or they may change their price point or some product features.

The results of these changes may eventually be measured in further market research, and the process will begin all over again.

Benefits of Market Research

Market research is essential for developing brand loyalty and customer satisfaction. Since it is unlikely for a product to appeal equally to every consumer, a strong market research program can help identify the key demographics and market segments that are most likely to use a given product.

Market research is also important for developing a company’s advertising efforts. For example, if a company’s market research determines that its consumers are more likely to use Facebook than X (formerly Twitter), it can then target its advertisements to one platform instead of another. Or, if they determine that their target market is value-sensitive rather than price-sensitive, they can work on improving the product rather than reducing their prices.

Market research only works when subjects are honest and open to participating.

Example of Market Research

Many companies use market research to test new products or get information from consumers about what kinds of products or services they need and don’t currently have.

For example, a company that’s considering starting a business might conduct market research to test the viability of its product or service. If the market research confirms consumer interest, the business can proceed confidently with its business plan . If not, the company can use the results of the market research to make adjustments to the product to bring it in line with customer desires.

What Are the Main Types of Market Research?

The main types of market research are primary research and secondary research. Primary research includes focus groups, polls, and surveys. Secondary research includes academic articles, infographics, and white papers.

Qualitative research gives insights into how customers feel and think. Quantitative research uses data and statistics such as website views, social media engagement, and subscriber numbers.

What Is Online Market Research?

Online market research uses the same strategies and techniques as traditional primary and secondary market research, but it is conducted on the Internet. Potential customers may be asked to participate in a survey or give feedback on a product. The responses may help the researchers create a profile of the likely customer for a new product.

What Are Paid Market Research Surveys?

Paid market research involves rewarding individuals who agree to participate in a study. They may be offered a small payment for their time or a discount coupon in return for filling out a questionnaire or participating in a focus group.

What Is a Market Study?

A market study is an analysis of consumer demand for a product or service. It looks at all of the factors that influence demand for a product or service. These include the product’s price, location, competition, and substitutes as well as general economic factors that could influence the new product’s adoption, for better or worse.

Market research is a key component of a company’s research and development (R&D) stage. It helps companies understand in advance the viability of a new product that they have in development and to see how it might perform in the real world.

Britannica Money. “ Market Research .”

U.S. Small Business Administration. “ Market Research and Competitive Analysis .”

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Market Research Definition, Types, Tools and Benefits

Published on Jul 01, 2022

More than doubling in size from 2008 to 2021, the market research sector brought in over $76.4 (Statista) billion worldwide in 2021.  

What is Market Research?

Market research is the process of gathering, analyzing, and interpreting information about a market, about the product or service to be offered for sale in that market. It is also about the previous, current, and potential customers for the product or service. 

Data collection, analysis, and interpretation are the three main steps in any successful market research project. The data could pertain to a certain demographic, general consumers, rival businesses, or the entire market. This is the cornerstone of any thriving business. The findings can be used for anything from discovering a fresh opportunity to entering the market to developing an entirely new product or service. 

Small business owners can benefit greatly from conducting market research. It can eliminate uncertainty in the creative process and direct energy and funding toward the most promising ideas and initiatives. Many types of market research are conducted by businesses at many different stages. 

Market Research for Businesses  

Accurate and comprehensive data gives a plethora of information on potential and existing customers, competitors, and the industry as a whole, making it the bedrock of any successful commercial endeavor. It helps entrepreneurs weigh the odds of success before sinking a lot of money into a new firm. 

An essential aspect of every successful business plan is conducting market research to gather data that can be used to address potential marketing obstacles. In reality, it is not viable to develop tactics like market segmentation (identifying distinct groups within a market) and product differentiation (establishing a unique selling proposition for a product or service that distinguishes it from the competition) without conducting market research. 

Types of Market Research  

1. quantitative research .

The results of quantitative studies are typically presented using numerical and graphic representations. It's the gold standard for verifying or disproving hypotheses. It is possible to establish broad, overarching truths about a subject by conducting this kind of study. Experiments, numerically recorded observations, and surveys with a limited number of predetermined answer choices are all examples of common quantitative approaches. 

2. Qualitative research 

Words are the currency of qualitative inquiry. It's a tool for making sense of things like ideas and experiences. Using this method, you can learn more about a topic from every angle, which is very useful for researching controversial or poorly understood subjects. Open-ended interviews, written descriptions of observations, and in-depth analyses of the existing literature are all examples of common qualitative techniques. 

Qualitative vs. Quantitative Research 

Quantitative research focuses on numerical and statistical facts, while qualitative research examines concepts and interpretations. Both are necessary to learn various things. Comparatively, qualitative research draws its conclusions from interviews and documents rather than statistics and reasoning. Quantitative studies typically report their findings numerically or graphically, while qualitative studies report their findings verbally. 

3. Primary Research 

Primary data refers to a study that seeks to collect firsthand information from real-world participants. Primary research is data collected by the researcher themselves through various techniques of approaching the target audience directly. You have full legal and ethical rights to the data set you to create. Primary research can be challenging due to the time, money, resources, and familiarity with the topic that it demands. 

4. Secondary Research 

Secondary research is a study that is done after primary research has already been conducted, and it consists of analyzing, interpreting, and summarizing the results of the primary research. A more precise definition of secondary research would be any study that makes use of publicly available data. When conducting secondary research, scholars refer to information that has already been gathered, processed, and made public (and therefore, you do not own this data). Since the accessible data has already been evaluated and interpreted, the researcher just needs to determine the data he wants to use, i.e., the data that is necessary for his project. 

Primary Research vs. Secondary Research

Research that involves the collection of new information, or "primary" research, is distinguished from secondary research by the fact that it is conducted for the first time on a particular topic. Instead, secondary research makes use of information that has previously been gathered through primary research. The fundamental dividing line between primary and secondary research is whether the research has been done before. 

5. Market Research 

Market research on branding can help a business develop, launch, and sustain its brand. This may involve the firm's ethos, branding, visuals, ideals, or very name. Interviews, focus groups, and surveys are all viable options for conducting research. 

6. Customer Research 

Market research on customers is learning what factors most strongly affect your demographic of interest and what adjustments may be made to better attract and retain them as paying customers. The objective of this study is to acquire an intimate understanding of your consumer base and their habits and preferences as they relate to your business. 

7. Competitor Research 

Conducting market research on your competitors entails learning about their businesses and assessing how they stack up against your own. Your competitive product in the market or how to break into a new market could also be a topic of discussion. The study's overarching goal is to help your company prepare for the future by identifying methods to set itself apart from competitors and by learning from customers' opinions and suggestions. 

8. Product Research 

Conducting market research on your items is essential to ensuring they will sell successfully once they hit the shelves. Finding out how people feel about your product and if they feel it's valuable and functioning properly is the goal of this study. The ability to think creatively about enhancements and new features is another benefit. 

Benefits of Market Research 

According to a survey, the market research business is expected to increase at a rate of 12-14% (The Economic Times) per year through FY26, at which point it would have surpassed the $4 billion mark. 

The following is a list of the most important reasons and benefits of marketing research: 

It's a great tool for boosting companies' standing. The ability to think critically and act on that thinking is the key to success. You can keep your business one step ahead of the competition by conducting market research to expand your knowledge of your market or target audience. 

Reduces the potential for loss on an investment. This is a basic point to think about, but it is often crucial to the success of a firm. When starting a firm, it makes sense to spend what amounts to a negligible amount on research and testing the market, product, concept, or idea. 

Possible dangers and benefits are highlighted. Insurance against these two glaring pitfalls lies in both primary research (fieldwork) and secondary research (desk research). Opportunities or red flags may be uncovered through the combination of this with qualitative research for further investigation. 

You can learn more about the advantages and disadvantages of your own business and of your competitors. To achieve entirely objective reporting, it is generally recommended to collaborate with a market research agency. Take advantage of what you've learned from study to improve in areas where you're weak and to gain an edge over the competition. 

Strategic preparation is helped by this. Where do you stand with the core principles of your company plan? If it's supported by data, and you've put in the time and effort to do your own (hopefully continuous) research, you can rest assured that you're giving yourself the best chance of success in your commercial endeavors. 

This aids in the identification of developing tendencies. Being the first, the best, or coming up with the idea that nobody else has is typically what it takes to stay ahead in business. Taking the pulse of your industry on a regular basis is an important habit. You can learn more about the tools available to you to identify and capitalize on these trends by consulting with a research firm or expert. 

Helpful for firms in keeping up with the competition. Being the best calls for an insatiable need for knowledge and a propensity to experiment. The key to success, and the ability to maintain that success, is knowing how to effectively apply the information gleaned from market research, audience research, and data research. 

It includes forecasts for future income. One of the most important parts of any market study is a forecast, which looks into the future and predicts the size, makeup, and trends of the market you're interested in. This allows for the categorization of prospective clients. You should prioritize the market that is the best fit for your business rather than the largest or fastest-growing. 

It's geared toward meeting the wants and desires of its patrons. Many things in business, including research, benefit from keeping clients front and center. By reaching out to individuals through online panels, web forums, telephone surveys, in-depth interviews, and focus groups, market researchers can learn where their business's ideas, services, and products can be strengthened. 

Using this method, one can measure the progress of one's company against predetermined standards. Utilize data gathered from the market to study the competition, gauge employee enthusiasm, identify knowledge or skill shortages, and identify development opportunities. This will allow you to consider novel approaches, ideas, and resources for boosting your company's efficiency. 

Market Research Tools 

In order to better understand your market and target audience, you need to use market research techniques. It's fundamental to every company's success, and in today's more crowded marketplace, a thorough familiarity with your target market is more important than ever. Good news: you don't have to be an "insights genius" to get started collecting the data you need, owing to the proliferation of market research tools. Some of the best and most widely used methods of market research include: 

• Answer the Public 
• Attest 
• Google Trends 
• Social Mention 
• Remesh 
• Heartbeat Ai 
• Think With Google 
• Spyfu 
• Latana 
• BuzzSumo 
• Statista 
• Typeform 
• Otter.ai 
• Dimensions.ai 

How to Conduct Research for Your Business: Market Research Strategies 

Despite their different objectives, market research and marketing research should use the same framework for gathering and analyzing information about your company's target audiences. These help in primary research as well as secondary research.  

Clearly identify the problem at stake. Establish an initial research topic. Having a clear research question in mind will allow you to better organize your findings. 

Start by figuring out your financial and time constraints. How much money do you have to put into your study? When do you anticipate finishing data collection? Research, like any other tactic for expanding your company, should be carried out within your means. Nonetheless, it may be worthwhile to spend more money to receive the most comprehensive results available, especially if the questions you are answering are time-sensitive. 

Planning your approach and requirements. Find out what information needs to be gathered and figure out how to get it. Observation, surveys, phone calls, and focus groups are among the alternatives. Consult a professional research agency if you are unsure of how to organize your data collection. 

Pick a way to sample the data. I need to know how you plan on picking people to take part in your study. You may require a cross-section of the consumer population at large, a subset of the population who share a particular characteristic of their way of life, or just the opinions of those who are already familiar with your brand. Develop a plan for tracking down and contacting the persons who will take part in your research. 

Prepare a data analysis strategy. Think about the methods you'll use to examine the data. Do you require numbers for statistical analysis, or can you get a sense of things from qualitative, observable data? Spend some time learning about the many types of analysis so you can pick the one that will yield the most useful results for your study. 

Gathering information. The next step is data collection, which may begin once you have settled on a research question and developed a strategy for answering it within the bounds of your time and money. Research is often outsourced to professional firms or consultants by many corporations. 

Examining the information. It is important to apply certain methods of analysis to make sense of your data, no matter how simple it may appear at first. Which analytical techniques you employ are most suited to your data is a function of the information you've gathered. Also, this is the time to double-check for any mistakes that might have crept into your data gathering, analysis, or sampling. 

Make the report you need. Concluding your research with a written report is the next to last stage. From formulating a problem statement to discussing the findings of your data study, your report should include it all. 

Why is Market Research Important?

Over 44,000 businesses across the United States provide some form of market research. Their total annual income is around $23 billion (QuestionPro).  

The importance of Market Research is the following -  

1. Identifies new products or services

By conducting market research, a business can learn what consumers want and how to best meet their demands. Identifying the major challenges associated with creating a product or service can help you save money. It's useful for figuring out what customers value most and how to implement that into your product or service offering. 

2. Identifies potential customers

You may learn more about your clientele by analyzing demographic information like their gender, age, income, occupation, and interests. You'll have a better idea of who to target with your future advertising efforts if you have a clear picture of your current clientele. When a product is marketed to the wrong demographic, sales suffer. 

3. Establishes viability of a product or service

If your organization is considering introducing a novel product or service to consumers, you should find out if there is a need for it. Do people need this product? Do the people you plan to sell to actually want this product? Does it have any chance of succeeding, and does it even have a chance of being a viable trend? 

4. Anticipates and discovers future market trends 

If you are familiar with your market and the tendencies that are just beginning to emerge, you will be better prepared to build tactics to combat any negative tendencies that may threaten your company. As a result, you can use rising tendencies to your advantage and propel your company forward. 

5. Keeps your company ahead of competitors

Examining your company's performance in relation to that of its rivals is a prime use for comparative research. If they're much ahead of you, it's a fantastic chance to figure out what you're doing wrong. It is possible to devise business plans that will help you surpass the competition. 

6. Decide the best marketing strategy

Conducting research is helpful for pinpointing the optimal distribution platform for reaching your target audience. If you find out that a large portion of your audience prefers one form of communication over another, it makes sense to concentrate your efforts there. Because of the scarcity of these resources, it only makes sense to direct them toward endeavors with a high probability of success. 

7. Reduces risk and increases profitability

The ability to assess the value of potential risks in light of past performance and anticipated future market behavior is a crucial business skill. The success or failure of a business idea depends heavily on the results of market research. Understanding your consumers and their habits is another crucial step in risk reduction. Taking less risk leads to greater financial rewards. 

8. Identifies threats and opportunities

The SWOT analysis is likely familiar to many of you. The acronym SWOT refers to a company's "strengths," "weaknesses," and "All four of them can be figured out with the use of market research . While a lot of data can be collected through market research, not all of it needs to be used. Use only information that is directly related to your major objective (which you will have established in advance). 

9. Helps to understand existing customers

By conducting market research, you can learn more about your current clientele. Because of this complexity, you can't assume that you know what your clients require. If you want to be successful, you need to take the temperature of your clientele on a frequent basis. Satisfaction levels among customers can also be measured with the help of surveys. You can find out what is bothering them and make adjustments if necessary. If they are already rather high, you can examine the factors that led to this success and implement changes to maintain it. 

10. Assists in realistic goal setting

Goals that are more realistic can be established with the support of up-to-the-minute information on your market and customer base. Knowing what to expect and how to realistically expand growth over time is greatly aided by establishing a growth pattern throughout time. Setting objectives that are too lofty will cause you to waste time and energy trying to achieve something that is impossible. 

How Efficient is Market Research? 

You should only invest time, energy, and money into market research if you expect to see a favorable return on that investment. Because it is so worthwhile, market research continues to play a significant role in the success of any organization. Market research won't ensure your company's success on its own, but it will arm you with the data you need to make the moves that will. 

Many of the advantages of this type of study were examined, but the drawbacks were also taken into account. If you don't conduct market research, you run the danger of losing clients to the competition, missing out on growth prospects, being more susceptible to hazards, making bad business decisions, and more. Some companies succeed without first doing their homework, but those situations are unusual. To build your firm and avoid typical errors, conduct market research. 

Market Research Methods  

Although there are a variety of approaches to conducting market research, the majority of companies opt to utilize one of the following five fundamental approaches: surveys, focus groups, personal interviews, observation, and field trials. Which strategies you decide to implement for your company will depend on the kinds of data you require as well as the amount of money you are ready to pay. Some of the major methods of market research are following - 

1. Surveys 

Surveys ask participants questions. They can use numerous survey methods. Surveys are a cost-effective technique to collect data for the study. Written surveys may encourage truthful responses since participants feel like they're speaking privately. 

2. Discussions 

Focus groups are moderated discussions. Companies assemble consumers to conduct focus groups, pose questions, and record replies. Participants' replies may reveal what consumers want in a firm or a product because they represent a broad group. Focus groups offer longer participant interaction than surveys. 

3. Interviews 

An interview combines focus group and one-on-one survey aspects. It includes recording one participant's comments at a time. Open-ended questions elicit in-depth answers from the interviewee. Researchers can ask follow-up questions and let interviewees ask their own. 

4. Social media listening 

Social media users routinely discuss corporations and their products. Researchers can search for discussion topics and measure consumer sentiment through social media listening. 

5. Observations 

Observation in market research means studying how consumers shop. Filming shoppers in a store and studying their shopping habits is common. This strategy can reveal their natural selves if they are ignorant of the observation. 

6. Experiments 

In a field trial, a corporation lets participants use a product under typical conditions and collects data. Participants' feedback was used to improve the product. 

7. Competitive analysis 

Competitive analysis is a secondary market research process where companies acquire and analyze competition information. It entails identifying primary and secondary rivals and analyzing their offerings, revenues, and marketing methods. 

8. Statistics 

Public data entails seeking and evaluating public market data. This research is often free online or in libraries. Research centers, polls, or government databases may provide this information. Public data is often used to confirm or compare primary market research. 

9. Purchased data 

Companies without the time or resources to perform their own market research can buy it. Several market research companies sell database subscriptions. Small and medium-sized businesses that can't afford primary market research may benefit from this approach. 

10. Analysis of sales data 

Competition analysis is just one way that may be used in tandem with sales data analysis to show how different business tactics affect revenue. It can also reveal consumers' buying behavior and consumer trends. 

Functions of Marketing Research  

The following are the main functions of Marketing Research - 

Description: Marketing research details customers. Age, sex, education, income, etc., are listed. It describes the market and competitors. This description helps marketing decision-makers and problem-solvers. 

Evaluation: Marketing research evaluates firm performance. It evaluates production and marketing policies. It measures customer reactions to product quality, price, packaging, advertising, sales, and promotions. If consumers dislike the company's policies, they must alter them. It contrasts company and rival policies. 

Explanation: Marketing research answers all marketing questions. It explains why sales are declining, why retailers are unhappy, etc. It explains the problem's causes. It gives a solution. 

Prediction: Marketing research forecasts. Predictions are future forecasts. It predicts sales, market prospects, dangers, marketing environment, customer behavior, etc. All predictions may be wrong. Predictions help the organization create plans and policies. It helps seize possibilities. It prevents future hazards. 

Decision Making: Marketing research aids decision-makers. It gives decision-making data. Decision-making involves choosing between options. Decision-making requires accurate data. MR helps the marketer decide. It gives decision-making data. It offers alternatives. It compares each option's pros and cons. It helps marketing managers choose the right action. 

Conclusion 

The world's markets are changing at a dizzying rate, making it more important than ever for companies to adapt quickly enough to be competitive. One method is to conduct market research. The results of your market research and analysis will provide you with a thorough understanding of your target audience's wants and needs, as well as your competitors' strengths and weaknesses. 

The key to making your business successful in the face of intense competition is identifying and fixing your deficiencies. The right market research tools will aid you in doing just that! The time to begin expanding your company is now.  

With a presence in New York, San Francisco, Austin, Seattle, Toronto, London, Zurich, Pune, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, SG Analytics, a pioneer in Research and Analytics, offers tailor-made services to enterprises worldwide.    

A leader in  Market research services , SG Analytics enables organizations to achieve actionable insights into products, technology, customers, competition, and the marketplace to make insight-driven decisions.  Contact us  today if you are an enterprise looking to make critical data-driven decisions to prompt accelerated growth and breakthrough performance.

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What Is Market Research?

With the goal of becoming a customer-focused company , organizations will follow research methods to gain a better understanding of their desired audiences and how to interact with them. Any information gathered provides insights into how companies can make their products more appealing to potential customers.  

What are the main purposes of market research?

• Knowing what people want ahead of time enables companies to make more informed business decisions.

Releasing a product or service without knowing how it will perform presents a huge risk. Market research exists to gain more insight before going all-in on a new product. Companies conduct research to determine what problems their audiences face and how their products can resolve these issues. 

Understanding customer preferences has become crucial to saving companies time and money, making market research a key component of the product development process. Rather than just releasing products into the market, businesses take the time to determine how these products will perform. This approach enables companies to spend resources more efficiently while earning the trust of consumers with more relevant products.

What are the types of market research?

• Different circumstances call for unique types of market research, which range from one-on-one interviews to focus group conversations.

Market research takes on many forms, so teams must determine the types of market research that best serve their needs. If a company wants to elicit feedback from larger samples, surveys and focus groups are ideal options. However, businesses should keep in mind that these practices deliver breadth at the expense of depth. 

Interviews cater more to companies that want to dive into specific details with customers. Unique value propositions may require these more intimate interactions as businesses pursue ways to improve customers’ experiences with their products. Observations and field tests also provide genuine customer reactions, but with a subtler approach. Companies can decide on the best method by defining the initial problem and goals for their research.

What are the steps in the marketing research process?

• Before marketing teams undertake product launches , they need to gather extensive insights into audience preferences and general market trends.

To enhance a product or service, a company must gather plenty of information on its ideal customers and competitors. Defining a target audience allows teams to get a sense of what issues customers may face and how their products can address those concerns. In addition, conducting a competitor analysis lets teams know what companies in their market are doing and how they can help their product stand out from similar ones.  

Once marketing teams sort out these details, they can focus their attention on executing a research plan. Determining the sample size and desired outcome helps members decide what type of research methods they want to employ. By following these practices, companies can craft more minimum viable products , which customers will find better suited to their needs.

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What is Market Research Analysis? Definition, Steps, Benefits, and Best Practices

By Nick Jain

Published on: September 8, 2023

Table of Contents

What is Market Research Analysis?

Market research analysis steps, market research analysis benefits, 15 market research analysis best practices.

Market research analysis is defined as the systematic process of collecting, processing, interpreting, and evaluating data related to a specific market, industry, or business environment. Its primary purpose is to gain insights into various aspects of the market, including consumer behavior, market trends, competitive landscape, and other relevant factors. Market research analysis aims to provide businesses with actionable information that can inform their decision-making processes and strategies.

Here are the key components and objectives of market research analysis:

• Data Collection: The process begins with gathering data from a variety of sources. This data can be classified into two main categories:

Primary Data: Data collected directly from original sources, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups , observations, and experiments.

Secondary Data: Existing data collected by third parties, such as market reports, government publications, industry publications, and academic studies.

• Data Processing: Once collected, the data is processed to ensure its accuracy and reliability. This step involves cleaning the data to remove errors or inconsistencies and structuring it in a way that is suitable for analysis. Data processing may also involve data coding, categorization, and transformation.
• Data Analysis: The heart of market research analysis involves examining and interpreting the data to extract meaningful insights. Various analytical techniques and statistical tools are used to identify patterns, relationships, trends, and correlations within the data. This analysis supports businesses in making knowledgeable decisions.
• Competitive Analysis: Assessing the competitive landscape is an essential aspect of market research analysis. This includes studying competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, strategies, market share, and customer perceptions. Understanding the competitive environment is crucial for shaping a company’s strategy and positioning in the market.
• Consumer Behavior Analysis: Understanding how consumers think, feel, and act is a central objective of market research analysis. It involves identifying consumer preferences, purchasing habits, motivations, and pain points. This information helps businesses tailor their products, services, and marketing efforts to meet customer needs effectively.
• Market Trends Identification: Market research analysis helps businesses stay updated on the latest market trends, industry developments, and emerging technologies. Recognizing these trends allows companies to adapt, innovate, and remain competitive in their respective markets.
• Strategic Decision-Making: Ultimately, the goal of market research analysis is to provide actionable insights that inform strategic decision-making. These decisions can relate to product development, pricing strategies, marketing campaigns, market entry or expansion, and more.
• Risk Mitigation: By understanding market dynamics and potential challenges, businesses can proactively identify and mitigate risks. This reduces the likelihood of unexpected setbacks and allows for more effective crisis management.

Market research analysis is a vital tool that helps businesses gather and interpret data to make informed decisions, mitigate risks, identify opportunities for growth, and stay competitive in their respective markets. It plays a pivotal role in shaping business strategies and ensuring that resources are allocated effectively to achieve business objectives.

Market research analysis involves a series of systematic steps to gather, process, and interpret data to gain insights into a specific market or industry. These steps are crucial for making informed business decisions and developing effective strategies. Here are the key steps in the market research analysis process:

Step 1: Define Research Objectives

Precisely outline the goals and objectives of your market research . What specific insights or data are you aiming to acquire? What are your research questions? Understanding your objectives is essential for guiding the entire process.

Step 2: Data Collection

Collect relevant data from various sources. This can include primary data (directly collected from surveys, interviews, focus groups , observations, etc.) and secondary data (existing data from reports, publications, databases, etc.). Make certain that your data-gathering approaches are in harmony with your research objectives.

Step 3: Data Processing and Cleaning

Clean and preprocess the collected data to ensure its accuracy and reliability. This step may involve removing duplicate records, correcting errors, and organizing the data for analysis.

Step 4: Data Analysis

Perform data analysis using appropriate techniques and tools. Common analytical methods include statistical analysis, regression analysis, trend analysis, customer segmentation, and sentiment analysis. The objective is to derive significant insights from the data.

Step 5: Competitive Analysis

Assess the competitive landscape by studying your competitors. Analyze their strengths, weaknesses, market share, strategies, and customer perceptions. Recognize potential opportunities and vulnerabilities within the competitive landscape.

Step 6: Consumer Behavior Analysis

Examine consumer behavior by analyzing data related to preferences, purchasing habits, motivations, and demographics. Gain insights into what drives consumer decisions and how they interact with your products or services.

Step 7: Market Trends Identification

Identify and analyze current market trends, industry developments, and emerging technologies. Stay up-to-date with changes in the market that could impact your business.

Step 8: Data Interpretation

Interpret the outcomes of your data analysis within the framework of your research goals. What do the findings mean for your business? Are there actionable insights that can inform your decisions?

Step 9: Report and Presentation

Create a comprehensive report or presentation that summarizes your research findings. Use clear visuals, charts, and graphs to convey the information effectively. Include recommendations and insights that can guide decision-making.

Step 10: Strategic Decision-Making

Use the insights gained from your market research analysis to make informed strategic decisions. These decisions can relate to product development, pricing strategies, marketing campaigns, market entry or expansion, and more.

Step 11: Implementation

Put your strategic decisions into action. Implement the changes and strategies based on your market research analysis. Continuously track progress and adapt your approach as necessary.

Step 12: Continuous Monitoring

Market research analysis is an ongoing process. Continuously monitor market conditions, consumer behavior, and competitive developments to stay adaptable and responsive to changes in the market.

By following these steps, businesses can harness the power of market research analysis to make informed decisions, gain a competitive edge, and drive growth and innovation in their respective industries.

Learn more: What is Research Design?

Market research analysis offers numerous benefits to businesses and organizations across various industries. These benefits are instrumental in making informed decisions, shaping strategies, and ultimately achieving business objectives. Here are some of the key advantages of conducting market research analysis:

• Informed Decision-Making: Market research analysis provides valuable insights and data-driven information that support informed decision-making. By understanding market dynamics, consumer behavior, and trends, businesses can make strategic choices that are more likely to lead to success.
• Risk Mitigation: Through market research , organizations can identify potential risks and challenges in advance. This proactive approach allows them to develop strategies for risk mitigation and crisis management, reducing the impact of unforeseen events.
• Market Understanding: Market research analysis helps companies gain a deeper understanding of their target audience, including demographics, preferences, and purchasing behavior. This knowledge is critical for tailoring products, services, and marketing efforts to meet customer needs effectively.
• Competitive Advantage: By analyzing the competitive landscape, businesses can identify their competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. This information enables them to develop strategies that capitalize on their strengths and exploit competitors’ weaknesses, leading to a competitive advantage.
• Product Development: Market research analysis guides product development by uncovering consumer preferences, pain points, and unmet needs. This ensures that companies create products that resonate with their target market, increasing the likelihood of success in the market.
• Effective Marketing Strategies: Understanding consumer behavior and preferences helps in crafting more effective marketing campaigns. Market research analysis can identify the most suitable marketing channels, messaging, and timing to reach and engage the target audience.
• Optimized Pricing Strategies: Businesses can determine the optimal pricing strategies for their products or services through market research analysis. This includes assessing price sensitivity, competitive pricing, and value perception among customers.
• Market Expansion and Diversification: Market research analysis can reveal new market opportunities and potential areas for diversification. Companies can use this information to expand their reach into new markets or introduce new product lines.
• Improved Customer Satisfaction: By aligning products and services with customer preferences, companies can enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. Contented customers are increasingly inclined to become returning purchasers and enthusiastic brand supporters.
• Cost Efficiency: Market research analysis can help companies allocate resources more efficiently by focusing on strategies and initiatives that are most likely to yield positive results. This reduces wasteful spending on ineffective activities.
• Measurable Results: Market research provides a basis for measuring the success of strategies and initiatives. It allows companies to set benchmarks, track progress, and assess the return on investment (ROI) of various marketing and business efforts.
• Innovation and Adaptation: Market research analysis keeps businesses up-to-date with market trends and emerging technologies. This knowledge encourages innovation and the ability to adapt to changing market conditions.
• Enhanced Reputation: Companies that demonstrate a commitment to understanding their market and meeting customer needs often enjoy an enhanced reputation in the eyes of consumers, partners, and investors.

Market research analysis is a valuable tool that empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions, minimize risks, gain a competitive edge, and achieve sustainable growth. It is an investment that can yield substantial returns by helping organizations align their strategies and resources with market realities and customer expectations.

Learn more: What is Primary Market Research?

Effective market research analysis is crucial for businesses to make informed decisions and stay competitive in their respective industries. To ensure that your market research analysis yields valuable insights, consider these best practices:

1. Clearly Define Objectives

Begin by clearly defining the objectives of your market research analysis. What particular inquiries do you aim to address? What are your goals and desired outcomes? Having a well-defined purpose will guide your research efforts.

2. Use a Mix of Data Sources

Combine both primary and secondary data sources. Primary data is collected directly from your target audience, while secondary data comes from existing sources. Using a mix of data sources enhances the comprehensiveness of your analysis.

3. Ensure Data Quality

Data quality is paramount. Take steps to ensure the data you collect is accurate, relevant, and reliable. Verify the credibility of your sources and implement data-cleaning processes to remove errors and inconsistencies.

4. Segment Your Audience

Segment your target audience into distinct groups based on demographics, behaviors, or other relevant criteria. This allows for more tailored insights and strategies.

5. Use a Variety of Analysis Techniques

Employ a range of analysis techniques such as quantitative and qualitative methods . Quantitative analysis involves numerical data, while qualitative analysis explores insights from open-ended questions and interviews. This all-encompassing strategy offers a more complete perspective.

6. Stay Objective and Unbiased

Avoid bias in your research by maintaining objectivity. Be aware of any preconceived notions or assumptions that might influence your analysis. Use unbiased language and interpretation of results.

7. Thoroughly Understand Your Market

Before conducting research , gain a deep understanding of the market and industry you’re investigating. This background knowledge will help you ask the right questions and interpret findings effectively.

8. Invest in Technology and Tools

Utilize advanced tools and software for data analysis. These tools can streamline the process, handle large datasets, and provide more robust insights. Consider investing in data visualization tools to present findings effectively.

9. Continuous Learning and Adaptation

Keep yourself informed about the most current research methodologies and industry developments. Market conditions evolve, so it’s essential to adapt your research methods accordingly.

10. Ethical Considerations

Adhere to ethical standards in data collection and analysis. Respect privacy and confidentiality, obtain informed consent when necessary, and ensure compliance with data protection regulations.

11. Regularly Communicate Findings

Share research findings with relevant stakeholders within your organization. Effective communication ensures that insights are used to inform decision-making and strategy development.

12. Iterative Process

Market research analysis should be an iterative process. As you implement strategies based on your findings, continue to monitor and analyze the market to stay responsive to changes.

13. Benchmark and Measure Progress

Set benchmarks and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of your strategies. Regularly assess whether you are meeting your objectives and adjust your approach as needed.

14. Seek External Expertise

Consider consulting with external experts or hiring market research professionals when needed. Their expertise can enhance the quality and reliability of your analysis.

15. Document Your Process

Maintain thorough documentation of your research process , including data sources, methodologies, and assumptions. This documentation is valuable for transparency and future reference.

By following these best practices, businesses can conduct market research analysis that provides actionable insights, informs decision-making, and contributes to long-term success in a competitive market.

Learn more: What is Qualitative Market Research?

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• Nov 17, 2023

The Fundamentals of Prospect Research.

Updated: Jan 20

With over 25 years of experience in B2B sales and successfully onboarding major global brands as clients, I've seen firsthand how implementing the right sales strategies and tools can transform businesses. As an avid proponent of CRM and sales technologies for decades, I’ve adeptly leveraged AI in my sales process since 2022 to stay ahead of the curve. On my blog, I provide clear, step-by-step guidance to help sales professionals and marketers connect with prospective clients more efficiently - an often overlooked aspect of the process. My goal is to empower you to achieve your business development objectives with an optimistic, passionate approach. Drawing from my decades of hands-on sales know-how, I offer actionable advice so you can master outreach, build credibility, and boost productivity. With a professional yet approachable tone, I simplify complex sales concepts into easily digestible and implementable strategies. As a seasoned sales advisor, my aim is to share my experience and knowledge to help you take your sales to the next level. 

In the dynamic world of sales, understanding your prospects is not just a part of the job; it's the backbone of any successful strategy. This is where the art of Prospect Research comes into play. It's about digging deep to understand who your prospects are, what they need, and how best to approach them.

What is Prospect Research?

Prospect research involves gathering and analyzing information about possible customers. It is a structured method of comprehending the requirements, behaviors, and potential of your prospects. This research assists in creating a more focused sales strategy, guaranteeing that your efforts are not just a random shot in the dark, but a calculated move towards business growth.

Prospect research involves utilizing both internal and external data sources to build comprehensive prospect profiles. This includes gathering information from company websites, annual reports, press releases, and industry databases. Social media platforms like LinkedIn provide valuable insights into prospect demographics, interests, and connections. Sales teams can also leverage CRM data, feedback surveys, and past sales interactions to understand prospect pain points and behaviors. However now with AI and AI assistants software tools like Aomni make all this information gathering a breeze.

Why Research is Key in Sales Prospecting

In the realm of Sales Prospecting, knowledge is power. The more you know about your prospects, the better you can tailor your pitch, align your product or service with their needs, and ultimately, close more deals. It's about being proactive rather than reactive in your sales approach.

Thorough prospect research enables sales teams to identify value gaps and position their solution as the missing piece of the puzzle. It ensures messaging is relevant and resonates with the prospect's specific needs and challenges. Research provides insights to catch the prospect's attention, establish credibility, and move opportunities through the sales funnel.

Identifying Your Ideal Prospect

Defining your target market is the first step in prospect research. It's about asking the right questions: Who are they? What industries do they operate in? What are their pain points? Understanding these aspects helps in creating a detailed prospect profile, which is essential for effective targeting.

Ideal prospects are those who stand to derive significant value from your offering and have a compelling need for it. Assessing prospect fit involves looking at factors like company size, industry, technologies used, and current challenges. The goal is to identify prospects where your solution aligns strongly with their strategic priorities and business objectives.

Understanding Prospect Profiles

A prospect profile is more than just a demographic breakdown. It's a comprehensive view of your potential customer's business needs, challenges, preferences, and decision-making processes. This profile serves as a guide to tailor your sales and marketing efforts more effectively.

Detailed prospect profiles provide a 360-degree view of target accounts. This includes insights into the prospect's organizational structure, key stakeholders, pain points, competitor landscape, and future plans. Profiles enable sales teams to identify the decision-makers to influence and equip them with information to establish credibility during initial outreach.

Data-Driven Approach to Prospect Analysis

In today's world, data is the new currency. Sales Intelligence tools provide a wealth of information that can be used for effective prospect analysis. This involves looking at market trends, prospect behavior, and other relevant data to gain a deeper understanding of your target audience.

Sales intelligence platforms integrate data from various sources, analyze it using AI and machine learning, and deliver actionable insights for sales teams. These could include alerts on new funding rounds, executive moves, or technology implementations that signal opportunities. Activity history and lead enrichment provide a holistic view of prospect engagement across channels.

Analyzing Market Trends and Prospect Behavior

Keeping an eye on Market Trends is crucial. It helps in understanding the broader context in which your prospects operate. Analyzing prospect behavior, on the other hand, gives insights into their purchasing patterns, preferences, and pain points, enabling you to tailor your approach accordingly.

Market research looks at factors like industry growth, technological disruptions, regulatory changes, and competitive landscape. Prospect research zooms in on specific accounts, tracking their digital body language across websites, social media, and peer forums. This could reveal churn risks, new initiatives underway, or satisfaction levels with existing vendors.

Together, market and prospect research provide well-rounded inputs to adapt messaging and sales strategies. They allow teams to capitalize on market drivers while also personalizing outreach based on prospect needs. AI tools like Aomni speed up the process of analyzing the market.

Techniques for Effective Prospect Research

Effective prospect research involves a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods. Qualitative research might include interviews and surveys to get a deeper understanding of your prospect's needs and challenges. Quantitative research, on the other hand, involves analyzing numerical data for patterns and trends.

Qualitative techniques like customer advisory boards and win/loss interviews offer rich insights directly from the source. At the same time, quantitative data analysis uncovers trends across customer segments.

Bringing together insights from multiple sources allows sales teams to connect the dots and create an accurate picture of prospect needs. This provides a solid basis for crafting compelling messaging and plays.

Leveraging Public and Private Data Sources

A variety of data sources can be used for prospect research. Public sources like industry reports, news articles, and social media can provide valuable insights. Private data sources, such as internal sales data, customer feedback, and CRM databases, offer a more personalized view of your prospects.

Public databases deliver information on company headcount, technologies, locations, news, leadership changes, and funding events. Private CRM data sheds light on past interactions, lead engagement metrics, and deal progression history.

Blending external intelligence with internal data paints a comprehensive picture of prospect needs, challenges, and behaviors over time. This empowers sales teams to deliver hyper-personalized, relevant outreach.

Assessing the Likelihood of Prospect Conversion

Evaluating a prospect's potential to convert is a crucial aspect of prospect research. This involves looking at factors like their budget, authority, need, and timeline. Prioritizing prospects based on these factors ensures that you focus your efforts where they are most likely to yield results.

Conversion likelihood depends on the presence of key buying signs. These include clear pain points, an allocated budget, involved decision-makers, and a defined timeline. Prospects exhibiting multiple buying signals should take priority over those in earlier stages.

Scoring systems can quantify buying signals to help prioritize prospect outreach. Automated alerts on key trigger events also keep sales teams focused on hot prospects.

Evaluating Prospect Potential

This involves a thorough analysis of the prospect's current situation, their challenges, and how your product or service can provide a solution. It's about understanding the value you can bring to them and the likelihood of them recognizing and acting on that value.

Calculating prospect potential requires estimating the revenue opportunity and probability of closing. Opportunity sizing depends on the prospect's spending capacity, number of applicable use cases, and expected deal size. Win probability considers their problem urgency, decision process complexity, and strength of the competition.

Together, these factors determine the sales forecast by account. Sales leaders can then allocate resources accordingly to maximize overall pipeline impact.

Prioritization Based on Conversion Probability

Not all prospects are created equal. Some are more likely to convert than others. Prioritizing prospects based on their conversion probability helps in allocating your resources more effectively, ensuring that you focus on those who are most likely to become customers.

Conversion probability is informed by lead scores, activity history, and buying signals. Automated lead scoring uses these signals to categorize leads as sales-qualified, marketing-qualified, or inactive. Sales reps can then focus on hot leads while nurturing others.

Dynamic lead prioritization ensures that outreach is timely and relevant. It results in more productive conversations and higher conversion rates.

Grouping and Segmenting Prospects

Once you've assessed individual prospects, the next step is to group them into segments. This segmentation can be based on various criteria such as industry, size, buying behavior, or specific needs.

Segmenting prospects allows sales teams to develop targeted campaigns and messaging for each group. Grouping by industry enables positioning around industry-specific use cases. Segmenting by company size facilitates tiered pricing and packaging strategies.

Criteria for Segmenting Prospects

The criteria you choose for segmenting prospects should align with your sales and marketing strategies. For instance, if your product caters to a particular industry, segmenting prospects based on their industry would be a logical approach. This allows for more targeted and relevant sales pitches.

Key segmentation criteria include industry, company size, job roles, technographics, and behavioral data. The goal is to group prospects with common needs, challenges, and priorities to drive alignment across outreach strategies.

Tailoring Sales Strategies to Different Prospect Groups

Each segment of prospects has unique characteristics and needs. Tailoring your sales strategies to these specific groups can significantly increase your chances of success. It's about speaking their language and addressing their specific pain points.

Tailored campaigns resonate more strongly with prospects. This includes industry-specific use cases, peer referencing, competitive comparisons, and relevant case studies. Aligning collateral, digital ads, and sales messaging to each segment makes communication more effective.

Automated segmentation enables dynamic content customization across channels. This ensures prospects receive hyper-relevant information at every stage.

Aligning Prospect Research with Sales Goals

The ultimate aim of prospect research is to align your sales efforts with your overarching business objectives. This alignment ensures that every prospecting activity contributes to the broader goals of your organization.

Prospect research should map to revenue targets, expansion plans, and strategic priorities. For instance, research aimed at acquiring net new logos would differ from upsell targeting within existing accounts. This enables focusing on prospects with the highest potential value.

Matching Prospects with Business Objectives

It's crucial to ensure that the prospects you are targeting are in line with your Business Objectives. This means not just going after any prospect, but those who have the potential to contribute to your strategic goals, whether it's market expansion, revenue growth, or building brand authority.

Strategic goal mapping helps break down revenue targets by prospect profile. Market expansion requires targeting new segments and geographies. Maximizing sales involves upselling and cross-selling within installed bases. Brand building focuses on referencable accounts.

Each profile demands a tailored research approach to identify prospects matching associated attributes. This results in a prioritized pipeline aligned to financial and growth objectives.

Strategic Planning Based on Research Insights

The insights gained from prospect research should inform your strategic planning. This involves setting realistic sales goals, developing tailored marketing campaigns, and creating a sales pipeline that reflects the potential of your researched prospects.

Prospect research provides vital inputs for annual planning such as total addressable market, segment-wise growth rates, competitive landscape, and more. These feed into your sales forecasts, expansion strategies, and resource allocation decisions.

Continuously refreshing research ensures strategic plans stay relevant amidst market changes. Adapting strategies to align with evolving prospect needs and behaviors drives growth.

The Role of Continuous Monitoring and Adaptation

In the fast-paced world of sales, staying static is not an option. Continuous monitoring of your prospect research and adapting your strategies accordingly is key to staying relevant and effective.

Keeping Up with Changing Prospect Information

Prospect information can change rapidly. Regularly updating your research to reflect these changes ensures that your sales strategies remain effective and your approach stays relevant.

Sales intelligence platforms automatically track triggers like new funding events, leadership changes, product launches, and technology implementations across target accounts. Alerts notify teams of these changes so they can adapt outreach accordingly.

This real-time monitoring provides an up-to-date view of prospect needs and pain points. Sales teams can course-correct strategies based on new developments rather than relying on stale information.

Adapting Sales Strategies Based on Ongoing Research

As you gather more data and insights, your sales strategies should evolve. This might mean shifting focus to different segments, altering your value proposition, or even redefining your target market based on new findings.

Continuous research provides feedback loops to refine strategies and messaging. Lower-than-expected conversion rates may signal the need for improved targeting or positioning. High engagement with specific content could indicate opportunities to expand in that direction.

Incorporating these learnings in an agile manner allows sales teams to maximize results. Regular research reviews ensure strategies are optimized based on the most current market and prospect trends.

Most Popular Prospect Research Questions Answered

How to do prospect research for sales.

Prospect research for sales involves utilizing both external and internal data sources. Externally, leverage market research reports, company databases, news alerts, and social media platforms to understand prospect needs and triggers. Internally, analyze CRM data, win/loss trends, and customer feedback surveys for additional insights. Bringing all this information together creates detailed prospect profiles to enable highly targeted sales strategies.

What are the best prospect research tools?

Top prospect research tools include LinkedIn Sales Navigator for social selling insights, ZoomInfo for contact and company data, and Owler for intel on competitors. Sales intelligence platforms like Gryphon and Demandbase aggregate and analyze data to uncover triggers and opportunities. Choose tools that integrate with your tech stack and provide relevant, actionable insights.

How to qualify leads from prospect research?

Assess budget, need, authority, and timeline to qualify prospect research leads. Budget indicates available spend to adopt solutions. Need showcases pain points your offering can address. Authority covers power to influence purchasing decisions. Timeline represents their buying cycle stage. Leads that score highly across these areas should be prioritized for follow up.

Hey Sales Warriors,

Prospect research is foundational to sales success, enabling highly targeted, relevant outreach and informed strategy setting. By leveraging the right tools and techniques, sales organizations can gain a competitive edge through superior prospect knowledge. The key is continuous research, monitoring prospect signals, and quickly adapting strategies to drive results. With the right insights, sales teams can have the right conversation with the right prospect at the right time.

Before you go.....

Check out my review of the prospect research tool Aomni

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A 3-Step Guide to Performing Prospect Research (Before You Pick Up the Phone)

Updated: June 11, 2021

Published: August 06, 2013

What's the difference between a poor first-time connect and a successful one? One word: context .

Researching potential prospects before you first email or call them can make a world of difference between a deal or a bust. By understanding the background of a company and the person you're trying to speak to, you can better frame a conversation.

And just like no two prospects are the same, no two prospects’ interactions with you should be the same. It's important Sales take the time to collect information and then create more tailored experience from first touch. By creating relevancy, you're much more likely to engage a prospect and have a positive, meaningful conversation.

But we also know that time is precious. While there's a lot to gather from your research, ultimately it's important to train yourself to spend no more than around five minutes researching potential prospects. With practice, you can start to develop a sixth sense for knowing what to look for -- here's a guide to start you off.

Step 1: Learn About the Company

Visit the company website. Make note of its mission and vision . At the end of the day, this company wants to be great at what it does, and if you can identify how your products or services can help it achieve its vision, you can paint a more meaningful picture for your prospect.

Some basic information you should quickly gauge include:

• Company Size
• Number of Employees
• Product or Service Offerings
• Typical Sale Size

You should also do some more in-depth sleuthing that gives context to that information. Search for any recent third-party publications mentioning the prospective company -- is an industry blog talking about struggles that company is facing, or something the company is doing really well? Who are its competitors? Does this company have its own blog? Do they use social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn? What are they talking about there ? Has the company just published a post about a new product they’ve released, or about an event they were a part of? Knowing this type of information can add relevancy when you reach out to start a conversation, and allow you to send relevant information their way.

If you're looking to learn more about how Sales can use social media to close business, check out this free ebook . 

( Bonus Tip:   What is the company tweeting about? Does it seem to be trying to push one or two types of content -- maybe ebooks for a specific product or service, or a thought leadership piece? You might be able to discern some top priorities based on what’s being communicated in their own lead generation content.)

Step 2: Do a Background Check

It’s incredibly important not only that you reach out to the right company, but also to the right person at that company. Are you talking to an influencer, a decision-maker, or someone who has no reason to ever talk to you about your product or service? For example, HubSpot sells software for marketers -- so reaching out to someone on the R&D team of a company would result in either no connection, or a much longer sales process as they forward a representative onto someone else.

First, look at the company website’s “About” and “Contact” pages. Does it list bios of employees? Do they have contact information for certain areas, such as “please contact [email protected] for all marketing inquiries”? 

LinkedIn should also become your best friend. Do some digging around people listing your company of interest as their employer. Look for information such as recent job changes, their job function, and their education. What's their role? How long have they been at the current company? Someone who has only recently started may not have enough context about the company's needs or may have less influence in the decision-making process. Build a persona in your head of who this person is, and think over how you'd address him or her if you were face to face. 

Step 3: Hypothesize Pain Points

Try to find out what a company is doing to address their problems relevant to your product or service offerings, already.

If you're selling an inbound marketing platform like HubSpot, for instance, you'd look at how a company is currently trying to drive traffic to its website. Perhaps the company's using banner ads and paid search, which can be costly. Your "in" here would be to bring up these points in the initial conversation - “I noticed that you've been using paid advertising. How well has this been working? Have you been able to hit your traffic goals? Why, or why not?".

The information gleaned before even reaching out can turn you from a salesperson into a consultant. Instead of talking at a prospect, you're starting a problem-solving process that you both have a stake in.

Since you’ve already narrowed down your list of potential people to reach out to, you should also look at these people's personal channels. What are they tweeting about? Are they part of a special-interest group on LinkedIn? It’s all about relevancy -- build an idea of who this person is, and what that person's pain points are within the context of their company's goals, before you reach out to them.

Remember, Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover

Methodology for pre-qualifying prospects differs from salesperson to salesperson, but one important rule of thumb is to never rule out a prospect if you can come up with even one reason they might buy your product. As you research, hypothesize different scenarios a potential prospect might be facing so you can be prepared to address it. Is there any reason they wouldn’t buy your product or service? Is there any reason they couldn't be a potential customer?

There are some cases where, as someone familiar with your industry, you just know a prospect is not workable. Other times, you can prioritize prospects based on likeliness of converting them into a customer. Assign them with a high/medium/low value and organize your time accordingly. Go with your gut on these, but err on the side of caution -- it’s better to send an email and make a call and not have anything come of it than lose a good opportunity. Most of the time you simply cannot know what is going on in a prospect’s head, and the only way to find out is to get him or her on the phone and ask them.

In short -- don’t judge a book by its cover, but make sure to read and analyze what’s right in front of you, too. Knowing as much as you can about a potential prospect before you reach out can save you time and energy by reaching out to the right prospect, with the right message that is tailored to them, at the right time. We are living in the age of context, and using relevant information to create a unique experience for each prospect will yield a more fruitful start to the sales process.

What are some pre-connect researching tips you have when prospecting?

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• Recent Articles
• Sales and market research

Sales and market research – how do they rub along together, if at all?

Article series

Qualitative methods.

• Safety and (dis)comfort in qualitative research
• Predictive qual
• Insight communities – hidden depths
• Brand ethics in pandemic time
• The hidden key to happiness
• Identity conflict

Practising empathy

• Market research vs. UX research

What do the futures of quant and qual methodologies hold?

• Social listening has a long way to go
• What I learned in my first 6 months as a market researcher
• Asking questions that will inspire more transformative insights
• Challenges of qualitative research today - Part 1
• Welcome to the Twatterverse!
• Challenges of qualitative research today - Part 2
• Best practices in writing a discussion guide
• Experience improvement
• The post-pandemic dominance of CRM and UX research

The two disciplines are distant relatives in the world of marketing – they seldom interact. The one (MR) deals more with end-users, consumers, insights-generation; the other (sales) with customers, very often B2B, and is highly operationally focused.

All the more reason to grab the opportunity to explore the interface when the chance arises!

Pascal Schöling is currently a working student with Happy Thinking People’s Berlin Office. He’s been with us for the past five months as part of his studies programme at the Business & Law School Berlin, so he has had time to experience first-hand the realities of MR project work.

Before this, Pascal worked for almost two years as a sales executive for a specialist oil company in Bremen.

We caught up with him to learn more about his view on research - from a sales perspective.

Pascal – you’ve been with H/T/P for a while now. How’s it been?

Really good. I’ve learned a lot. It’s been an extremely interesting time. I’ve got to work on a huge variety of topics and categories. Last week fintech – a couple of weeks ago vacuum cleaners. And I got the opportunity to moderate communities on my own, help develop discussion guides, do expert interviews. All interesting stuff. Pascal Schöling

Quite a contrast to your sales experience, I imagine. Can you tell us more about that?

Sure. Sales roles are very different according to the type of company you’re working for. In a start-up, you’ll be maybe cold-calling for lead generation. My role was with a specialist oil company, looking after existing major accounts. It was very much about having a 360 degree take on the customers’ issues. I was responsible for monitoring changes in the market, developments in the prices of raw ingredients, keeping tabs on stocking situations, that sort of stuff. It was a very different environment from the one I’ve experienced with Happy Thinking People. We had a pretty fixed working routing – customer timelines were key, lab analyses organised, customer specifications checked, orders entered into the system by a certain time to meet a delivery deadline. Once an order was finalised, all checks completed, then you passed over the responsibility to the logistics department - job done. So manageable – and more 9 to 5 hours. With market research, it’s different. Outputs are more customised. There are multiple details that need to be right going into each and every full report, and that requires a high degree of attention to detail. Pascal Schöling

It sounds pretty responsible, maybe even a bit more relaxed than the type of work we have in research. Or how do you see it?

Very different. With research, a client comes to H/T/P with a problem, and that’s the focus: specific, in-depth, clearly delineated. That’s what you deliver on – the briefs are to-the-point, outputs need to be fit-for-purpose. It’s actually more stressful. Pascal Schöling

A deadline is a deadline. And everything needs to be spot-on, analytically rigorous, with no mistakes. That seems to be the norm for all projects—high precision work. I’d say it’s a high-performance environment. But over time – you need to manage the work-life balance. Pascal Schöling

It sounds like research is actually more stressful than sales! Fascinating. I’d have thought it was the other way around 😉

In sales, you need to be on top of things, but with ongoing major clients, it’s about managing relationships, keeping an eye on the whole picture, anticipating pricing impacts delivery situations, keeping in touch with departments like purchasing. Not so ad hoc stressful, I’d say. And more structured in the sense of when tasks need to be performed. Pascal Schöling

Coming back to research, any suggestions for de-stressing? Artificial Intelligence, maybe?

Well, I’m not the person to talk to about what AI can do – but I doubt if it can help much when it comes to people understanding, to be honest. People are complicated. One thing maybe – what I’d guess you’d call division of labour. So, specialists for say visualisation, analysis, or discussion guides. Would speed things up. Pascal Schöling

I’m not Adam Smith but wouldn’t that lead to an even less holistic perspective for people working in MR?

laughs… Sure, maybe – and it requires a certain resource effort, a size of company. So maybe not practical for smaller SME companies. Pascal Schöling

Tell us about the skills you think a market researcher needs.

Empathy, for sure. Analytical ability. And the ability to read between the lines. Pascal Schöling

Anything else?

The ability to go the extra mile over and over again. That’s passion, I guess. And then seeing how things hang together, that’s important. Pascal Schöling

You mention passion – again, a surprising word in a market research context. Can you expand?

As I said, it’s a high-performance environment. You need to be passionate about it to really handle that over the months, I think, to really believe in it, see the value again and again. Pascal Schöling

OK – again, a surprising word in the context of market research, where legacy adjectives were more “dusty” and “number-crunching”. But moving on: culture has a role to play in shaping work environments. How have you found it at Happy Thinking People?

Young, creative, but above all, incredibly free. I’ve never experienced such a free, self-determining environment – you know you have to deliver, but it’s your choice where and when you do that. So, you can say leave at 15.00h but work later on in the week at a time that suits, even if it’s midnight. Your choice. It’s really cool. Pascal Schöling

Fantastic. Moving on quickly and wrapping up: thinking about the image of market research – do you think the industry does a good job at selling itself?

I don’t think many students, or people generally, really know about the sort of work that Happy Thinking People do. My friends, or ex-colleagues, if you’d ask them about market research, they’d likely think about a few questions over the phone, something like that. Pascal Schöling

Would you think that needs correcting?

Yes and no. Maybe it’s cool that there’s a certain mystique that remains. I mean, if you see a cool Nike film, you don’t really want to know how it’s made, do you? Pascal Schöling

😂 No, probably not. Pascal, thanks for your time.

Pascal’s sales-informed perspective on the world of MR reveals a topsy-turvy worldview – market research can actually be more stressful than some sales jobs! The role Pascal described has clear structures, defined going home times, orderly processes. Research with Happy Thinking People at least allows high degrees of freedom, with massive variety, but can be demanding.

It’s food for thought.

Tomorrow’s generation often talks about not replicating the work-until-you-drop mindset of their parents. Maybe research needs to look for ways to play to the positives, but ensuring a work-life balance is realistic.

Edward Appleton

Edward Appleton is Chief Marketing Officer with Happy Thinking People in Berlin. Edward has worked for over 20 years in market research on both Agency and client side. Prior to his current role, Edward was Senior Insights Manager with Coca-Cola in Berlin; before that he was European Insights Manager at Avery Dennison. He started his career with Mass Observation UK, which he left to join the Insights team at Nestle UK. He blogs regularly at  https://researchandreflect.blogspot.com . Edward is bi-cultural English/ German, speaks fluent French.

Pascal Schöling

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Home Market Research

What is Research: Definition, Methods, Types & Examples

The search for knowledge is closely linked to the object of study; that is, to the reconstruction of the facts that will provide an explanation to an observed event and that at first sight can be considered as a problem. It is very human to seek answers and satisfy our curiosity. Let’s talk about research.

Content Index

What is Research?

What are the characteristics of research.

• Comparative analysis chart

Qualitative methods

Quantitative methods, 8 tips for conducting accurate research.

Research is the careful consideration of study regarding a particular concern or research problem using scientific methods. According to the American sociologist Earl Robert Babbie, “research is a systematic inquiry to describe, explain, predict, and control the observed phenomenon. It involves inductive and deductive methods.”

Inductive methods analyze an observed event, while deductive methods verify the observed event. Inductive approaches are associated with qualitative research , and deductive methods are more commonly associated with quantitative analysis .

Research is conducted with a purpose to:

• Identify potential and new customers
• Understand existing customers
• Set pragmatic goals
• Develop productive market strategies
• Address business challenges
• Put together a business expansion plan
• Identify new business opportunities
• Good research follows a systematic approach to capture accurate data. Researchers need to practice ethics and a code of conduct while making observations or drawing conclusions.
• The analysis is based on logical reasoning and involves both inductive and deductive methods.
• Real-time data and knowledge is derived from actual observations in natural settings.
• There is an in-depth analysis of all data collected so that there are no anomalies associated with it.
• It creates a path for generating new questions. Existing data helps create more research opportunities.
• It is analytical and uses all the available data so that there is no ambiguity in inference.
• Accuracy is one of the most critical aspects of research. The information must be accurate and correct. For example, laboratories provide a controlled environment to collect data. Accuracy is measured in the instruments used, the calibrations of instruments or tools, and the experiment’s final result.

What is the purpose of research?

There are three main purposes:

• Exploratory: As the name suggests, researchers conduct exploratory studies to explore a group of questions. The answers and analytics may not offer a conclusion to the perceived problem. It is undertaken to handle new problem areas that haven’t been explored before. This exploratory data analysis process lays the foundation for more conclusive data collection and analysis.

LEARN ABOUT: Descriptive Analysis

• Descriptive: It focuses on expanding knowledge on current issues through a process of data collection. Descriptive research describe the behavior of a sample population. Only one variable is required to conduct the study. The three primary purposes of descriptive studies are describing, explaining, and validating the findings. For example, a study conducted to know if top-level management leaders in the 21st century possess the moral right to receive a considerable sum of money from the company profit.

LEARN ABOUT: Best Data Collection Tools

• Explanatory: Causal research or explanatory research is conducted to understand the impact of specific changes in existing standard procedures. Running experiments is the most popular form. For example, a study that is conducted to understand the effect of rebranding on customer loyalty.

Here is a comparative analysis chart for a better understanding:

It begins by asking the right questions and choosing an appropriate method to investigate the problem. After collecting answers to your questions, you can analyze the findings or observations to draw reasonable conclusions.

When it comes to customers and market studies, the more thorough your questions, the better the analysis. You get essential insights into brand perception and product needs by thoroughly collecting customer data through surveys and questionnaires . You can use this data to make smart decisions about your marketing strategies to position your business effectively.

To make sense of your study and get insights faster, it helps to use a research repository as a single source of truth in your organization and manage your research data in one centralized data repository .

Types of research methods and Examples

Research methods are broadly classified as Qualitative and Quantitative .

Both methods have distinctive properties and data collection methods.

Qualitative research is a method that collects data using conversational methods, usually open-ended questions . The responses collected are essentially non-numerical. This method helps a researcher understand what participants think and why they think in a particular way.

Types of qualitative methods include:

• One-to-one Interview
• Focus Groups
• Ethnographic studies
• Text Analysis

Quantitative methods deal with numbers and measurable forms . It uses a systematic way of investigating events or data. It answers questions to justify relationships with measurable variables to either explain, predict, or control a phenomenon.

Types of quantitative methods include:

• Survey research
• Descriptive research
• Correlational research

LEARN MORE: Descriptive Research vs Correlational Research

Remember, it is only valuable and useful when it is valid, accurate, and reliable. Incorrect results can lead to customer churn and a decrease in sales.

It is essential to ensure that your data is:

• Valid – founded, logical, rigorous, and impartial.
• Accurate – free of errors and including required details.
• Reliable – other people who investigate in the same way can produce similar results.
• Timely – current and collected within an appropriate time frame.
• Complete – includes all the data you need to support your business decisions.

Gather insights

• Identify the main trends and issues, opportunities, and problems you observe. Write a sentence describing each one.
• Keep track of the frequency with which each of the main findings appears.
• Make a list of your findings from the most common to the least common.
• Evaluate a list of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats identified in a SWOT analysis .
• Prepare conclusions and recommendations about your study.
• Act on your strategies
• Look for gaps in the information, and consider doing additional inquiry if necessary
• Plan to review the results and consider efficient methods to analyze and interpret results.

Review your goals before making any conclusions about your study. Remember how the process you have completed and the data you have gathered help answer your questions. Ask yourself if what your analysis revealed facilitates the identification of your conclusions and recommendations.

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Why Sales and Marketing Have to Work Together if You Want to Win

Learn how to create a strong partnership between two critical business teams to drive results.

Daniel Disney

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On your marks. Get set. Go! Your marketing and sales teams are off and running — one of them conducting customer research and running ads and the other finding and nurturing prospects.

Wait a minute. Doesn’t that mean both of them are bringing in leads? How do you know leads which to go with — or which are best fits for your product? If you want your marketing and sales teams to reach the finish line together, they need to collaborate — not work at cross purposes.

Here’s how your marketing team can pass the baton to sales for powerful results, from the bang! of the starter’s gun to the breaking of the tape.

What you’ll learn:

Sales and marketing: a side-by-side comparison, sales and marketing scopes: what’s the difference, sales and marketing roles, how sales and marketing can work together for bigger wins, sales and marketing: methods and strategies, sales and marketing tools and resources, engage and close prospects from everywhere.

Pull up CRM data for prospects even when you’re engaging with them outside your CRM — whether on social or online. 

Marketing and sales — two separate departments with distinct roles and responsibilities. However, savvy businesses know that to generate demand and close deals, you need to break down the teams’ silos and get them working together.

Let’s compare marketing and sales to see what they are, how they operate, and how you can get both teams aligned.

What is marketing?

Marketing is the team that handles brand and product promotion, generating interest with new and existing audiences. Marketers use research to identify a target audience, create and communicate value, and drive customer action. They aim to build brand awareness and increase demand for your product or service. Ultimately, they are tasked with finding the right leads to hand off to sales.

Marketing goals and process

Marketing uses existing customer data and target buyer behavior research to create targeted campaigns that generate interest in your brand, product, or service.

To create demand, marketers follow the four Ps of marketing: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Also sometimes referred to as the “marketing mix,” this is the framework for successfully promoting a product.

• Product: What you offer and its unique ability to solve customer needs. Marketers help articulate this and share product, brand, or service details with the target audience.
• Price: The perceived worth of your product, balancing profitability with customer appeal. Armed with competitive and marketing research, marketers explain pricing structures in a way that will create perceived value.
• Place: Where and how customers access your product. Target demographic data tells marketing teams where they should invest their budget. Print? Digital? Video? Where can they best place those advertisements so they reach the best leads?
• Promotion: Getting the word out about your product’s value and generating excitement through various channels. This is where the rubber meets the road, and messaging plus channel comes through.

( Back to top )

What is sales?

Sales is responsible for selling to prospects and customers — often leads delivered to them by marketing — nurturing customer relationships, and closing deals. They also expand revenue generation through upselling and cross-selling .

Sales goals and process

After marketing has done their job attracting interest, sales takes the baton (that is, the leads generated from marketing campaigns). From here, they handle every stage of the sales process — a set of steps sales teams follow to complete a deal. A good sales process is:

• Customer-centric: Aligns to customer buying habits and processes, leading to higher success and satisfaction
• Clear and actionable: Ensures stakeholders understand every step in the process, minimizing confusion and delays
• Replicable: Allows consistent performance and scaling across the sales teams, easy to follow, and easy to apply to different scenarios
• Predictable: Enables informed resource allocation and risk mitigation by redefining expected outcomes for each stage
• Goal-oriented: Provides direction and keeps motivation focused on results and goal achievement
• Measurable: Tracks progress, identifies areas for improvement, and demonstrates value; sales teams ensure every action in the sales process is quantifiable
• Flexible: Adapts to market changes and unforeseen circumstances such as customer needs, digital transformation, and sales operations improvement

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Based on what you’ve learned so far, it might sound as if marketing and sales work best separately. A closer look at their scopes reveals how they work together.

As we said earlier, marketing’s job is to generate interest. They do this through advertising, social media campaigns, content marketing efforts, and more. The sales scope is similar but focuses on interactions with individual people or buying groups. For both B2B and B2C, the traditional sales funnel incorporates a top, middle, and bottom section. Via collaboration, the marketing and sales teams want to quickly move prospects from the top of the funnel to the bottom. Let’s take a closer look at what that means.

Top of the funnel: awareness and interest

This is typically marketing’s domain. Marketing’s goal is to build brand recognition with valuable content and engaging storytelling. This attracts a broad audience that might be a good fit for the brand.

To accomplish this, marketing casts a wide net that catches all targets within their ideal customer profile (ICP, aka buyer persona ). This way, their pipeline is always loaded with prospects.

Brand building is a long-term strategy that primes the lead generation pump for the sales team. By providing valuable information and insights via thought leadership articles, interviews, and social storytelling, marketers help potential customers understand how your product or service can be the solution to their most pressing problems. This builds trust and credibility, encouraging lead outreach while also making the sales conversation more effective later.

Middle of the funnel: consideration and intent to buy

Here is where the hand-off between sales and marketing happens. Marketing did the work to attract and warm up leads for sales.

Now, sales works with qualified leads who have shown some interest by taking an action, like downloading an e-book or requesting a demo. They aren’t ready to purchase quite yet. The objective is to nurture the leads and position your product as the best solution.

Bottom of the funnel: evaluation and purchase

Everything at the bottom of the funnel is sales’ purview. When customers are ready to make a decision, sales reps close the deal through effective negotiation, problem-solving, finalizing contracts, and building strong customer relationships.

Next, let’s explore the various strategies each team uses to achieve their objectives.

While sales teams focus on converting interest into immediate purchases, marketing plays the longer game. Marketing has a team of experts dedicated to the customer journey. Their efforts laid the groundwork for the sales team to make their final push toward conversion.

Marketing and sales teams come in all shapes and sizes. Here are some of their titles and responsibilities.

The two sides carry different titles and responsibilities, but they are all team members working toward the same revenue goals.

Customers use multiple channels and platforms, absorbing information in different formats and interacting with sales and marketing simultaneously. If both departments continue to work separately, it will always be at the cost of the customer and their experience. Here’s how to bring it together:

Look at the full funnel

Let’s say a potential customer spots your social ad while scrolling through Instagram and sees it on a billboard while driving home. They visit your website or physical storefront. Finally, they decide to contact your business and get in touch with a sales rep. If all those experiences are not seamless and consistent, you risk losing a qualified lead .

A full-funnel strategy helps you manage the complex, non-linear customer journey when:

• Marketing teams generate qualified leads through targeted content and campaigns, making the sales team’s job easier.
• Sales teams provide valuable feedback to marketing about customer needs and objections, helping to shape future content and messaging.
• Data analysis reveals which channels are most effective for converting leads, making resource allocation and campaign optimization easier.

Full-funnel, holistic strategies work because they create a unified approach to customer engagement, turning potential customers into loyal brand advocates. According to a Nielsen report, businesses that invest in full-funnel strategies can see 45% higher ROI.

Team up to serve your customers

According to our research, 87% of buyers expect sales reps to act as trusted advisors. Businesses that want to meet and exceed those expectations need marketing and sales teams to work together. When reps share insights and guidance on which products deliver the best value with marketing, they can serve the target audience more relevant ads. And vice-versa: If marketing sees engagement in ads showcasing specific messaging, they can share this with sales to leverage during sales calls.

Create shared goals and objectives

Marketing and sales share business goals. It can be deceiving if you look at the teams in their silos. But in practice, marketing generates new leads, while the sales team works to close those leads. Both activities drive revenue together. So how do you ensure alignment? Here are things to keep in mind when you want to align your teams:

• If the leaders aren’t aligned, the team will never be aligned. You can accomplish this by developing shared definitions and criteria for leads, MQLs (marketing-qualified leads), SQLs (sales-qualified leads), opportunities, and customers. Use each other’s customer data, analytics, and field research to build customer personas visible to the entire team.
• Present both teams’ goals as shared goals. For example, the marketing goal of generating new leads becomes “generating new qualified leads that the sales team can close.”
• Bring marketing and sales teams together in as many ways as possible. It should include running monthly meetings and conducting shared training sessions. Be sure there’s ample opportunity to share insights.
• Lean on technology. Automation tools help sales teams keep up with customer behaviors and create data-based strategies, such as objective lead prioritization. Forget subjective opinions and gut feelings. The system assigns numerical values to potential customers based on quantifiable data. The data, including website visits, downloaded content, and past interactions, predicts the likelihood of a lead converting into a paying customer. This is just the beginning of what tech can do to help; we’ll tackle more below.

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Sellers’ strategies are rooted in helping buyers solve their challenges and nurture authentic relationships. The goal of marketing strategies is to get more qualified leads into the pipeline. Let’s take a look at how they break down:

Once again, it appears as if these departments have separate agendas. Marketing wants to attract and keep customers’ attention. Sales teams want to lead customers to make a purchase. They simply need to pass the baton when leads are ready. However, to make and exceed revenue goals, both teams’ strategies must be based on the same information: What is the target audience, and what are they looking for?

Marketing and sales tools have advanced with the speed of technology. We can seamlessly integrate data and research to create better communication, enhance productivity, streamline processes, and grow revenue.

Here are some of the different marketing and sales tools available for business leaders and how their functions enable their marketing and sales teams’ performances.

A closer look at tools sales and marketing use together

There are certain tools both marketing and sales use to get the job done. Here are a few of the top ones to consider:

Your CRM is one of the most powerful resources in your business toolbox. The right CRM can integrate all the marketing and sales tools discussed above into one easily managed platform. Marketing uses CRM data to build messaging campaigns for ads, for example, and pulls new leads into the CRM. Then, sales dives in with outreach and sales calls, moving those leads to close.

Email management software

With email marketing platforms, marketing can send targeted campaigns to contacts culled from online research or via third-party contact list purchases. Once a lead has shown interest, sales can prioritize them with tags, continue outreach, and track email engagement via opens and clicks. Generative AI can be a big help here; you can automate personalized emails and schedule follow-ups in one click.

Partner relationship management

Partner relationship management software (PRM) helps marketing and sales connect with partners — distributors, resellers, affiliates, and more — in one location. The centralized hub encourages seamless interactions where partners can find branded assets, training materials, and more.

Partners stay updated on the latest, relevant content to help you grow revenue. Of course, a tool is only as good as the craftsman using it.

Build alignment between sales and marketing

Both teams are critical to your businesses and depend on each other to drive growth and revenue. Companies with marketing and sales teams that work together gain a serious edge, offering a consistent and positive experience that builds trust and loyalty, creating more satisfied customers and higher revenue.

Want to take the #1 CRM for a test drive?

Go on our Guided Tour to see how Sales Cloud boosts productivity at every stage of the sales cycle. 

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Lead Research Meaning: What Goes Into a Qualified Lead?

by Joe Flanagan | July 12, 2021 | Sales Culture

Your company might offer the perfect product or service and have an incredible sales pitch, but the value of your outbound sales teams is only as good as the people they are calling upon. Lead research is critical for ensuring that the lists you are calling on are actually qualified towards your business, meaning more closes and more deals come from people who are genuinely interested in what your business has to offer.

What is the lead research meaning of the word, and how does it apply to your company? We explore how this practice influences our business.

Lead Research: Meaning and Methods

In the world of B2B lead generation, there are typically two methods employed for lead research: a dedicated lead researcher, or integrating lead research methodology into an existing sales team. A dedicated lead researcher is a role specifically designed to go through large lists, cleansing and enriching the data to keep all of the information therein relevant.

While we have provided this service to clients in the past, we prefer to integrate lead research methods directly into our teams. This ensures that the needs of a client aren’t siloed to a particular department – our SDRs and BDRs directly understand what a good lead is, and calibrate the lists themselves.

The process of lead research looks different to every B2B lead generation company, but the fundamentals are shared. What does sales prospecting research look like?

B2B Sales Prospecting Research

In order to net prospects, lead generation services typically purchase lists of leads. These lists can vary in quality, and are typically sorted by company, company size, position of contact, industry, location, and other variables. To determine the quality of these lists, they must be compared against your ideal buyer persona.

Once a list has been purchased, several techniques can be deployed to find the right contacts. We examine some of those methods below.

Data Cleansing

Typically, any purchased list of leads is already outdated by the time that it falls into your hands. This is the nature of list-purchasing – as time progresses, positions change, people enter and leave companies, and businesses fundamentally change their models to reflect an evolving economy.

To ensure that the right people are being contacted at all times, data cleansing weeds out outdated information

Data Enrichment

A list of leads can be quite large – to find the right groups to call upon, most companies use a process called data enrichment. This involves filling in missing gaps in a list of leads, and adds context to the data that is provided in the list.

Why Purchase Lists?

Why do we purchase lists instead of generating leads from research? In short: time and payoff. Doing all of the research by hand can provide extremely accurate leads, but comes at a tremendous cost in terms of resource usage and labor. Using lists and calibrating them to individual programs produces much better payout.

How Acquirent Approaches Lead Research & our Meaning of Lead Generation Success

Each of our teams includes salespeople that are dedicated to your account, as well as a manager who oversees operations and helps with reporting and strategy. Our lead research is done as part of our prospecting process, meaning that as we call upon more clients, we can understand the overall efficacy of a given list and adjust our strategy to determine a list’s efficacy.

The best way to determine the quality of leads on a list is to simply call in. We use a data subscription model that provides us with lists of contacts. From there, our SDRS, BDRs, and dedicated sales reps go about the task of cleansing and enriching data

The best lead generation services can’t simply buy a list of contacts and hope for the best – they must strategically go about the process of evaluating the data, and make sound decisions based on the information they have. At Acquirent, we understand that you can’t simply “hope for the best” but actively work towards calling on prospects that are interested in your services. Contact us today for more information about our services.

Depending on the target buyer persona, this task can be more arduous for some accounts. A product or service that is generally targeted towards a type of business might have significantly more qualified leads than one geographically targeted towards a specific region or unique type of business.

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Sales control research or sales research.

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Sales Control Research or Sales Research!

Marketing management depends heavily on Sales Control Research (Sales Research) for formulating marketing policies, planning and controlling marketing operation. Sales Control Research is the identification and measurement of all those variables which individually and in combination have an effect on sales.

Sales Control Research comprises substantial proportion of research work conducted by various companies’ marketing research departments. This encompasses the marketing studies pertaining to sales forecasting, market potentials, market share analysis, and determination of market characteristics and sales analysis.

These are the four most common sales control research activities undertaken by a marketing research department of a company. Sales Control Research heavily relies on secondary data and expert opinion. Techniques such as multiple regression analysis, multiple discriminant analysis, factor analysis and cluster analysis are widely used in such studies.

Most of the research activities of marketing research departments of companies is confined to market and sales analysis studies.

But following are most common activities undertaken by marketing research units:

Marketing intelligence is responsible for examining published information maintaining full records of sales and customer activity by the maintenance of company records and by means of field research and information supplied by salesmen and advertising agencies provides a balanced information flow to formulate suitable and effective marketing strategies.

Market analysis is undertaken to reveal a set of geographical sales potential the maximum possible sales opportunities, for all sellers of product or service in a specific area. Market potentials refer to total sales possibilities and sales forecast refers to possible units of sale of a product by a seller.

It may be noted that market potential is not the same thing as sales potential and sales forecast. Generally, the industry sales forecast will be less than its sales potential. Likewise, a company’s sales force cost will be less than its sales potential. The former is a point estimate of the future sales, while the latter represents a boundary condition which the sales might reach in an ideal solution.

In the latter sense, sales potential is to firm what market potential is to an industry or product class: both represent maximum demand response and are boundary conditions. Depending upon the sales potential existing in each sales territory, we can design the trade channels keeping in view the sales potential figures.

Sales Analysis:

Means actual analysis of sales-results according to the product, customer, order size and territory. The objective of sales analysis is to find out the areas of strengths and weaknesses. The maximum and lowest volume of sales in accordance with the product, territory customers and order size can be revealed by sales analysis.

Sales analysis provides information about areas where sales performance has been good or bad.

Related Articles:

• Marketing Research: Scope, Advantage and Limitations |Marketing Management
• Market Research and Marketing Research |Difference

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