how to do a market research for a product

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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Market research is the systematic process of gathering, analyzing and interpreting information about a specific market or industry.

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?

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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How to do market research: The complete guide for your brand

Written by by Jacqueline Zote

Published on  April 13, 2023

Reading time  10 minutes

Blindly putting out content or products and hoping for the best is a thing of the past. Not only is it a waste of time and energy, but you’re wasting valuable marketing dollars in the process. Now you have a wealth of tools and data at your disposal, allowing you to develop data-driven marketing strategies . That’s where market research comes in, allowing you to uncover valuable insights to inform your business decisions.

Conducting market research not only helps you better understand how to sell to customers but also stand out from your competition. In this guide, we break down everything you need to know about market research and how doing your homework can help you grow your business.

Table of contents:

What is market research?

Why is market research important, types of market research, where to conduct market research.

• Steps for conducting market research
• Tools to use for market research

Market research is the process of gathering information surrounding your business opportunities. It identifies key information to better understand your audience. This includes insights related to customer personas and even trends shaping your industry.

Taking time out of your schedule to conduct research is crucial for your brand health. Here are some of the key benefits of market research:

Understand your customers’ motivations and pain points

Most marketers are out of touch with what their customers want. Moreover, these marketers are missing key information on what products their audience wants to buy.

Simply put, you can’t run a business if you don’t know what motivates your customers.

And spoiler alert: Your customers’ wants and needs change. Your customers’ behaviors today might be night and day from what they were a few years ago.

Market research holds the key to understanding your customers better. It helps you uncover their key pain points and motivations and understand how they shape their interests and behavior.

Figure out how to position your brand

Positioning is becoming increasingly important as more and more brands enter the marketplace. Market research enables you to spot opportunities to define yourself against your competitors.

Maybe you’re able to emphasize a lower price point. Perhaps your product has a feature that’s one of a kind. Finding those opportunities goes hand in hand with researching your market.

Maintain a strong pulse on your industry at large

Today’s marketing world evolves at a rate that’s difficult to keep up with.

Fresh products. Up-and-coming brands. New marketing tools. Consumers get bombarded with sales messages from all angles. This can be confusing and overwhelming.

By monitoring market trends, you can figure out the best tactics for reaching your target audience.

Not everyone conducts market research for the same reason. While some may want to understand their audience better, others may want to see how their competitors are doing. As such, there are different types of market research you can conduct depending on your goal.

Interview-based market research allows for one-on-one interactions. This helps the conversation to flow naturally, making it easier to add context. Whether this takes place in person or virtually, it enables you to gather more in-depth qualitative data.

Buyer persona research

Buyer persona research lets you take a closer look at the people who make up your target audience. You can discover the needs, challenges and pain points of each buyer persona to understand what they need from your business. This will then allow you to craft products or campaigns to resonate better with each persona.

Pricing research

In this type of research, brands compare similar products or services with a particular focus on pricing. They look at how much those products or services typically sell for so they can get more competitive with their pricing strategy.

Competitive analysis research

Competitor analysis gives you a realistic understanding of where you stand in the market and how your competitors are doing. You can use this analysis to find out what’s working in your industry and which competitors to watch out for. It even gives you an idea of how well those competitors are meeting consumer needs.

Depending on the competitor analysis tool you use, you can get as granular as you need with your research. For instance, Sprout Social lets you analyze your competitors’ social strategies. You can see what types of content they’re posting and even benchmark your growth against theirs.

Brand awareness research

Conducting brand awareness research allows you to assess your brand’s standing in the market. It tells you how well-known your brand is among your target audience and what they associate with it. This can help you gauge people’s sentiments toward your brand and whether you need to rebrand or reposition.

If you don’t know where to start with your research, you’re in the right place.

There’s no shortage of market research methods out there. In this section, we’ve highlighted research channels for small and big businesses alike.

Considering that Google sees a staggering 8.5 billion searches each day, there’s perhaps no better place to start.

A quick Google search is a potential goldmine for all sorts of questions to kick off your market research. Who’s ranking for keywords related to your industry? Which products and pieces of content are the hottest right now? Who’s running ads related to your business?

For example, Google Product Listing Ads can help highlight all of the above for B2C brands.

The same applies to B2B brands looking to keep tabs on who’s running industry-related ads and ranking for keyword terms too.

There’s no denying that email represents both an aggressive and effective marketing channel for marketers today. Case in point, 44% of online shoppers consider email as the most influential channel in their buying decisions.

Looking through industry and competitor emails is a brilliant way to learn more about your market. For example, what types of offers and deals are your competitors running? How often are they sending emails?

Email is also invaluable for gathering information directly from your customers. This survey message from Asana is a great example of how to pick your customers’ brains to figure out how you can improve your quality of service.

Industry journals, reports and blogs

Don’t neglect the importance of big-picture market research when it comes to tactics and marketing channels to explore. Look to marketing resources such as reports and blogs as well as industry journals

Keeping your ear to the ground on new trends and technologies is a smart move for any business. Sites such as Statista, Marketing Charts, AdWeek and Emarketer are treasure troves of up-to-date data and news for marketers.

And of course, there’s the  Sprout Insights blog . And invaluable resources like The Sprout Social Index™  can keep you updated on the latest social trends.

Social media

If you want to learn more about your target market, look no further than social media. Social offers a place to discover what your customers want to see in future products or which brands are killin’ it. In fact, social media is become more important for businesses than ever with the level of data available.

It represents a massive repository of real-time data and insights that are instantly accessible. Brand monitoring and social listening are effective ways to conduct social media research . You can even be more direct with your approach. Ask questions directly or even poll your audience to understand their needs and preferences.

The 5 steps for how to do market research

Now that we’ve covered the why and where, it’s time to get into the practical aspects of market research. Here are five essential steps on how to do market research effectively.

Step 1: Identify your research topic

First off, what are you researching about? What do you want to find out? Narrow down on a specific research topic so you can start with a clear idea of what to look for.

For example, you may want to learn more about how well your product features are satisfying the needs of existing users. This might potentially lead to feature updates and improvements. Or it might even result in new feature introductions.

Similarly, your research topic may be related to your product or service launch or customer experience. Or you may want to conduct research for an upcoming marketing campaign.

Step 2: Choose a buyer persona to engage

If you’re planning to focus your research on a specific type of audience, decide which buyer persona you want to engage. This persona group will serve as a representative sample of your target audience.

Engaging a specific group of audience lets you streamline your research efforts. As such, it can be a much more effective and organized approach than researching thousands (if not millions) of individuals.

You may be directing your research toward existing users of your product. To get even more granular, you may want to focus on users who have been familiar with the product for at least a year, for example.

Step 3: Start collecting data

The next step is one of the most critical as it involves collecting the data you need for your research. Before you begin, make sure you’ve chosen the right research methods that will uncover the type of data you need. This largely depends on your research topic and goals.

Remember that you don’t necessarily have to stick to one research method. You may use a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches. So for example, you could use interviews to supplement the data from your surveys. Or you may stick to insights from your social listening efforts.

To keep things consistent, let’s look at this in the context of the example from earlier. Perhaps you can send out a survey to your existing users asking them a bunch of questions. This might include questions like which features they use the most and how often they use them. You can get them to choose an answer from one to five and collect quantitative data.

Plus, for qualitative insights, you could even include a few open-ended questions with the option to write their answers. For instance, you might ask them if there’s any improvement they wish to see in your product.

Step 4: Analyze results

Once you have all the data you need, it’s time to analyze it keeping your research topic in mind. This involves trying to interpret the data to look for a wider meaning, particularly in relation to your research goal.

So let’s say a large percentage of responses were four or five in the satisfaction rating. This means your existing users are mostly satisfied with your current product features. On the other hand, if the responses were mostly ones and twos, you may look for opportunities to improve. The responses to your open-ended questions can give you further context as to why people are disappointed.

Step 5: Make decisions for your business

Now it’s time to take your findings and turn them into actionable insights for your business. In this final step, you need to decide how you want to move forward with your new market insight.

What did you find in your research that would require action? How can you put those findings to good use?

The market research tools you should be using

To wrap things up, let’s talk about the various tools available to conduct speedy, in-depth market research. These tools are essential for conducting market research faster and more efficiently.

Social listening and analytics

Social analytics tools like Sprout can help you keep track of engagement across social media. This goes beyond your own engagement data but also includes that of your competitors. Considering how quickly social media moves, using a third-party analytics tool is ideal. It allows you to make sense of your social data at a glance and ensure that you’re never missing out on important trends.

Email marketing research tools

Keeping track of brand emails is a good idea for any brand looking to stand out in its audience’s inbox.

Tools such as MailCharts ,  Really Good Emails  and  Milled  can show you how different brands run their email campaigns.

Meanwhile, tools like  Owletter  allow you to monitor metrics such as frequency and send-timing. These metrics can help you understand email marketing strategies among competing brands.

Content marketing research

If you’re looking to conduct research on content marketing, tools such as  BuzzSumo  can be of great help. This tool shows you the top-performing industry content based on keywords. Here you can see relevant industry sites and influencers as well as which brands in your industry are scoring the most buzz. It shows you exactly which pieces of content are ranking well in terms of engagements and shares and on which social networks.

SEO and keyword tracking

Monitoring industry keywords is a great way to uncover competitors. It can also help you discover opportunities to advertise your products via organic search. Tools such as  Ahrefs  provide a comprehensive keyword report to help you see how your search efforts stack up against the competition.

Competitor comparison template

For the sake of organizing your market research, consider creating a competitive matrix. The idea is to highlight how you stack up side-by-side against others in your market. Use a  social media competitive analysis template  to track your competitors’ social presence. That way, you can easily compare tactics, messaging and performance. Once you understand your strengths and weaknesses next to your competitors, you’ll find opportunities as well.

Customer persona creator

Finally, customer personas represent a place where all of your market research comes together. You’d need to create a profile of your ideal customer that you can easily refer to. Tools like  Xtensio  can help in outlining your customer motivations and demographics as you zero in on your target market.

Build a solid market research strategy

Having a deeper understanding of the market gives you leverage in a sea of competitors. Use the steps and market research tools we shared above to build an effective market research strategy.

But keep in mind that the accuracy of your research findings depends on the quality of data collected. Turn to Sprout’s social media analytics tools to uncover heaps of high-quality data across social networks.

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How to Conduct Market Research for a Startup

• 17 Mar 2022

With every innovative product idea comes the pressing question: “Will people want to buy it?”

As an entrepreneur with a big idea, what’s the best way to determine how potential customers will react to your product? Conducting market research can provide the data needed to decide whether your product fits your target market.

Before launching a new venture, you should understand market research. Here’s how to conduct market research for a startup and why it’s important.

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What Is Market Research?

Market research is the process of gathering information about customers and the market as a whole to determine a product or service’s viability. Market research includes interviews, surveys, focus groups, and industry data analyses.

The goal of market research is to better understand potential customers, how well your product or service fits their needs, and how it compares to competitors’ offerings.

There are two types of research you can conduct: primary and secondary.

• Primary research requires collecting data to learn about your specific customers or target market segment. It’s useful for creating buyer personas, segmenting your market, and improving your product to cater to customers’ needs .
• Secondary research is conducted using data you didn’t collect yourself. Industry reports, public databases, and other companies’ proprietary data can be used to gain insights into your target market segment and industry.

Why Is Market Research Important for Entrepreneurs?

Before launching your venture, it’s wise to conduct market research to ensure your product or service will be well received. Feedback from people who fall into your target demographics can be invaluable as you iterate on and improve your product.

Performing market research can also help you determine a pricing strategy by gauging customers’ willingness to pay for your product. Additionally, it can improve the user experience by revealing what features matter most to potential customers.

When assessing which startups to fund, investors place heavy importance on thorough market research that indicates promising potential. Providing tangible proof that your product fulfills a market need and demonstrating you’ve taken the time to iterate on and improve it signal that your startup could be a worthwhile investment.

Related: How to Talk to Potential Investors: 5 Tips

How to Do Market Research for a Startup

1. form hypotheses.

What questions do you aim to answer through market research? Using those questions, you can make predictions called hypotheses . Defining your hypotheses upfront can help guide your approach to selecting subjects, researching questions, and testing designs.

An example question you may ask is: “How much are people in my target demographic willing to pay for the current version of my product?” Your hypothesis could be: “If my product contains all its current features, customers will be willing to pay $500 for it.”

Another example question you may ask is: “What’s the user’s biggest pain point, and is my product meeting their needs?” Your hypothesis could be: “I believe the user’s biggest pain point is needing an easy, unintimidating way to learn basic car maintenance, and I predict that my product meets that need.”

You can and should test multiple hypotheses, but try to select no more than a few per test, so the research stays focused.

Related: A Beginner’s Guide to Hypothesis Testing in Business

2. Select the Type of Research Needed to Test Hypotheses

Once you’ve formed your hypotheses, determine which type of research to conduct.

If your hypotheses focus on determining your startup’s place in the broader market, start with secondary research. This can include using existing data to determine market size, how much of that market your startup could reasonably own, who your biggest competitors are, and how your brand and product compare to theirs.

If your hypotheses require primary research, decide which data collection method best fits your needs. These can include one-on-one interviews, surveys, focus groups, and polls. Primary research allows you to gather insights into customer satisfaction and loyalty, brand awareness and perception, and real-time product usability.

3. Identify Target Demographics and Recruit Subjects

To gather meaningful insights, you need to understand your target demographic. Do you aim to cater to working parents, young athletes, or pet owners? Determine the type of person who can benefit from your product.

If you conduct primary research, you need to recruit subjects. This can be done in several ways, including:

• Word of mouth: The simplest but least reliable way to recruit participants is by word of mouth. Ask people you know to refer others to be research subjects, then screen them to confirm they fit your target demographic.
• Promoting the study on social media: Many social media platforms enable you to show an ad to people who fall into specific demographic categories or have certain interests. This allows you to get the word out to a large number of people who qualify.
• Hiring a third-party market research company: Some companies provide full market research services and recruit participants and conduct research on your behalf.

However you recruit subjects, ensure they take a screener survey beforehand, which allows you to determine whether they fit the specific demographic you want to study or have a trait that eliminates them from the research pool. It also provides demographic data—such as age and race—that enables you to select a diverse subset of your target demographic.

In addition, you can offer compensation to boost participation, such as money, meal vouchers, gift cards, or early access to your product. Make it clear that compensation is in appreciation for subjects’ time and honest feedback.

4. Conduct the Research

Once you’ve determined the type of research and target demographic necessary to test your hypotheses, conduct your research. To reduce bias, enlist someone unfamiliar with your hypotheses to perform interviews or lead focus groups.

Ask questions based on your audience and hypotheses. For instance, if you’re aiming to test existing customers’ purchase motivations, you may ask: “What challenge were you trying to solve when you first bought the product?”

If examining brand perception, your audience should consist of potential customers who don’t yet know your brand. Present them with a list of competitor logos—with yours in the mix—and ask them to rank the brands by perceived reliability.

While the questions you ask are vehicles to prove or disprove hypotheses, ensure they don’t lead subjects in one direction. To craft unbiased research questions , use neutral language and vary the order of options in multiple-choice questions. This can keep subjects from selecting the same option each time if they sense the third option is always mapped to a certain outcome. It also helps account for primacy bias (the tendency to select the first option in a list) and recency bias (the tendency to select the final option in a list).

Once you’ve collected data, ensure it’s organized efficiently and securely so you can protect subjects’ identities .

Related: 3 Examples of Bad Survey Questions and How to Fix Them

5. Gather Insights and Determine Action Items

After you’ve organized your data, analyze it to extract actionable insights. While some of the data will be qualitative rather than quantitative, you can detect patterns in responses to make it quantifiable. For instance, noting that 15 of 20 subjects mentioned feeling overwhelmed when attempting to assemble your product.

Once you’ve analyzed the data and communicated emerging trends using data visualizations , outline action items.

If the majority of users in your target demographic reported feeling overwhelmed while assembling your product, action items might include:

• Creating different versions of assembly instructions to test with other groups, varying diagrams and instructional language
• Researching instruction manual best practices

Each round of market research can offer more information about how your product is perceived and experienced by potential users.

Market Research as an Ongoing Endeavor

While it’s useful to conduct market research before launching your product, you should revisit your hypotheses and form new ones over the course of building your venture.

By conducting market research with each version of your product, you can gradually improve it and ensure it continues to fit target customers’ needs.

Are you interested in bolstering your entrepreneurship skills? Explore our four-week online course Entrepreneurship Essentials and our other entrepreneurship and innovation courses to learn to speak the language of the startup world.

About the Author

How to do Market Research: a Step-by-Step Guide

14 min read

Looking for the best way to do market research? From framing your initial question to extracting valuable customer insights, we’ll walk you through the lean market research process step-by-step. You will learn effective techniques for collecting and analyzing data , with practical tips on applying your findings to benefit your SaaS. Get ready to empower your decisions with real-world market intelligence.

• Market research is vital for making informed business decisions, enabling companies to understand the market, target audience, and competitors, reducing risks, and optimizing marketing communications and product strategies .
• Effective market research requires clear and measurable objectives, guiding decision-making and ensuring relevance to the project’s needs, and should be accompanied by appropriate methods , including both primary and secondary research .
• Applying insights from market research to product development and marketing strategies can significantly enhance business growth. This allows businesses to tailor their offerings and engage more effectively with their target market.

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What is market research

Essentially, market research is the process of understanding one’s target audience’s needs and wants to validate a new product, feature, or service idea. It involves probing and extracting answers based on empirical evidence instead of relying on hunches or speculative judgment.

Why should you do market research?

Understanding your consumers’ behavior and needs well through methodical market research is vital for informed decision-making when it comes to your product roadmap. These choices can make or break your SaaS company. Without thorough market research, you’re navigating blindly, basing crucial judgments on antiquated notions of customer habits, imprecise economic gauges, or untested assumptions rather than solid competitive analysis.

The outcome? Sharper marketing messages, savvy product development strategies, and an intimate grasp of both prospective buyers and existing customers’ preferences and needs.

Identifying your market research goals

Before you do anything – you need to determine specific and actionable goals of your market research project. Setting SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound) goals will help you stay on track, come up with better market research questions and achieve more reliable results faster.

For effective market research outcomes, your goals must be:

• Quantifiable .
• Attainable.
• Directly aligned with project requirements.

Having established unambiguous goals prior to delving into data analysis sets up a solid foundation ensuring pivotal questions, hypotheses, and indicators are systematically tackled during effective market research.

Market research methods

Now that you understand the role of well-defined research objectives, let’s examine the different types of market research and research techniques for realizing these goals. These methods are essentially your toolkit for extracting valuable insights and they fall into two broad categories: primary research and secondary research . Choosing between them depends on many factors such as your budget, time availability, and whether you’re looking for more exploratory research data or concrete answers.

Engaging in primary research is comparable to unearthing precious metals—it requires gathering new information straight from sources through several approaches including:

• Focus groups.

This approach gives you first-hand insight into your target audience.

Conversely, secondary research uses already established datasets of primary data – which can add depth and reinforcement to your firsthand findings. For a 360 view of your market trends, combine both techniques – exploratory primary research and secondary channels of inquiry.

Let’s look a bit deeper into them now.

What is primary market research?

Market research uses primary market research as an essential tool. This involves collecting new data directly from your target audience using various methods, such as surveys , focus groups, and interviews.

Each method has its benefits. For example, observational studies allow you to see how consumers interact with your product.

There are many ways to conduct primary research.

Focus Groups : Hold discussions with small groups of 5 to 10 people from your target audience. These discussions can provide valuable feedback on products, perceptions of your company’s brand name, or opinions on competitors.

Interviews : Have one-on-one conversations to gather detailed information from individuals in your target audience.

Surveys : These are a common tool in primary market research and can be used instead of focus groups to understand consumer attitudes. Surveys use structured questions and can reach a broad audience efficiently.

Navigating secondary market research

While market research using primary methods is like discovering precious metals, secondary market research technique is like using a treasure map. This approach uses data collected by others from various sources, providing a broad industry view. These sources include market analyses from agencies like Statista, historical data such as census records, and academic studies.

Secondary research provides the basic knowledge necessary for conducting primary market research goals but may lack detail on specific business questions and could also be accessible to competitors.

To make the most of secondary market research, it’s important to analyze summarized data to identify trends, rely on reputable sources for accurate data, and remain unbiased in data collection methods.

The effectiveness of secondary research depends significantly on how well the data is interpreted, ensuring that this information complements the insights from primary research.

The role of qualitative and quantitative data in market research

In market research, there are two main types of data: qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative data explores the reasons behind consumer actions, collecting non-numeric information to understand consumer behaviors and motivations. For more on gathering and analyzing qualitative data, see How to Analyse Qualitative Data . On the other hand, quantitative data uses numeric data to measure consumer preferences, behaviors, and market sizes. To learn more about handling this type of data, check out User Analytics .

A thorough market analysis usually combines both qualitative and quantitative data. This approach provides a full view of the market by merging detailed qualitative insights with concrete quantitative statistics. For more on combining these approaches, refer to Generative vs. Evaluative Research .

Gathering qualitative insights

Qualitative research involves direct engagement with customers, like having detailed discussions. It includes observational studies that capture genuine consumer reactions. This type of research provides deep insights into consumer perceptions, brand comparisons, consumer behavior, and feedback on specific product features.

Studies on customer satisfaction and loyalty reveal effective strategies for keeping customers and what keeps them loyal, such as loyalty programs and quality customer service. The strength of qualitative research lies in its ability to dig deeper than just numbers, reaching insights that quantitative data might miss. By using qualitative data to customize experiences, businesses can increase customer satisfaction, interaction , and loyalty, leading to greater business growth.

Analyzing quantitative data

Quantitative research provides precision and the ability to measure findings using structured data collection methods like polls and surveys. Product analytics tools such as Userpilot , Amplitude , Heap , and Mixpanel are highly effective for collecting and organizing quantifiable data. This type of data is crucial for identifying trends and insights, which can help businesses track important performance indicators such as conversion rates or customer lifetime value , supporting their growth strategies.

Quantitative research data is divided into two types: discrete data, which includes countable numbers, and continuous data, which consists of numbers that can have fractions or decimals. These are vital for revealing important demographic information.

Segmenting your target market

Market research plays a key role in segmenting your target audience into manageable segments.

These market segments are typically grouped by similar needs or attributes, and display similar responses in marketing research surveys and initiatives. The full market segmentation process is vital for comprehensively grasping and satisfying the requirements of your targeted consumer base.

Accumulating demographic information forms the basis for executing effective market segmentation strategies. Businesses prioritize obtaining user data such as:

• Job functions.
• Organizational scale.
• Customer demographics profiles.
• Lifestyle choices.
• Values systems.
• Product usage patterns.

This information can be collected in the initial sign-up flow (through a signup flow survey; see the Asana example below) or by conducting comprehensive market research surveys .

At its core, successful market segmentation enables businesses to communicate effectively in their target customers’ dialects while catering explicitly to their distinct demands.

Userpilot allows you to easily segment your users not only by demographic information, company size, plan, or role – but also by their in-app engagement ( behavioral segmentation ):

In summary, the techniques used to create detailed analyses, like conducting specialized surveys and carefully collecting relevant participant information, are crucial for identifying groups within a larger target population. These groups are defined by usage patterns and broad demographic and economic indicators, enabling companies to not only reach but also deeply connect with each niche market they aim to capture.

Creating buyer personas based on your market research

Creating buyer personas is a strategic process that helps businesses better understand and cater to their target customers. Here’s how you can systematically approach creating effective buyer personas:

• Gather Initial Data : Start by collecting basic demographic information such as age, gender, location, and education level. This can come from existing customer databases, market research, or industry reports.

• Segment the Audience : Based on the collected data, segment your audience into distinct groups. Each segment should represent a type of customer with similar characteristics and behaviors. This segmentation helps in personalizing marketing and sales strategies effectively.
• Build Detailed Personas : For each segment, create a detailed persona that includes not only demographic and behavioral traits but also psychographics like interests, values, and lifestyle. Each persona should tell the story of an ideal customer, making them relatable for your marketing team.
• Refine Over Time : Buyer personas are not static. As you gather more data and the market evolves, revisit and refine your personas to keep them relevant and accurate.
• Utilize Tools Like Userpilot : Tools such as Userpilot can enhance this process by providing analytics that reveal how users interact with your product. This can confirm hypotheses or uncover new insights about user preferences and behaviors, which can be integrated into existing personas to make them even more accurate.

By carefully crafting and continually updating buyer personas, businesses can achieve a deeper understanding of their customers. This enables them to tailor their offerings and communications effectively, thereby enhancing customer engagement and satisfaction.

Recruiting participants for primary research

Choosing the right participants for primary research is a crucial step in market research. It’s important to find individuals who can provide relevant and meaningful consumer feedback, on your product or service, as this feedback is key to developing accurate user personas.

Userpilot can be instrumental in this process. It collects data on how users interact with and use your products, helping you identify who might be the best candidates for more detailed studies, such as interviews.

To efficiently recruit participants for interviews, Userpilot’s in-app features, such as in-app modals with embedded surveys can be extremely useful. You can use these tools to engage directly with users who meet your specific criteria, right within your app.

This method not only simplifies the recruitment process but also ensures that you’re interacting with the most relevant users. By leveraging these features, you can gather deep insights that significantly enhance the development of your user personas, ensuring your research is both timely and informed.

Competitive analysis for strategic advantage

Competitive analysis helps businesses understand their rivals’ strategies. It involves identifying which industries or markets to target and listing key competitors to gain a clear view of the competitive environment. This includes evaluating competitors’ market share, strengths, weaknesses, and potential entry barriers, often using tools like SWOT analysis.

By understanding competitors’ operations and past marketing efforts, businesses can craft new strategies, pinpoint opportunities, and learn from competitors’ mistakes. Employing market research, brand perception surveys, and market statistics, alongside analytical frameworks like Porter’s Five Forces Model, helps businesses uncover new opportunities and maintain a competitive advantage.

Ultimately, competitive analysis uses the understanding of competition to fuel business growth.

Conducting effective market research surveys

Primary market research often uses surveys as a cost-effective way to gather data. These surveys reach wide audiences and provide quick feedback. It’s crucial to carefully plan the creation and distribution of these surveys to ensure they are effective. Given the high amount of web traffic from mobile devices, it’s particularly important to make surveys mobile-friendly.

To get the most comprehensive data, include both quantitative (closed-ended) and qualitative (open-ended) questions in your survey . Offering incentives like financial compensation or vouchers can encourage participation, but it’s important to manage these carefully to avoid biasing the responses.

Well-designed surveys are like direct interviews with your target audience and are key to obtaining valuable insights about their views and experiences.

Userpilot offers over 50 in-app survey templates along with a bespoke builder, which are important tools for collecting the right responses. These features allow you to tailor surveys precisely to your needs, ensuring you gather accurate and relevant data directly from your users. By leveraging these templates and customizing them with the bespoke builder, you can effectively engage your audience and enhance the quality of insights you receive. This setup is crucial for conducting efficient and effective market research.

Analyzing and interpreting market research data

Once you have collected data through surveys, market research data analysis is the next critical step. It involves identifying patterns, establishing connections, and extracting insights that inform business decisions.

Userpilot’s analytics suite offers deep and easily accessible insights into your market research data:

This process starts with preparing the data by cleaning and organizing it to ensure accuracy and ease of analysis. Depending on the study’s goals, various analytical methods can be used, from simple descriptive statistics to complex multivariate analyses, all chosen to provide meaningful insights.

The core of this analysis aims to uncover market trends and understand industry specifics, which can highlight key factors such as impactful customer experiences, profitable products or services, and effective marketing strategies. Communicating these findings effectively involves presenting them in clear reports and using visual aids while making practical recommendations and addressing any limitations in the research scope or methods. Ultimately, data analysis transforms raw data into compelling narratives that offer actionable business intelligence.

Applying market research to product or service development

Market research is much more than just collecting data and uncovering insights; it’s a vital tool for driving business growth and guiding product development at every stage. Here’s how market research supports business throughout the product lifecycle:

• Concept Creation : Helps identify market needs and opportunities to inform the initial product idea.
• Building a Business Case : Provides evidence and data to justify investment in the new product.
• Product Development : Offers insights into customer preferences and feedback for refining product features.
• Market Introduction : Aids in strategizing the launch, targeting the right audience, and setting the right price.
• Lifecycle Management : Continuously gathers data on customer usage and satisfaction to enhance the product over time.

Consider a B2B SaaS company that develops project management software. By engaging in targeted market research activities like surveys and doing focus group call groups among its business clients, the company can:

• Understand Business Needs : Gain insights into the specific project management challenges and needs of different industries.
• Refine Product Features : Discover which software features are most valued by businesses, such as integration capabilities, user-friendliness, or specific tools for collaboration.
• Tailor Marketing Strategies : Identify the most effective communication channels and messaging that resonate with business clients, such as emphasizing efficiency gains or return on investment.

Market research guides businesses from the initial idea through to launch and beyond, acting as a strategic tool that ensures all actions are aligned with market demands and customer needs , ultimately aiming for successful business outcomes.

Utilizing tools for efficient market research

Using tools like Userpilot, SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, and Typeform, market researchers can reach a wide audience and get fast responses. These platforms help to design, distribute, and analyze surveys efficiently.

Userpilot stands out by allowing businesses to create targeted in-app experiences that engage users directly where they are most active—within the app itself. This direct engagement method improves the quality of the feedback collected as it relates to specific features or user experiences.

Userpilot also offers features such as demographic filtering and behavioral-based segmentation, which speeds up the process of finding and recruiting the right participants for market research.

These tools are essential for performing detailed and effective market research. They break down geographic and cultural barriers, offer access to diverse user groups, and enable businesses to conduct deep, actionable analyses across different market segments.

Translating research findings into business growth

Market research does more than just gather and analyze data; it aims to transform these insights into tangible business improvements. This process is crucial in guiding product development and helping increase a company’s market share by informing targeted strategies. For instance, a B2B SaaS company could use market research to:

• Tailor marketing strategies specifically for key user personas.
• Identify the most valued features for your users.
• Develop pricing strategies that appeal to companies of different sizes.
• Gain insight into the specific needs and expectations of their customers.

By implementing effective market research techniques, companies can customize their products or services to better serve their target audience’s needs, fundamental for stimulating company growth . Conducting personalized market research adds value, while collaborating with specialized firms may yield additional profound insights.

Market research is not just about collecting data; it’s about deeply understanding your customers, spotting opportunities, and making informed decisions that drive your business forward. It provides essential insights into the market and business environment, influencing how potential clients perceive your company.

By conducting competitor analysis and market research, organizations can:

• Connect with their target audience.
• Understand their competitive position.
• Plan strategically for future initiatives.
• Gain insights into customer perceptions of their brand, uncovering new perspectives or opportunities for improvement.

Since competitors also use market research to their advantage, engaging in these analytical processes is crucial for a comprehensive marketing strategy, aimed at business growth.

Start your own market research and journey today to pave the way to success.

Frequently asked questions

What is market research and why is it important.

Understanding their target market through collected information and insights, businesses can make informed decisions, diminish risks, and enhance marketing strategies with the aid of market research. This ensures that choices are based on reliable data, which is crucial for business success.

What is the difference between primary and secondary research?

To summarize, primary research entails the gathering of original data directly from the source, whereas secondary research utilizes previously compiled data sources to add perspective and reinforce conclusions derived from primary research.

How does market research guide product development?

By offering critical data on consumer habits and preferences, market research steers the enhancement of product features, thereby influencing decisions across all stages of a product’s life cycle and aiding in the evolution of product development.

What tools can be used for efficient market research?

Platforms such as Userpilot, SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, and Typeform can be leveraged alongside technologies that are driven by data to simplify the process of crafting, disseminating, and examining online surveys which play a crucial role in conducting market research effectively.

How can market research translate into business growth?

By informing product development, marketing strategies, and identifying opportunities for growth through enlightened decision-making, market research results can propel business expansion.

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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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Learn / Guides / Product research basics

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A step-by-step guide to the product research process

A strong product research process ensures product teams maximize resources, meet key business goals, and make confident decisions that will deliver successful products and features to create customer delight.

But, how do you conduct effective product research?

Just as there’s no single way to develop a product, no single research process fits all product teams. But there are key steps that will help you balance business goals and user needs for actionable product research . 

This article takes you through the factors you should consider to tailor product research to your desired outcomes and provides a step-by-by-step guide to doing research right.

Use Hotjar to streamline your product research process

Hotjar offers product teams a rich stream of quantitative and qualitative data that keeps you connected to user needs at every stage of research.

What to consider before starting product research

Before jumping into the research process , product managers prepare their team. Take time to consider the why and determine how you can design the process to meet your unique product requirements. 

Reflect on:

Why you’re doing the research

Get connected with the deep purpose of your research: what you need to understand to create a profitable and effective product .

Determine specific outcomes of the research process.

During the early product discovery stages, generating new product ideas for innovation and getting to know your users better will serve as a solid foundation throughout the research process. At later stages, look for concrete feedback on a new product, or possible upgrades and feature updates for an existing product. The why behind the research should guide your process. 

Categorizing your users

Determining customer needs and segmenting users are crucial steps that impact the success of any product research strategy. 

You might use a random sample of potential or existing customers; or segment users according to region, industry, or other criteria to spot patterns across different demographics.

Trial users can give immediate product feedback, which is usually incredibly easy to implement (a new theme, for example) or incredibly difficult, like an entirely new functionality or platform for your product. Your long-time users can give nuanced feedback, but they overlook what doesn't work due to their expertise.

Finding that middle ground of users who like what you offer but aren't stuck to your brand is essential. These users appreciate being treated like their insights matter most—because they do.

Finding impartial user insights can be tricky since many tools track users who’ve been paid or incentivized to click through to your website or product. Product experience insights software like Hotjar can help by providing organic, unbiased user data that gives you a clear picture of your customer experience (CX) .

Pro tip: Hotjar Highlights lets you sort and curate user insights and attributes, and share them with your product team. You can also watch Session Recordings of users from specific countries or industries—or filter recordings to see only satisfied or dissatisfied user experiences, which can provide valuable information on what’s working (and what’s not).

A Hotjar Session Recording

Your core business goals 

The best product research processes overlap with the overall organizational vision, so update your research goals in line with company goals to ensure alignment. 

Designing your research process with cross-functional collaboration in mind is a great way to eliminate any communication issues, ensure all departments collect data that tests product profitability, business goals, and user satisfaction.

 Your team’s methodology

Different product methodologies emphasize different aspects of product research throughout its lifecycle, so it’s important to consider techniques that will fit your team’s working stages.

Teams who use waterfall methodologies usually rely on bursts of intense research before development and again during pre-launch. They also make a clear distinction between the product’s research and development phases. 

Teams who use agile, lean, or DevOps methods usually integrate research with the broader product development process, engaging in continuous discovery methods. 

Whatever your methodology, infuse research into every stage of the product lifecycle to achieve business goals like increased revenue, acquisitions, and user adoption.

Choosing which research tools to use

When you’re deciding how to do product research, you’ll need to consider your budget and company size to pick out your tool stack.

Manual research techniques like user interviews can be time-consuming and cost-intensive, but useful to forge a personal connection with users and ask improvised questions based on their responses.

Automated research tools (like Hotjar 👋) increase speed, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness, and reduce human error. They allow you to reach a larger target audience and ensure you’re getting clean, unbiased product feedback —in person, users are more likely to feel pressure to compliment your product or underplay their concerns, but with tools like Hotjar, you’ll get genuine, in-the-moment feedback from users as they engage with your product. 

Which team members will contribute

Involve different team members at each stage of the product workflow. For example, when you’re validating product ideas, you may want to include marketing and technical departments; and when you’re testing product usability , you may want to rely on the expertise of your engineers. 

It’s also important to consider what research other departments have done before launching your own process, so you don’t waste resources duplicating generic market research. 

8 steps for amazing product research

Amazing product research is all about doing smart research to unearth effective insights without getting lost in an information overload that derails your product workflow .  

Follow these eight steps to guide your product research strategies to achieve valuable, actionable product insights that will inform your product’s entire lifecycle, from ideation to execution. 

1. Define your research goals

First, set your high-level goals, which should test business objectives as well as customer-centric product discovery. These are often drawn directly from the product vision and strategy.

Then, create attainable, specific goals or questions for your team to focus on during each stage of their research. This might include: 

Conducting market research for the product’s adoption before its launch

Identifying areas where key features can be improved after the product launch

Evaluating the product’s performance throughout the product lifecycle

2. Understand your users

User needs are at the center of effective product research processes. 

Engage in user discovery—identify and understand your customer—as early as possible , even before you have definite product or feature ideas. Open-ended user research is a key source of product inspiration and innovation, and an essential step in determining product-market fit .

Then, when you have product proposals, prototypes, or a minimum viable product ( MVP) , you can start seeking more specific feedback. 

User research is all about interacting with your current or potential users and learning what they want and need . Developing a user-centric culture of ongoing research will help you gauge the market demand, position your product against the competition, and generate customer delight .

To create a user-centric research culture, conduct user interviews and create user personas. You can also connect more passively with your user demographic by looking at forums, Facebook groups, or sites like Reddit that are used by your customer niche. 

The more organic the research process, the better. It’s ideal to catch users in situations where they answer by instinct instead of having carefully crafted answers. It's what they say instinctively that leads to better product solutions.

Pro tip: use Feedback widgets to gather user feedback in a non-invasive way. 

Hotjar’s Feedback widgets are integrated into the product interface , so users can give quick feedback and then carry on with their tasks. This means you can survey your users and gain valuable insights by learning what they’re thinking and feeling as they interact with the product.

A Hotjar feedback widget

3. Do market research for your product 

Run thorough competitive and comparative analyses to test the business potential of your product against other solutions on the market , and engage in opportunity mapping to get stakeholder buy-in.

You can also use historical market data and trade reports to predict potential profitability and run keyword research to understand users and what potential customers are searching for to generate product ideas.

Once you’ve validated whether there’s a viable market for your product and determined how saturated that target market is, focus on your product’s unique selling points.

Pro tip: even if you already have a product established in a specific market, make sure to assess the market periodically. Markets and competitors change, and making assumptions because of your initial research processes can be a costly mistake. Work with your marketing team here to validate your ideas and avoid guesswork.

Evaluate your product regularly against the industry by creating a value curve. The value curve plots the product offerings currently available in the market on one axis, and the factors the industry is competing on and investing in heavily on the other. This can help you spot market opportunities, ensure product relevance, and get ideas for features you could add to increase user demand and open up new user bases.

Check out how Gavin increased conversions for his lead generation agency by 42% with Hotjar.

 4. Get to know industry trends

Next, combine your understanding of your users and market with research on technology trends that may affect user expectations of your product or its long-term viability. 

Stay on top of trends by regularly engaging with tech cultures —read trade magazines and news sites, listen to tech news podcasts, and follow key trendspotters on social media and specialist forums. You can also use tools like Google Trends , Trend Hunter , and PSFK . 

Another key source of tech trend information is your engineering team . Chances are, you have plenty of techies on your team who are up to speed on different aspects of technology and what’s forecasted to change.

Pro tip: rigorously analyze trends and put them into context to understand what has staying power, as you avoid jumping on every passing fad. Create a learning culture that embraces experimentation and gives team members the opportunity to share their knowledge. 

Analyze the latest trending topics and projects in mainstream open-source communities across the Internet such as GitHub. These communities are an incredible resource for identifying tech trends that are sustainable, disruptive, and have immense staying power. 

It's also important to subscribe to prominent tech publications and leading technology platforms such as Azure and AWS to get the latest tech news and new feature announcements delivered directly to your inbox. This way, your product team is always in the know about the most important tech trends that are shaping product development and product markets.

5. Validate ideas with current or potential users

Once you’ve developed a strong sense of your users, market, and technology, it’s time to start testing concrete ideas and solutions. 

Based on your early research, identify possible products, features, or upgrades that could meet user needs as well as business goals. Then, run concept testing to evaluate the user experience.

First, identify key users or user types to test. Recruit participants for customer interviews or focus groups, or deploy Hotjar Surveys , Incoming Feedback tools, and Session Recordings to test ideas with existing users. 

Then, ask questions or set tasks and observe user responses. You may just want to explain concepts to users at this stage—or you can use wireframes or mockups; or, at later stages, prototypes or MVPs. 

Make sure you account for confirmation bias and false-positive responses from users when designing the validation process. Include open- and closed-ended questions and use measures like purchase intent to determine customer adoption.

Pro tip: use fake door testing to gauge interest in new features across your existing user base. 

In fake door tests, you show users a call-to-action for a product action that doesn’t exist yet. Once they click to perform the action, they’ll be taken to a page that explains this feature isn’t available yet—you may also choose to include a short survey on this page to learn more about their interest. By reviewing answers to survey questions and the click-through rate , product teams can quickly validate ideas for new features or improvements with users.

6. Test your MVP

The next step in your product research process is to develop a Minimum Viable Product based on validated ideas and run tests to improve subsequent iterations. 

This is a critical stage in product research that you shouldn’t skip. Waiting for the fully developed product before running tests makes it harder to fix software and prioritize bug issues, causing major delays. 

Quality assurance (QA) testing, regression testing, and performance testing check the MVP’s functionality and show developers where they need to make product changes . 

User tests are also key at this stage. Different types of product testing , like tree testing and card sorting, can confirm whether users can easily navigate your product to find the functionality they need. 

A/B tests and multivariate tests , where you split your user base into groups and give them different versions of a product or feature, can help you decide which iteration to run with. Hotjar Heatmaps allow you to easily compare where users click and scroll on different versions of the product.

7. Continue research after the product launch

Consider doing a soft launch—or even canary deployment—where you release new products or features to a small group of users

Gather data to weed out bugs

Finally, adapt the product based on user responses

Then you can roll it out to all users.

But even once you’ve launched the final product, your research isn’t over. The best product teams stay connected with their users and regularly analyze market trends and tech changes.

After the product is released, either through a soft launch or a regular launch, implementing a data-driven approach to the go-to-market strategy is crucial in parsing consumer reports and validating trends and customer opinions.

Continuous research ensures that your product stays relevant and successfully meets customer needs, which will boost user metrics and business metrics alike.

So how can you continue your research throughout the product lifecycle? 

Watch session recordings to spot blockers and bugs where users are rage clicking or dropping off the product journey

Use heatmaps to understand which product elements are most popular—and unpopular—with users

Measure product analytics like click-through rate (CTR) and product conversion rate

Stay up to date on industry and market trends 

Incorporate regular opportunities for cross-team discussions to get different research perspectives

Schedule regular user and customer interviews

Use product experience insights tools like Hotjar to give you a steady stream of user feedback through Surveys and Feedback widgets

8. Turn research into action

The final step in any product research process is to organize your research and turn insights into action. 

Curate your research into specific, actionable themes to cut through the noise and gather valuable, user-centric insights.

Then, use your research to establish a strong product strategy and roadmap to guide your product development process. Make sure you compare the strategy and roadmap with new research at regular intervals and update where needed, though it’s important to strike a balance: these documents should be dynamic but relatively stable touchpoints.  

Your product research should also drive your day-to-day decisions and product backlog management , and form the basis of your product storytelling to help get stakeholder buy-in. 

Why creating a user-centric research culture is essential

Remember: at heart, all product research is user research. 

Product teams who are endlessly curious about their users—who they are, what they need, how they experience your product—can better meet the demands of an ever-evolving market, inspire customer loyalty, and increase their Net Promoter Score (NPS) . With a learning mindset and a commitment to customer-centric product discovery, you can transform research into innovation and sustainable business growth .

FAQs on the product research process

What is product research.

Product research is the process of gathering data about your product’s purpose, intended users, and market to meet user needs and achieve business goals.

What are the steps in the product research process?

The 8 steps in an effective product research process are: 

1) Define your research goals

2) Understand your users

3) Do market research for your product

4) Get to know industry trends

5) Validate ideas with current or potential users

6) Test your MVP

7) Continue research after the product launch

8) Turn research into action

Why is product research important?

Strong product research is critical to product management because: 

It ensures the product will meet customer needs and hit business targets 

It helps product managers (PMs) develop a data-informed product vision, strategy, and roadmap

It helps PMs make confident decisions on the product backlog and day-to-day tasks

It keeps the product team motivated and connected with the purpose of their work 

It helps the product team communicate product value to stakeholders to get buy-in and secure resources

Prioritize product features

Previous chapter

Guide index

Product Market Research: 8 Essential Steps & Real-Life Examples

We adhere to clear ethical standards and follow an objective methodology . The brands with links to their websites fund our research.

~90% of companies state that they listen to the voice of their customers while developing new products. 1 One of the efficient ways to hear from customers is to conduct market research . Product market research stands as a beacon, guiding businesses in creating products that resonate with their target customers.

Explore the essential steps of conducting effective product market research , various methods , and real-life examples of successful product market research:

Essential steps for conducting product market research

1- assessment of the company’s resources.

Before diving into market research, it’s imperative for a business to take stock of its internal capabilities and how these align with potential product development opportunities. This initial step is a foundational one, requiring a thorough assessment of the company’s resources, strengths, and limitations.

For example, a tech company with a strong background in software development might explore avenues in the latest app technologies, whereas a retail business with a robust supply chain might consider expanding its product line.

Here is a strategic map to help your company prioritize its investments and innovation efforts based on the current and future significance of different competencies (see figure below).

Figure 1. Map of strategic importance of the investment and company position

Source: McKinsey 2

2- Deciding on the target markets

Once you evaluate the strengths and capabilities of your company, you can decide on the target market and audience. This involves defining the specific group of customers for whom the product is intended. Understanding the demographics, psychological factors, pain points, and needs of this target market is essential for tailoring the research.

For those interested, here is our article on retail market research trends and some real-life examples .

3- Crafting informed research questions

The next step is to prepare the questions that you wish to hear from your target audience. The foundation of successful product market research is in formulating insightful and targeted questions. This step is particularly crucial when designing surveys, as the quality of questions directly impacts the relevance and usefulness of the data collected.

Check out our comprehensive article on the best practices of conducting market research .

4- Choosing the right market research vendors

The selection of a market research vendor can significantly influence the outcomes. Businesses need to ensure that the vendor’s expertise aligns with their specific research needs, especially in constructing and administering effective surveys.

If you are looking for a market research software , check out our vendor deep dive.

You can also check out our data-driven list of market research tools .

5- Determining data collection methods

Selecting the most appropriate tools and techniques for gathering and interpreting market data is as crucial as determining your questions, target market, and audience. Although there are various methods, surveys, due to their adaptability and broad reach, often become the method of choice for businesses seeking comprehensive and direct consumer feedback.

6- Finding the right research channels 

This involves determining where and how to distribute the surveys to reach the target audience effectively. Channels might include online platforms, email, social media, in-person venues, or a combination of these, depending on where the target market is most accessible. Bear in mind that market research or survey tools can also handle this process.

7- Analyzing and interpreting results

The data obtained, particularly from surveys, should be meticulously analyzed to extract actionable insights. This step transforms raw data into actionable intelligence about consumer preferences and market trends.

If you are looking for a survey analysis tool , check out our vendor benchmark.

8- Communicating market research findings

Effectively presenting the research findings to stakeholders is a critical part of conducting market research itself. The valuable insights, especially those derived from surveys, should be communicated clearly to inform strategic decisions.

Product market research types

The product market research process can be broadly categorized into different types based on the data collection technique, data types and research topics.

Based on the data collection technique

1. primary market research.

Primary market research involves gathering fresh data directly from sources. This method is proactive and tailored to specific research needs. The primary objective is to collect data that is relevant, in-depth, and directly related to the research question. Methods used in primary market research include:

• Online Surveys : Surveys are pivotal in product market research. They provide direct insights from the target audience, are cost-effective, and can be scaled to reach a broad demographic. Besides, they are useful for conducting both qualitative research and quantitative research. The richness and validity of the data garnered from well-designed surveys are unparalleled in gauging consumer sentiment and preferences. 
• Individual interviews : These offer nuanced understandings of consumer attitudes, supplementing the quantitative data from surveys with qualitative depth. Companies can also understand how to attract potential customers through these individual meetings.
• Focus groups: This refers to gathering a group of people to discuss and react to something, such as a product or campaign. It’s particularly beneficial for understanding reactions and attitudes, and more useful for exploratory research.

2. Secondary market research

Secondary research uses data that already exists and has been collected by other initiatives. It’s often quicker and less expensive than primary research. This method includes:

• Public sources : Publicly available data like government reports and industry analyses offer a contextual backdrop for primary data and competitive analysis.
• Social media channels: Social media platforms (e.g., Instagram, X, LinkedIn) are a rich source of secondary market research data. They provide real-time insights into customer sentiment, emerging trends, brand perceptions, and competitor activities.

Based on the data types

3. qualitative market research.

Qualitative market research focuses on collecting non-numerical data to gain a deeper understanding of market dynamics. Methods used in qualitative research include

• Focus groups: Gather a group of target customers to discuss and provide feedback on products or services.
• Individual interviews: Conduct one-on-one interviews to delve deeper into personal consumer experiences and perceptions.
• Observational research: Observe consumer behavior in natural settings to gain insights into purchasing decisions.

4. Quantitative market research

Quantitative market research involves the collection of numerical data that can be statistically analyzed. This approach is crucial for data collection and analysis, benchmarking and comparisons, and hypothesis testing. Methods used in quantitative research include

• Online surveys: Distribute surveys to collect numerical data from a broad audience efficiently.
• Polls: Quick and targeted data collection to gauge opinions on specific issues.
• Web Statistics: Analyze data from online platforms to understand user behavior and engagement.
• Financial records: Examine sales data and financial metrics to assess market performance and trends.

Based on research topics

Product branding research.

Conducting market research is essential for understanding how a company’s brand is perceived in the target market.

By analyzing both quantitative and qualitative data, market researchers can gain actionable insights into market trends and the competitive landscape. Effective market research helps businesses tailor their marketing strategy to better align with the target market and differentiate their product or service from competitors.

Product feature testing research

When testing product features, conducting market research involves a blend of primary and secondary research to assess how well the features meet customer needs.

This comprehensive approach ensures that product feature testing yields relevant data and supports informed business decisions, enhancing the product’s competitive advantage and aligning it with market trends and consumer expectations.

Product market research real-life examples

Figure 2. zoom docs as a development of product market research.

Source: Zoom 3

Zoom Docs, announced at Zoomtopia 2023, is a testament to Zoom’s market research-driven product development. 4 Addressing the complexities of hybrid work, Zoom Docs integrates AI-enhanced document and collaboration tools within Zoom’s ecosystem, aligning with the identified needs for more streamlined and efficient workplace solutions. This innovation, as a park of Zoom’s marketing strategy, is set for release in 2024, and it reflects Zoom’s commitment to evolving its services in response to changing work dynamics.

Warby Parker

Warby Parker, founded in 2010, revolutionized the eyewear market with a direct-to-consumer model that undercut traditional optical boutiques. 5 Their innovative Home Try-On program allowed customers to test frames at home, addressing common pain points in buying glasses online. This consumer-centric approach, combined with their expansion into physical retail locations and the integration of an AR Virtual Try-On feature, showcases Warby Parker’s commitment to evolving with market trends and consumer needs, offering a broad range of stylish, affordable eyewear options.

Lush Cosmetics

Lush Cosmetics, driven by market research and a commitment to environmental sustainability, has innovatively tailored its product development strategy. 6 Emphasizing on eco-friendly practices, Lush’s products predominantly use fresh, vegetarian ingredients, with a large vegan selection. Their unique approach extends to packaging, focusing on reducing waste through ‘Naked’ products like solid shampoo bars and reusable packaging options, including knot-wraps made from recycled materials. This strategy, reflecting consumer preferences for ethical and sustainable products, has significantly strengthened Lush’s brand value and appeal in the cosmetics industry.

If you need help in market research, we can help:

External Links

• 1. “ Digital Product Development 2025 “. PwC. Retrieved December 25,2023.
• 2. “ A capabilities strategy for successful product development “. McKinsey. July 13, 2017. Retrieved December 25,2023.
• 3. “ Zoom Docs “. Zoom. October 3, 2023. Retrieved December 25,2023.
• 4. “ Zoom Docs “. Zoom. October 3, 2023. Retrieved December 25,2023.
• 5. “ How does Warby Parker work? Here’s a step-by-step guide to ordering new prescription glasses. ” Mashable. September 6, 2023. Retrieved December 25,2023.
• 6. “ Lush Cosmetics Gets Naked “. Packaging World. November 14, 2019. Retrieved December 25,2023.

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Market research definition

Market research – in-house or outsourced, market research in the age of data, when to use market research.

• Types of market research 

Different types of primary research

How to do market research (primary data), how to do secondary market research, communicating your market research findings, choose the right platform for your market research, try qualtrics for free, the ultimate guide to market research: how to conduct it like a pro.

27 min read Wondering how to do market research? Or even where to start learning about it? Use our ultimate guide to understand the basics and discover how you can use market research to help your business.

Market research is the practice of gathering information about the needs and preferences of your target audience – potential consumers of your product.

When you understand how your target consumer feels and behaves, you can then take steps to meet their needs and mitigate the risk of an experience gap – where there is a shortfall between what a consumer expects you to deliver and what you actually deliver. Market research can also help you keep abreast of what your competitors are offering, which in turn will affect what your customers expect from you.

Market research connects with every aspect of a business – including brand , product , customer service , marketing and sales.

Market research generally focuses on understanding:

• The consumer (current customers, past customers, non-customers, influencers))
• The company (product or service design, promotion, pricing, placement, service, sales)
• The competitors (and how their market offerings interact in the market environment)
• The industry overall (whether it’s growing or moving in a certain direction)

Free eBook: 2024 market research trends report

Why is market research important?

A successful business relies on understanding what like, what they dislike, what they need and what messaging they will respond to. Businesses also need to understand their competition to identify opportunities to differentiate their products and services from other companies.

Today’s business leaders face an endless stream of decisions around target markets, pricing, promotion, distribution channels, and product features and benefits . They must account for all the factors involved, and there are market research studies and methodologies strategically designed to capture meaningful data to inform every choice. It can be a daunting task.

Market research allows companies to make data-driven decisions to drive growth and innovation.

What happens when you don’t do market research?

Without market research, business decisions are based at best on past consumer behavior, economic indicators, or at worst, on gut feel. Decisions are made in a bubble without thought to what the competition is doing. An important aim of market research is to remove subjective opinions when making business decisions. As a brand you are there to serve your customers, not personal preferences within the company. You are far more likely to be successful if you know the difference, and market research will help make sure your decisions are insight-driven.

Traditionally there have been specialist market researchers who are very good at what they do, and businesses have been reliant on their ability to do it. Market research specialists will always be an important part of the industry, as most brands are limited by their internal capacity, expertise and budgets and need to outsource at least some aspects of the work.

However, the market research external agency model has meant that brands struggled to keep up with the pace of change. Their customers would suffer because their needs were not being wholly met with point-in-time market research.

Businesses looking to conduct market research have to tackle many questions –

• Who are my consumers, and how should I segment and prioritize them?
• What are they looking for within my category?
• How much are they buying, and what are their purchase triggers, barriers, and buying habits?
• Will my marketing and communications efforts resonate?
• Is my brand healthy ?
• What product features matter most?
• Is my product or service ready for launch?
• Are my pricing and packaging plans optimized?

They all need to be answered, but many businesses have found the process of data collection daunting, time-consuming and expensive. The hardest battle is often knowing where to begin and short-term demands have often taken priority over longer-term projects that require patience to offer return on investment.

Today however, the industry is making huge strides, driven by quickening product cycles, tighter competition and business imperatives around more data-driven decision making. With the emergence of simple, easy to use tools , some degree of in-house market research is now seen as essential, with fewer excuses not to use data to inform your decisions. With greater accessibility to such software, everyone can be an expert regardless of level or experience.

How is this possible?

The art of research hasn’t gone away. It is still a complex job and the volume of data that needs to be analyzed is huge. However with the right tools and support, sophisticated research can look very simple – allowing you to focus on taking action on what matters.

If you’re not yet using technology to augment your in-house market research, now is the time to start.

The most successful brands rely on multiple sources of data to inform their strategy and decision making, from their marketing segmentation to the product features they develop to comments on social media. In fact, there’s tools out there that use machine learning and AI to automate the tracking of what’s people are saying about your brand across all sites.

The emergence of newer and more sophisticated tools and platforms gives brands access to more data sources than ever and how the data is analyzed and used to make decisions. This also increases the speed at which they operate, with minimal lead time allowing brands to be responsive to business conditions and take an agile approach to improvements and opportunities.

Expert partners have an important role in getting the best data, particularly giving access to additional market research know-how, helping you find respondents , fielding surveys and reporting on results.

How do you measure success?

Business activities are usually measured on how well they deliver return on investment (ROI). Since market research doesn’t generate any revenue directly, its success has to be measured by looking at the positive outcomes it drives – happier customers, a healthier brand, and so on.

When changes to your products or your marketing strategy are made as a result of your market research findings, you can compare on a before-and-after basis to see if the knowledge you acted on has delivered value.

Regardless of the function you work within, understanding the consumer is the goal of any market research. To do this, we have to understand what their needs are in order to effectively meet them. If we do that, we are more likely to drive customer satisfaction , and in turn, increase customer retention .

Several metrics and KPIs are used to gauge the success of decisions made from market research results, including

• Brand awareness within the target market
• Share of wallet
• CSAT (customer satisfaction)
• NPS (Net Promoter Score)

You can use market research for almost anything related to your current customers, potential customer base or target market. If you want to find something out from your target audience, it’s likely market research is the answer.

Here are a few of the most common uses:

Buyer segmentation and profiling

Segmentation is a popular technique that separates your target market according to key characteristics, such as behavior, demographic information and social attitudes. Segmentation allows you to create relevant content for your different segments, ideally helping you to better connect with all of them.

Buyer personas are profiles of fictional customers – with real attributes. Buyer personas help you develop products and communications that are right for your different audiences, and can also guide your decision-making process. Buyer personas capture the key characteristics of your customer segments, along with meaningful insights about what they want or need from you. They provide a powerful reminder of consumer attitudes when developing a product or service, a marketing campaign or a new brand direction.

By understanding your buyers and potential customers, including their motivations, needs, and pain points, you can optimize everything from your marketing communications to your products to make sure the right people get the relevant content, at the right time, and via the right channel .

Attitudes and Usage surveys

Attitude & Usage research helps you to grow your brand by providing a detailed understanding of consumers. It helps you understand how consumers use certain products and why, what their needs are, what their preferences are, and what their pain points are. It helps you to find gaps in the market, anticipate future category needs, identify barriers to entry and build accurate go-to-market strategies and business plans.

Marketing strategy

Effective market research is a crucial tool for developing an effective marketing strategy – a company’s plan for how they will promote their products.

It helps marketers look like rock stars by helping them understand the target market to avoid mistakes, stay on message, and predict customer needs . It’s marketing’s job to leverage relevant data to reach the best possible solution  based on the research available. Then, they can implement the solution, modify the solution, and successfully deliver that solution to the market.

Product development

You can conduct market research into how a select group of consumers use and perceive your product – from how they use it through to what they like and dislike about it. Evaluating your strengths and weaknesses early on allows you to focus resources on ideas with the most potential and to gear your product or service design to a specific market.

Chobani’s yogurt pouches are a product optimized through great market research . Using product concept testing – a form of market research – Chobani identified that packaging could negatively impact consumer purchase decisions. The brand made a subtle change, ensuring the item satisfied the needs of consumers. This ability to constantly refine its products for customer needs and preferences has helped Chobani become Australia’s #1 yogurt brand and increase market share.

Pricing decisions

Market research provides businesses with insights to guide pricing decisions too. One of the most powerful tools available to market researchers is conjoint analysis, a form of market research study that uses choice modeling to help brands identify the perfect set of features and price for customers. Another useful tool is the Gabor-Granger method, which helps you identify the highest price consumers are willing to pay for a given product or service.

Brand tracking studies

A company’s brand is one of its most important assets. But unlike other metrics like product sales, it’s not a tangible measure you can simply pull from your system. Regular market research that tracks consumer perceptions of your brand allows you to monitor and optimize your brand strategy in real time, then respond to consumer feedback to help maintain or build your brand with your target customers.

Advertising and communications testing

Advertising campaigns can be expensive, and without pre-testing, they carry risk of falling flat with your target audience. By testing your campaigns, whether it’s the message or the creative, you can understand how consumers respond to your communications before you deploy them so you can make changes in response to consumer feedback before you go live.

Finder, which is one of the world’s fastest-growing online comparison websites, is an example of a brand using market research to inject some analytical rigor into the business. Fueled by great market research, the business lifted brand awareness by 23 percent, boosted NPS by 8 points, and scored record profits – all within 10 weeks.

Competitive analysis

Another key part of developing the right product and communications is understanding your main competitors and how consumers perceive them. You may have looked at their websites and tried out their product or service, but unless you know how consumers perceive them, you won’t have an accurate view of where you stack up in comparison. Understanding their position in the market allows you to identify the strengths you can exploit, as well as any weaknesses you can address to help you compete better.

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Types of market research

Although there are many types market research, all methods can be sorted into one of two categories: primary and secondary.

Primary research

Primary research is market research data that you collect yourself. This is raw data collected through a range of different means – surveys , focus groups,  , observation and interviews being among the most popular.

Primary information is fresh, unused data, giving you a perspective that is current or perhaps extra confidence when confirming hypotheses you already had. It can also be very targeted to your exact needs. Primary information can be extremely valuable. Tools for collecting primary information are increasingly sophisticated and the market is growing rapidly.

Historically, conducting market research in-house has been a daunting concept for brands because they don’t quite know where to begin, or how to handle vast volumes of data. Now, the emergence of technology has meant that brands have access to simple, easy to use tools to help with exactly that problem. As a result, brands are more confident about their own projects and data with the added benefit of seeing the insights emerge in real-time.

Secondary research

Secondary research is the use of data that has already been collected, analyzed and published – typically it’s data you don’t own and that hasn’t been conducted with your business specifically in mind, although there are forms of internal secondary data like old reports or figures from past financial years that come from within your business. Secondary research can be used to support the use of primary research.

Secondary research can be beneficial to small businesses because it is sometimes easier to obtain, often through research companies. Although the rise of primary research tools are challenging this trend by allowing businesses to conduct their own market research more cheaply, secondary research is often a cheaper alternative for businesses who need to spend money carefully. Some forms of secondary research have been described as ‘lean market research’ because they are fast and pragmatic, building on what’s already there.

Because it’s not specific to your business, secondary research may be less relevant, and you’ll need to be careful to make sure it applies to your exact research question. It may also not be owned, which means your competitors and other parties also have access to it.

Primary or secondary research – which to choose?

Both primary and secondary research have their advantages, but they are often best used when paired together, giving you the confidence to act knowing that the hypothesis you have is robust.

Secondary research is sometimes preferred because there is a misunderstanding of the feasibility of primary research. Thanks to advances in technology, brands have far greater accessibility to primary research, but this isn’t always known.

If you’ve decided to gather your own primary information, there are many different data collection methods that you may consider. For example:

• Customer surveys
• Focus groups
• Observation

Think carefully about what you’re trying to accomplish before picking the data collection method(s) you’re going to use. Each one has its pros and cons. Asking someone a simple, multiple-choice survey question will generate a different type of data than you might obtain with an in-depth interview. Determine if your primary research is exploratory or specific, and if you’ll need qualitative research, quantitative research, or both.

Qualitative vs quantitative

Another way of categorizing different types of market research is according to whether they are qualitative or quantitative.

Qualitative research

Qualitative research is the collection of data that is non-numerical in nature. It summarizes and infers, rather than pin-points an exact truth. It is exploratory and can lead to the generation of a hypothesis.

Market research techniques that would gather qualitative data include:

• Interviews (face to face / telephone)
• Open-ended survey questions

Researchers use these types of market research technique because they can add more depth to the data. So for example, in focus groups or interviews, rather than being limited to ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for a certain question, you can start to understand why someone might feel a certain way.

Quantitative research

Quantitative research is the collection of data that is numerical in nature. It is much more black and white in comparison to qualitative data, although you need to make sure there is a representative sample if you want the results to be reflective of reality.

Quantitative researchers often start with a hypothesis and then collect data which can be used to determine whether empirical evidence to support that hypothesis exists.

Quantitative research methods include:

• Questionnaires
• Review scores

Exploratory and specific research

Exploratory research is the approach to take if you don’t know what you don’t know. It can give you broad insights about your customers, product, brand, and market. If you want to answer a specific question, then you’ll be conducting specific research.

• Exploratory . This research is general and open-ended, and typically involves lengthy interviews with an individual or small focus group.
• Specific . This research is often used to solve a problem identified in exploratory research. It involves more structured, formal interviews.

Exploratory primary research is generally conducted by collecting qualitative data. Specific research usually finds its insights through quantitative data.

Primary research can be qualitative or quantitative, large-scale or focused and specific. You’ll carry it out using methods like surveys – which can be used for both qualitative and quantitative studies – focus groups, observation of consumer behavior, interviews, or online tools.

Step 1: Identify your research topic

Research topics could include:

• Product features
• Product or service launch
• Understanding a new target audience (or updating an existing audience)
• Brand identity
• Marketing campaign concepts
• Customer experience

Step 2: Draft a research hypothesis

A hypothesis is the assumption you’re starting out with. Since you can disprove a negative much more easily than prove a positive, a hypothesis is a negative statement such as ‘price has no effect on brand perception’.

Step 3: Determine which research methods are most effective

Your choice of methods depends on budget, time constraints, and the type of question you’re trying to answer. You could combine surveys, interviews and focus groups to get a mix of qualitative and quantitative data.

Step 4: Determine how you will collect and analyze your data.

Primary research can generate a huge amount of data, and when the goal is to uncover actionable insight, it can be difficult to know where to begin or what to pay attention to.

The rise in brands taking their market research and data analysis in-house has coincided with the rise of technology simplifying the process. These tools pull through large volumes of data and outline significant information that will help you make the most important decisions.

Step 5: Conduct your research!

This is how you can run your research using Qualtrics CoreXM

• Pre-launch – Here you want to ensure that the survey/ other research methods conform to the project specifications (what you want to achieve/research)
• Soft launch – Collect a small fraction of the total data before you fully launch. This means you can check that everything is working as it should and you can correct any data quality issues.
• Full launch – You’ve done the hard work to get to this point. If you’re using a tool, you can sit back and relax, or if you get curious you can check on the data in your account.
• Review – review your data for any issues or low-quality responses. You may need to remove this in order not to impact the analysis of the data.

A helping hand

If you are missing the skills, capacity or inclination to manage your research internally, Qualtrics Research Services can help. From design, to writing the survey based on your needs, to help with survey programming, to handling the reporting, Research Services acts as an extension of the team and can help wherever necessary.

Secondary market research can be taken from a variety of places. Some data is completely free to access – other information could end up costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. There are three broad categories of secondary research sources:

• Public sources – these sources are accessible to anyone who asks for them. They include census data, market statistics, library catalogs, university libraries and more. Other organizations may also put out free data from time to time with the goal of advancing a cause, or catching people’s attention.
• Internal sources – sometimes the most valuable sources of data already exist somewhere within your organization. Internal sources can be preferable for secondary research on account of their price (free) and unique findings. Since internal sources are not accessible by competitors, using them can provide a distinct competitive advantage.
• Commercial sources – if you have money for it, the easiest way to acquire secondary market research is to simply buy it from private companies. Many organizations exist for the sole purpose of doing market research and can provide reliable, in-depth, industry-specific reports.

No matter where your research is coming from, it is important to ensure that the source is reputable and reliable so you can be confident in the conclusions you draw from it.

How do you know if a source is reliable?

Use established and well-known research publishers, such as the XM Institute , Forrester and McKinsey . Government websites also publish research and this is free of charge. By taking the information directly from the source (rather than a third party) you are minimizing the risk of the data being misinterpreted and the message or insights being acted on out of context.

How to apply secondary research

The purpose and application of secondary research will vary depending on your circumstances. Often, secondary research is used to support primary research and therefore give you greater confidence in your conclusions. However, there may be circumstances that prevent this – such as the timeframe and budget of the project.

Keep an open mind when collecting all the relevant research so that there isn’t any collection bias. Then begin analyzing the conclusions formed to see if any trends start to appear. This will help you to draw a consensus from the secondary research overall.

Market research success is defined by the impact it has on your business’s success. Make sure it’s not discarded or ignored by communicating your findings effectively. Here are some tips on how to do it.

• Less is more – Preface your market research report with executive summaries that highlight your key discoveries and their implications
• Lead with the basic information – Share the top 4-5 recommendations in bullet-point form, rather than requiring your readers to go through pages of analysis and data
• Model the impact – Provide examples and model the impact of any changes you put in place based on your findings
• Show, don’t tell – Add illustrative examples that relate directly to the research findings and emphasize specific points
• Speed is of the essence – Make data available in real-time so it can be rapidly incorporated into strategies and acted upon to maximize value
• Work with experts – Make sure you’ve access to a dedicated team of experts ready to help you design and launch successful projects

Trusted by 8,500 brands for everything from product testing to competitor analysis, Our Strategic Research software is the world’s most powerful and flexible research platform . With over 100 question types and advanced logic, you can build out your surveys and see real-time data you can share across the organization. Plus, you’ll be able to turn data into insights with iQ, our predictive intelligence engine that runs complicated analysis at the click of a button.

Related resources

Market intelligence 10 min read, marketing insights 11 min read, ethnographic research 11 min read, qualitative vs quantitative research 13 min read, qualitative research questions 11 min read, qualitative research design 12 min read, primary vs secondary research 14 min read, request demo.

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How to Do Market Research: A Definitive Guide

Article Snapshot

Section 1: introduction to market research.

Before we dive into the intricacies of market research, let's first establish a solid understanding of what it entails. Market research is the systematic process of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data about a target market or industry. It involves gathering information about potential customers, their needs and preferences, as well as assessing the overall market landscape and identifying opportunities for growth.

Market research plays a vital role in shaping business strategies and decision-making processes. It helps businesses identify market trends, evaluate product or service viability, understand customer behavior, and develop effective marketing campaigns. By leveraging market research, companies can minimize risks, optimize resources, and increase their chances of success.

Section 2: Preparing for Market Research

Before embarking on any market research endeavor, it is crucial to establish clear objectives and determine the appropriate research methodology. In this section, we will guide you through the essential steps of preparing for market research.

Defining Research Objectives

The first step in any market research project is to define clear research objectives. These objectives should align with your business goals and provide a framework for your research efforts. Whether you aim to understand customer satisfaction, evaluate market potential for a new product, or analyze competitor strategies, defining specific and measurable objectives is essential to ensure the research is focused and effective.

Choosing the Right Research Methodology

Once you have defined your research objectives, the next step is to select the most appropriate research methodology. There are various methodologies available, each with its strengths and limitations. Qualitative research methods, such as interviews and focus groups, allow for in-depth exploration of customer opinions and perceptions. On the other hand, quantitative research methods, like surveys and data analysis, provide statistical insights and numerical data.

Creating a Research Plan

To ensure the success of your market research endeavor, it is essential to develop a comprehensive research plan. A research plan outlines the steps, timeline, budget, and resources required for your market research project. By creating a well-structured plan, you can effectively manage your research activities, allocate resources efficiently, and stay on track to achieve your research objectives.

Section 3: Conducting Primary Market Research

Primary market research involves collecting firsthand data directly from your target audience. This section will explore various primary research methods and provide insights into how to conduct effective primary market research.

Survey Research

Surveys are a popular and effective method for gathering primary research data. They allow businesses to collect a large volume of data from a diverse audience. Designing effective survey questions, selecting appropriate survey administration methods, and maximizing response rates are crucial elements to consider when conducting survey research.

Interviews and Focus Groups

Interviews and focus groups offer a more in-depth understanding of customer opinions and behaviors. By engaging directly with participants, businesses can explore complex topics and gain valuable insights. This section will cover techniques for conducting successful interviews and focus groups, as well as analyzing and interpreting the qualitative data obtained.

Observational Research

Observational research involves observing and analyzing consumer behavior in real-life situations. This method provides rich insights into consumer interactions, preferences, and decision-making processes. We will discuss different types of observational research and address ethical considerations associated with this methodology.

Section 4: Gathering and Analyzing Secondary Market Research

Secondary market research involves gathering existing data and information from various sources. This section will explore reliable sources for secondary research data, data collection methods, and techniques for analyzing and interpreting secondary research findings.

Sources of Secondary Research Data

Identifying reputable sources for secondary market research data is crucial for obtaining accurate and reliable information. We will explore a wide range of sources, including market research firms, industry reports, government publications, and online databases.

Data Collection and Analysis

Once you have gathered the secondary research data, the next step is to organize and analyze it effectively. This section will provide insights into various data collection methods and techniques for analyzing and interpreting secondary research findings. We will also discuss the utilization of data visualization tools to present data in a visually appealing and informative manner.

Section 5: Utilizing Market Research Findings

Market research findings hold immense value only when they are effectively utilized to drive business growth. In this section, we will explore how to interpret and apply research findings, communicate results, and continually monitor and evaluate market research efforts.

Interpreting and Applying Research Findings

Interpreting research findings accurately is vital to extract actionable insights. We will discuss techniques and strategies for interpreting research findings and applying them to make informed business decisions. Real-world case studies will be presented to illustrate the practical application of market research findings.

Communicating Research Results

Effectively communicating research results is essential for ensuring that the insights gained are understood and utilized by key stakeholders. This section will provide tips for creating visually appealing and informative research reports and delivering impactful presentations to stakeholders and decision-makers.

Monitoring and Evaluating Market Research

Market research is an ongoing process, and continuous monitoring and evaluation are crucial to stay abreast of market trends and changes. We will explore strategies for tracking market dynamics, monitoring the effectiveness of research efforts, and adjusting research strategies based on feedback and evolving market conditions.

Understanding the Importance of Market Research

Market research is an indispensable component of any successful business strategy. It provides crucial insights into customer behavior, market trends, and competitor analysis, enabling businesses to make informed decisions and gain a competitive edge. In this section, we will explore the significance of market research and its role in driving business success.

The Value of Market Research

Market research serves as a guiding light for businesses, helping them navigate the complex landscape of consumer demands and market dynamics. By conducting thorough research, businesses can gain a deep understanding of their target audience, identify unmet needs, and develop products or services that truly resonate with their customers.

One of the primary benefits of market research is its ability to minimize risk. By gathering data and insights before launching a new product or expanding into a new market, businesses can assess market potential, evaluate customer preferences, and anticipate potential challenges. This proactive approach reduces the likelihood of costly mistakes and increases the chances of success.

Moreover, market research plays a vital role in identifying and capitalizing on market opportunities. By staying attuned to market trends, businesses can spot emerging consumer needs, industry shifts, and technological advancements. Armed with this knowledge, they can adapt their strategies, develop innovative solutions, and stay ahead of the competition.

Market research also provides a solid foundation for effective marketing campaigns. By understanding the target audience's preferences, motivations, and pain points, businesses can tailor their messaging, positioning, and communication channels to effectively reach and engage their customers. This targeted approach not only increases customer acquisition but also enhances customer loyalty and brand advocacy.

The Risks of Neglecting Market Research

Failing to conduct market research can have dire consequences for businesses. Without a deep understanding of their target audience, businesses risk developing products or services that do not meet customer needs or preferences. This can lead to low customer satisfaction, decreased sales, and ultimately, business failure.

Additionally, neglecting market research can result in missed opportunities. In a rapidly evolving marketplace, failing to track consumer trends, competitor strategies, and industry shifts can leave businesses lagging behind. By the time they realize the need for change, it may be too late to catch up, leading to lost market share and diminished competitiveness.

Furthermore, without market research, businesses may struggle to effectively allocate their resources. They may invest in marketing campaigns that do not resonate with their target audience or allocate resources to markets with limited potential. This misalignment of resources can drain finances and hinder overall business growth.

The Role of Market Research in Decision-Making

Market research serves as a compass for decision-making, guiding businesses in making strategic choices based on data-driven insights. Whether it is launching a new product, entering a new market, or adjusting pricing strategies, market research provides the necessary information to make informed decisions.

By conducting market research, businesses can gain a comprehensive understanding of their target audience's preferences, needs, and behaviors. This knowledge allows them to develop products or services that align with customer expectations, resulting in higher customer satisfaction and increased sales.

Market research also empowers businesses to assess the competitive landscape. By studying competitors' strengths, weaknesses, and market positioning, businesses can identify gaps and opportunities for differentiation. This knowledge enables them to develop unique value propositions and competitive strategies that set them apart from their rivals.

Additionally, market research helps businesses evaluate the effectiveness of their marketing efforts. By measuring key performance indicators (KPIs) and analyzing consumer responses, businesses can identify areas for improvement and refine their marketing strategies. This iterative approach ensures that marketing budgets are optimized and yields the highest return on investment (ROI).

In conclusion, market research is an invaluable tool for businesses aiming to thrive in a competitive marketplace. By understanding the importance of market research and leveraging its insights, businesses can make informed decisions, minimize risks, seize opportunities, and ultimately drive sustainable growth. Now that we have established the significance of market research, let's delve into the practical steps of preparing for and conducting market research.

Preparing for Market Research

Before diving into market research, it is crucial to lay a solid foundation by preparing for the research process. This section will explore the essential steps involved in preparing for market research, including defining research objectives, selecting the appropriate research methodology, and creating a comprehensive research plan.

Clearly defining research objectives is the cornerstone of any successful market research project. Research objectives serve as guiding principles that outline the specific goals and outcomes you hope to achieve through your research efforts. These objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).

When defining your research objectives, consider what you aim to accomplish. Are you seeking to understand customer preferences for a new product? Do you want to assess market potential for a specific geographic region? Defining clear and focused research objectives will help you stay on track and ensure that your research efforts yield actionable insights.

Once you have defined your research objectives, the next step is to select the most appropriate research methodology. Different research methodologies offer unique advantages and are suited for different research objectives.

Qualitative research methods, such as interviews and focus groups, provide in-depth insights into customer opinions, attitudes, and perceptions. These methods allow for rich, nuanced data collection and are particularly useful for exploring complex topics or understanding the underlying motivations and emotions driving consumer behavior.

Quantitative research methods, on the other hand, involve the collection and analysis of numerical data. Surveys and questionnaires are common quantitative research tools that allow for large-scale data collection. These methods are useful for measuring customer satisfaction, analyzing customer preferences, and identifying statistical relationships between variables.

It's important to choose a research methodology that aligns with your research objectives, budget, and time constraints. Consider the advantages and limitations of each methodology and select the one that will provide the most relevant and accurate data for your specific research needs.

A well-structured research plan is essential for conducting market research efficiently and effectively. A research plan serves as a roadmap that outlines the steps, timeline, budget, and resources required for your research project.

By creating a comprehensive research plan, you can ensure that your market research efforts are well-organized, efficient, and yield valuable insights. The plan will also serve as a reference point to track progress and make adjustments as needed throughout the research process.

Now that you understand the importance of preparing for market research, we will delve into the practicalities of conducting primary market research in the next section.

Conducting Primary Market Research

Survey research is one of the most commonly used methods for collecting primary research data. Surveys allow businesses to gather a large volume of data from a diverse audience efficiently. They can be conducted through various channels, including online surveys, phone interviews, or in-person questionnaires.

When designing a survey, it is important to carefully craft the survey questions to ensure they are clear, unbiased, and relevant to the research objectives. Use a combination of open-ended and closed-ended questions to gather both qualitative and quantitative data. Open-ended questions provide respondents with the opportunity to express their opinions and provide detailed feedback, while closed-ended questions offer predefined response choices that can be easily analyzed.

To maximize response rates, it is essential to carefully consider the survey administration method. Online surveys are cost-effective and convenient, allowing respondents to complete the survey at their convenience. Phone interviews provide a personal touch and allow for follow-up questions, while in-person questionnaires enable businesses to interact directly with respondents. Choosing the appropriate survey administration method depends on factors such as target audience demographics, research objectives, and available resources.

Additionally, it is crucial to consider respondent fatigue and survey length. Long and tedious surveys can lead to decreased response rates and inaccuracies in responses. Keep the survey concise, focused, and engaging to ensure higher participation and reliable data.

Interviews and focus groups provide valuable qualitative insights into consumer opinions, preferences, and behaviors. These methods allow businesses to engage directly with participants and gain a deeper understanding of their thoughts and motivations.

Interviews can be conducted in-person, over the phone, or through video calls. They provide an opportunity to ask probing questions, delve into specific topics, and explore in-depth responses. The interviewer can adapt the questioning based on the participant's responses, allowing for a dynamic and personalized conversation.

Focus groups involve bringing together a small group of individuals to discuss a specific topic or product. This method allows participants to interact with one another, share their opinions, and generate insights through group discussions. Focus groups provide a unique perspective by capturing the collective thoughts and experiences of the participants.

To conduct successful interviews and focus groups, it is essential to carefully plan the session. Develop a discussion guide or interview script that includes a set of key questions or topics to cover. This will ensure consistency and enable comparability across interviews or focus groups. Actively listen to participants, encourage open and honest responses, and create a comfortable environment for sharing opinions.

Qualitative data obtained from interviews and focus groups require careful analysis. Use techniques such as thematic analysis or coding to identify recurring themes, patterns, and insights. These qualitative insights can provide valuable context and depth to complement quantitative data collected through surveys or other methods.

Observational research involves observing and analyzing consumer behavior in real-life settings. This method allows businesses to gain insights into consumer interactions, preferences, and decision-making processes. It can be particularly useful in retail environments, public spaces, or during product usage.

Participant observation involves immersing oneself in the context being studied and actively participating in the observed activities. This method allows researchers to gain firsthand experience and capture the nuances of behavior and interactions. Non-participant observation, on the other hand, involves observing from a distance without directly engaging with the participants. This method allows for more objective observations and avoids potential biases that may arise from researcher-participant interaction.

When conducting observational research, it is essential to consider ethical considerations and obtain necessary permissions, especially in public spaces or when observing sensitive behavior. Maintain confidentiality and anonymity of participants and ensure that the research does not infringe upon their privacy.

Observational research often involves recording observations through notes, photographs, or video recordings. These records serve as valuable data for analysis and interpretation. Analyze the collected data by identifying patterns, behaviors, and trends. Observational research findings can be used to supplement and validate other primary research methods, providing a comprehensive understanding of consumer behavior.

As we have explored the various primary research methods, it is important to note that choosing the appropriate method depends on the research objectives, target audience, available resources, and the depth of insights required. By carefully selecting and conducting primary market research methods, businesses can uncover valuable insights about their target audience, preferences, and behaviors.

Gathering and Analyzing Secondary Market Research

While primary market research provides valuable firsthand data, secondary market research involves gathering existing data and information from various sources. This section will explore the sources of secondary research data and provide insights into data collection methods and techniques for analyzing and interpreting secondary research findings.

Secondary market research relies on existing data and information that has been collected by others. There are various sources from which businesses can gather secondary research data, including:

When gathering secondary research data, it is crucial to consider the reliability and credibility of the sources. Ensure that the data comes from reputable sources and is up-to-date. Cross-referencing information from multiple sources can help validate the accuracy and consistency of the data.

Once you have gathered the relevant secondary research data, the next step is to organize and analyze it effectively. The process of data collection and analysis involves several key steps:

Secondary research findings should be interpreted and used in conjunction with primary research data to gain a comprehensive understanding of the market landscape. Combining primary and secondary research data allows for triangulation, validation, and a more holistic analysis of the research objectives.

By effectively gathering and analyzing secondary research data, businesses can gain valuable insights into market trends, consumer behavior, and industry dynamics. These insights serve as a foundation for informed decision-making, strategy formulation, and staying ahead of the competition.

Utilizing Market Research Findings

Interpreting and analyzing research findings is a critical step in extracting actionable insights that can drive business decisions. Here are some key considerations when interpreting and applying research findings:

Remember that market research is an iterative process, and new insights may emerge as you delve deeper into the data. Continuously revisit and refine your interpretation of the research findings to ensure that you capture the most accurate and valuable insights.

Effectively communicating research results is crucial to ensure that the insights gained are understood and utilized by key stakeholders. Here are some tips for communicating research results:

Market research is an ongoing process that requires continuous monitoring and evaluation. Here are some key aspects to consider when monitoring and evaluating market research efforts:

By monitoring and evaluating market research efforts, you can ensure that the insights gained are effectively utilized and that your research strategies remain aligned with the evolving market landscape.

In conclusion, effectively utilizing market research findings is essential for driving business growth and staying ahead of the competition. By interpreting and applying research findings, communicating results effectively, and continuously monitoring and evaluating research efforts, businesses can make informed decisions, improve customer experiences, and seize market opportunities.

Conclusion: The Power of Market Research

Market research is a powerful tool that empowers businesses to make informed decisions, understand their target audience, and gain a competitive edge. Throughout this comprehensive guide, we have explored the various aspects of market research, from understanding its importance to conducting primary and secondary research, and utilizing research findings effectively. Now, let's recap the key points and emphasize the power of market research in driving business success.

Market research serves as a compass for businesses, guiding them through the complex landscape of consumer demands, market trends, and competitor analysis. By conducting thorough research, businesses can gain valuable insights into their target audience, identify market opportunities, and mitigate risks. Market research enables businesses to make informed decisions, optimize resources, and drive sustainable growth.

One of the primary benefits of market research is its ability to provide a deep understanding of customer preferences and needs. By gaining insights into customer behavior, businesses can develop products and services that truly resonate with their target audience, leading to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Market research also enables businesses to stay ahead of the competition. By monitoring market trends, tracking competitor activities, and assessing industry dynamics, businesses can identify emerging opportunities and adapt their strategies accordingly. This flexibility allows businesses to maintain a competitive edge and seize market opportunities before their competitors.

Furthermore, market research plays a vital role in effective marketing campaigns. By understanding consumer preferences, motivations, and pain points, businesses can tailor their messaging, positioning, and communication channels to reach and engage their target audience more effectively. This targeted approach increases customer acquisition, enhances brand perception, and drives business growth.

However, market research is not a one-time endeavor. It requires continuous monitoring and evaluation to stay attuned to evolving market trends, consumer preferences, and competitive dynamics. By monitoring key metrics, tracking market trends, and gathering ongoing customer feedback, businesses can refine their strategies, identify areas for improvement, and deliver exceptional customer experiences.

In conclusion, market research is an indispensable tool for businesses aiming to thrive in a competitive marketplace. By understanding the importance of market research, preparing thoroughly, conducting primary and secondary research effectively, interpreting and applying research findings, and continuously monitoring and evaluating research efforts, businesses can gain a deeper understanding of their target audience, make informed decisions, and drive business growth. Embrace the power of market research and unlock the endless opportunities it holds for your organization.

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9 Best Marketing Research Methods to Know Your Buyer Better [+ Examples]

Published: August 08, 2024

One of the most underrated skills you can have as a marketer is marketing research — which is great news for this unapologetic cyber sleuth.

From brand design and product development to buyer personas and competitive analysis, I’ve researched a number of initiatives in my decade-long marketing career.

And let me tell you: having the right marketing research methods in your toolbox is a must.

Market research is the secret to crafting a strategy that will truly help you accomplish your goals. The good news is there is no shortage of options.

How to Choose a Marketing Research Method

Thanks to the Internet, we have more marketing research (or market research) methods at our fingertips than ever, but they’re not all created equal. Let’s quickly go over how to choose the right one.

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1. Identify your objective.

What are you researching? Do you need to understand your audience better? How about your competition? Or maybe you want to know more about your customer’s feelings about a specific product.

Before starting your research, take some time to identify precisely what you’re looking for. This could be a goal you want to reach, a problem you need to solve, or a question you need to answer.

For example, an objective may be as foundational as understanding your ideal customer better to create new buyer personas for your marketing agency (pause for flashbacks to my former life).

Or if you’re an organic sode company, it could be trying to learn what flavors people are craving.

2. Determine what type of data and research you need.

Next, determine what data type will best answer the problems or questions you identified. There are primarily two types: qualitative and quantitative. (Sound familiar, right?)

• Qualitative Data is non-numerical information, like subjective characteristics, opinions, and feelings. It’s pretty open to interpretation and descriptive, but it’s also harder to measure. This type of data can be collected through interviews, observations, and open-ended questions.
• Quantitative Data , on the other hand, is numerical information, such as quantities, sizes, amounts, or percentages. It’s measurable and usually pretty hard to argue with, coming from a reputable source. It can be derived through surveys, experiments, or statistical analysis.

Understanding the differences between qualitative and quantitative data will help you pinpoint which research methods will yield the desired results.

For instance, thinking of our earlier examples, qualitative data would usually be best suited for buyer personas, while quantitative data is more useful for the soda flavors.

However, truth be told, the two really work together.

Qualitative conclusions are usually drawn from quantitative, numerical data. So, you’ll likely need both to get the complete picture of your subject.

For example, if your quantitative data says 70% of people are Team Black and only 30% are Team Green — Shout out to my fellow House of the Dragon fans — your qualitative data will say people support Black more than Green.

(As they should.)

Primary Research vs Secondary Research

You’ll also want to understand the difference between primary and secondary research.

Primary research involves collecting new, original data directly from the source (say, your target market). In other words, it’s information gathered first-hand that wasn’t found elsewhere.

Some examples include conducting experiments, surveys, interviews, observations, or focus groups.

Meanwhile, secondary research is the analysis and interpretation of existing data collected from others. Think of this like what we used to do for school projects: We would read a book, scour the internet, or pull insights from others to work from.

So, which is better?

Personally, I say any research is good research, but if you have the time and resources, primary research is hard to top. With it, you don’t have to worry about your source's credibility or how relevant it is to your specific objective.

You are in full control and best equipped to get the reliable information you need.

3. Put it all together.

Once you know your objective and what kind of data you want, you’re ready to select your marketing research method.

For instance, let’s say you’re a restaurant trying to see how attendees felt about the Speed Dating event you hosted last week.

You shouldn’t run a field experiment or download a third-party report on speed dating events; those would be useless to you. You need to conduct a survey that allows you to ask pointed questions about the event.

This would yield both qualitative and quantitative data you can use to improve and bring together more love birds next time around.

Best Market Research Methods for 2024

Now that you know what you’re looking for in a marketing research method, let’s dive into the best options.

Note: According to HubSpot’s 2024 State of Marketing report, understanding customers and their needs is one of the biggest challenges facing marketers today. The options we discuss are great consumer research methodologies , but they can also be used for other areas.

Primary Research

1. interviews.

Interviews are a form of primary research where you ask people specific questions about a topic or theme. They typically deliver qualitative information.

I’ve conducted many interviews for marketing purposes, but I’ve also done many for journalistic purposes, like this profile on comedian Zarna Garg . There’s no better way to gather candid, open-ended insights in my book, but that doesn’t mean they’re a cure-all.

What I like: Real-time conversations allow you to ask different questions if you’re not getting the information you need. They also push interviewees to respond quickly, which can result in more authentic answers.

What I dislike: They can be time-consuming and harder to measure (read: get quantitative data) unless you ask pointed yes or no questions.

Best for: Creating buyer personas or getting feedback on customer experience, a product, or content.

2. Focus Groups

Focus groups are similar to conducting interviews but on a larger scale.

In marketing and business, this typically means getting a small group together in a room (or Zoom), asking them questions about various topics you are researching. You record and/or observe their responses to then take action.

They are ideal for collecting long-form, open-ended feedback, and subjective opinions.

One well-known focus group you may remember was run by Domino’s Pizza in 2009 .

After poor ratings and dropping over $100 million in revenue, the brand conducted focus groups with real customers to learn where they could have done better.

It was met with comments like “worst excuse for pizza I’ve ever had” and “the crust tastes like cardboard.” But rather than running from the tough love, it took the hit and completely overhauled its recipes.

The team admitted their missteps and returned to the market with better food and a campaign detailing their “Pizza Turn Around.”

The result? The brand won a ton of praise for its willingness to take feedback, efforts to do right by its consumers, and clever campaign. But, most importantly, revenue for Domino’s rose by 14.3% over the previous year.

The brand continues to conduct focus groups and share real footage from them in its promotion:

What I like: Similar to interviewing, you can dig deeper and pivot as needed due to the real-time nature. They’re personal and detailed.

What I dislike: Once again, they can be time-consuming and make it difficult to get quantitative data. There is also a chance some participants may overshadow others.

Best for: Product research or development

Pro tip: Need help planning your focus group? Our free Market Research Kit includes a handy template to start organizing your thoughts in addition to a SWOT Analysis Template, Survey Template, Focus Group Template, Presentation Template, Five Forces Industry Analysis Template, and an instructional guide for all of them. Download yours here now.

3. Surveys or Polls

Surveys are a form of primary research where individuals are asked a collection of questions. It can take many different forms.

They could be in person, over the phone or video call, by email, via an online form, or even on social media. Questions can be also open-ended or closed to deliver qualitative or quantitative information.

A great example of a close-ended survey is HubSpot’s annual State of Marketing .

In the State of Marketing, HubSpot asks marketing professionals from around the world a series of multiple-choice questions to gather data on the state of the marketing industry and to identify trends.

The survey covers various topics related to marketing strategies, tactics, tools, and challenges that marketers face. It aims to provide benchmarks to help you make informed decisions about your marketing.

It also helps us understand where our customers’ heads are so we can better evolve our products to meet their needs.

Apple is no stranger to surveys, either.

In 2011, the tech giant launched Apple Customer Pulse , which it described as “an online community of Apple product users who provide input on a variety of subjects and issues concerning Apple.”

"For example, we did a large voluntary survey of email subscribers and top readers a few years back."

While these readers gave us a long list of topics, formats, or content types they wanted to see, they sometimes engaged more with content types they didn’t select or favor as much on the surveys when we ran follow-up ‘in the wild’ tests, like A/B testing.”  

Pepsi saw similar results when it ran its iconic field experiment, “The Pepsi Challenge” for the first time in 1975.

The beverage brand set up tables at malls, beaches, and other public locations and ran a blindfolded taste test. Shoppers were given two cups of soda, one containing Pepsi, the other Coca-Cola (Pepsi’s biggest competitor). They were then asked to taste both and report which they preferred.

People overwhelmingly preferred Pepsi, and the brand has repeated the experiment multiple times over the years to the same results.

What I like: It yields qualitative and quantitative data and can make for engaging marketing content, especially in the digital age.

What I dislike: It can be very time-consuming. And, if you’re not careful, there is a high risk for scientific error.

Best for: Product testing and competitive analysis

Pro tip:  " Don’t make critical business decisions off of just one data set," advises Pamela Bump. "Use the survey, competitive intelligence, external data, or even a focus group to give you one layer of ideas or a short-list for improvements or solutions to test. Then gather your own fresh data to test in an experiment or trial and better refine your data-backed strategy."

Secondary Research

8. public domain or third-party research.

While original data is always a plus, there are plenty of external resources you can access online and even at a library when you’re limited on time or resources.

Some reputable resources you can use include:

• Pew Research Center
• McKinley Global Institute
• Relevant Global or Government Organizations (i.e United Nations or NASA)

It’s also smart to turn to reputable organizations that are specific to your industry or field. For instance, if you’re a gardening or landscaping company, you may want to pull statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

If you’re a digital marketing agency, you could look to Google Research or HubSpot Research . (Hey, I know them!)

What I like: You can save time on gathering data and spend more time on analyzing. You can also rest assured the data is from a source you trust.

What I dislike: You may not find data specific to your needs.

Best for: Companies under a time or resource crunch, adding factual support to content

Pro tip: Fellow HubSpotter Iskiev suggests using third-party data to inspire your original research. “Sometimes, I use public third-party data for ideas and inspiration. Once I have written my survey and gotten all my ideas out, I read similar reports from other sources and usually end up with useful additions for my own research.”

9. Buy Research

If the data you need isn’t available publicly and you can’t do your own market research, you can also buy some. There are many reputable analytics companies that offer subscriptions to access their data. Statista is one of my favorites, but there’s also Euromonitor , Mintel , and BCC Research .

What I like: Same as public domain research

What I dislike: You may not find data specific to your needs. It also adds to your expenses.

Best for: Companies under a time or resource crunch or adding factual support to content

Which marketing research method should you use?

You’re not going to like my answer, but “it depends.” The best marketing research method for you will depend on your objective and data needs, but also your budget and timeline.

My advice? Aim for a mix of quantitative and qualitative data. If you can do your own original research, awesome. But if not, don’t beat yourself up. Lean into free or low-cost tools . You could do primary research for qualitative data, then tap public sources for quantitative data. Or perhaps the reverse is best for you.

Whatever your marketing research method mix, take the time to think it through and ensure you’re left with information that will truly help you achieve your goals.

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How to Conduct Market Research: A Step-By-Step Guide

Figuring out how to do market research for the first time can be intimidating and confusing. There are so many categories and different methods to choose from. It often seems like an endless list of organizational tasks and preparations.

However cumbersome as it might seem, research has an irreplaceable value for every company, be it a startup or a big corporation. It’s an instrument that leaders must use to keep themselves informed and up-to-date with market changes and make smart choices.

By observing your customers, you gain valuable insights into their personalities, motivations, challenges, and consumer behavior.

Furthermore, the data you gather gives you a glimpse of the processes that control the marketplace. You can gain a strategic edge over seemingly random or meaningless situations by learning more about them.

To sum up, doing your research helps you make better data-based business choices. This leads to better products, satisfied customers, and crushed competition. Sounds good, right?

If you follow through with your research with precision and discipline, you will soon be able to scale your company’s success rate significantly.

Before you read this guide and start your efforts, we advise you to brush up on the basics first and go through our other articles on market research:

• Market Research 101: From Beginner to Advanced
• Conducting Market Research: 6 Methods to Explore
• 15 Essential Market Research Tips for Businesses

Digging deeper into the process will give you the necessary background and confidence to go forth without any concerns.

So, without further ado, let’s roll our sleeves and get started on how to conduct market research. Read on and take notes!

1. Define the Research Goal

The first step of the process is defining your goal. It is important to start with a clear idea of why you are doing the research and what you want to accomplish. If your motivation is vague, you risk straying from your objectives and becoming distracted by irrelevant information.

During your study, you may find other important topics that are not closely related to the problem you are addressing. You should record them and save them for later research in different projects.

Mixing questions regarding too many problems in one survey can confuse the respondents and affect the accuracy of their answers. It can also make the research results too inconsistent. And it’s hard to conclude a bunch of random facts.

By stating the purpose and the problems of your research, you can establish a clear goal guiding everyone throughout the process.

This way, you’ll concentrate your efforts, and, in the end, you’ll be able to make informed decisions based on data.

For example, if you are choosing the pricing model for a new SaaS product, you should perform market research to make sure you’ll pick out the best one for your business. In this case, it should be something like “ Find out the best pricing strategy for the product ”. Some of the objectives can be:

• Identify the target audience.
• Find out what products they are currently using.
• Learn how much they are paying for them.
• Understand how much they are willing to pay.
• Research how they are using similar products.
• Discover what features they’d pay more for.
• Compare your product to the competition, etc.

Ultimately, your goal should be what you want to see accomplished in the future. That’s why it’s best to focus on your plans and targets, rather than on your current problems. Otherwise, you risk being stuck with unsolvable issues rather than with creative solutions.

2. Create Client Personas

When doing market research, you need a group of people who’ll answer your questions and whose opinions are important to your business. To identify these people, you should first create profiles that fit your target audience.

Client personas, or buyer personas , are collective profiles representing your ideal customers’ common qualities. They can be based on your top buyers in an attempt to attract more people like them to your business, or if you are just starting, they can be the product of separate market research.

Every business should have market personas. If you have already created yours – way to go, you are one step ahead! If you have not yet done it, now is a good time.

When building the buyer persona’s profile, you should include the following basic information, and add other specific factors, if there are any:

• Demographic – Age, gender, location, etc.
• Personal Information – Family status, income, interests, etc.
• Work-related details – Company, position, decision-making level, etc.
• Pain Points – Work and personal life struggles, barriers to achieving goals, etc.

For further reference on how to build buyer persona profiles, you can read DevriX’s article:

An Advanced Guide to Creating and Using Buyer Personas to Convert Leads

3. Identify the Sample

A market research sample is a representative group of people who match your client persona profiles. Depending on the scope of the study, you might include in it people who fit one or multiple personas.

Ideally, if you want the results to be representative, you should focus on a single profile. However, if you feel that you will get more information from different types of customers, you can define separate samples for every participating persona and compare the results at the end.

Defining and identifying a representative sample is the foundation of accumulating accurate results. If your participants don’t match the profile you need, their answers will not be relevant to your goals.

Participants for samples can be identified in:

• Your customer database . Clients should be divided into groups matching your buyer persona profiles. If you haven’t already implemented the segmentation , doing it will help you sift through who to invite to participate in the research.
• Competitors’ clients. People who use products similar to yours and fit the profile, but are not currently your customers, are a great addition to your research. By learning about their opinions and preferences, you can attract them as clients in the future.
• Your lead database . Every lead you have in your email list or CRM tool can be a potential candidate for the survey sample. As with existing customers, leads should be segmented not only for research but also for better marketing.
• Social media profiles . Your network of followers on different social media platforms can be a valuable resource in every survey. By announcing the desired profiles participants should fit and encouraging people to share with acquaintances, you can reach many more potential participants.

Your sample must be large enough and also representative of the population you are targeting. Choosing an audience too small or an ill-targeted group of people can make the results of the research biased.

Although there is not a universal minimal number of people to include in your study, it is generally accepted amongst scientists that less than 100 people is insufficient to make up a statistically relevant conclusion. Therefore, to ensure you’ll reach this number, you’ll have to distribute your questions to at least 150 people.

However, if you want to research only your existing customers and they are less than 100 in total, you can still carry out your study but you’ll have to accept a larger error margin .

4. Perform Your Chosen Research Methods

Once your sample is clear, you can move forward to conducting market research. Depending on your goals, you can explore different methods, but we will be using a strategy combining a few of them for this article. This is usually the safest way to guarantee that your results will be comprehensible and on point.

Prep Your Questions

The goals and objectives you set in the initial stages of your research should be organized and formulated into questions you can ask your participants.

Although the phrasing and scope of these will probably change and be refined throughout the different stages of the research, you should consider testing them at the beginning on a small sample. This will allow you to eliminate rookie mistakes and save you some trouble further on in the research.

Do Secondary Research

Before you start studying your audience, you should consider doing secondary research to build a general idea of the market.

You can find paid and free data available in government databases, private research companies, educational institutions, and public libraries.

There is a chance that the information you go through has nothing to do with the goals of your particular research. But it can still help you identify market patterns at scale and configure your following moves.

Try Various Exploratory Methods

The next step is to dive into your specific target audience and see how things are. This can be done via different exploratory research methods.

1. Observation. At this stage, consider starting with observation. This will give you an idea of how your customers act in real-life situations in their natural environment.

2. Focus Group Meetings. You can continue by consolidating your initial impressions in focus group meetings. The moderator can ask the participants about the subjects that got their attention and the discussion that follows can give you additional insights.

3. Personal Interviews. Interviewing individual representatives of your sample will allow you to ask even more follow-up questions and have a chance to learn about your customers’ preferences, goals, and pain points.

Distribute Customer Surveys

You can leverage all the information you’ve gathered in the previous steps to design customer surveys . They will help you acquire the answers to your questions at scale and prove or disprove the hypothesis built in the exploratory stage.

The questions in the surveys should be as simple and easy to understand as possible. Avoid answers that lead the customer in the direction you’d like. This might influence their responses and compromise the results.

5. Analyze the Data and Organize It Into a Report

The data you obtain should be analyzed and organized at the end of every stage of your market research. These preliminary reports will serve you in the process of the study and will make building the final report easier.

Results from the research will be both qualitative and quantitative and should be properly visualized to make sense to everyone to whom they would be presented.

Cold statistics can be overwhelming, but presenting the data in an engaging format can make it more appealing and clear.

Some forms of reporting are customer journey maps and affinity diagrams . Even users who are not technically advanced can take advantage of modern data visualization tools and make research data interesting to the audience of their presentation.

Step-by-Step Market Research

Conducting market research is complicated. It takes a lot of preparation and can seem intimidating at first. But once you become familiar with the basics, you will be able to do it yourself and reap its success.

By using this guide, you can study different aspects of your target market, and get to know your audience on a different level. Leveraging the data and insights you gather will give you a strategic advantage and empower you to make more informed data-based decisions for your business.

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How To Do Market Research For New Product Development

Market research for new product development can be overwhelming.

It’s easy to get lost in a mountain of market reports with thousands of data points…. yet get no clear insights on which product is best for your brand.

Instead of aimlessly searching for new product ideas and sifting through endless market reports, this post will walk you through a simple step-by-step process that outlines:

• How to quickly find relevant new product ideas.
• Specific data and metrics you need to analyze each product opportunity (and how to find these metrics).
• How to use market research data to assess a product opportunity.

What Is Market Research For New Product Development?

Market research for new product development is the process of evaluating the demand, growth, and gaps in a market for a particular product (typically a physical product sold in a retail setting or direct to consumer).

These insights help you understand which products your target market wants, which ones are most profitable, and the key characteristics customers like and dislike about competitors' products.

With this data, you can more accurately predict which product will perform best for your business.

Types Of Market Research For New Product Development

There are four types of market research typically used for researching and developing products: 

• Qualitative research
• Quantitative research
• Primary research
• Secondary research

Quantitative Research

Examples of quantitative data you might collect during the product market research process include:

• Market size and growth rates
• Pricing data
• Sales forecasts
• Website traffic data
• Market share of the top competitors

Quantitative data is helpful for benchmarking and is often the main type of research used to quickly gauge the potential of market opportunities.

Quantitative data can be fact-checked, but accuracy still varies depending on factors like sample size and data collection methods.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is data based on subjective opinions.

An example of qualitative data is customer feedback.

This data is helpful for product market research, as you can better understand customer pain points and what they like and dislike about what's already out there.

Some examples of qualitative research methods include:

• Interviews with potential customers
• Customer reviews
• Questionnaires and surveys
• Discussion analysis (monitoring conversations on social media, in forums, etc.)
• Feedback from focus groups

Primary Research

Primary research is data collected by you or your company.

Here are some examples of primary research:

• Results from a survey you conducted
• A report from sales data your team analyzed
• Customer interviews conducted by your team

The advantage of primary market research is that it's proprietary data your company owns. So your competitors won't have access to it. You can also tailor the data to answer your specific questions about the market.

The downside of primary research is that it’s expensive and time-consuming. You'll have to conduct the research, clean the data, and analyze it yourself.

You can hire a market research firm to help, but this will make it even more costly.

Secondary Research

Secondary research is data collected and published by other third-party sources, like an industry publication or government agency.

Here are some examples of secondary research:

• Free and paid market reports published by a source like Grand View Research or MarketResearch.com .
• Statistics published by a source like The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics or the U.S. Energy Information Administration .
• Data in the Census Business Builder .

Secondary research is usually cheaper than primary research, so it's great for the early stages of product market research when you're narrowing down your list of product ideas.

For example, if you're interested in the padel market, search "padel market forecast" to find free industry reports. You can look at statistics like compounding annual growth rate and market size to quickly gauge if the padel market is worth exploring in more detail.

The drawback of secondary research is that the data quality may vary as you can't control data quality.

So research how each provider collects and cleans the data they publish.

Step By Step Process To Conduct Market Research For Product Development

​​In this step-by-step market research process for new product development, you'll learn how to find, validate, and develop a great product.

Step 1: Research And Identify Trending Products

Many people browse social media and Amazon to find trending product ideas.

But emerging products, by definition, aren't easy to find.

You might spend hours browsing these platforms to find a few promising product ideas. And even the most diligent product researchers might still overlook the best emerging product ideas.

One solution to find great product ideas faster is to use a product research tool.

However, each tool contains different product ideas.

So the tool you choose significantly impacts the product ideas you find.

For example, many product research tools only show products that have grown significantly in the past few weeks. These are often fads, and demand may die out when you’re ready to launch your product.

Other product research tools show you products that are currently trending. Yet this isn't helpful if you want to launch a product before demand peaks.

Or, the product research tool might simply overlook the best product ideas. This is common with product research tools relying on human analysts to find product ideas, as even the best analysts may overlook a great product idea.

To solve these problems, we built our own product research tool, Exploding Topics.

It has a unique trend identification and qualification method that uses AI and ML to scan millions of data points across sources like YouTube, Amazon, Spotify, Google Search, and Reddit. This ensures it consistently spots emerging product ideas. Then, we use Google Search volume data to ensure the topic has a steady compounding growth trajectory.

This process allows Exploding Topics to consistently identify emerging products with long-term growth potential.

It's also easy to use.

When you open the Trending Products dashboard, you'll see a list of trending products. You can filter the database by category (fitness, fashion, beauty, gaming, pets, etc.), BSR, monthly sales, price, revenue, and reviews.

The graph next to the product information also represents the keyword's Google Search volume trend so that you can gauge its growth trajectory:

When you see a product that interests you, click on it for more details, like a forecast of its growth trend for the coming year.

Further down the product page is a list of the Top Sellers for that product on Amazon.

You’ll also see related trending products and topics. You can also click on any of those products for more detailed information.

To track a product, click "Track Topic" and add it to a Project.

Projects are folders that live inside the Trend Tracking dashboard, and Exploding Topics updates each topic's growth trend in real time.

This makes it easy to gauge product growth at a glance so that you never have to worry about managing a product idea spreadsheet.

You can try Exploding Topics Pro for $1 to start researching product ideas.

Step 2: Analyze The Market For Each Product Idea

Your product is much more likely to succeed if it’s part of a growing market.

An easy way to quickly analyze a market’s general growth trajectory is to look at a market forecast.

Sources like Grand View Research , Globe Newswire , and Market.us usually offer free market reports with forecast data.

To find these reports, Google the product keyword and "market report:"

Next, identify the brands with the largest market share and analyze their growth trajectory.

If the market leaders are growing rapidly, the market is probably also expanding.

There are two ways to easily gauge a brand's growth.

1. Check the brand’s Google Search volume trend .

You can find a brand's Google Search volume trend by typing the brand name into Google Trends or the Trends Search feature in Exploding Topics.

You can also click "Track Topic" and add it to a Project to monitor growth.

2. Employee headcount

A company is probably growing if it has steadily increased employee headcount over the past few years.

You can find employee headcount data by typing the brand name into LinkedIn and scrolling down to the bottom of the company page:

Funding data is also a great indicator of a market's growth trajectory.

Investors spend a lot of time and resources assessing market growth, so a lot of funding activity is a good sign the market is growing.

Paid tools like CB Insights and Pitchbook offer detailed funding data for most industries. You can also search "funding" and the industry name to find press releases, funding reports, and other relevant investment news.

Step 3: Conduct Customer Research

Once you find a trending product in a growing market, the next step is figuring out how to create the best product possible.

First, identify what customers like and dislike about existing products. Then, create a product that incorporates the elements customers like about existing products and solves the pain points they experience.

The easiest way to conduct customer research is to analyze customer reviews.

Amazon is the best resource to find verified reviews. As you're reading through the reviews, make notes on:

• Target Audience Demographics : Who is buying the product? (gender, age, location, etc.).
• Use Case : What problem did they purchase the product to solve?
• Praise : What do they like about the product?
• Pain Points : What do they like about the product?

For example, from the review below, you can tell that customers value soft material, accurate color descriptions, and expensive aesthetics. You can also see that customers want a more durable product.

Reading through reviews can help you better understand your target customers, but most people don't have time to read thousands of customer reviews.

So you can also copy and paste customer reviews into ChatGPT and ask it to extract insights on audience demographics, product use cases, likes, and dislikes.

Here's a prompt you can use to analyze the reviews. (In this screenshot, all of the reviews are pasted in quotes following the prompt):

Here’s a snippet of the response it generated:

You can also find Reddit or Facebook groups of your target audience.

For example, if you're considering selling infant vitamins, you could join these Facebook groups for moms:

After joining the group, you can ask members about the product you're researching. Here are some specific questions you can ask:

• Why did they purchase the product?
• How did they select the brand they purchased from?
• What do they like/dislike about the product?

You can also ask respondents if they would consider getting on a quick call. One-on-one interviews let you ask more follow-up questions to better understand the audience.

Talking to prospects is also a great way to build up some demand for your product and even recruit a group of beta testers.

If you already have an audience, ask them about your new product idea.

For example, this creator asked her TikTok followers what they thought of her sleepwear product idea.

Then, she documented the product development process and gathered feedback from her followers to craft a product they want.

For example, after designing a few concepts with the manufacturer, she created another video of the initial product designs and asked her audience for feedback.

Her product launch went on to be a major success and she sold out in a matter of hours.

Step 4: Pre-Sell Your Product And Gather Initial Feedback

The best way to validate market demand for your product concept is to see if people will buy it.

So design a few product samples and then run a pre-order sale.

If nobody buys the product, you'll avoid wasting thousands of dollars developing tens or hundreds of products that nobody wants.

And if your pre-order sale is successful, you can use that revenue to fund product development.

For example, Nebia ran a pre-order sale for its bidets to validate the product concept.

There are a few different ways you can generate pre-orders.

If you already have an audience, you can create a social media post or email your list and announce the pre-order sale.

This post is a great example of a pre-order sale video. The influencer explains how the product works, its benefits, and how it solves common pain points.

If you don't have an audience, you can work with an influencer to create a pre-order video for you.

You can also run Facebook or Instagram ads to a landing page to generate pre-orders. Facebook has a step-by-step guide explaining how to set up and run ads for pre-order sales.

Another option is to run a pre-order sale on Kickstarter.

Nebia is a great example of an ecommerce brand that validated its product idea on Kickstarter.

The Kickstarter community will also give you initial feedback on the product before you launch it to the public. Kickstarter users also know they're beta testers, so they tend to be more forgiving if the initial product concept isn't perfect.

You can also ask some Kickstarter buyers to record video reviews of the product for your public product launch.

Step 5: Launch Your New Product And Gather Feedback

After launching your product, gather feedback from your audience to continue iterating on the original product.

If you have a social media following, you can ask your audience what they like and dislike about the product.

You can also email your list offering a discount or coupon to complete a product survey.

Survey tools like Pollfish and SurveyMonkey make it easy to create and send a product survey.

In the survey, ask specific questions about the product. For example, if you’re selling athletic clothing, you could ask them to rate the product fit, material quality, durability, style, color, and other specific factors.

If you leave the questions too open ended, people will give you generic feedback that might not be very helpful for improving the product.

Start The New Product Market Research Process Today

A solid product market research process takes the guesswork out of product launches by giving you the data you need to identify and design the best product for your audience.

It will also give you more confidence on launch day, as you'll have solid evidence of strong demand for your product.

To get started with the first step of the product market research process, use Exploding Topics to browse thousands of emerging trending products today.

Find Thousands of Trending Topics With Our Platform

• Product management
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• How to do market research

How product managers should do market research

Why do customers buy your product? The simple answer is they have a problem to solve. But a deeper explanation exists beyond the benefits and features of what you offer. You must understand who your customers are, what they really care about, and why they choose your product over another if you want to ensure long-term success.

This is something product managers know well. In fact, it is part of the job. Product managers are responsible for determining what target customers need and value to build a product they will love. This process is called product discovery . And it begins with research.

Market research involves gathering and analyzing information about the overall market environment, prospective customers, and competitors for your product or service. For product managers, this helps you formulate a nuanced worldview of the opportunities and threats that exist for your offering. Think of it like studying a habitat — you are exploring the elements that could affect your product's ability to thrive. Like any habitat, conditions can be variable. You will want to keep learning and observing as markets are constantly shifting (especially in the tech industry).

While research is a core product management task, the entire cross-functional product team needs to understand the market — each representative will zero in on different aspects to help your product succeed. This guide will give you an overview of what market research entails and how to get started conducting your own.

Vision, market research, user feedback — manage it all in Aha! Roadmaps. Try it free .

Why is market research important.

Understanding the market is an important part of crafting your product strategy — along with defining what you want to achieve and how you plan to get there . Market research brings external factors into consideration.

This is important because market research is critical to finding product-market fit . You need to deeply understand your market position, audience, and any alternative solutions if you want your product to succeed. This matters whether you are launching a new product, enhancing an existing offering, or entering a new market.

In other words — intuition alone is not enough. Even if you have a clear product vision and substantial industry experience, conducting regular market research often uncovers new and unexpected ways to improve your product. This can also improve your resilience as an organization.

Of course, there will always be external forces you cannot control. But if you have a deep understanding of the market environment and customer values, you will be in a better position to adapt to challenging situations.

Plus, market research enables all members of the core product team to make more informed decisions. The following are only a few examples of many, but market research helps:

Product management — Empathize with customers and understand their needs to better prioritize upcoming product work.

UX design — Make design choices that reflect how customers want to use modern products.

Engineering — Stay up-to-date with technologies used by competitors.

Product marketing — Update product positioning to resonate with what customers want to hear.

Related: How do product managers work with other teams?

What are the components of market research?

For product development purposes, you will want to explore three core components of market research — the overall market landscape, competitive analysis, and customer research.

Overall market landscape

Examining the market as a whole is a good place to start. Typically this piece of market research looks at macro-level industry characteristics and customer behavior. Below is a list of different factors to consider when researching the market landscape.

	Ability of buyers to impact product quality, price, and customer service within a market.
	Similar characteristics and common beliefs your buyers share (e.g., age, income, cultural values).
	Quantified measure of the change in demand within the market over a given period of time.
	Portion of revenue attributed to each company in the market (including your own, if applicable).
	Number of customers and/or revenue within the market over a given period of time.
	Current amount customers are willing or expect to pay for similar products.
	Likelihood of volatility, financial loss, or other market factors that could negatively impact your business.

A PESTLE analysis — which stands for political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental — can be a helpful exercise to get your team thinking about the broader market and where your product will fit into it. Give it a try in Aha! software with this whiteboard template:

Start using this template now

Competitive analysis

Researching competitors involves looking at established players in the market and alternative solutions used by prospective customers. By assessing competitor strengths and weaknesses, you can learn how to differentiate your product.

Read more: A guide to competitive analysis

Customer research

Customer research drives product innovation by enabling you to glean insights directly from your target audience. This helps product teams build empathy for the problems customers want to solve. It can also reveal your customers' true feelings about your product.

Read more: A guide to customer research

How to do market research as a product manager

The market research process will vary in complexity depending on the scale and extent of your plans. Launching a brand new offering often calls for a comprehensive analysis of the entire market — in other scenarios, like enhancing established products, a lightweight look at the current competition could suffice. But in general there are four essential steps for conducting successful market research:

Define your objectives. In order to collect the right data, you must first establish what you are trying to learn. Clarify the focus of your market research by listing out the questions you have about a problem or opportunity, then distill this into a goal statement.

Plan and conduct research. Figuring out where to find the information you need. You can employ a mix of primary and secondary sources — primary includes interviews, surveys, and focus groups while secondary includes sources like industry publications, trade associations, and market reports.

Analyze and share the results. Once you have gathered your data, review it closely to uncover trends and other insights. Summarize your findings and make them accessible to your team. You might even create a presentation to showcase what you discovered.

Plan next steps. Market research should inform action. Use your newfound learnings to build customer personas , form a well-rounded product strategy, or prioritize product decisions that will deliver more value to the market.

Many product managers expedite their research and analysis by using pre-built templates. If you want to get started fast, download one of our customizable research templates or the SWOT analysis whiteboard template . This framework is helpful both for identifying what to research and organizing your findings for discussion after research is complete.

Start using this template now

Market research is not a one-time endeavor. It is something to continually invest in as conditions change and your product grows. But the insights you gain as a product manager should more than make up for the effort that conducting market research requires. When you are able to paint a full picture of the market, you will have more clarity on how your product fits into it.

FAQs about how to do market research

What does a market research analyst do?

A market research analyst gathers and analyzes data about market trends, consumer preferences, and competitive landscapes — helping businesses make informed decisions. This role is crucial for organizations looking to understand their target audience, assess demand for products or services, and develop effective marketing and business strategies.

How can product managers define their target market?

Product managers can define their target market through research, analysis, and a deep understanding of their potential customers. This entails conducting market research, creating customer personas, gathering direct and indirect feedback from prospective customers, and analyzing competitors.

What's the difference between primary and secondary research?

Primary research involves gathering new data directly from your target audience through surveys, interviews, or empathy sessions . Secondary research includes analyzing existing data collected from other sources such as reports, publications, or studies.

What questions should a product manager ask when conducting market research?

Understanding your market is core to deciding what you want to deliver and the value it will bring. Here are some essential questions to get you started:

What problems do potential customers face and how can your product help?

Who are the target customers and what do they need?

Who are your competitors and how can you stand out ?

What market trends and opportunities can you leverage?

What is the right price and value proposition for your product?

How can customers easily access and buy your product?

What might prevent customers from adopting your product, and how can you overcome those barriers?

How can you gather and use customer feedback for improvements?

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How to do Market Research in 7 Steps

Home » Blog » How to do Market Research in 7 Steps

Do you know about the world-changing Amazon market research strategy of 2012?

Few do, yet it influences millions of people’s daily purchasing decisions.

Many of those who were part of it got very rich. And most had zero business or sales experience!

Its simplicity was brilliant.

I’ll tell you about it and give you 7 actionable steps on how to do market research that works for every business, regardless of size. 

And explain why your market research could be the secret to your success. 

How market research changed how we shop

Two guys, Jason Katzenback and Matt Clark created an Amazon-based marketing and sales strategy called the Amazing Selling Machine that forever changed how we make our shopping decisions, a nd it ran on market research. Here’s how it worked: 

You chose a category, found a popular and profitable product, researched the major competitor’s negative reviews, and then used them to create a better alternative.

Most, if not all, of the page-one products you see on Amazon today are there because of this strategy!

The key was the better your market research, the more profit you made. And the same is true for businesses in most markets, off and online. 

Now, let’s dive in and discover how market research works for you: 

What is market research?

Market research illuminates what we don’t know, removing the uncertainty of the unknown by blending economic trends and consumer behavior to validate your business idea. 

And it does it by asking questions like: 

• Is there a need for your product/service?
• What's your market size?
• Who's your target audience?
• And how much will they pay for your products or service?

Most people buy stuff or services to solve their problems and improve their lives. Market research identifies who those people are and their concerns by analyzing data that define their needs and demographics. Providing accurate, reliable, up-to-date information you can use to design the perfect sales and marketing strategy for your business. 

In short, market research removes the uncertainty of the unknown, helping you create a product/service that a specific group of people needs, which in turn reduces the risk when starting a business . 

Why is market research essential when planning a new business?

People made tens of millions of dollars on Amazon because they knew their customers’ needs, what to sell, and how to advertise it. 

The market research was so powerful it was like shooting fish in a barrel. 

Author and marketer, Mike Gospe’s quote, also explains why market research is essential-

“Whoever understands the customer best wins.” 

And while the 2012 opportunity on Amazon was unique to that platform, market research applies to every business setting. 

It helps you: 

• Confirm the demand for your product or service.
• Establish your market size and the number of people interested in your small business ideas .
• Identify your ideal client's demographics, like age, gender, and buying habits.
• Find their location, so you know where to reach them.
• And the price your potential customers already pay for alternatives.

Market research empowers you to identify opportunities, avoid pitfalls, understand your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses, and make informed decisions on product development. Saving you from investing in a business idea that might not work because of a lack of demand for what you offer or where you’re offering it.  This is essential e specially now, and for anyone considering the best business to start in a recession.

How to find your competitors

Your direct competitors provide a similar service to your target audience and engage them using identical marketing strategies, like a website, social media, and local business listings. 

Here’s how you find them: 

• Use keywords (search terms) relative to your niche and look for your competitors online.
• Follow their social media links, and note which platforms they use.
• Look at Google My Business and local business directories to find photographers in your area.

When you find your competitors, study their websites and social media platforms to see which services they offer, their marketing strategies, pricing, how they engage their audience, and why they’re successful. 

Reading their recent reviews, you can see what’s unique about their work. Then use this information to design your service. 

Types of market research

Before diving into the different market research types, you need to know that they fall into 2 categories, primary and secondary. 

Primary research involves collecting original data through surveys, focus groups, and interviews. This type of research is often time-consuming and costly, but it can provide more in-depth and accurate results.

Secondary research involves gathering data that others have already collected and published, such as industry reports, government statistics, and online databases. 

While secondary research may be less specific and current than primary research, it’s often more cost-effective and efficient, making it a viable choice for small to medium businesses on a budget. 

Okay, here are the most common market research methods:

Surveys are a fast way to gather large amounts of data and work by asking respondents a short series of open or closed questions. You can do them online, by phone, or in person.

They’re easy and inexpensive to run, and the results are straightforward to analyze.

Focus groups

Involve a small group of carefully selected people to test your product or service, which answer specific questions or provide open feedback.

Focus groups are great for gathering in-depth insights and exploring different perspectives about your product or service.

Allow you to ask detailed questions, observe body language, and follow up on responses to discover what your intended market wants and thinks. And you can hold them one-on-one or in a group setting. 

Interviews are perfect for creating a buyer’s persona around your target audience’s gender, age, location, family size, job title, budget, likes/dislikes, and buying habits. 

Product/service use research

Product or service research is discovering what people think about your product or service and their features.

Usability testing research tells you why and how your target audience uses your product/service and which features are most helpful. Giving you insights into what your ideal clients like most about them or, sometimes, dislike. 

Observation-based research

With this market research approach, you observe how your target audience uses your product or service. Noting their user experience (UX) to determine which parts work and where the user has problems. Helping you to improve your product ’ s/service’s functionality.

Buyer persona research

Your buyer persona research is about identifying the people that make up your target audience to discover their challenges, why they need your product or service, and what they want from your brand.

Market segmentation research

You categorize your target audience into different groups based on defining characters to understand their pain points better and determine how to meet their needs effectively.

Pricing research

This helps you know your competitors’ price points for products or services like yours. It enables you to charge what your target audience expects and is willing to pay ensuring they see your brand as an attractive option.

Competitive analysis

You need this market research to know who you’re competing with and the level of competition within your market. The results can give insights into what products or services are hot and which competitors you can beat or avoid.  

A competitive analysis is also how you identify your competitor’s weaknesses and improve your USP (unique sales proposition) to separate yourself from the crowd.

Customer satisfaction and loyalty research

It’s about researching your current customers to find out what they love about your business, what satisfies them most, and which strategies best encourage them to become repeat ones. 

Some customer satisfaction guarantors include rewards, loyalty programs, great products, or exemplary customer service.

Brand awareness research

Here’s where you discover what people know, recognize, or think about your brand.

Brand awareness research is crucial as it highlights the consumer’s perception of your brand, like what you believe in and stand for and what associations they make when they think of you. 

Now let’s look at how you put those marketing strategies into action: 

Steps for conducting market research

The following steps of your market research will help you get to know your target audience and what they want from a business like yours. And uncover crucial information about your ideal clients, such as their age, wealth, family situation, interests, needs, and buying habits. 

And when you bring those together, you’ll have invaluable insights that can help create a thriving business. 

1. Define your research objectives 

There are many reasons to conduct market research, such as to create new opportunities, assess business threats, and look at past problems to avoid repeating them.  

But the first question you must answer is whether your market research is for internal or external use.

Internal use is for you and your business, while external is for others outside your business. The purpose of internal use could be to streamline your business operations and improve cash flow. In contrast, external use could convince lenders to provide a business loan. 

Research for external use is often extensive and time-consuming. Internal requires less data, and you can do it with less experience. 

With that question answered next, define which elements of your business you’re researching and why. 

Research areas could be:

• Product features during the development process.
• Preparing for your product launch.
• To better understand your target audience.
• To ensure your brand identity is on target.
• Establish different marketing campaign ideas.
• Evaluate customer experience.

Once you have the why your next step is to define who.

2. Determine your target audience 

Here’s where you identify your target market to ensure your business idea meets their needs. 

There are many external ways to research your target audience, and we’ll look at some later. But there’s a way you can do it right now; try this strategy out:

Imagine you’ve started your business and are yet to make a sale. Then your shop door opens, or someone lands on your sales platform. They need what you sell; your business idea solves their problem, and they buy your solution. 

Do you see them?

What do they look like? Can you describe them‌?

That person is your target audience.

Now, your business might have several target audiences; each could have different reasons to use your products or services. But they’ll have common traits such as demographics like age, income level, location, or gender. Or it could be psychographic traits, such as similar interests or likes and dislikes.

Your goal is to identify each group, known as market segmentation, to create marketing campaigns for each. 

And for your market research purposes, choose your research methods and arrange your questions to suit. 

I’ll explain why next:

3. Choose your market research methods 

You can use many methods to conduct market research, including surveys, interviews, focus groups, online questionnaire research, and observation. 

Which you choose depends on 3 factors:

• The type of information you want to collect
• Your research goals
• Your budget

For new business owners, a broad approach is often best. Using strategies like surveys or focus groups to balance quality and quantity at an affordable cost. 

4. Prepare your research questions 

To get the best from market research conversations, you must prepare by creating a discussion guide that’ll help you control the session and maximize the results. 

A discussion guide contains the topics and questions you want to discuss with participants throughout the interview.

The outline can include an introduction, some easy warm-up questions, product- or service-specific exploratory questions, and a debrief. Each section should be natural and conversational, with open-ended questions and time allotments. 

How to design your discussion guide:

Define your goals, research questions, and hypotheses 

Think about what you want to learn. What you’ll do with the feedback you get? What problem you’ll solve for your customers? 

Also, have a testable hypothesis to use in your research. It helps create your discussion guide with structure, use test scenarios, and get feedback on your product/service designs and functionality. 

Put your guide into critical sections, each with a unique purpose

Each unique area (intro, warm-up, specific, and debrief) ensures you answer all the essential questions you formed when defining your goals. 

Ask for feedback

Your research is all about feedback, including your research sessions!

Ask interviewees about their experiences and other thoughts to help improve your future research sessions. This feedback could also illuminate areas you hadn’t considered, leading to further discussions and enlightenment. 

The open-ended question rule!

The golden rule in marketing research is to ask open-ended questions to avoid “leading your interviewees” or getting the dreaded one-word answers. 

Also, when you ask yes or no questions, you might sway their opinion with your conclusion.

5. List your primary competitors

To analyze your market thoroughly, you must research the other businesses in your field to see what they’re offering, who they’re targeting with their marketing efforts, their location, and their advantages/disadvantages in the marketplace. 

To identify your competitors, choose a handful of industry search terms relevant to your business idea, then use them online to build a list of your competitors. 

For example: A landscaping business could use search terms like “landscape service” but also other search terms like “garden service” or “garden maintenance,” etc.

List in hand, now Google them

Record any websites using your industry terms, then compare them against your target audience’s needs and demographics. 

The aim is to see which competitors are the most likely to attract and convert your ideal clients via Google before you do. Because if Google’s promoting its website for your industry-relevant search terms, they’re your direct competitors.  

Once you have your list next, determine each competitor’s strengths and weaknesses using a (SWOT analysis) to answer questions like:

• What do they have that you don’t?
• Why would your ideal clients choose their business over yours?
• Do they pose a direct threat to your business?

SWOT analysis complete, rank them from most to least threatening, and determine your start-up’s marketing position and advantages in comparison.

6. Document your findings

Your 2nd last step is to document your market research findings. How you’ll report them depends on why you need them. 

For instance, market research for internal use and only seen by you or your business partners can be informal.

However, if you need investors, you should write it as a formal market analysis and include a business plan .

But before doing either, you must organize your findings into different sections, so it’s easier to document. Areas could consist of your competitors, target audience, product/service development, and purpose. 

Some things to consider in your findings, especially if using them to gain funding:

• An overview of your market size and growth rate
• A projection of your market percentage share
• Your business’s growth forecast, including cash flow projections
• Your industry outlook, is it declining, stagnant, or rising?
• Any noticeable consumer buying trends
• Your current prices
• What your competitors charge
• Any customer segment groups you established
• Results of any other analyses

7. Put your analysis into action

Once you’ve analyzed your data, it’s time to put it to use. Use your findings to inform business decisions, such as product development, marketing strategies, and customer service improvements.

If it’s internal, consider how you can implement your findings to improve your business, such as making your sales process more efficient or customer care more attentive.

For external, now prepare yourself to talk with those lenders about your research results and conclusions.

Finally, revisit and update your market research analysis to see where you can tweak and improve your business as it grows. 

The main takeaway is the more time and effort you put into market research now, the better you`ll benefit from it in the future.

And remember, every successful business began not knowing exactly where it was going. And got to where it is today because of yesterday`s market research. 

Albert Einstein said this:

“If we knew what we’re doing, it wouldn’t be called research.” 

My advice is not to let the thoughts of market research overwhelm you. Choose a strategy that suits your business, style, and resources, then take it from there.

Happy researching; the results might surprise you!

This portion of our website is for informational purposes only. The content is not legal advice. All statements, opinions, recommendations, and conclusions are solely the expression of the author and provided on an as-is basis. Accordingly, Tailor Brands is not responsible for the information as well as has not been evaluated the accuracy and/or completeness of the information.

Terry OToole

Terry is a serial entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience building businesses across multiple industries – construction, real estate, e-commerce, hotelier, and now digital media. When not working, Terry likes to kick back and relax with family, explore Taoism’s mysteries, or savor the taste of fine Italian red wine.

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Product Management

How to do Product Research [Step-by-Step Guide]

Associate Product Marketer at Zeda.io.

Mahima Arora

Created on:

May 15, 2024

Updated on:

14 mins read

Transform Insights into Impact

Build Products That Drive Revenue and Delight Customers!

An effective and robust product research process increases the chances of product success. 

Seth W. Godin, an American author, once said – ‘Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.’

The quote subtly hints at the necessity of product research. By performing product research beforehand, product managers can create the ideal product for customers. 

Did you know that 90% of new product research focuses on ‘modifications’ and ‘additions’ rather than new concepts? 

But even improving or adding new features to an existing product requires a proper product research process.   

Product research enables managers to understand the current and future needs of the users. Thus, based on users’ pain points and what they are looking for, product managers can innovate products of a higher value. 

Furthermore, organizations with a strong product research process understand the market better. They stay one step ahead of the competition and survive better in the long run. 

Now that you know how important product research is, you must dive into how to do product research right away!

So, let’s begin!

10 Steps to Product Research

There’s no single product research process that fits all the product development teams. But there are certain key steps in the process that product managers must know about. 

Here are the 10 essential steps to perform a successful product research process. Follow these steps to derive valuable product insights that will guide your product development decisions.  

1. Define your research goals

Why are you performing the research?

Once product managers find an answer to the why, they can set the goals of the research. 

Set the high-level goals first. You can set these goals considering the product strategy and vision, ensuring their alignment with business objectives. 

Next, create SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Reliable, and Time-bound) goals for the product development team to focus on during each research stage. This may include;

• Performing market research for product adoption before its release
• Finding out the key areas or features of the product to be improved after the launch
• Assessing the product performance through the product’s lifecycle.

Setting clear, measurable, and time-bound goals for the product research process guides the product team’s actions. It helps them to understand what they need to do. Also, the goals help product managers to measure outcomes and make improvements where necessary.  

2. Understand your customer's needs and pain points

An effective product research process is always customer-centric. So, start engaging in user discovery. 

Understand user pain points. Start your user research even before planning the product features. Interact with your existing and potential users to identify their needs and wants. 

Performing open-ended user research will help product managers to; 

• Measure the market demand, 
• Get inspiration for the new product
• Determine the product-market fit
• Product positioning against competitors, and 
• Increase customer satisfaction. 

Since user research is a vital part of the product research process, you can check out the best product discovery questions list . 

After the user research, when product teams develop prototypes, they can start trials and ask for user feedback. Next, the insights from feedback can be used to improve the product. 

3. Perform competitor and comparative analysis

The next step in the product research process is to know the competition. 

• Start with competitive analysis . It involves reviewing the products that are directly similar to yours. For example, if a company sells smartphones, it is directly competing with other companies selling smartphones (like Samsung and Xiaomi). 
• Next, perform a comparative analysis . It involves evaluating the alternative options for a product. For instance, an automobile manufacturer can compare the safety features of multiple car models to measure the sales of each and identify the features that require improvement. 

Performing the analyses will provide insights that product teams can use to make the product better. 

4. Study the market

Besides performing competitive and comparative analyses, product managers must run thorough market research to map the available opportunities.

Here are a few ways to study the market thoroughly;

• Use the historical market records, and research reports by academic institutions, government agencies, and trade associations. 
• Observe and analyze the competitors’ strategies like advertising, pricing, and distribution of products. 
• Read up on blogs, magazines, social media posts, and other specific content related to your space.
• Run keyword research to understand what your users are looking for. This can help you generate product ideas too. 

Once product managers validate a viable market for the product and determine the market saturation, the development teams can focus on the product's USP (Unique Selling Points). 

5. Conduct research using qualitative and quantitative methods

Further, product managers can use both qualitative and quantitative methods of market research. 

Qualitative methods – The qualitative methods of market research aren’t statistically significant. These methods help product teams to understand the potential customers at a deeper level. Individual interviews, focus groups, observations or follow-me-homes, and interviews with professionals or field experts are a few qualitative methods you can utilize for market research.

Quantitative methods – Quantitative methods include conducting surveys, polls, or sending out questionnaires. Through quantitative methods, product managers study a large enough pool of respondents in their target market to have reasonable confidence in the collected data. For organizations with a limited budget, you can rely on the survey reports of other organizations in the relevant field.

6. Know the industry trends

Stay on top of the industry trends by updating your knowledge regularly. Observe the tech trends that may impact users’ expectations of your product or its viability in the long run. 

Engage with the tech cultures – read blogs, news, and magazines, listen to tech podcasts, follow the latest tech updates on social media platforms, forums, etc. Product managers can also use tools like Google Trends, Trend Hunter, etc. 

The IT teams in organizations also serve as a key source of tech information. Product managers can interact and take regular updates from them. 

The industry trend updates can also help product managers to research future projections, disruptive technologies, and the chances of product category obsolescence. Thus, with these insights, the product teams can create products that are likely to be in demand in the future. 

7. Validate product ideas

After thorough research, product teams can test ideas and solutions.

Based on the extensive research data, you can identify the possible products, their key features, or improvisations that can meet the user's needs. Further, you can perform concept testing to examine user experiences with concrete product ideas.

To start testing, identify the key users to test. Get participants for interviews, focus groups, or implement surveys, feedback tools, etc., to test the ideas with the existing users. 

Product managers can also ask questions and assess user responses. Or, they may simply explain to the users the product concept using wireframes and mock-ups.

8. Build your product and test the MVP

A crucial step in the product research process and the most conclusive market research that product managers can perform to ensure product success. It is only after a lot of effort that product teams get to the point of testing MVP (Minimal Viable Product).

Testing MVP is all about creating the MVP and trying to sell the product or the product idea to the target audience. Several types of product testing, like card sorting, tree testing, etc., tell whether or not users can navigate your product easily, to find the different functionalities they are looking for. 

Further, product managers can run a regression analysis, quality assurance, and performance testing to check the MVP functionalities. Running these tests helps the team to identify the areas where changes are needed.  

Multivariate tests and A/B tests are helpful when the user base is split into different groups and each group has different products or product features. These tests help product managers to choose the perfect iteration.

9. Derive findings and insights from the market research data 

The market research data is of no use unless you convert them into findings and insights. 

Products managers and the product team must analyze the data to find out conclusive outcomes that can support their product decisions. 

The team can then start building the final product or improvise the MVP based on the research insights. 

10. Use the analysis to guide your product strategy

The final step in the product research process is to convert the research insights into action. Cut through the noise and gather valuable customer-centric insights .

Then, you can use the research to create a strong product roadmap and strategy to guide the entire product development process. When you perform new research, ensure to compare the strategy and roadmap to keep them updated. 

Further, the research should also be used to make regular decisions, drive product backlog management , and create the basis for your product storytelling. 

7 Tips to Conduct an Effective Product Research

A strategic approach to performing the product research process is essential. But alongside the planned strategy, product managers must consider a few tips or best practices to conduct the product research successfully. 

1. Research highly-demanded products

At the initial stage, when you do not have a product concept, get inspired by the products high in demand. 

Check out trending hashtags, reviews, comments on review sites, and bestsellers list to find out the most popular products in your space. 

Here, the goal is not to imitate the product in demand. It is to keep an open mind, ascertain the demand level, and evaluate if the product idea is awesome or not. The product manager’s goal is to perform an honest evaluation and get back to brainstorming with the collected inspirations.

2. Read about similar products

When performing a competitive analysis, read reviews and case studies on the products. 

Product reviews are gold mines. You can find out what users like about the product and what they do not. Reading the reviews carefully can give you a list of the customer pain points. 

Similarly, product managers must download or buy case studies from companies that sell similar products. The case studies generally include the product-related challenges and how the company solved them. 

Evaluating reviews and case studies allows product managers to think through the potential issues and keep the solutions handy. Also, they can identify the product features that can be made better than that of the competitors. 

3. Host a focus group

Evaluate your product by bringing in people who fit your target market. Give them a product profile – what the product will look like, its features, and benefits. Then, ask relevant questions concerning what they like and dislike about the product.

Though focus groups aren’t effective all the time, they can help product managers to get an idea of what people would say about the product. 

Providing the focus group with an MVP or prototype works better. The feedback received is more valid and meaningful. 

4. Get expert product engineers

Product managers can hire product engineers to get unbiased opinions on the product prototypes. 

The experts work on a contractual basis. They evaluate the product design, and features, test prototypes, and ensure quality and usability. 

If required, product engineers can also assess the market research, build design ideas, and supervise production. 

5. Consider product marketing

Building the product is not the end of the product research process. Not overlooking product marketing is one of the best practices to follow. 

Product managers must give equal importance to product positioning and marketing strategy. They can check out the competitors to understand;

• How they promote their products
• Whether or not their marketing strategy is successful
• How to make improvements in the strategy

Further, considering the target market is a must. Try answering questions like;

• Where do they mostly shop?
• What are their interests?
• What are the social media platforms and communication channels mostly used by the target market?
• Where do they discover the products from?

Considering these aspects, the marketing strategies, campaigns, and distribution channels must be planned. 

6. Go for a soft launch

A trial or soft launch allows product managers to estimate sales. If the trial results aren’t satisfactory, they can modify the product before spending more on its marketing.

Soft launches need not be expensive. You can create a simple landing page for the product and then run a PPC or Pay per Click campaign to assess the demand. 

You can also provide a form that interested users could fill up. Explain the product to those who inquire, maintain communication, and notify them when the product is available. 

7. Continue product research

Continue your research even after the product launch . Ask for customer feedback, measure the outcomes of your marketing campaign, and track metrics like repeat purchases, new customers, etc. 

Further, track competitors too. Observe their strategies and emerging trends. Also, test new strategies like referral programs or loyalty programs. 

Product Research Tools

Building a user-centric product isn’t easy. Product managers must be equipped with the most effective tools. They must take every bit of help available to them. 

A product research tool is something that can help the product teams a great deal. It helps in making product management a more organized and structured process. Further, using these tools, product managers can get data-backed user insights and accurate research findings.

Check out the best 5 product research tools you can invest in.

Zeda.io is one of the best product management tools that you must invest in. It is a platform where you can; 

• Collect feedback, ideas, and feature requests from customers, 
• Analyze the data from a single dashboard, convert them to actionable insights, identify trends
• Plan product roadmaps , create live roadmaps, and share them with teams and customers
• Prioritize product tasks with prioritization frameworks like RICE
• Execute the product development process in collaboration with teams

In a nutshell, Zeda.io is the all-in-one product management software that allows you to build a product seamlessly and in an organized way. 

Also Read: Top AI Tools for Product Managers and Product Teams

Zendesk is a tool that helps you maintain interactions with your customers. It is a platform that allows collecting, understanding, and responding to user feedback .

Using Zendesk, product teams can listen to customer issues, develop a response plan, and deliver solutions to address their concerns.

Simply said, Zendesk ensures carrying out regular customer conversations as they are an integral part of the product research process. These customer conversations provide direct insights into customers' thoughts opinions, suggestions, and challenges. 

Thus, you can learn from customer feedback and incorporate changes, and better features in the product to ensure an incredible user experience. 

3. ProductPlan

In the product research process, the product research eventually converts to a product roadmap. It is the product roadmap that highlights the present and future priorities, workflows, product vision, and product progress. 

Once you have come across the research stage, the focus is on building the product roadmap. ProductPlan is the platform you can use to build visual roadmaps. The tool helps in maintaining flexibility, team collaboration, and efficient addressing of issues.

Here’s why you should get ProductPlan in your product research tool stack.

• It is easy to use
• It allows customizing roadmaps with lists, layouts, and timelines
• The drag-and-drop interface helps in tailoring the roadmaps according to one’s needs
• You can collaborate with teams, tag the members, and also comment within the roadmap

Another must-have product management tool, Jira ensures a hassle-free product journey from prototyping to product launch.

Jira is a project management tool that primarily helps with;

• Organizing project tasks
• Managing scrum and agile teams
• Capturing and recording software bugs 

With Jira, agile product teams can manage their workflow seamlessly. The tool offers 300+ integrations, is highly customizable, great for managing product issues, and overall effective product management. 

5. Proto.io

After you have built a product, you cannot release it directly to the market. User feedback and validation are required. So, instead of building a full-fledged product, you create an MVP or prototype with the basic features for testing the waters first. 

This is where Proto.io comes in. Proto.io is one of the leading prototyping tools that help you build a prototype quickly and easily. 

• Proto.io has a great interactive drag-and-drop interface that lets you create the prototype to test each product feature or idea based on your research. 
• It is user-friendly with integrated icons and easy image management

Thus, Proto.io increases your research efficiency. It helps you to offer customers an amazing product experience resulting in better customer satisfaction. 

Also Read: Choosing the Best Product Discovery Tool: Top 5 Picks

Final Thoughts

How to do product research is a common but complex question. Not all organizations use the same way to perform product research. But the product research process does have a few key steps that are crucial for its success. 

Throughout the process, just remember that product research is all about user research. The main goal is to understand the users, their needs, and their pain points. 

Once product managers implement the user-centric approach, they can build better products – the products that would meet the ever-changing demands of the market. Further, it will increase customer satisfaction and inspire loyalty.

With platforms like Zeda.io , your product research process can get easier. You can seamlessly perform user research using Zeda.io ’s product features like the central dashboard, prioritization framework, building live product roadmap, easy tracking, sharing roadmaps with teams and customers, etc.  

Suggested Read: The Product Management Process: 6 Essential Steps

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BUSINESS STRATEGIES

How to do market research in 5 simple steps

• Jennifer Kaplan
• Dec 23, 2019

Whether you’re looking to start a business or already went as far as creating your website and other promotional assets, marketing is a priority for you. That is, if you want to gain new and keep existing customers.

You may need to create a fresh marketing plan or adapt yours to meet the needs of today’s shoppers, since these are constantly changing. In order to do this, your first step will be to conduct market research.

In this article, we’ll explain what this term means, the difference between primary and secondary research, and how to do market research of your own in five simple steps.

What is market research?

Market research is the process of gathering information about your target market to determine the key to your business’s success amongst this crowd. It involves understanding the behavior of consumers, such as knowing where and how they are shopping, what factors influence their choices, and why they do or don’t buy your products and services. This data will allow you to best serve your specific audience.

Through market research you’ll also be able to learn about your industry, such as spotting top trends, examining the market size, and getting to know your competition.

By the end of this research process, you’ll be able to draw conclusions about your market and get super clear on your business’s value.

Primary vs. secondary market research

There are two main types of research that all of the different methods fall into. Understanding a bit about them will allow you to decide which one, if not parts of both, best suits your market research needs.

Primary research

In simple terms, primary research is the direct study of customers. It’s the firsthand information on your market. Methods of research include things like focus groups, interviews, and surveys.

This strategy is mostly useful for establishing your buyer personas and defining your target market , which we’ll dive into more below.

When conducting this kind of market research, you can do either exploratory open-ended conversations, or come prepared with specific questions you want to discuss. You can decide which approach best suits you based on your needs.

Secondary research

Secondary research is mainly comprised of information that outside sources have gathered, but it’s not limited to just this. It includes all the data and records available, such as trend reports, market stats, and industry-related content.

To access this outside information, you can turn to public sources and commercial research agencies, including places like the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor & Statistics, trade and professional magazines, and even libraries.

Internal sources are also reliable and useful. Look into sales reports to spot trends from the past. Also turn to digital marketing statistics, such as your website and social media account’s stats.

How to do market research

Following these five steps on how to do market research will allow your business to grow to new heights by being able to reach your customers more strategically:

Define your buyer personas and target market

Engage with your audience

Determine the best methods to meet their needs

Research your primary competitors

Draw conclusions from your findings

01. Define your buyer personas and target market

The very first thing you should ask yourself is ‘who are my customers?’ If you can’t answer this question, you can’t even begin to interpret their behaviors. This is where buyer personas come into play. Defining your own starts with creating a fictional representation of your ideal customers. Answer questions such as, ‘how old are they? ‘ ‘where are they located?’ ‘What kinds of jobs and hobbies do they have?’ You get the point, the more specific, the better the results will be. Likewise, it’s okay to have multiple buyer personas too - just make sure to specifically define each of them.

Through your buyer personas, you’ll be able to discover your target audience. Your target audience is the real market you’re reaching. There is a specific audience size and available data you can find through both primary and secondary research on these people. As we’ll discuss more below, you can directly reach out to these people to engage with them and understand their buying preferences.

02. Engage with your audience

Now that you’ve defined your target market, it’s time to pull a sample and pick their brain. Through primary research methods like focus groups, online surveys, user interviews and personal interviews, you’ll be able to get common opinions about your products and services. If you’re still in the process of starting your business, reach out to people that fit the common buyer personas you want to have as future customers.

In order to find your sample, there are many different paths you can take. Ideally you’ll want to choose customers who purchased from you recently, as they’ll have a good memory of their experience. Also, people that almost purchased from you but didn’t in the end, such as abandoned cart shoppers. Other methods include turning to your social media accounts and asking coworkers and their friends. In all, you want to get a large variety of people. The more, the merrier.

While conducting your research, have your goals in mind. Getting to that goal involves having planned questions or conversation topics. For example, you can ask your participants ‘how much are you willing to pay for our products/services?’ ‘do you prefer to purchase online or in person?’ and ‘how will you respond to the new product or service we are launching?’ At the end of your survey, make sure to reward your participants for giving you their valuable time. Offer compensation in the form of money, gifts, food, or something else.

03. Determine the best methods to meet their needs

This step is pretty straightforward. Now that you have an understanding of your audience and have asked their opinions on your offerings, turn inward to yourself or your marketing geniuses at your company to determine the best methods to meet their needs. The practice of shaping your marketing efforts to fit your audience's needs is powerful for drawing customers toward your brand, and it lies at the core of an important practice called inbound marketing.

An important thing to consider is your product branding, as the look and personality surrounding your brand will certainly determine your success. Likewise, promotional efforts including social media marketing and email campaigns have big impacts on your selling rate. Although there are tons of advertisement spaces online and offline, you’ll learn based off of your audience, as well as trial and error, which ones work best for your business.

04. Research your primary competitors

This begins by classifying your business into one or multiple identifiable industries. Having your industry(s) in mind will allow you to determine who your competitors are. This is because you can download marketing reports for specific industries that list out this key information. Besides market reports, you can also turn to search engines like Google and social media channels like LinkedIn to search for industries and related companies. Note that the more specific you are about your niche market in the industry (step number one above), the more fluid it will be for you to spot your competition.

Once you have your competitors in mind, the next step is to perform a SWOT analysis on them. A SWOT analysis is where you’ll write out the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of each of these businesses. Make sure to address the prices of their offerings, the display of their products and services, and other specific information about their marketing efforts.

After reviewing your customers in depth, you will be able to address how your business can compete with other companies in the field, what advantages you have in the industry, and what trends you should hop onboard with.

05. Draw conclusions from your findings

So you have tons of data at this point regarding your target market, their buying and decision-making processes, how you plan to reach them, and who your top competitors in your relevant industry are. The last thing you need to do is pull all of these findings together into a formal report.

Most of the time, this marketing report is part of a company’s business plan . That’s the case if you’re just starting out though. If you’ve been established for awhile or are using this information for one particular experiment, you can create an individual marketing research report. For both cases, you should lay out your background information, the purpose behind creating the report, and a summary of your findings for the four previous parts. Finally, end your report with strategic action items to meet your goals.

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How to Do Market Research

With effective market research, you can determine the need for your service, a product's likelihood to sell, target-market demographics, and desirable store locations. there are numerous ways to uncover this information"”from online research to focus groups to counting customers. to help you meet your target market's needs, we've put together a collection of our best market-research articles and resources..

Research Primer

What's market research? And why must you do it? Here are two articles that offer a general overview on the topic.

New to the Market

Research plays a key part in knowing which of your new business ideas will fly in the marketplace.

You don't need big bucks to do a little research. Swipe these strategies from successful CEOs and marketing experts.

Want to know if your next product will fly? Ask existing customers and recruit prospective ones to let you know.

Demographics

Target your market with a thorough knowledge of whom it comprises.

Competitive Intelligence

Snoop around competitor's sites, stores, and customers to help develop your edge.

Research Woes

Learn from the mistakes other CEOs have made when it comes to market research.

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Product Research Guide: How to Find Profitable Products on Amazon in 2024

Brian Connolly

May 9, 2024

Table of Contents

What is product research, how to do product research, 6 ways to discover good product ideas, evaluating your product ideas.

With more consumers shopping online than ever before, now is the perfect time to get into ecommerce. Between Amazon , eBay , Shopify , Walmart , and Etsy , there isn’t a shortage of platforms to sell on, and product opportunities abound. But what are you supposed to sell?

To set yourself up for success, you must invest time in the product research process, so you know what customers are looking for and buying at this time. 

Product research is the first step all sellers should take because if you jump right in without any knowledge of the market or demand, you may be destined to fail. Luckily, you are here so you won’t be one of those people!

If you want to learn how to research and validate product ideas to sell online, then keep on reading, and learn, step-by-step, how to find profitable products for your business.

Pproduct research is the process of researching different products or niches and using various data points to determine if the product will be successful or not. If you choose a product just because it’s something you enjoy, you’ll miss the benefits of a good strategy, and that uninformed decision might cost you and your business.

When it comes to ecommerce and selling products online, you need more than just a “gut feeling” that something will sell well. Your unique candle idea may seem like a no-brainer, but is that what customers actually want? Even if they do, if there is low demand or the market is already saturated, your product may not perform well, and you could lose your investment. 

To prevent your product from taking a nosedive, you need to determine demand, analyze the competition, create a unique, high-quality product, and most importantly, produce the product at a profitable price.

Now that you know what product research is and why it is important, let’s go over how to find profitable products to sell online. Before you start researching products, dedicate some time to determine what product criteria to use for your business. Following certain criteria will help you make sound decisions and narrow down your product search. 

Here are some great criteria for product research :

1. selling price.

How much do you want to sell your product for? Too low of a selling price and you may not have enough margin for profit after your costs. Too high of a selling price means potentially higher manufacturing costs, which require bigger budgets to support your product.

Typically, Jungle Scout recommends a price point of around $20-$50. This leaves room for profitability after selling and advertising fees, keeps manufacturing costs low, and places you in the “impulse purchase” range. This puts your product in an optimal position when starting out — customers are not always willing to purchase higher-priced products from unknown brands.

Do keep in mind that the market in this price range may be more saturated because products are inexpensive to source, and competition is high.

2. Product size and weight

If you’re a new or inexperienced seller, we advise you to start out selling products that are small and lightweight. This will help keep shipping costs down and make inventory storage simpler to manage. 

For example, it would be much easier (and cheaper) to source a small product such as a necklace, versus a couch. Couches may be in high demand, but can you handle the logistics of selling large-scale furniture? 

I know this is an extreme example but think about the differences in storage space and shipping costs between these two items. If you have the knowledge and capabilities to sell bigger and heavier products, however, then go for it!

3. Product simplicity

Does the item you want to sell have many moving parts or components that could potentially break? If you choose to sell in the electronics category, for example, be sure that your supplier can produce high-quality products with minimal issues. 

If you sell customers a faulty product, you’ll experience several challenges, such as poor reviews, high return rates, and declining sales.

Newer ecommerce sellers should try to stick to simple, low-maintenance products that are less likely to have potential downsides.

Let’s take another example:  Bluetooth headphones. They’re a popular product, but there could be many problems that come with them, especially if they’re produced at a cheaper price. Check out these reviews to see what I mean:

To find common negative themes about another brand’s product, check out Jungle Scout’s new Review Analysis tool with AI Assist . 

Review Analysis will provide you with a comprehensive analysis of product reviews and ratings for any ASIN that includes common positive and negative comments, suggestions for improving the product, and a competitive comparison with tips for competing against the product.

If you decide to sell a similar product, figure out what customers dislike about your competitors products so you can be sure your product doesn’t face the same issues.

4. Perishable or consumable products

Are you considering a product that falls in the grocery or health categories? These can be profitable because you can grow a repeat customer base as buyers are likely to reorder household staples, but there are some things to be aware of. 

These types of products typically have expiration dates, so keep that in mind when deciding how much inventory you should order. If you overestimate the demand, you may be stuck with expired inventory. 

When it comes to food or supplements, be sure to follow relevant local and federal regulations regarding the product you choose to sell. Research and understand this information before you decide you’re going to sell in one of these categories. 

On top of that, online marketplaces such as Amazon or Walmart may have their own rules and regulations on perishable and consumable products. 

Using the criteria above will help you narrow down your product search versus searching through a broad range of products. Of course, there may be some other criteria that you’d like to consider as your research leads you to specific items, but this is a good place to start if you don’t have a niche or market in mind.

Grow your Amazon business with Jungle Scout.

Jungle Scout’s Amazon intelligence tools help sellers find profitable products to sell.

After you figure out some general criteria to evaluate potential products, how do you come up with solid ideas? Let’s go over some steps you can take to find a good product to sell online. 

1. Start with your hobbies or interests

This is a good place to start because it would be much more enjoyable to sell a product that you’re interested in. Now, as we said earlier, just because you like a particular product doesn’t mean others will. You will still need to evaluate your ideas, but do list down some products that would be of interest to you to start. If there’s potential to sell something you can easily get behind, then why not?

For example, if you like to play pickleball, you could consider selling a pickleball set that includes a paddle, balls, and a net. 

When jotting down ideas, think about how you’d like your product to be better than what’s currently available in the market. You love to play pickleball, but have yet to find the “perfect paddle.” How can you outdo paddles in the market so that they can solve customer problems and needs?

2. Figure out what is currently trending

Capitalizing on growing trends is a smart way to make money selling products online — especially if you catch one at its onset. But how do you even find out what is trending? 

If you’re active on social media, especially on apps like TikTok , you can get a good idea of what products people are talking about. What categories do people love? What new items are consumers raving about? This is a helpful way to harvest ideas but be wary of “fads” instead of trends. We’ll go over this more later when we discuss evaluating product ideas.

Another way to view current trends is to visit “ Google Trends .” The free tool will show you the popularity of any topic over some time so you can find out if something is currently trending or declining in popularity. 

After searching for “halloween costumes” for example, here are the results.

The term “halloween costumes,” was peaking in September 2023 as Halloween approached. 

You can also use Google Trends to find out what people are searching for the most in a particular country. This could give you more viable ideas for products.

3. Search on Amazon

An excellent way to generate good product ideas is to go right to the source: where people are buying them! Amazon features a few different “best sellers” lists you can dig through to find ideas. Here’s how to conduct that search:

First, go to Amazon’s Best Seller page. You can find that in the main menu on the Amazon homepage. 

On this page, you will find the best-selling products for each main category on Amazon. While these products listed are selling very well, it is unlikely that new sellers will be able to compete with them as they have thousands of reviews and an established market share. 

Instead, you’ll want to look at Amazon’s other lists such as New Releases, Movers & Shakers, Most Wished For, and Gift Ideas. The products listed here will be popular and sales but will be easier to compete with over the top 100 best sellers.

Now, dig through each of these lists to discover new products you may have never thought of selling! 

These lists feature products that are rising in popularity and what customers are buying right now. This valuable information is updated every hour. Again, what you will first see are “main categories.” To find low-competition products, we recommend going deeper into subcategories. 

Let’s go over an example. In the “New Releases” list, I’ll click on “Sports & Outdoors” and see what subcategories I can search through. 

The main category “Sports & Outdoors” is way too broad and it’ll be difficult for me to find a product I can profitably compete with. I’ll keep clicking through each subcategory until I find something interesting. 

In this example, I started with Sports & Outdoors > Sports & Fitness > Boating & Sailing > Boating. 

Under the “Boating” subcategory, there are tons of product types I can look through. 

The more “niche” you get with your product research, the better. This way, you can find products that not everyone may have thought of but will still have lots of potential customers. 

4. Attend wholesale trade shows

Trade shows are a fantastic way to meet suppliers and manufacturers in person. They’re also where you can actually touch and experience different types of products first hand, and discover new innovations in the market.

Meeting suppliers in-person versus contacting them online through sites such as Alibaba gives you a huge advantage over the competition. You can build real-life relationships and usually get the best pricing when negotiating in person. 

Trade shows are also great for retailers versus someone trying to create a private label product. Retailers buy other brands at wholesale prices and then resell them for a profit either in a brick & mortar store, ecommerce website, or online marketplace such as Amazon. 

In the Amazon selling world, we call that the wholesale business model . Trade shows are helpful for sellers who don’t want to start their own brand but want to resell other successful products and brands in their store. 

There are trade shows for all types of products and industries. A popular one in NYC is the Toy Fair show. You can discover thousands of popular toy brands as well as private label opportunities. 

A very popular wholesale trade show for brand owners or private label sellers is the ASD Market Week show, held twice a year in Las Vegas. 

5. Search on Alibaba

Many brands and sellers use Alibaba , a B2B marketplace, to find unique products they can private label and sell under their own brand. Alibaba works in a similar fashion to Amazon. Search for any type of product you’re interested in, and you will see many results pop up. 

You can find practically any product you can think of on Alibaba. They also feature top-ranking products and new arrivals to give you some unique ideas. 

Take your time and explore the categories and subcategories just like you would when doing product research on Amazon.

You can also search through Aliexpress , which is related to Alibaba but meant more for consumers versus bulk business buyers. You can purchase as little as one unit of a product or multiple units if you want to test out some samples. 

6. Use product research software

If you want to make the product research process seamless, you can use an advanced product research tool to help you find products matching your exact criteria. 

Jungle Scout offers a few different product research tools in our all-in-one platform to find high-demand, low-competition products. 

• Product Database. We have a searchable catalog called Product Database that allows you to choose categories and set specific filters so you can find products that are selling well. Product Database will only pull up products that meet the criteria you set so you can quickly filter through the results. 
• Product Tracker. From there, you can track the performance of each product you like using our Product Tracker tool. 
• Opportunity Finder. We also have a tool called Opportunity Finder , which you can use to discover new, unique niches and jump in on new emerging trends.

After you have discovered some products you would be interested in selling, how do you know if they’re good markets to sell in? In this section, we’re going to show you how you can evaluate your product ideas and analyze your potential competitors. 

Here are some key factors you should consider when choosing a product to sell online:

• Product demand
• Competition 
• Seasonality 
• Profitability 
• Marketability

1. Product Demand

Are customers searching for and purchasing the product you want to sell? You need to make sure that there is enough demand for you to enter the market. 

Check Amazon Best Seller Rank

Even if you’re not going to be selling your product on Amazon, you can still use Amazon’s data to figure out the demand for your product. If a product is selling well on Amazon, it is usually selling well in other marketplaces.

Jungle Scout’s recommendation: 

At Jungle Scout, we say you should aim for at least 10 sales per day or 300 sales per month. If you take a look at the top 10 or so products on an Amazon search results page, you want the total monthly sales of all those top-selling products to be around 3,000. 

This shows us that there is decent demand in the market to make some sales and compete with other brands.

How do you find the Best Sellers Rank and what do the numbers tell you? Great question. Go to a random Amazon product page and scroll down until you find the “product details” section. 

For this particular example, the BSR (Best Seller Rank) is 106,132 in Sports & Outdoors. If you’re not familiar with selling on Amazon, this number may have little significance, but some key information can be gleaned from it. The higher the BSR, the worse the sales are for that product. This high of a BSR means low sales. 

Amazon sales estimator

You can use Jungle Scout’s Free Sales Estimator to get an estimate of how many units this particular brand is selling per month based on that BSR number. 

As you can see, this product only sells an estimated 60 units per month, which is not ideal for a seller who wants a profitable product.

For this particular product, the total sales of the top 10 products were only around 600 per month total. This tells me that the demand for it is too low or it may be a seasonal product. 

Of course, you can still sell in this market. Just know that your monthly sales volume will be low, and you must order inventory accordingly.

Check Google Trends

Using Google Trends again, you can get an idea of the popularity of a particular product over time by searching for its keywords. For this example, I searched for “boat compass.”

The interest over the past 12 months has been up and down, which tells me it is not a consistently searched-for type of product.

I wouldn’t feel comfortable in this market as the product I was curious about has not been consistently searched for over the past year.

Check product reviews

Viewing product reviews — more specifically, the dates and the quality of the reviews — can give you a good idea of how often people are purchasing that type of product, and what people like and dislike about the product. By analyzing your competitors’ reviews, you can figure out what you can potentially improve with your product. 

Let’s look at the dates first. Since only a small percentage of buyers actually leave reviews, reviews that are dated close to each other indicate that there is decent demand for it. 

If you are on Amazon, you can choose to view the most recent reviews.

Now, let’s figure out how to analyze competitors’ reviews. Analyzing your competitors’ reviews allows you to find common positive and negative themes, so you can figure out what customers love about that specific product and what they dislike about the product. 

The problem is, analyzing reviews manually takes a ton of time and effort. Again, with Jungle Scout Review Analysis with AI Assist tool , you get a comprehensive analysis of product reviews and ratings for any ASIN that includes common positive and negative comments, suggestions for improvement, a competitive comparison with tips for competing against the product.

LEARN MORE ABOUT AI ASSIST

Google Keyword Planner

Another free Google tool you can use to see how many people are searching for keywords related to your product is Google Keyword Planner . Simply enter a few keywords related to your product idea and see what the tool comes up with. 

Keyword Planner will show you estimated monthly search volume, competition, and more. 

For the term “ear wax candle” there are roughly 10K – 100K searchers per month. This is a wide range, but it tells me that many people are searching for this term.

2. Competition  

There may be demand for your product but you also need to consider how competitive the market is. If you have lots of competitors, it will be difficult to make your product or ecommerce store stand out. 

Use this tool to see how competitive a particular keyword is for Google Ads. Google Keyword Planner will indicate the level of competition you’re up against, along with the estimated keyword bid. 

This information is useful if you plan on building your own ecommerce site with a platform such as Shopify . 

Search on Amazon and Walmart.com

Take a look at the competition on Amazon or Walmart. How many reviews do they have? Are there many brands with the same product? How can you differentiate yourself from them? What are customers saying about the products? Is there room for improvement? Do you spot opportunities worth taking?

Those are a few questions you should ask yourself when doing a competitive analysis . 

If you see products that have thousands of reviews each, theirs may not be the best market to try and compete in, unless you have extensive ecommerce experience. 

Products with a modest review count — 500 or less — will be an easier market to compete in. If there are one or two products that seem to have way more reviews than the others, this could mean that they have most of the market share in that particular marketplace.

3. Seasonality

Selling a product that is evergreen is ideal — because it is in demand all year round. And yes, selling a seasonal product can also be quite profitable. You just need to be wary of how much inventory you should order for the season, and when to do it on time. 

Google Trends

To determine seasonality, you can use Google Trends again to see what times of the year people are searching for a particular product or keyword. 

If the data shows that consumers are searching for this product steadily throughout the year, it should consistently sell through all four seasons. If you see a big spike during a particular time period and a flat line for the rest of the year, this shows seasonality or indicates that it was a fad that came and went. 

Here’s an easy example: if you search for “Halloween costumes,” you can see that it spikes in September/October and quickly declines afterward. 

Opportunity Finder

If you subscribe to Jungle Scout , you have access to our Opportunity Finder tool, which will show historical search volume as well as a graph displaying the seasonality of a particular product. 

The data you see in Jungle Scout is from Amazon sales, but it typically represents the seasonality and demand across all ecommerce marketplaces or platforms. 

Find profitable products to sell on Amazon.

Leverage Opportunity Finder to evaluate the demand and seasonality of a potential product.

4. Profitability

After evaluating a product’s demand, competition, and seasonality, you need to be sure that the product you want to sell will be profitable. This involves sourcing your product at a reasonable cost and pricing the product properly. 

If you find a product that sells well at $25, but you can only source it for $19, then it won’t be a good opportunity for you — after shipping and potential selling fees, you will lose money on each sale. 

Depending on the platform or marketplace you will be selling on, you need to factor in various fees such as subscription fees, selling fees, advertising fees, storage fees, and shipping fees. 

• First, figure out the average price your competitors are charging for their products. Then, figure out which platform(s) you want to sell your products on, as each one has different fees for their respective sellers. If you’re going to sell on Amazon, make sure you read about and understand all of Amazon’s fees . 
• Next, go to a site such as Alibaba, search for your product, and start contacting suppliers for pricing. After getting a price and shipping quote, calculate what your profit will be after all costs involved. 

There is no particular profit margin you should aim for as it is different for every business, but we recommend around at least a 30-40% gross margin. This will leave you with some room for a marketing budget since you will likely need to advertise your products to stand out and attract sales. 

READ MORE | How Much do Amazon Sellers Make?

5. Marketability  

This is just as important as all of the other factors we mentioned. How are you going to market your product compared to your competition? How can you make improvements to the product itself, to your product images, and to your listing copy? 

You should also consider a social media strategy for your product and determine if it can help grow your business. Search various social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok to see what other brands in your niche are doing to market their products. 

You can have the best product in your category, but if you do not market it well , then how will customers know about your product?

Find your winning product idea

We hope this guide helps you understand the importance of proper product research for your online business. Use the tips and strategies laid out above to be on your way to launching a successful product.

After you find a great product to sell, which platforms do you plan to sell it on? See the links below for in-depth how-to-sell guides for Amazon, Shopify, eBay, Walmart, and even Facebook. We show you how to successfully sell on each one of those marketplaces, step by step.

• How to Sell on Amazon FBA for Beginners
• How to Sell Products on Shopify: a Step-by-Step Guide
• How to Sell on Walmart Marketplace
• How to Sell on eBay — Step-by-Step Beginner’s Guide
• How to Sell on Facebook Marketplace

Did this guide help you find your winning product idea? Do you have another method in mind that we didn’t mention? Let us know in the comments!

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Ecommerce Expert & Writer at Jungle Scout

Brian Connolly is an Amazon seller, ecommerce expert, and writer for Jungle Scout. He lives in the New Jersey Shore area with his wife and cat. When he isn’t writing advice online for aspiring and experienced Amazon sellers for Jungle Scout, he spends his free time boating, fishing, and selling boating-themed items on his Amazon business.

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How to do market research for branding and positioning

Last updated

10 August 2024

Reviewed by

When you launch a company or begin to seriously market an existing one, it’s important to understand the concept of brand positioning. It can be key to reaching the consumers who are most likely to become your customers.

A well-positioned brand makes it easy to convert those potential customers into paying ones and makes your brand more memorable. This improves your marketing efforts’ return on investment (ROI). It will even give you the tools you need to refine your message and increase conversions.

• What is brand positioning?

Brand positioning is when a business establishes and maintains a distinctive image and identity for its brand. This is typically thought of in relation to the brand’s competitors.

A brand’s positioning is the unique attributes, values, and benefits it offers that set it apart in the marketplace. When done correctly, brand positioning can help your business create a lasting impression on customers, increasing their loyalty and driving business growth.

So, what makes brand positioning effective?

Target audience : the specific group of consumers your brand aims to reach

Market segmentation : segmenting potential customers into distinct groups with similar needs and characteristics

Value proposition: the unique benefit and value you offer your customers

Brand promise: a concise message that communicates your brand’s commitment to customers and keeps employees focused

Differentiation: the elements of your business that stand apart from other competitors in your space

• Why is brand positioning important?

When starting a business or growing one, there’s a lot to do and even more to think about. Brand positioning can impact many decisions you make, so it should be one of the top things on your mind.

Effective brand positioning is key as it allows you to differentiate yourself from your competitors. Unless you’re in a non-competitive industry, standing out from all the other options your potential customers could choose is difficult. Brand positioning requires you to think about what makes your business unique. This unique value proposition can form the backbone of your marketing efforts, positioning your brand as the go-to choice.

Another part of brand positioning is determining who your target audience is, the values you have in common with them, and how these customers think. This knowledge is what allows you to position yourself as the best option for that audience, establishing a loyal customer base .

• Examples of effective brand positioning

Before we go into any more detail, let’s take a moment to look at some examples of successful brand positioning. This will help you better understand what it means to position a brand and how you can use it to bring in a specific customer segment .

Apple: innovation and premium quality

From Apple’s first days developing home computers to the continually evolving iPhone, Apple has positioned itself as a company that innovates, creates products with a sleek design, and offers a premium user experience. As a result, they are positioned as the brand of choice for consumers who are both tech-savvy and design-conscious.

Nike: inspiration and motivation

With the introduction of Nike’s slogan: “Just Do It,” they established themselves as a brand that inspires and motivates athletes of all backgrounds and abilities.

The company emphasizes athletic performance and achievement, positioning itself as the brand of choice for athletic consumers—from backyard warriors to professional athletes.

Tesla: sustainability and innovation

As one of the first successful electric vehicle manufacturers, Tesla is a leader in sustainable energy and automotive technology. They have positioned themselves to appeal to environmentally conscious tech enthusiasts. To bridge those two demographics, Tesla ensures that the technology in their vehicles is state-of-the-art.

Airbnb: belonging and community

Airbnb first launched with a unique business model. Allowing homeowners to rent their homes to travelers provided a unique vacation experience that feels more like staying at home.

They positioned themselves as a brand that believes in the power of community and embraces the idea of belonging anywhere. In doing so, they were able to attract customers looking for unique experiences.

• How market research helps improve branding

You won’t be able to position yourself effectively in the market if you don’t understand it. Only then can you know how you compare to your competitors and what unique value propositions to offer.

Understanding the market also requires you to gather customer insights and preferences, which can further aid your branding efforts.

Here are some of the advantages of market research for branding and positioning:

It can help you avoid mistakes

As you evaluate the market and the trends associated with your industry, you’ll gather data that can help you avoid mistakes.

For example, you may identify problems that your competitors have experienced themselves, such as products that didn’t take off or pricing models that weren’t profitable. The data you gather throughout the process will give you insights to make more informed decisions and avoid these issues yourself.

It can help you create a customer-centric brand

Ultimately, building a business focused on customers’ needs and desires supports long-term relationships with those who purchase from you.

It helps when launching a new product or service

Sometimes, you might think you have a great product or service idea only to find out that it doesn’t work as well as you’d hoped once it hits the market.

Perhaps there wasn’t enough market demand for the product. Perhaps you didn’t position your product effectively and the people who wanted to buy it didn’t receive the message that would have prompted them to do so.

Whatever the cause, when you deep dive into the market and its customer base before launching your product or service, you’ll know what customers are looking for and how to craft targeted messages that reach them.

It improves brand perception

The way customers perceive your brand will change over time. If you’re careful, your brand perception will improve. If you don’t monitor brand sentiment, the opposite could occur.

Part of market research is monitoring how customers perceive your own brand and your competitors’ brands. With this information, you can respond to negative feedback about your brand promptly and reinforce positive attributes in your messaging. You’ll also be able to take advantage of negative sentiment that develops around your competitors.

• How to conduct market research for branding

It’s easy to see how using market research to drive branding decisions can play a major role in your business’s success. This section will detail the six steps of the process, telling you everything you need to know to start planning your own market research.

1. Define what you want to research

The first step is setting clear objectives. Don’t get started before you precisely define what you will be researching.

You’ve seen many examples of what market research can illuminate for you. Rather than trying to catch all of them in a large net, break your research down into logical groupings and approach them one at a time.

2. Decide on your research questions

Next, determine the key research questions you’ll be asking. These should be informed by the goal you established in the first step.

For example, if you want to research how you compare to competitors, define the key metrics you’ll be using for the comparison. Remember, if you plan to collect feedback from potential customers , take care to define who your target audience is so that you’re gathering the information that is most relevant to your business.

3. Talk to the people who matter

Many of the market research topics we’ve discussed involve talking to customers—your customers, other brands’ customers, or potential customers of both. Regardless of who they are, you need to give them a convenient way to answer your questions and provide as much detail as you need.

Sometimes, surveys may be enough to get the information you’re looking for—but if this data requires more of a back-and-forth than a survey allows for, one-on-one interviews and focus groups are a good approach. With these methods, you can get deeper insights into consumers’ minds.

You can also engage directly with your customers on social media. Keeping an eye on what people are saying on your competitors’ social feeds can also provide useful information.

4. Test your branding

Large brands that have been around for a while have typically had several different logos and branding strategies over the years. They have adapted to market forces, and you can do the same. You want your brand to resonate with your target audience as much as possible.

One approach to finding the branding that works best for your business and its customers is A/B testing.

A/B testing involves one group of customers being shown one version of your branding and another group being shown a secondary version. When you see which version of branding works best, you’ll know which is the most profitable. You can repeat this process until you’re happy with the metrics. Repeat it regularly so your appeal remains relevant to changing consumer preferences.

In addition to A/B testing, you need to be proactively listening to what consumers are saying. When you get feedback about your branding or your brand’s perception, respond to it and adapt your strategies. Regularly ask for feedback about your branding so you can gather useful data without waiting for your customers to say something.

5. Be consistent and check in on your brand awareness

Consumer preferences change over time, and successful companies adapt to them. Your company must do the same.

By conducting regular brand audits that test for things like brand recognition and brand perception, you’ll be able to stay ahead of a changing market landscape and remain as relevant as possible to your target audience.

Perform regular brand audits and record the key metrics you use to track your branding efforts. This will reveal a set of trend lines that allow you to see how your brand awareness and perception are shifting—information that will help you determine when a change is needed and how well it works.

Building a coherent brand identity requires consistency across all channels. Every interaction your customers have with your company should feature messaging with the same tone and values. This will establish a more cohesive and memorable brand identity and ensure that the metrics you track are relevant to a particular message and tone.

6. Use market research tools to be in control of your research

Technology has provided businesses with a wealth of tools for gathering and analyzing market research and customer data.

Online survey tools will help you collect data from your customers or target audience easily and in a way that’s convenient to them.

Social listening platforms will help you monitor and respond to online feedback.

Detailed customer feedback tools like Dovetail provide you with deep analysis of the data you gather to help you develop actionable insights from customer interviews, product feedback , and everything in between.

As you develop your market research strategy, look at the tools available to you and see which ones best fit into your goals. By utilizing these tools, you’ll be able to streamline your tasks, keep them better organized, and get deeper insights into the data you have collected.

• How to leverage brand positioning research

As you plan out your messaging strategy, follow the tips below to help you make the most of the data you gather.

Identify core benefits in your customers’ own words

Your messaging will be most effective when you align it with the tone your customers use to convey their needs and opinions.

Analyzing customer feedback will unlock this language and enable you to discover the aspects of your business that existing customers like the most and find most valuable. You can use this to craft your key value propositions so your messaging aligns with their needs.

Avoid testing “shades of gray”

Many people make the mistake of asking overly broad questions in surveys. Without further clarification, these questions don’t always provide actionable insights.

With surveys and other non-interactive forms of feedback, you must be careful to ask questions with clear and distinct options from the beginning. Ensure they are phrased unambiguously so the answers are as direct and relevant as possible.

In focus groups or interviews, you can pivot on the fly and ask for these clarifications.

Get the “why” as well as the “what”

Make sure that the feedback you’re getting is as actionable as possible.

People may tell you how they feel about something, but unless they tell you why , your solution might not actually align with their needs. This is why it’s important to conduct in-depth qualitative research that drills down into your target audience’s underlying motivations and emotional drivers.

Agree on what success looks like

Improving your brand alongside its reputation and positioning all require continuous effort. However, you should approach this process in stages.

As you begin to act upon the market research you’ve conducted, you should have a clear set of goals to shoot for. These goals must be realistic and attainable.

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What Is a Target Market?

• Defining a Product's Target Market
• 4 Target Markets

Why Are Target Markets Important?

What are market segments, target market and product sales.

• Target Market FAQs

The Bottom Line

• Marketing Essentials

Target Market: Definition, Purpose, Examples, Market Segments

Investopedia / Mira Norian

A target market is a group of people that have been identified as the most likely potential customers for a product because of their shared characteristics, such as age, income, and lifestyle.

Identifying the target market is a key part of the decision-making process when a company designs, packages, and advertises its product.

Key Takeaways

• A target market is a group of customers with shared demographics who have been identified as the most likely buyers of a company's product or service.
• Identifying the target market is important in the development and implementation of a successful marketing plan for any new product.
• The target market also can inform a product's specifications, packaging, and distribution.

How Do I Define My Product's Target Market?

Part of creating a new product is envisioning the consumers who will buy it.

A new product must satisfy a need or solve a problem—or both. That need or problem is probably not universal (unless it reaches the level of indoor plumbing). More likely, it is needed by a subset of consumers, such as environmentally-conscious vegetarians, science nerds, or outdoor enthusiasts. It may appeal to a teenager or a middle-aged professional, a bargain-hunter or a snob.

Envisioning your likely target market is part of the process of creating and refining a product and informs decisions about its packaging, marketing, and placement.

What Are the 4 Target Markets?

Market researchers use activity, interest, and opinion (AIO) surveys to construct psychographic profiles of their target customers. Marketing professionals divide consumers into four major segments:

Demographic : These are the main characteristics that define your target market. Everyone can be identified as belonging to a specific age group, income level, gender, occupation, and education level.

Geographic : This segment is increasingly relevant in the era of globalization. Regional preferences need to be taken into account.

Psychographic : This segment goes beyond the basics of demographics to consider lifestyle, attitudes, interests, and values.

Behavioral : This is the one segment that relies on research into the decisions of a company's current customers. New products may be introduced based on research into the proven appeal of past products.

What Is an Example of a Target Market?

Each of the four target markets can be used to consider who the customer is for a new product.

For example, there are an estimated 49,773 Italian restaurants in the U.S. Clearly, they have enormous appeal.

But a corner pizza joint might appeal mostly—although by no means entirely—to a younger and more budget-conscious consumer, while an old-fashioned white tablecloth place might be frequented by older individuals and families who live in the neighborhood. Meanwhile, a newer venue down the street might cater to an upscale and trend-conscious crowd who will travel a good distance for the restaurant's innovative menu and fancy wine list.

In each successful case, a savvy business person has consciously considered the ideal target market for the restaurant and has tweaked the menu, decor, and advertising strategy to appeal to that market.

Few products today are designed to appeal to absolutely everyone. The Aveda Rosemary Mint Bath Bar, available for $26 per bar at Aveda beauty stores, is marketed to the upscale and eco-conscious woman who will pay extra for quality. Clé de Peau Beauté Synactif Soap retails for $110 a bar and is marketed to wealthy, fashion-conscious women who are willing to pay a premium for a luxury product. An eight-pack of Dial soap costs $11.49 at CVS, and it is known to get the job done.

Part of the success of selling a good or service is knowing whom it will appeal to and who will ultimately buy it. Its user base can grow over time through additional marketing, advertising, and word of mouth.

That's why businesses spend a lot of time and money in defining their initial target markets, and why they follow through with special offers, social media campaigns , and specialized advertising.

Dividing a target market into segments means grouping the population according to the key characteristics that drive their spending decisions. Some of these are gender, age, income level, race, education level, religion, marital status, and geographic location.

Consumers with the same demographics tend to value the same products and services, which is why narrowing down the segments is one of the most important factors in determining target markets.

For example, people who fall into a higher income bracket may be more likely to buy specialty coffee from Starbucks instead of relying on Dunkin' Donuts. The parent companies of both of these brands need to know that in order to decide where to locate their stores, where to stock their products, and where to advertise their brand.

A business may have more than one target market—a primary target market, which is the main focus, and a secondary target market, which is smaller but has growth potential. Toy commercials are targeted directly to children, and their parents are the secondary market.

Identifying the target market is an essential part of a product development plan, along with manufacturing, distribution, price, and promotion planning. The target market determines significant factors about the product itself. A company may tweak certain aspects of a product, such as the amount of sugar in a soft drink or the style of the packaging, so that it appeals more to consumers in its target group.

As a company’s product sales grow, it may expand its target market internationally. International expansion allows a company to reach a broader subset of its target market in other regions of the world.

In addition to international expansion, a company may find its domestic target market expands as its products gain more traction in the marketplace. Expanding a product's target market is a revenue opportunity worth pursuing.

How Detailed Should a Target Market Be?

It depends. Broadly speaking, a product may be designed for a mass market or a niche market, and a niche market can be a very small group indeed, especially in a product's early introductory phase.

Some carbonated beverages aim for a practically universal market. Coca-Cola had to branch out to 200 markets abroad to continue growing its customer base. Gatorade is owned by Pepsi Cola, but the brand is positioned as a drink for athletes. The soda brand Poppi, which is branded as a healthy, sparkling, prebiotic soda with real fruit juice and gut health and immunity benefits, is clearly aimed at a younger, healthier, and more trend-conscious target market.

Consider a casual apparel company that is working to build its distribution channels abroad. In order to determine where its apparel will be most successful, it conducts some research to identify its primary target market. It discovers that the people most likely to buy its products are middle-class women between the ages of 35 and 55 who live in cold climates.

It's reasonable for the company to focus its advertising efforts on northern European websites that have a strong female audience. But first, the company may consider how its apparel can be most attractive to that target market. It may revise its styles and colors and tweak its advertising strategy to optimize its appeal to this new prospective market.

What Is the Purpose of a Target Market?

A target market defines a product as well as vice versa. Once a target market is identified, it can influence a product's design, packaging, price, promotion, and distribution. A product aimed at men won't be packaged in pink plastic. A luxury cosmetic won't be sold in a pharmacy. An expensive pair of shoes comes with a branded cloth drawstring bag as well as a shoebox. All of those factors are signals to the target audience that they have found the right product.

Identifying the target market is part of the process of creating and refining a new product.

A target market can be translated into a profile of the consumer to whom a product is most likely to appeal. The profile considers four main characteristics of that person: demographic, geographic, psychographic, and behavioral. These characteristics help determine who might purchase a company's product.

IBISWorld. " Italian Restaurants in the U.S. - Number of Businesses ."

Aveda. " Rosemary Mint Bath Bar ."

Cle de Peau. " Synactif Soap ."

CVS. " Dial Antibacterial Deodorant Bar Soap, White ."

Coca-Cola Australia. " Coca-Cola: From Start-Up to Global Enterprise ."

Pepsico Partners. " Gatorade ."

DrinkPoppi. " Home ."

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How To Do Keyword Research For SEO

Published: Aug 14, 2024, 8:25am

Table of Contents

What is keyword research, how to do keyword research for seo in 5 steps, bottom line, frequently asked questions (faqs).

If you’re just getting started building a website or are upgrading it, you’re likely asking yourself how people will find it. Even if you’re selling the coolest, most innovative products on the internet, no one will know about them if they can’t get to your website. Keyword research is an essential part of ensuring the people looking for the information or services you offer can find them. Read on to learn more about how to get started with keyword research.

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Keyword research is an essential part of a larger SEO and digital marketing strategy. It is the process of researching and analyzing the terms and phrases your ideal audience and potential customers are looking up online to find the information they need.

When people want to find a product or service online, they generally start by typing a few words into a search engine. The results they find are the ones most relevant to the terms they looked for. As a business owner, your goal should be to rank highly for the keywords that represent the products and services you offer. But which ones are they? Conducting keyword research is how you figure this out.

Keyword research is also important because it can reveal marketing insights and customer trends, tell you what potential customers are interested in and help drive traffic to your website by curating your content and copy to this interest.

Keyword research starts generally and then gets more specific. Here are the main steps to take when starting your keyword research.

 1. Brainstorm the Main Keywords That Are Most Relevant to Business

The first part of keyword research is brainstorming the very basic terms that are relevant to your business. This general list will come in handy later when you search for more targeted keywords. For example, say you are running an online jewelry company. An initial list of general keywords may look like this:

• Engagement rings

You’ll want to come up with five to 10 terms. Since this is only the first step in keyword research, don’t worry about making this list perfect or spending too much time on it.

 2. Research Related Keywords Customers and Competitors Are Using

Now that you have a starting point, it’s time to get more specific by adding relevant keywords. You can start drafting this list of more specific keywords by looking up the search terms in your original list. The idea is to get an understanding of how your customers think about the products or services you offer and what specific terms they are searching for to find what they need. For example, when you type “necklace” into a search engine, you may find the term “pendant” is often an associated term. That’s helpful information for keyword research and a term that can be included on your list.

While “necklaces” is a very general term, there are many more specific keywords. “Gold necklace,” “silver necklace” and “pearl necklace” are three examples that could be relevant for your website, depending on what you offer.

In SEO, there are short-tail keywords (keywords with one or two words) and long-tail keywords, which are full phrases or sentences. Long-tail keywords are typically easier to rank for since there’s usually less competition. Later, you’ll look at how difficult each term is to rank for. But for now, keep an eye out for long-tail keywords, or sentences people may be searching for related to your product or service.

As you write down more specific terms, you can look up these new terms to generate even more ideas for keywords and get even more specific. What are examples of some of the common keywords that come up when you search for “gold necklace”? Some terms you might come across include:

• 14k gold necklaces
• yellow gold necklaces
• gold necklace women
• gold necklace men

This is also a good time to look at what companies offering similar services or products are ranking for. There may be terms you haven’t considered, or this process may even inspire you to come up with new terms that you do not see online. As this is still the brainstorming phase, write down as many terms as you find or can come up with.

Later, you’ll look at these terms from a marketing strategy perspective and consider which ones are worth ranking for.

3. Expand Your List With Long-Tail Keywords

Remember long-tail keywords? Once you have a list of a few dozen keywords and phrases, you can expand your brainstorming by thinking about which long-tail keywords people might be searching for.

A few online tools can help with this.

Answer the Public is a helpful website to find out what people are searching for online, especially what questions they are asking. For example, if you type in “14k gold necklaces,” you’ll find dozens of popular questions people ask about this topic, such as “how much are 14k gold necklaces?” and “what is 14k gold jewelry?” These questions can be great starting points for brainstorming blog topics or an FAQ page on your website. The free version lets you look up three terms per day.

Soovle is another popular free tool that shows the phrases people search for across multiple platforms including Google, Yahoo and YouTube. When you type a keyword, Soovle will show you keywords that are often paired with yours in the search. For example, for the term 14k gold necklace, the phrases “14k gold necklace extender” and “14k vs 18k gold necklace” come up. This shows you what people are searching for and gives insight into what your potential customers want.

 4. Use Keyword Tools To Gather Data on Terms

Now that you’ve created a list, it’s time to evaluate which ones are worth trying to rank for based on your business objectives. There are many online tools you can use to gain insight into keywords. The goal is to identify which keywords are less competitive to rank for in a search engine, but also relate most closely to your company and business objectives.

Ahrefs and Semrush are two SEO analytic tools that charge a monthly (or annual) subscription fee and provide all the data and analytics you might need for extensive keyword research, including identifying valuable keywords. Ahrefs and Semrush provide a few free features, but the main software costs money. There are a few free tools that can provide more data. Google Keyword Planner can help you find ideas for keywords as well as the search volume for these terms. Google Trends can also help you identify popular key terms.

Once you gather this data, you’ll have a better idea about which keywords make sense to focus on trying to rank for. You may be surprised that a term you thought was uncommon is very difficult to rank for. On the other hand, terms you thought would be too hard to rank for might be less competitive. This research process may also lead to new keywords you can add to your list. Both Ahrefs and Semrush , for example, will list keywords related to the ones you’re searching for, which can help you streamline your list.

5. Choose the Keywords You Want To Focus on First

Once you’ve narrowed your list of keywords, you’ll want to choose a few to focus on for your website. You should select these based on which terms have high traffic and low competition but also represent your brand accurately. For example, “14k gold necklace extenders” could be a competitive term, but it won’t be relevant to your business if you don’t sell necklace extenders.

Keyword research is one of the first steps in the process of driving traffic to your website. The general steps of keyword research are to go from very general terms to a narrowed-down list of more specific phrases and sentences. The goal is to end up with short-tail and long-tail keywords you can incorporate into your website that will help drive traffic.

How long does keyword research take?

The amount of time it will take you to conduct keyword research will depend on a number of factors, including what stage you are in your business, how thorough you want to be and whether you already have experience researching keywords. A ballpark estimate would be to carve out one week for keyword research as part of an overall SEO strategy.

Is Ahrefs a good SEO tool?

Ahrefs is one of the best tools available for keyword research. However, while the company offers many free tools, the main software may be costly for some small businesses just starting out with keyword research. If that’s the case, check out our article on top Ahrefs alternatives .

What is a long-tail keyword?

A long-tail keyword is a phrase or sentence that is longer and more specific than one word or phrase. For example, a long-tail keyword could be “how to take care of a 14k gold necklace” while a short-tail keyword would simply be “gold necklace.” Long-tail keywords are typically easier to rank for in search engines since they don’t receive as much competition.

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Battery energy storage in ERCOT’s Real-Time Market: What’s changing?

So far in 2024, 26% of battery energy storage revenues in ERCOT have been earned via Energy arbitrage - up from just 15% in 2023.

But what’s behind this increase?

More battery energy storage capacity is free from Ancillary Service commitments

As the buildout of batteries in ERCOT has continued, Ancillary Service prices - relative to Energy prices - have declined .

With increased competition in the Ancillary Service markets, more battery energy storage capacity is available for Real-Time Energy dispatch.

With more capacity available in Real-Time, batteries have consistently provided more output to the grid.

In fact, in the most recent thirty days of operations, the peak 15-minute total net output of all battery energy storage systems averaged nearly 1.5 GW .

Across the same thirty-day period last year, the average peak net output was less than 400 MW , representing an increase of more than 4x .

Real-Time Energy prices are also key in determining how much storage is dispatched. In order for a battery - or any other type of generation - to be dispatched by ERCOT’s economic dispatch, its Energy Offer Curve must be at or below the Energy price at its location, otherwise known as the Locational Marginal Price.

So, how do Real-Time prices in the last thirty days compare to prices over the same period last year?

Real-Time prices in the last 30 days are significantly lower than the same time last year

Real-Time Energy prices averaged just $26/MWh in the most recent 30 days of operations. This is a 69% reduction from the average of $84/MWh over the same period last year.

Prices in July and August of 2023 were substantially higher than to this point in 2024.

However, on an average day, battery energy storage systems increased their peak net output by more than 4x .

For batteries to provide substantially more output to the grid in 2024, they would have needed to offer capacity into the Real-Time Market at much lower prices.

Modo subscribers can read the rest of the report below to learn:

• How battery energy storage Energy Offer Curves compare to other technology types.
• The differences in Energy Offer Curves among different battery energy storage owners.
• And how those offer curves have changed since last year.

How do the Energy Offer Curves of battery energy storage systems stack up to other technology types?

Batteries in ERCOT offer to sell energy in the Real-Time Market at a price higher than most other generation types.

To continue reading this article you need a Benchmarking Pro ERCOT subscription

Related insights:, key capture energy: how it topped the ercot bess index in may, battery energy storage buildout: 18 gw in ercot by the end of 2025, podcast: energy market design in the us with gary cate.

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Reporting by Jayshree.P. Upadhyay; Additional reporting by Ira Dugal, Neha Arora and Jahnavi Nidumolu; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, William Mallard, David Goodman and Toby Chopra

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