Market research consists of researching the market you are in, or anticipate doing business in. There are several ways to do market research. Choosing the best one for your business depends on your budget, the questions you are trying to answer, the size and specificity of your target market, and your team’s bandwidth.

Interviews

Customer interviews play a pivotal role in conducting effective market research by providing valuable insights into consumer preferences, behaviors, and needs. These one-on-one interactions offer a direct and personal connection with the target audience, allowing researchers to dig deeper into the motivations that drive purchasing decisions.

In these interviews, the interviewer asks a member of the target audience (either a current customer or prospective customer) open-ended questions to gain an understanding of the customer’s pain points, expectations, and satisfaction levels with competitor products or the company’s product.

This qualitative approach goes beyond quantitative data, uncovering qualitative information that may not be apparent through surveys or analytics alone. Customer interviews also foster a sense of engagement and collaboration, making customers feel valued and heard. The information gathered from these interviews can inform product development, marketing strategies, and overall business decision-making, ultimately enhancing the company’s ability to meet customer demands and stay competitive in the market.

Interviews can also take the form of Focus Groups, in which the interviewer asks questions to a group of people who fall under the target audience demographics. These types of interviews can be helpful for gathering thoughts and opinions from more people in a shorter span of time, thereby also saving on costs. However, the research team should also be aware that people can fall into a “groupthink” trap—once one person has said something, it can bias the answers of others in the group and/or inhibit opposing ideas.

Interviews—whether one-on-one or focus group format—require large investments of time both in sourcing people and conducting the interviews and in analyzing the qualitative data. If your marketing team does not have the bandwidth to conduct this type of research, there are companies you can outsource to do the work for you. While there are large market research companies that cover a lot of different industries, you might also consider a smaller and more niche market research company that focuses specifically on your target market, such as MedTech or consumer products.

Surveys

Surveys are another powerful tool in market research, allowing businesses to efficiently collect quantitative data from a large and diverse sample of respondents. Well-designed questionnaires enable businesses to gather valuable insights into consumer preferences, demographics, and opinions on products or services.

Because of the automation in survey software, researchers can gather responses from a large audience, which provides a broader perspective on market trends and customer attitudes. Surveys can easily be sent out via email to a large email distribution list, ensuring that even a small hit rate results in many responses. Survey softwares like SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics, or Google Forms allow you to both create the survey and send to a target list of email addresses directly from the platform—and for relatively cheap.

The structured format of surveys also allows you to standardize the responses, making data analysis and comparison much easier. For instance, researchers can set up the survey so that questions are multiple choice and only have four possible answers to choose from. These responses can then be easily downloaded and analyzed in statistical software like Microsoft Excel. By employing statistical methods, businesses can draw meaningful conclusions from survey data, identify patterns, and make informed decisions about product development, marketing strategies, and customer satisfaction initiatives.

Surveys therefore serve as one of the most scalable tools for market research, helping companies stay ahead of shifting markets and consumer preferences.

Market Reports

Market research and analyst reports provide a comprehensive overview of market trends, consumer behavior, and industry dynamics. These reports offer insights that help companies make informed decisions about their products, services, and overall strategies. By examining market research and analyst reports, businesses can gain a competitive edge by staying ahead of industry developments, identifying emerging opportunities, and mitigating potential risks. The depth and breadth of information provided in these reports allow companies to benchmark their performance against industry standards, understand customer preferences, and align their business strategies with market demands. Ultimately, market research and analyst reports serve as strategic roadmaps, guiding businesses toward success in a dynamic and ever-evolving business landscape.

Competitor Activity

Whether or not a business has immediate competitors, it is important to stay informed about their activities, including marketing messaging and product or sales offerings. There are several ways to conduct competitor research:

• Social Media: Follow your competitors’ social media accounts and pay attention to the content they share and how users engage with their content. What’s resonating? What’s not resonating? What do they do well? What could they do better? Conduct a SWOT analysis to help guide your business’ social media strategy. In addition to looking through competitors’ posts, some tools allow businesses to benchmark their performance by comparing to their chosen competitors. The LinkedIn platform has this built in (free) under the Analytics –> Competitors tab.
  
• Analyst Reports: As previously mentioned, market and analyst reports can be an excellent tool to stay aware of market trends, which includes competitor activity and sentiment. In particular, after earnings reports, analysts will give their thoughts on how a company is performing and how the market may respond to any updates in product strategy, etc.
  
• Media Monitoring: Unlike monitoring competitors’ own social media activity, media monitoring involves looking also at the earned media coverage, in other words what others are posting about the companies. Tools like Meltwater, CisionOne, Critical Mention, or (free!) Google Alerts can help businesses stay informed about important announcements from competitor press releases, news articles, or social media posts mentioning competitors or relevant market topics.
  
• Website: Competitors’ websites are the easiest place to start doing market research. Their websites should contain important details about their product offerings, including how they are positioning their product offerings, the prices of their products or services, as well as useful images or videos. Many websites will also include testimonials or a review section from current and past users that can be helpful for understanding what is important to their customers and what the company is doing well (or not well).

For best results, marketers and business leaders should set goals around how often they should dive into each of these research tools. For some businesses, it might make sense to do a deep dive quarterly. For others, it might be important to check some channels more frequently so they can proactively adjust their strategies, if needed.