Entrepreneurs Love These 13 Tools for Conducting Market Research

Best tools for market research

Here are 13 essential tools to conduct market research effectively:

1. Google Ads

Google Ads gets your business in front of online users who are searching for the services or products you offer. The platform’s artificial intelligence (AI) features help to maximize conversion rates by determining which ad formats will perform best for a brand’s needs, and it offers plenty of opportunities to review audience insights and create various campaigns. You can even use the search features to determine where the demand for a product or service is, so you can target the right audience. [Read related article: What Is Google Ads, and Why Should You Use It?]

2. SurveyMonkey

Brands can effectively conduct market research by creating surveys on SurveyMonkey and reviewing their data in the program’s reporting dashboard. Conducting surveys via SurveyMonkey allows businesses to measure audience interest, receive feedback and better understand their market’s needs through targeted questions. 

3. Typeform

Typeform enables businesses to create and seamlessly integrate data collection forms, surveys and quizzes on their websites and emails. This code-free software allows businesses to evaluate audience interest, increase sign-ups and conversion rates, test products/services, and collect valuable data from consumers in a more personal and appealing way. 

4. Ask Your Target Market

Ask Your Target Market (AYTM) allows businesses to create surveys to gauge the interest of their customers or those within AYTM’s community, which boasts over 100 million people worldwide. The program prides itself on having a highly curated community of respondents to ensure businesses get insights from the right market for their needs. Businesses can view insights from surveys with AYTM’s dashboard, which offers heat maps and other data visualizations, along with filters and testing options. 

5. Semrush

Semrush offers insight into competitors’ SEO strategies so businesses can increase traffic and compete against them. It allows entrepreneurs to see how their website traffic compares with that of competitors and run SEO audits to find the most effective keywords to attract their target market. It can also analyze backlinks of any domain to give you a better understanding of how competitors rank on search engines and pinpoint your website’s shortcomings.

6. Quora

Quora is a free market tool that provides authentic customer feedback through a question-and-answer format. Users can interact with topics that interest them, allowing businesses to zero in on their target audience and ask specific questions that will pique their interest. Businesses can use it to understand their market better and learn about consumer preferences. 

7. Qualtrics XM

Qualtrics XM software helps businesses improve their offerings by providing insight into marketing trends, revealing how consumer and market behaviors are changing, and optimizing the user experience. Using your audience, including site visitors and those on email lists, Qualtrics XM helps businesses create research panels to obtain feedback (including video feedback) and test offerings prior to their launch. 

8. PickFu

PickFu helps businesses easily obtain consumer feedback through polls and testing. Brands can get in-depth, written responses at any step of their creative journey — from inception to launch — from 15 to 500 people within a target demographic by asking questions that gauge their opinion through experiments, comparisons and personal decisions. 

9. Statista

Statista is a data platform that provides insight into various industries via statistics, infographics, consumer insights and studies, thereby guiding businesses’ decision-making processes through thorough research of their respective industries. The platform includes roughly 1 million statistics pertaining to over 80,000 topics, helping businesses understand their industries’ nuances and stay updated on the latest trends and predictions.

10. Tableau

Tableau is a data visualization tool with a clean, intuitive interface. Through the platform, businesses can analyze data, browse AI-powered predictive analytics and make data-driven decisions for your business. With Tableau, businesses can visualize, clean and combine their data, helping them understand their customers and spot trends and gaps in the market. 

11. Google Trends

Google Trends is a great starting point for businesses to get real-time data on the amount of interest in a particular topic. Using Google Trends, entrepreneurs can see how often people search for a particular term on Google Search, YouTube and Google News. You can filter searches by location to identify where your target audience resides.

12. Customer case studies

Customer case studies can provide insight into how existing customers use your product or service. By having customers review your product or service, you can detect use-case patterns to determine if customers are receiving and utilizing it the way you intended, detect pain points you may not have considered and reveal gaps in the market. 

13. Social media

Social media allows businesses to access real-time feedback, even after a service has been launched or a change has been made, which allows for continual improvement. Each platform offers various features, including polling and livestreams, to assess consumers’ interests and learn what resonates most with them. Brands can also connect with their audience on a personal level in the comment sections or via direct messages, and listen to their concerns and suggestions.

Why market research is so important 

Market research is crucial to ensuring the success of your marketing strategies. According to Beth Cooper, vice president of marketing at KNB Communications, “Starting a business without market research is like throwing a dart with your eyes closed.”

While you may have a general direction in mind, getting a clear picture of your target dramatically improves your chances of success. “That’s what market research does: It reduces uncertainty, allowing businesses to make better decisions,” Cooper said.

Here are some reasons why market research is so important:

• Improves your business idea: Through market research, businesses can get feedback to guarantee sufficient demand for their product or service and ensure their offerings are well received before they invest more money into them. Consumers are vocal about what they want and don’t want from a product or service. These responses are invaluable, as feedback can provide actionable suggestions for improvement.
• Creates a customer-centric approach: Businesses can create a customer-centric approach by considering their audience’s needs and wants and then tailoring offerings to their customers. For example, by looking at economic indicators, brands can ensure that their target audience’s income range will align with their products before going to market.
• Helps your business grow: Market research is instrumental in growing a company, as it provides insight into untapped markets your business may not have previously considered exploring. By analyzing insights, businesses can discover patterns and emerging opportunities to further grow their brand, such as by uncovering new trends in line with their offerings or pushing them into a new market.
• Improves your connection with your target market: By considering consumers’ opinions and offering opportunities for them to provide input about product/service development, consumers feel more connected to the brand. 

• Reduces risks: Conducting market research allows businesses to make data-dependent decisions to grow and improve upon their idea while incurring less risk. If market research data determines that a brand’s potential product or service is not needed — or if there are roadblocks to its success — businesses can go back to the drawing board without further investing resources into a product or service that won’t satisfy consumers.
• Increases your competitive advantage: Businesses can get a competitive advantage through market research, as it allows brands to observe what their competitors are doing right (and wrong) to drive their marketing strategies. By observing competitors’ pricing, product/service demand and market share, and by taking into account how saturated the existing market is, businesses can evaluate how well their offerings will fare alongside their competitors’ and make necessary adjustments before going to market.