How To Start Your Marketing Research In 10 Minutes

A good marketer is a smart marketer. So if you’re going to be putting so much time and effort into marketing your product, service, or solution, wouldn’t it be nice if you could predict the success of your efforts before launching?

That way, you can save yourself the trouble of wasting time on certain campaigns that will never get traction. I know what you’re thinking: “Predicting the success of my marketing campaign? Doesn’t sound like something I can do in just 10 minutes. There are too many moving parts. Too much research involved.”

Well, fear not! With this simple guide, we’ll break down how to start your marketing research in just 10 minutes (or less).

How To Do Market Research! (5 FAST & EASY Strategies)

Takeaways
1. Quick Entry Point: The article provides practical steps to initiate marketing research swiftly.
2. Time-Efficient Tips: Learn how to efficiently gather initial insights without extensive time investment.
3. Initial Data Collection: Discover methods to collect relevant data that can guide further research efforts.
4. Focus on Key Aspects: The guide emphasizes focusing on crucial aspects within a short timeframe.
5. Actionable Insights: Even in 10 minutes, you can gain actionable insights to inform your marketing approach.

Research Your Competitors’ Keywords

The first thing you should do is research your competitors’ keyword strategy, which can be done in two ways. First, you can use the Google Keyword Planner to find out what keywords your competitors are targeting.

Second, you can also use Google Trends to find out what keywords people are searching for. To use the Keyword Planner tool from Google, here are some steps from HubSpot:

Go to https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner (make sure you’re logged into your AdWords account).

Enter one of your competitor’s website URLs into the box labeled “search for new keywords using a phrase,” then click “Get Ideas” or hit Enter on your keyboard.

Once you’re presented with a list of suggested keyword ideas, select all of them by clicking “Select all keywords.” You’ll see them appear in blue at the bottom of this window once they’ve been added

Building a strong foundation for marketing research is crucial. If you’re wondering what marketing research is and how to do it, our step-by-step guide can provide you with insights and techniques to get started effectively.

See How Your Audience Interacts With Brands On Social Media

Use social media to see what’s being discussed about your brand and its competitors. Check out the top posts on your Facebook page, check out the comments on Instagram and Twitter, and look at the recent comments or questions posted by other LinkedIn users.

You can also use this time to find out what people are looking for in your industry when they search YouTube.

Look At What Content Is People Consuming The Most

You can start by determining what content people are consuming the most, sharing the most, and talking about the most. To do this, you’ll need to look at various types of content. You can look at what content people are reading (e.g., blog posts), watching (e.g., YouTube videos), or listening to (e.g., podcasts).

You can also look at what people are sharing on social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter. If you have access to Google Analytics data, this information will be available there as well just make sure that you’ve set up your website properly so it tracks all traffic sources correctly.

Checkout Latest Content Created By Companies In Your Industry

To start with, check out the latest content created by companies in your industry. If you’re not sure where to look, head over to BuzzSumo and enter a keyword related to your company or industry.

Then select “Compare Analytics” and analyze how others are performing on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. You can also search for content created by journalists or bloggers who write about topics related to your business niche. Check out their websites, blogs, and social media profiles (Twitter).

In the world of market research, skepticism is a valuable trait. It’s important to always conduct your market research studies with a healthy amount of skepticism to ensure the accuracy and reliability of your findings.

See How People Are Responding To Competitors’ Ads (Facebook Ad Library)

The Facebook Ad Library is a user-friendly way to see how people are responding to your competitors’ ads. The best part? It’s free and easy. The first thing you need to do is go to Facebook.com/ads/preview, then log in with your business account credentials.

This will take you straight into your Ads Manager dashboard where all of your current and past campaigns are displayed by date range (see Figure 3).

Understand The Latest Trends On Google

Another great tool to use when researching your target audience is Google Trends. This free tool provides you with a snapshot of how popular search terms have been over time, and how they relate to each other.

Google Trends allows marketers to explore more than 500 million search queries to discover where people are looking for information online, what they’re interested in learning about, and what websites are most relevant for their searches. The data collected by Google Trends is produced by measuring the number of times users enter particular keywords into the Google Search box at any given moment in time.

Research Your Audience’s Preferences Using Buzzsumo

Next, use Buzzsumo to find out what content is most popular based on shares, likes, and comments. This tool can be used for a variety of purposes including finding the best time to publish your blog posts and which media type is most effective for reaching your audience.

Buzzsumo allows you to see all of the social media activity surrounding any topic or brand so that you can determine which types of content are resonating with your audience and why. For example, if I have a clothing store selling athletic gear for women in their 20s.

I could analyze all of the discussions around running shoes among my target market using this tool. Once I’ve identified what’s being shared in their circles.

I can then create content that incorporates those ideas into my marketing plan by creating blog posts about how running shoes help build strong legs or sharing photos on Instagram highlighting fashionable new arrivals at my store.

Clickthrough rates can significantly impact your conversion rates. Learn about 15 ways to increase conversion with clickthrough rates to optimize your marketing strategies and drive better results.

Survey Your Audience Using Facebook Polls

Another way to start your research is by surveying your audience. You can use Facebook polls to quickly gather feedback from a large group of people on any topic that you’re curious about. Facebook polls are an easy and effective way to learn more about what’s important to your audience.

They’re great if you want to find out how they feel about your brand, product, or service and they’re also useful when it comes time for sales and marketing teams to figure out how their strategies are working.

For example: Do customers prefer one color over another? Take a look at the results in this where we asked our fans which type of beer glass was best for them (spoiler alert: it’s not pint glasses). The data showed us that 57 percent picked tulip glasses as their favorite type of beer drinking vessel because these glasses make beer tastier.

This is valuable information for potential advertisers looking for new ways to promote their products on social media sites like Facebook where many users will see these ads online (and maybe even buy them).

Use Surveys To Understand Your Audience Better By Going Wider Or Deeper With Your Questions

Surveys are a great way to get a lot of insight into your audience quickly. You can use surveys to understand your audience better by going wider or deeper with your questions.

Going wider means asking more general questions, which gives you less specific information. Going deeper means asking more detailed questions, which gives you very specific information. For example:

General question: “What’s the best part about our product?”

Detail-oriented question: “In what situation did you find our product most useful? What were the circumstances? Where do you live? How old are you? Do any of these things change how often or by how much our product is useful for you? Would anything else change how often or by how much our product is useful for you? Why/why not?”

Find Out What The Most Popular Topics Are Through Quora And Reddit

Quora is a question and answer site where questions are asked, answered, edited, and organized by its community of users. Quora users can earn badges and points for their activity on the site/

Also, reddit is a social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content such as links, text posts, images, or videos. The submitted content is then voted on by other members who can leave comments (textual or visual) supporting or opposing the post’s topic.

Social media has become a powerful tool for market research. Discover how to use social media for marketing research and leverage the insights and data available on these platforms to enhance your decision-making process.

Explore Topics Based On Data From Google Search Console, Google Analytics, And Similar Analytics Tools

Other analytics tools like Hotjar, CrazyEgg, and Kissmetrics. You can also use a tool like RJMetrics to see how long your visitors stay on your website. These are all things that will help you find the data you need:

Google Trends This will give you an idea of what people are searching for online.

Google Keyword Planner helps you figure out which keywords people are using when they search for businesses similar to yours and how many searches those keywords get each month.
AdWords Keyword Planner Gives estimated costs per click (CPC) based on the CPC bid estimates for each keyword along with trends over time and other useful information about their performance potential when used as PPC ad text in AdWords campaigns.

These CPC bids come from advertisers who have already selected these terms as part of their campaigns so they reflect real-world market conditions rather than simply theoretical situations created by our algorithm alone!

Find Out What People Like To Buy Based On Instagram Likes And Purchases

You can also find out what people like to buy based on Instagram likes and purchases. Let’s say you want to know what the most popular item in your store is, or which products are getting the most attention on social media.

You can use a tool called Likealyzer (or another similar one) to analyze your followers’ interests by looking at their Instagram posts and other activity on social media.

This will help you understand why people might be buying particular products so that you can make sure those products are marketed well enough for people to notice them.

Find Out What People Are Talking About Through Twitter Search And Hashtags

Twitter is a great resource for finding what people are saying about your business and others like it. It’s also a powerful tool for finding out who you should be following because the users who contribute to Twitter conversations tend to be more active on social media than the average user.

Here are some ways you can use Twitter search to get started:

Search for keywords related to your business (for example: “clothing store,” “dinner recipes”).

Search hashtags related to your business (for example: “#clothingstores”) or even competitor brands (for example “#JaneClothesStore). You might see several brands that use this hashtag but aren’t talking about clothing stores; still, there will be plenty of useful information here.

Look up users who engage deeply with similar businesses in their tweets. You can also look up users who appear frequently in replies/mentions from these businesses (again, @MyFavoriteClothesStore), as well as those who retweet or quote-tweet them frequently.*

Look At Amazon Reviews For Similar Products Or Services To Identify Problems, Gaps, And Areas For Improvement

Think about it this way: if you’re a prospective buyer, what would make your decision easier? Would you be more likely to buy from a company that has a few negative reviews, but also a lot of positive ones? Or would you rather buy from the company with only glowing reviews?

This is why conducting customer research on Amazon can help you uncover opportunities. By reading through the customer reviews for similar products or services, you’ll be able to identify trends in how customers feel about your competitors’ offerings (which is important) and also see what they like or don’t like about yours.

You’ll quickly notice patterns emerge, for example, maybe people are complaining about poor service or confusing pricing plans and start brainstorming ways that might help improve your business’s offerings.

Send Emails To Customers Who Bought Similar Products To Identify Improvements, Issues, And Changes They Would Like To See

As a marketer, you know that email is one of the best ways to communicate with customers. But when it comes to collecting data, there are few things in marketing more effective than an email survey.

The best way to start your research is by sending out an email survey that asks one question: “What improvements or changes would you like to see in this product?” If your company sells a product or service, asking customers what they want out of it will give you insight into how they use it and why they don’t use it as often as they could be.

Additionally, if you notice something in common among responses (such as “the price is too high”), then this may be a signal for future opportunities for improvement

Data is the cornerstone of effective marketing research. Find out how to find the data you need for marketing research and how to use it in our comprehensive guide, helping you make informed decisions based on reliable information.

Ask Employees Some Question To Identify Opportunities, Gaps, Potential Improvements, Etc.

Ask employees to fill out a survey. Surveys are an effective way to get feedback from your employees because they are easy to administer, can be customized, and can reach all areas of your organization. There are different types of surveys such as:

Questionnaires
Feedback forms
Customer satisfaction surveys

To ensure that you’re getting quality information from the employees you survey, ask them questions that will help you gain insight into their experience at work.

Final Thoughts

Marketing research is not easy, but it doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming either. The easiest way to start your research is by using the resources you already have: conduct surveys with customers and employees, look at data from Google Analytics, etc.

By combining different sources of information and keeping a close eye on what your competitors are doing, you can quickly uncover new insights about your audience that can help you develop more effective marketing strategies.