Have you heard of Odeo?

In 2005, Evan Williams launched a podcast platform called Odeo. The platform went as far as a Series A before shutting down when Apple launched podcast support on iTunes. His next product would go on to earn more than 330 million monthly users and a net worth of over $49 billion. But before that could happen, Evan Williams and his co-founders would leave no stone unturned in their market research methods.

In this blog, we’ll cover:

• What is Market Research?
• 10 Best Market Research Tools for 2024
• What to Look for in a Market Research Tool?
• Market Research Types
• 5 Market Research Methods
• Steps in Market Research Process
• Market Research Examples

What is Market Research?

Market research is a process of gathering, analyzing, and understanding information about your target market.

Market research surveys involve interacting with and getting the feedback of potential customers from a company’s target market. We do this with the help of market research apps or tools.

Then, businesses use this feedback to fine-tune their products, services, experiences or campaigns or check the viability of new products and services. That’s why market research tools and methods are a significant component of business planning.

Looking for a market research tool that has all of these features and brings out the best market research data possible?

10 Best Market Research Tools for Your Toolstack in 2024

Here are the 10 best market research tools (paid + free) for 2024.

1. SurveySparrow
2. Make My Persona
3. Mention
4. Ubersuggest
5. Statista
6. ThriveCart
7. Consensus
8. SEMRush
9. Userlytics
10. Market Explorer

1. SurveySparrow: For engaging surveys that yield crucial insights

SurveySparrow is one of the powerful free market research tools for creating insightful market research surveys to study your market in-depth. It has hundreds of templates to help you craft the perfect study yourself without investing in an agency. From demographic research and customer needs to product-market fit and pricing strategy, market research surveys will give your business that much-needed competitive edge. Check out this market survey example.

Key features:

• User-Friendly Design: Craft surveys effortlessly using an intuitive drag-and-drop interface; no tech skills are needed.
• Diverse Question Options: Choose from various question formats to gather diverse feedback.
• Anonymous Surveys: Collect responses without requiring personal information, respecting privacy.
• Insightful Dashboard: Access in-depth data analysis and insights via a feature-rich dashboard.
• White-label Surveys: Personalize surveys with your branding for a polished and professional touch.
• Conversational Forms: Create interactive surveys that engage respondents in a friendly, chat-like manner.
• Efficient Automation: Simplify survey distribution and follow-ups with automated workflows.
• Templates: You get 800+ pre-designed survey templates.
• G2 rating: 4.4/5

“It produces attractive surveys that are a good experience for the participant. The interface is fairly straightforward and attractive on the backend too. There are good reporting features and export formats (e.g. to SPSS, CSV, and Google Sheets). I really like the audio questions, which automatically transcribe the participants answer as they speak.” – Claire Q., Senior Research Associate

Pricing: Starts at $19/month

You can also access the forever free plan with limited features and business and enterprise plans at fixed quotes. Get in touch with the team to know more.

Survey templates like this can save you time on question creation and help you focus on getting insights. Access more SurveySparrow templates (and customize them however you like) with a free account. Sign up below!

Market Research Survey

Preview Template

Use This Template

2. Make My Persona: For creating detailed customer personas

Defining your audience is the most effective way to market your brand.

Each user has a persona of their own – their occupation, age, gender, or the purpose of using your products. Make My Persona lets you create a buyer persona that your business can use to understand your target audience better. Before investing time and resources to build a new product, you can refer to your list of buyer personas to find your ideal customer.

Key Features:

• Create Buyer Persona: All you need to do is choose a name, age, career, and your buyer’s needs.
• Targeted Product Development: Identify your ideal customer. Save time and resources in product development.
• Document Objectives: You can document your buyer’s career objectives and challenges.

“This tool is a marketer’s dream-come-true. Instead of having to sort through piles of information, create basic profiles for a persona, and struggle with design, Hubspot pretty much does it all for you.” – Campaign Creators

Pricing: Free

3. Mention: For real-time social media monitoring & analysis

Where does your brand pop up in the search? Mention helps you find out. Mention is a great market research tool that ensures you don’t miss a single comment about your brand on the internet. You can use it to discover brand mentions on blogs, comments, news sites, and more.

Mention allows users to schedule social media posts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Moreover, you can focus on specific mentions by filtering content that includes your brand keyword in the title.

Key Features:

• Real-time Brand Tracking: Never miss a brand mention online.
• Sentiment Analysis: Filter incoming brand mentions by tone to quickly flag negative comments.
• Reputation Management: Protect your brand’s reputation with swift responses.
• Influencer Marketing: Connect with influencers for targeted marketing.

“Mention is very important because I am always aware of the current state of the product and the opinion of people. I am always ready to react to any negative or positive mention online.” – Arielle F., Account Director

Pricing: Free

4. Ubersuggest: For gaining insight into a competitor’s marketing strategy

Ubersuggest is one of digital marketers’ best market research tools for its keyword research abilities. You can find out what your audience searches for through the Keyword Analyzer and determine the content that generates traffic.

Key Features:

• Competitor Analysis: This lets you find your competitor’s keywords, best-performing pages, and monthly search traffic.
• SEO Page Analysis: Identify high-ranking competitor pages.
• Keyword Ideas: Access diverse keyword suggestions and trends.
• Content Inspiration: Discover top-performing content for your topics.

Interestingly, Ubersuggest has a Backlink Opportunities feature that lets you compare your domain with your competitors to uncover backlink opportunities.

“This tool has a great backlink report. It provides some of the best results I have seen. You can plug in your competitor’s website and get an extensive list of backlinks to review and go after.” – Sivam J., Marketing and Advertising

Pricing: Starts at $20/month

5. Statista: For data gathering & visualization

Another valuable market research tool to have in your arsenal is Statista. Statista is a data visualization website that retrieves data from the internet and converts it into an easy-to-understand format. As a result, researchers and marketers can analyze information at a glance, saving a ton of time and effort. Visualizations and charts are updated each year.

Key Features:

• Global Market Coverage: Explore 1,000+ markets across 190+ countries with comparable data.
• Data Customization: Customize data or download XLSX files for flexibility.
• Timely Updates: Benefit from biannual updates, transparently shown.
• Regional Comparisons: Effortlessly compare data across countries and regions.

“Statista is my most reliable ‘go to tool’ to get the right data insights to back up my research. It’s updated and accurate.” – N.Bala Subramanyam IPS

Pricing: Free

6. ThriveCart: For sales-boosting marketing automations

There’s one more market research software that you can add to your armory – ThriveCart. While this tool is an online shopping cart solution, it can also be used to upsell your products and boost click-to-sale conversation rates. ThriveCart can also be integrated into most of your favorite marketing software to spike your digital/physical products/services sales.

Key features:

• Profit-Boosting Options: Enhance revenue with high-converting carts and upsells.
• Embeddable Cart: Seamlessly integrate carts into any website.
• A/B Testing: Optimize conversions with split testing.
• Two-Step Cart: Simplify the checkout process for higher sales.

“I really like its powerful sales funnel feature, by using it we can create a complete modern sales funnel with bump offers, multiple one-time offers with the auto-affiliate promoting options enabled, so almost anyone can promote our product as an affiliate.” – Rahul G., Founder

Pricing: 1-time cost of $495

7. Consensus: For sales-boosting marketing automations

If you need to quickly extract insights from existing market research, Consensus ought to be your go-to tool. Consensus is an AI search engine for research that uses language models to gather insights from academic research papers. It is designed to help market researchers find evidence-based answers faster, and easier, than traditional search engines (we’re looking at you, Google).

Key features:

• GPT-4 Summaries: Get concise summaries of research papers with GPT-4 and other large language models.
• Consensus Meter: Gauge the level of consensus and divergence among research papers on a topic.
• Scientifically Verified Results: Get information that is rigorously fact-checked using tool like SciScore.
• Quick Analysis: Reduce time spent on research with Consensus’s rapid analysis capability.

“An application that provides research translation services in large numbers and in large quantities in the fastest time.” – Elsayed Ali, remove.bg

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $6.99 /per month.

Are you eager to check out more AI market research tools? Head over to our blog, AI Tools for Market Research: Revolutionizing Strategies Today.

8. SEMRush: For SEO and competitor analysis

SEMRush is an all-in-one digital marketing suite that covers SEO, PPC, keyword research, competitive analysis, and more. It contains over 30 tools with the ability to analyze 3.7 billion keywords as well as 4 trillion backlinks. Additionally, SEMRush offers SEO audits, position tracking, and competitive intelligence capabilities.

Key features:

• Keyword Research: Discover high-performing keywords and analyze competitors’ strategies to improve search rankings.
• Site Audit: Identify technical SEO issues and on-page optimization opportunities.
• Backlink Analysis: Analyze backlinks, find new link building opportunities, and monitor backlink profiles.
• Competitive Analysis: Compare your website with competitors, track their keywords, and learn from their strategies to improve your own marketing efforts.

“Love having a complete platform where I can do keyword research, backlink health checks and market research. For a small marketing team, it certainly helps strengthen our strategies by providing insightful data.” – Elias R.

Pricing: starts at $129.95 monthly

9. Userlytics: For product testing and user feedback

Userlytics is one of the best tools for market research and user testing. It allows you to conduct remote usability testing to align your products with the target audience. You can choose from a plethora of test types like tree testing, card sorting, usability testing, prototype testing, and more.

Key features:

• Unmoderated Testing: Allow users to conduct remote usability testing to gather genuine user feedback.
• Moderated Testing: This feature includes seamless video clips compiled of several annotations, shareable highlight reels, and advanced video speed options.
• AI-Based Sentiment Analysis: Instantly determine whether a participant’s tone is positive, negative, or neutral.
• Accessibility Testing: Test prototypes, mobile apps, and websites with visually impaired participants, via a no-download recorder.

“Building usability tests in Userlytics is simple and straightforward. The builder walks you through each step, so you don’t have to worry about forgetting anything. The templated questions make it very easy to build your usability test.” – Jenny F. 

Pricing: On request

10. Market Explorer: For market analysis

Market Explorer by SEMRush is a tool that lets you analyze your market and helps you uncover crucial insights for your business. It provides a bird’s-eye view of the market landscape, identifies who’s leading the pack in your market, shows the total size of your market, and helps you find the best marketing channels.

Key features:

• Market Size Analysis: Provides insights into the size of the market and the level of competition within the industry.
• Audience Insights: Offers detailed demographic, interest, and behavior data about potential customers.
• Traffic Sources Analysis: Helps in understanding where the audience comes from and how they find websites in the segment.
• Growth Quadrant Report: Allows users to see how their domain performs in terms of traffic growth and market share.

Pricing: Free

What to Look for in a Market Research Tool?

When evaluating a market research tool, consider these ten key aspects to ensure it meets your needs effectively:

1. Data Collection Capabilities: The tool should offer a range of methods for gathering data, such as surveys, polls, focus groups, and online monitoring.
2. Customization Options: It should allow for the customization of research tools to suit specific project requirements, such as custom survey questions and branding.
3. Analytical Features: Look for advanced data analysis features, including statistical tools, trend analysis, and real-time data processing.
4. User-Friendly Interface: The tool should be easy to use, with an intuitive interface that doesn’t require extensive technical expertise.
5. Audience Reach and Segmentation: Ensure the tool can access a broad and diverse audience and allows for detailed segmentation of respondents.
6. Integration with Other Platforms: Check if it integrates with other business tools for CRM, data analysis, or marketing automation.
7. Data Visualization and Reporting: The tool should provide clear and insightful reporting and data visualization options to help interpret findings easily.
8. Scalability: The tool should be able to handle projects of different sizes, scaling up as your research needs grow.
9. Compliance and Privacy: It should comply with data protection laws and ensure respondent privacy and data security.
10. Support and Resources: Good customer support and access to training resources can be crucial for troubleshooting and maximizing the tool’s potential.

What are the Different Types of Market Research?

There are two types of market research methods:

• Primary: This is also called field research. Primary market research methods require going out into the field to collect data – or, in other words, doing the research yourselves.

• Secondary: This type is also known as desk research. Secondary research is the research done by others that you would want to utilize.

For the purpose of this blog, we shall focus on primary market research methods.

The 5 Primary Market Research Methods

• Focus Groups
• Surveys
• One-on-One Interviews
• Observation
• Experiments & Field Trials

#1. Focus Groups

It is one of those marketing research methods that seem simple in theory but is tricky to practice.

• Focus groups gather a group of people in a room. These participants are a carefully chosen sample that represents a target population.
• Then a moderator is put in charge. The moderator suggests a topic for discussion – a new idea for a product, opinions on feature updates, political views, etc.

These freestyle discussions are a treasure trove of information for the researcher. They can glean many insights from the participants during an open debate.

But one of the downsides is that focus groups can go off-topic and wander into unintended territories. What’s more, dominance bias and moderator bias can skew the results.

Nevertheless, focus groups are one of the best means to conduct qualitative and exploratory research.

#2. Surveys

Survey research is, by far, the most common marketing research method. This is because surveys are convenient and can be administered through phone, in-person, and online questionnaires.

• The questions in a survey are either closed-ended or open-ended. Hence, survey data is a mix of qualitative and quantitative data.
• Close-ended questions are of different types, ranging from dichotomous (questions with two answer options: yes or no), checkbox, rating scales, and multi-choice to the fancier ones like matrix (where the answer choices are in a grid) and the semantic differential.

While surveys are convenient, crafting the questions and format requires some skill. That’s because good questions form the foundation of good analysis.

On the other hand, online surveys are pretty straightforward, inexpensive, and let you collect data quickly. Online survey platforms also have a ton of features that lets you automate the surveys.

#3. One-on-One Interviews

In one-on-one interviews, the interviewer has a direct conversation with the respondent. So, among all the market research methods, this one is the most personal.

• Through interviews, one can probe deep into the respondent’s mind and investigate interesting aspects in greater detail.
• The interviewer must choose good leading questions that offer more insights for this market research method to truly work. Then, it’s up to the interviewer to decide how they want the interview to go forward.

For example, will it be a casual conversation loosely based on your topic or a highly structured interview based on specific questions?

Apart from the fact that one-on-one interviews can be time-consuming and costly, they are worth it. As a business, speaking to a customer will help you become more empathetic, and you get a chance to see your brand from their point of view.

It’s best to do one-on-one interviews in person. If that is not possible, the next best option is video conferencing.

#4. Observation

Observation research can be of 2 types: observation with very little interaction and some level of interaction. Among all the market research methods, this one tests actual behavior. In other words, the researcher observes the consumer using the product/service in real time.

A fly-on-the-wall observation is an excellent way to assess real-time reactions. Standard observation methods are:

• In-store observation: This is common in the retail industry. In this method, we observe shoppers in a store setting. What do they notice at first, and how do they behave within the store?
• Contextual inquiry: With a combination of interviews and observations, the researcher assesses the consumer as they use their product.
• Eye-tracking: Eye-tracking technology creates heat maps of the user’s eye movements while viewing a website. It shows you the most and least viewed portions. Using this information, you can optimize the website.

#5. Experiments and Field Trials

Experiments are based on two variables – a dependent and an independent variable.

• In this method, the researcher varies the independent variable to test its effect on the dependent variable.
• The main objective here is to try to determine if there is causality between variables. For example, does the independent variable cause a change in the dependent variable?

Experiments and field trials can either be in a controlled environment or a natural setting. An example of this in real life is A/B testing for a website. Modifying elements like the banner image, Call To Action, or website design can affect click-through rates and sign-ups.

4 Steps in the Marketing Research Process

Now that we have learned about market research methods and tools, let’s talk about the four basic market research steps.

#1. Define the problem

What’s your objective for the research? Researchers should have a clear idea of what information they have with them and what is needed. This will help when they draft questions.

To ensure the questions are foolproof, do a test survey with a small group and judge their responses. You can then measure the margin of error with an MoE calculator.

#2. Select the sample

To conduct market research, researchers need a sample representative of their target population. The sample must have characteristics similar to those of the target audience to obtain the most accurate results.

The larger the sample, the better because a large sample can reduce the effect of bias. However, remember that the survey will always have a slight bias since not all people will answer it or complete it.

You can select the sample through probabilistic and non-probabilistic sampling. The former is a random selection, while the latter is chosen for specific demographics like age or gender.

#3. Collect and analyze the data

Data is precious. So make sure that your team tracks and records every response regardless of the feedback channel.

Then, once all the answers are collected, analyze the results and interpret them to form your research findings. You can speed up the process with business research tools like SurveySparrow.

#4. Finally, present your findings as a report

To create the best report, answer the most important questions that led to the investigation in the first place.

Then, to make the numbers more accessible, find humanity in the middle of it all. People by nature are hardwired to remember stories – craft your data to tell an interesting story. In fact, you can convert your data into an appealing visual dashboard with SurveySparrow’s Executive Dashboard function.

Market Research Examples

There are so many market research examples out there that it would be a very long blog indeed if we were to cover them all! So, let’s talk about one market research example.

Consider the unique story of Kellogg’s.

Kellogg’s – the much-loved cereal brand- decided to enter the Indian market in 1994. With a series of massive launches and marketing campaigns, Kellogg’s stepped in with a bang.

However its initial foray into India did not go smoothly. So let’s see what went wrong and how Kellogg’s overcame this challenge.

• They saw their sales decline a few months after launch. Analysis revealed that there were no repeat purchases of cereals.
• Now that they got to the bottom of “what happened,” they needed answers to “why did this happen?”
• This is where marketing research came in. Kellogg’s decided to study Indian food habits.
• The study found that Indian consumers are used to boiling their milk and having it warm with sugar. So the challenge here was to convince customers to have their Kellogg’s with cold milk rather than hot – since crispy flakes would turn soggy in warm milk.
• Besides, Indian customers were used to heavy breakfasts like parathas and dosas. So bland cereal did not seem like a good substitute – at twice the price of competitors.

Every cloud (or bowl) has a silver lining. Here’s how Kellogg’s turned the situation around.

After their initial market research, Kellogg’s fine-tuned their marketing strategy in India.

• The first to go from their packaging was their brand mascot, “Corny,” the green rooster. Corny didn’t sit well with Indian consumers, who were predominantly vegetarian.
• They introduced flavors like banana and mango to suit Indian taste buds.
• Kellogg’s also rolled out ad campaigns that repositioned cornflakes as an evening snack for kids to recapture their market share.
• Furthermore, they fortified the cornflakes with iron and added phrases like “shakti”(strength) to appeal to Indian consumers.
• Kellogg’s lowered the prices of its products and started offering various pack sizes. A variant called Frosties, launched in 1997, was also successful.

Thanks to their market research, Kellogg’s now enjoys a 70% market share in breakfast cereals and is an undisputed leader in the Indian market despite the initial challenges.

Wrapping up

Market research is the foundation of any successful market strategy. So, before embarking on a research project, consider your objective, budget, and the time and resources available.

We hope this list of market research methods and tools will help you find the data you need faster. Time to take your business to the next level!

Before you leave, why not give SurveySparrow a spin? It might be exactly what you’re looking for. The best part? It’s free to try!

Kate Williams

Content Marketer at SurveySparrow