There is a saying that states, “It is not what you know, but who you know”, and we dare say that in certain specific circumstances, that might be the case. However, in most walks of life, including business, it is surely your knowledge that is all-important. When we say knowledge, we are talking about knowing what is popular with your target audience, knowing market trends, knowing what your competitors are up to, and knowing how your business is currently performing, for example.
In other words, the more you know about your company, your performance, your market, your competitors, your prospective customers, and your current customers the more able you are to make decisions that are going to positively impact the level of success that your business will be able to achieve.
This might beg the question, “How do I gain all that knowledge?” and the answer is there is no one way. There are several, and that is a good thing, as it means you can learn about all the areas relating to your business we have already mentioned from several different sources.
One such source is using market research tools that provide valuable insights and quality data relating to whichever market you wish to analyse. As for what market research tool you should consider, here are 7 of the best that many top marketing experts use.
Google Trends: Where better to start any kind of market research than the biggest search engine on the internet. With Google Trends, you can see visually which search term volumes are increasing and which are decreasing giving you an indication of popularity trends. This helps you avoid joining the tail-end of a dying market and instead get a head start within an expanding market.
Attest: This is a versatile market research tool that offers several ways to conduct your research. Market analysis, competitor analysis and surveys to a built-in audience of over 100 million consumers will provide you with tons of useful information, such as demographics, buying habits and which brands are trusted, to help you make more informed business decisions.
Social Mention: No market research would be complete without data from social media, given that social media is where people are only too happy to give their opinions, even if some of those opinions are outrageous. Searches are done just as they would be in a search engine, and real-time data from at least 100 different social media platforms is presented and can be easily analysed.
Statista: Statista acts as a curator of data from a vast array of sources across the internet and makes it available for those who need it, including business owners. You can narrow your searches so that they are pinpoint-specific with regard to a single product or service, and Statista will generate a chart with the relevant information and data.
Ahrefs: if you are marketing online, there is unlikely to be another tool that can provide you with as much and as accurate data on your competition as Ahrefs. It tells you what keywords they are targeting, how many backlinks they have, and what site they are linking from, to name but three of the dozens of data points it will have concerning your competitors.
Survey Monkey: What better way to find out what your target audience’s needs, wants, and preferences are than to ask them? With Survey Monkey, you can create surveys that can ask about anything. Your surveys can be comprehensive with multiple questions or short and simple with just two or three questions. The responses are presented to you in a simple dashboard.
SimilarWeb: Knowing what your competition is doing in your marketplace is essential, and using SimilarWeb will help you gain that knowledge. It provides data relating to their website traffic, the source of their website visitors and the demographics of those visitors. Research on SimilarWeb can also be broken down by industry, country, products, and search terms.