You may learn a lot about how to expand your business by gathering and evaluating data about the marketplaces in which you operate.
Market intelligence is knowledge about your sector of the market or industry that can be used to inform strategy and offer your business a competitive edge.
Data from sources including sales, customer information, survey results, focus groups, and competition analysis make up market intelligence.
To discover fresh market opportunities before your rivals, take into account the market intelligence your organization collects combined with more general industry trends.
This post is for small business owners who wish to position their enterprises for growth and success by utilizing market intelligence.
Running any business requires constant monitoring of your competitors and the state of your sector. This knowledge has previously been referred to as “market intelligence.” The act of gathering market intelligence has evolved in recent years to incorporate analytics that can assist you to strengthen your business model and projections. To operate a more profitable firm, you can better understand your market with the aid of market information.
Market intelligence: What is it?
At its foundation, market intelligence draws data from a variety of sources to provide a comprehensive picture of the current market for your firm. It evaluates the clients, issues, rivals, and potential for developing new goods and services for your business.
Market intelligence can be gathered by looking at sales logs, customer information, surveys, and social media stats.
Small businesses may easily get off the ground with a sensible strategy, according to Saul Dobney, CEO of research consultancy organization Dobney.com.
Dobney added, “It can be as easy as going to the websites or stores of your competitors, discovering published data about the quantity and nature of potential clients, [and] keeping up with advancements in your sector through magazines, journals, or business groups.” Additionally, it entails searching online for consumer reviews and comments that can be used to enhance the company’s product or service.
Business intelligence versus market intelligence
Although they are not the same thing, market intelligence and business intelligence are sometimes conflated. Market intelligence focuses on broad trends, whereas business intelligence refers to information, particularly about a company.
Business intelligence is typically data on an organization’s internal performance. This contains the number of items sent and the overall sales for the month.
Market intelligence, in contrast, focuses on external data, such as customer demographics, regional information, and what consumers purchase. It also examines the competition to determine how well your company performs in comparison to the rest of the industry. All of this can be used to create a business intelligence analysis.
Business intelligence completely ignores the rivalry of your organization, whereas market intelligence takes this into account.
How are businesses utilizing market intelligence?
Successful market intelligence provides specific answers to inquiries about your company’s present and potential customers, rivals, and business objectives. The following are some issues that market intelligence can resolve:
Where should my organization concentrate its efforts more?
What markets need to I attempt to penetrate next?
What purchasing habits do our best clients have?
What goods could be promoted to current customers in many ways?
What demographic groups may my business target with new and existing products?
How do I carry out a market study?
Market intelligence aids organizations in analyzing the environment they operate in general. This aids in identifying fresh growth prospects for your company as well as potential threats. The majority of businesses base their decisions on these four factors.
Competitor awareness
Competitor intelligence entails obtaining and evaluating data regarding your rivals. Finding out more about your own business and the reasons why clients don’t always choose your product or service can be accomplished by examining the strengths and shortcomings of your competitors.
For instance, a competitive analysis report, which evaluates the quality of service a product offers, is a common tool in most marketing operations. A competition analysis report might cover everything, from product characteristics and pricing to target markets and important demographics. All of this data may be combined to produce a strong product that meets client needs while avoiding issues that other companies have encountered.
Product knowledge
Analyzing the caliber of your good or service is part of product intelligence. When selling physical goods, you must consider the manufacturing procedure and whether you are producing the item as effectively as feasible. You may raise the value of your product by using the information you collect.
Gathering this kind of information is rather simple because it involves examining competing items and determining their advantages and disadvantages. This evaluation covers every aspect, including the product and its packaging, retail displays, production procedures, and expenses.
market knowledge
Market awareness is your awareness of the various markets in which you sell your goods or services. This kind of study gives you a sense of how well you’re doing in particular markets and whether you have room to grow in other ones.
Combining competition analysis, product intelligence, and the identification of top performers in the industry can help you get the information you need to have a firm handle on the market. Knowing what is in demand will enable you to begin gathering end-user intelligence to discover why customers like those top performers.
customer comprehension
Understanding your clients better entails finding out more about them and the reasons they choose to do business with you. To increase customer satisfaction and retention rates, it can also assist you in understanding any difficulties you may be having with those clients. Future marketing initiatives you run with the information you gather may also be successful ones.
Customer personas, which include information about a person’s demographics, interests, issues, and the solutions a company may offer, are frequently created by a marketing department. These client insights frequently benefit the whole business, from product developers to quality assurance engineers.
How to gather market research?
Although there is no prescribed method by which businesses should obtain market intelligence, many do so by carrying out various types of in-depth analysis. Let’s examine four distinct approaches to gathering marketing intelligence.
Your present clients
Ajith Sankaran, senior vice president of market intelligence at Blueocean Market Intelligence, claims that businesses frequently overlook the possibility of using clients as data sources.
According to Sankaran, “small enterprises can set up procedures to keep client lists and some sort of customer feedback program to gather customer intelligence in an efficient and mainly affordable manner.”
Additionally, your sales team is ideally situated to offer assistance with market intelligence. Sales representatives can offer extra insights into market trends because they frequently communicate with prospects and customers. The ideal way for a business to share this client data in one location is frequently through the use of a CRM.
Online surveys or polls are an option if you wish to collect data for your market research from your clients. This can be a good strategy, according to Sankaran, especially if you keep your customer lists up to date.
To begin started, you can utilize programs like SurveyMonkey or Typeform. A link to a survey can also be included on the customer’s receipt.
Online tracking
Dobney advised leveraging data you currently have easy access to, such as your e-commerce analytics.
You may examine the customer’s online path, he said. “How many and where are they coming from? What happens once they get there? How many can reach the basket? How many people leave? Market intelligence is used to improve the offer by looking for patterns and trying various content, taglines, signposts, and offers.
internal expert
You might be able to hire a market intelligence analyst if your business is big enough. The analyst can create a more complex picture of the market as a specialist.
They will accomplish this by corresponding with the businesses that are engaged in the production and distribution of your company’s goods, such as the distributors, clients, and manufacturers. Most market intelligence is composed of this kind of conversation, together with factual facts and marketing study.
Once this data has been evaluated, you can utilize it to identify lucrative market prospects.
Keep market intelligence in mind
Market research can help you gain a deeper understanding of your sector and find fresh prospects for growth. However, it is only beneficial if the data you receive is accurate.
Unfortunately, small business owners can soon run out of time trying to remain on top of market intelligence. To assist you in gathering, analyzing, and storing your market intelligence, there are numerous internet solutions accessible.
Pentaho and Sisense are two well-liked software alternatives for businesses in need of a business intelligence system. As an alternative, cloud platforms like Oracle and Birst can make it simple for departments to share business intelligence.
For a small business, a single person can do most of the market research tasks; but, as your business expands, you may need to invest more time in data analysis. Dobney stated that if data volume grows, it might be essential to process and alter the data using statistical methods and increasingly sophisticated technologies.
A third-party expert might be able to help you make the most of your market intelligence if you are not ready to learn new software or engage an internal analyst. By doing so, you may comprehend your current market situation and maximize the prospects at hand for your company.
