Skip to content

Level up your market research skills

Market research skills help you identify customers, and better understand their needs and wants. This customer understanding is essential. You need good market research skills to do marketing well.

Read our market research skill guides to learn about the overall market research process. Then, learn the 3 main ways to carry out market research, and how to work with research companies. And finally, learn how to convert your market research insights into strong marketing action plans. Read this to level up your market research skills. 

Level up your market research skills

New to market research, or need a refresher on how to start? Read this to learn why you need market research. We then cover the key steps in the market research process, and how and where to get started. 

  1. Why market research makes you more competitive.
  2. The main steps of the market research process.
  3. 3 simple market research techniques you can use right away. 

Secondary research is when you look for answers in existing data sources. Read this to learn where to find these sources. Plus, how to use free online tools to identify customer needs and growth opportunities.

  1. Understand benefits and challenges of secondary research.
  2. Sources of secondary research.
  3. Examples of how to apply secondary research to different types of  marketing activity. 

Qualitative market research drives deep understanding of customer behaviours and attitude. Read this to find out how to use it to develop ideas and understand meanings and concepts. 

  1. How to use qualitative research to explore innovation ideas, purchase decisions and brand perception.
  2. Qualitative research methods. 
  3. How to use qualitative research results to shape marketing activities.

Quantitative market research takes a more statistical approach to give a broad understanding of a market. Read this to learn how to use it to quantify the appeal of products and campaigns, and validate forecasts.

  1. How quantitive research measures past, current and future behaviour.
  2. Understand quantitative sampling and questionnaire terms.
  3. How to use quantitative research to drive marketing decisions.

Most research is done by hiring a market research company. But how do you find the ideal type of market research company to best meet your business needs? Read our guide to learn more. 

  1. Identify where to find market research companies.
  2. Ways to filter market research companies to a shortlist.
  3. Identify challenging and ideal attributes in a research partner.

Learn the 3 key areas of the marketing mix where market research drives the most decisions. Learn how to build a story and drive actions from your market research into your marketing strategy and plan.

  1. Understand market research’s role in the demand forecast, new product development and comms planning.
  2. How to use insights to build your brand story.
  3. The role of market research in the marketing mix.

Three-Brains and market research skills

We coach and consult on using market research, and include market research skills development and project delivery as part of our services. We help businesses commission, manage and apply market research.

If you’d like to raise your game in market research, check out our coaching and consulting services. Or get in touch to learn how we can help you build your market research skills. 

Use this market research brief template when working with your research agency to brief them on market research related tasks.

3 pages including a blank template, a guide to completing each section and an example brief from the vegan ice cream case study in our secondary research skill guide.

Download it here or from our resources section. 

Powerpoint and Keynote versions of this document available on request. 

Market research brief template
Click to download the pdf

Latest blog posts on market research

Subscribe to get Three-Brains updates