Market research tools for business success

Market research tools are the software and platforms companies use to collect and analyze data about consumer behavior, industry trends, and competitors. The right combination of tools turns raw customer opinions into decisions about product, pricing, and positioning that you can defend with data instead of guesswork.

The data you gather informs decisions related to product placement, target market, and brand positioning. Market research can feel daunting, but there are excellent tools available to help you gather and analyze the data you need quickly, efficiently, and effectively.

Market research is used by companies to collect information about consumer behaviors and preferences, trends in the industry, and data about main competitors, among other insights. The collected data is used to inform product development and marketing strategies. Used correctly, market research drives business growth.

Informed decision-making depends on having comprehensive data and analysis of your target market. The following advantages highlight why market research is so valuable to your company.

The data you collect validates your marketing, product, or product feature direction. And if it doesn't validate that direction, it gives you the information you need to change course.

Inc. magazine reports that, according to Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, over 300,000 new products are introduced each year, and 95% fail. Failure is expensive: there's more to the cost than lost revenue, there's also the cost of recovering from the mistake.

You have the data to support your claims, decisions, and statements, whether you're establishing yourself as an expert or presenting ideas to leadership.

In business, you need to think fast and keep up with trends. When you use data-driven decision-making, your product or feature is more likely to succeed.

Our market research case studies for Tweezerman and Helix Sleep show these advantages playing out in the real world for two different brands.

There are many excellent market research analysis tools available. Below, you'll find what each one is best used for, its key features, and its pricing. Some tools are free, and many paid tools offer free options or trials, so don't rule one out on price alone.

Market research tools streamline the process of data collection and analysis.

You could gather a focus group in your target market to discuss your product, observe shoppers roaming store aisles, or conduct in-depth interviews with each individual in person or by phone, but these practices lengthen your data collection and analysis process considerably.

Consider the difference in time between assembling a focus group and launching an online market research survey: days versus minutes.

Different market research techniques call for different tools. Use this table to match the technique you need to the right category of tool below, rather than starting from a list of software names.

The SurveyMonkey market research survey template is completely customizable and gives you a head start on collecting data.

The SurveyMonkey market research template is a good starting point for your market research. It has basic questions to get you started, and you can add more questions that are specific to your purpose.

Plans available for teams and organizations starting at $25 per user per month.

When you don’t have your own list of respondents, SurveyMonkey Audience will send your survey to the exact market you’re targeting.

With SurveyMonkey Audience, you can obtain survey results from your chosen target audience quickly and easily.

Pricing is dependent on the number of responses required.

When you need flexible solutions for market knowledge, product innovation, or brand and creative development, SurveyMonkey has the tools you need.

SurveyMonkey Market Research Solutions are comprehensive solutions for understanding your target market, decisions for product innovations, and creative analysis of branding and messaging.

While SurveyMonkey offers a full suite of market research tools, sometimes you need answers a single platform doesn't provide. Here's a look at the best market research tools available today, organized by category.

When you need reliable statistics and data, you have several excellent choices, depending on what kind of data you’re looking for.

LivingFacts is a tool that offers human-focused data to help you identify your ideal consumer base. It was created by Pew Charitable Trusts, which has a reputation for thorough, high-quality data.

Use LivingFacts to find out demographic, work, faith, community, health, and other facts about Americans today. The site provides an interesting array of facts to start identifying your potential customers.

The company offers well-research facts in a variety of categories. Here are some examples of those categories and relevant facts: 

This site is for broad research and to help you begin to understand your market with interesting facts in broad categories. Searches provide a wide variety of information, but if you’re looking for something specific, try another tool.

LivingFacts is free to all users.

The US Census Bureau generates economic data across the entire economy. Data is produced on a monthly, quarterly, yearly, and five-year basis.

US Census business data has detailed information about the American economy. This tool has the most in-depth information about businesses in the US. If you’re looking for specific statistics and data about any type of business, you’ll find it here. Each survey is supported by a detailed methodology.

This is a tiny sampling of what this tool has to offer. It has thorough data on all sectors of business and the economy in the US.

Using US Census for data and statistics is free

Statista is a global information platform. It provides business data across 170 industries and 150+ countries.

This tool is best for finding data to create buyer personas, reliable statistics for marketing communications, and anything that requires specific research-backed data. 

In the Brands & Companies section, you can search over 19,000 detailed brand reports with detailed overviews, rankings, revenue, major competitors, company value, and the number of employees.

The pricing structure includes three plans for basic users and three for corporate users. Academic and government users can contact Statista for pricing information. 

A basic account is free. User plans start at $39/month. Project accounts are $1,950 for 30 days. Corporate accounts start at $745/month.

Pew Research Center is considered the gold standard in market research. The Pew Research Center focuses on public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis, and other social science inquiries.

Pew Research Center is best for learning more about your target audience. You won’t be able to drill down deeply into specific segments, but you will find interesting, relevant data.

Free

Your marketing plan will almost certainly include content: website, blog, advertising, social media, marketing collateral, and video, at minimum. These tools help you determine what content will resonate with your target audience and how to make sure they can find it.

This simple, effective tool provides a visual look at interest in a particular product or service as it fluctuates over time and across regions.

Google Trends is perfect for finding out what people are actually searching for online. Use the data to build your content marketing strategy.

Free

Google Keyword Planner is a tool for keyword research to use in your search engine optimization (SEO) plans.

Google Keyword Planner is best for choosing keywords for advertising, but can also offer insights into the best keywords for your business or product. 

Free

Survey tools provide you with means to easily poll your target market and gather and analyze data.

SurveyMonkey allows you to gather valuable data from employees, customers, or your target market through easy-to-create surveys. It offers pre-written survey questions and templates for a variety of surveys, including many market research methods. 

SurveyMonkey is best for gathering market research through online surveys.

SurveyMonkey offers flexible plans for individuals, teams, and enterprises. The Basic plan is free. It allows you to create multiple-choice surveys of up to 10 questions. Paid plans start at $16/month.

This tool from HubSpot helps you create detailed profiles of your ideal customers. Personas help you understand the data you’re collecting on a more human level.

This tool is best for learning about buyer personas and then developing one for your brand.

Free

Take a peek at what your target audience does on social media. Do they interact with video more than images? Do they post regularly? What is their favorite channel? Find out their views on current trends and more with social listening tools.

This tool scours social media sites to find mentions of your brand, product, or competitors.

Instead of combing through the internet looking for mentions of your brand, this tool does the work for you. It pulls mentions from blogs, forums, online news, and social media. You can use the information to identify influencers, monitor your marketing campaign performance, better understand your audience, and research new content ideas.

Pricing starts at $99/month with a 7-day free trial. 

This market research tool is used by businesses that advertise on Facebook. It provides insights into your target market and its demographics, behaviors, and more. This information can be used to build stronger buyer personas and to guide your social media marketing messages.

This tool is best for businesses that are planning to advertise on Facebook.

Free with an Ads Manager account.

These types of market research tools put the data you’ve collected into easy-to-digest visuals. Put them to work when sharing your data, presenting to leadership, and gaining a greater understanding of your statistics.

This visual analytics platform makes it easy to explore, manage, and share your data. It is part of the Salesforce family of brands.

Tableau makes data more accessible, understandable, and actionable. This is a great tool for providing visual representations of your data to make interpretation easier and presentations smoother with an easy-to-use interface. No programming knowledge is required.

Pricing starts at $15/user/month

Another Google tool to help you with your research! Google Data Studio provides you with easy-to-use tools for data visualization.

Google Data Studio is a simple interface so everyone on your team can visualize and customize data visualizations. Each viewer can then compare, filter, and organize exactly what data they need with a few clicks. Data Studio is easiest to use for those already using Analytics, Ads, and other Google marketing tools.

Free, though some third-party connectors may charge to integrate data

Before jumping into the market with your product, it’s important to research e-commerce opportunities and the marketplace for your product.

AMZScout is a tool specifically for Amazon Sellers. It contains everything a seller needs to learn the process and get selling on the online platform.

AMZScout is for users who are interested in researching and selling products on Amazon.

There are two ways to use AMZScout, through a Chrome browser extension, or through the website bundle. PRO extension plans start at $16.49/month and Amazon Seller’s Bundle starts at $29/month.

Both types of plans have lifetime options. PRO Extension is $499 and Amazon Seller’s Bundle is offered at $1,499.

This site is great for researching your competitors using feedback directly from customers.

Yelp is perfect for competitive research. The customer reviews give you feedback on businesses in the customers’ own words. Find the competition’s strengths and weaknesses and use that information in your positioning strategy.

Use of the site to check reviews is free. 

Listing your business is free.

Upgrade packages for your business listing include adding a logo, portfolio of work, and blocking competitor ads from your page. You can add all of the upgrades for $6-$10/day or a la carte for $1-$2/day each.

Find out what sells—and what customers want—with this valuable e-commerce tool.

Viewing the most-wished-for items on Amazon gives you insight into what products customers want most in every department. This is useful when deciding on what product you are going to sell, researching the competition, and determining if you have a viable product in mind.

This list, as well as the Best Sellers and Movers & Shakers lists are free to view. 

This tool from Google offers interesting insights into consumer behavior in the form of videos, articles, and infographics.

Think with Google Consumer Insights is best for discovering current trends in consumer behaviors and exploring top search trends from the past year.

Free

With dozens of tools available, the fastest path to the right stack is to work backward from the technique you need, not the tool that's trending.

Tools used in market research fall into six broad categories: survey tools, data and statistics platforms, content research tools, social insights tools, data analysis and visualization tools, and ecommerce and marketplace research tools. Most market research projects combine tools from at least two of these categories.

The best tools to conduct market research directly with your own audience are survey platforms like SurveyMonkey, paired with a respondent panel like SurveyMonkey Audience when you don't already have a list of people to survey. Secondary research tools like Statista or Pew Research Center complement primary data but don't replace it.

A small business should start with free or low-cost tools matched to a single technique: a survey template for primary research, Google Trends for search interest, and a free secondary source like US Census or LivingFacts for broader market context, before investing in paid visualization or social listening tools.

A business market research tool is any software platform, free or paid, used to collect or analyze data about customers, competitors, or market trends to inform a business decision, ranging from a simple survey template to an enterprise data visualization platform.

Your business depends on market research for success. Take advantage of these market research analysis tools to maximize your data collection efforts and strengthen your business decision-making.

Want a single platform that runs the analysis for you? SurveyMonkey LaunchPad turns survey responses into ready-to-use insights for concept testing, feature prioritization, and price optimization, without building the models by hand.

And if you'd rather hand the legwork to someone else, SurveyMonkey Market Research Services can design, field, and analyze a custom study for you, from questionnaire design through the final report."

Try SurveyMonkey LaunchPad