3 Free tools to help you with your market research (plus a bonus one)

Online illustrations by Storyset

Market research is crucial for any business to understand their target audience, competition, and industry trends. In fact, research has shown that companies that frequently conduct market research are more likely to improve customer retention, enter a new market, and launch a new product or service than their counterparts who do not conduct market research often (source). 

Whilst market research should be a strong mix of both primary (actually speaking to customers/prospects etc) and secondary research, the good news is that you don’t have to break the bank to get some valuable insights.

In our next instalment, we’re share 3 free tools that you can use to conduct market research without spending a dime. So, whether you’re a small business owner, entrepreneur, or startup, you’ll be able to gather the data you need to make informed decisions. Let’s dive in!

Free Market Research Tool 1 – Answer The Public

What is it:

Answer the Public is a cool search research tool that helps you understand what questions and topics are being asked about a specific subject. Using data from Google and Bing search engines, it generates a list of all different types of questions that people are asking about your topic and gives an idea of search volume as well.

What’s great about it:

The best thing about Squoosh is that you can see the impact of your compression in real time. Once you upload your image you can then apply different compression options and see the impact of your compression on the overall image quality. Through a neat slider interface you can ensure that your compression doesn’t reduce the quality of your image too much.

What are the limitations:

Aside from the ease of use – you literally just type in the topic, choose the country and hit go – one of the great things about Answer the Public is the wealth of information it provides in a really easy to understand format. It generates a visual map of the results so that you can easily make sense of what people are searching for around your topic. Additionally, it allows you to export data and create shareable reports.

Pricing model:

Decent Free Plan – more than 3 searches a day requires a subscription, you also need to register for a free account to get the 3 searches and download the raw data.

Free Market Research Tool 2 – Sparktoro

What is it:

SparkToro is a useful tool that helps you understand more about an online audience. You can either enter a keyword, a website, a company, or a person and it will provide a report of all the websites, podcasts, newsletters, social media accounts, and influencers that are being shared, followed, and talked about by people interested in that topic. Very useful to identify key competitor performance, key influencers and channels for the audience you are trying to reach.

What’s great about it:

With the free version you get some decent insights into the audience around your chosen topic, things like key social accounts that they follow and websites they visit the most. The bit I love the most is the niche, hidden gems that they provide which gives you some ideas for less obvious channels to reach your target audience. I also like that they provide some guidance on how to apply these insights to your business as well.

What are the limitations:

With the free version there is a lot of data that is not made visible to you that would be useful and you are limited to 5 searches a month – so choose your topics wisely! I’ve also found that the insights are a bit limited for niche subjects as well.

Pricing model:

Decent free plan – 5 searches a month and some decent insights before you need to pay anything.

Free Market Research Tool 3 – Social Searcher

What is it:

Social Searcher is a handy tool that enables you to search and analyse social media conversations in real-time. The search will monitor keywords, hashtags, mentions, and links across Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Tumblr, Reddit, Flickr, Dailymotion and Vimeo.

What’s great about it:

The real time insights that you get allow you to stay up-to-date on the latest conversations and trends related to their chosen keywords is very handy. I also like the aggregated data you can get showing you user sentiment, posts by social network and popular hashtags.

What are the limitations:

Probably the biggest limitations are the platforms that aren’t included in the search – namely TikTok and LinkedIn. The data that you get can also be skewed by irrelevant data based on the search topic, for example where there is a hashtag or key phrase that includes your topic.

Pricing model:

Decent free plan – With the free plan you get 100 real-time searches a day and 2 email alerts on topics.

Bonus Free Market Research Tool 4 – Import Yeti

I won’t go into as much detail with this one, but it’s one sharing if you are trying to sell into the US and would benefit from understanding more about a company’s supply chain. Import Yeti searches over 70 million U.S. customs sea shipment records instantly enabling you to see who a company’s overseas suppliers are and what they have been buying from them. Super valuable information if it relates to your business – it’s also completely free.

Additional Help

Check out my Quick Tips Guide for information on how to get started with these platforms, as well as examples of how I’ve used them and the results I’ve achieved – you’ll need to enter your email address to download.

In our next post, we’ll share three free tools to make collaboration a hell of a lot easier.