How to do market research: A complete 2025 guide

Relying on gut instinct to make business decisions can only get you so far. These days, nearly 80%¹ of companies use market research to gain targeted insights into their performance, customers, industry and competition. 

The reason is simple: data-driven insights help organizations to make informed decisions and uncover new opportunities faster.

Market research isn’t a one-size-fits-all process. It blends qualitative methods like focus groups and interviews with quantitative approaches such as surveys and data analysis. Together, they reveal how people think, feel and behave — and how your brand stacks up against competitors.

In this guide, we’ll walk through the fundamentals of market research, common methods and real-world applications.

TL;DR How to do market research

What is market research?
The process of gathering and analyzing data about customers, competitors and markets to inform business decisions.

Why do market research?
It helps reduce risk, understand customer needs, identify opportunities and improve products or strategies.

Types of market research
Primary (collecting new data) vs secondary (using existing data), qualitative (in-depth insights) vs quantitative (numbers and stats).

Common methods
Surveys, focus groups, interviews, observational research and online analytics.

Benefits
Informed decisions, competitive advantage, better customer understanding.

What is market research?

Market research is the process of gathering and interpreting information about your target market, customers, competitors and industry. It’s a combination of traditional techniques, like surveys and interviews, and tools such as AI-driven analytics and automated data collection platforms. The goal is to transform data into informed decisions that drive business growth.

Why is it important to do market research? 

Conducting market research is essential because it helps companies answer important questions before making strategic moves, such as: 

➡️ Which customer segments are worth targeting?
➡️ How do people perceive a brand or product?
➡️ What unmet needs could inspire your marketing strategy? 

Done well, market research removes guesswork from marketing, product development and positioning. This allows you to invest time and budget where it’ll be most effective.
What’s the difference between market research and surveys?

Before we get into the details, let’s clear up one common confusion. Market research and market research surveys are often used interchangeably — but they’re not the same thing.

A survey is just one method of collecting data, typically focused on gathering quantitative insights from a specific audience. Market research, on the other hand, is the full end-to-end process that includes:

• Defining your objective and research methodologies
• Designing your study
• Gathering data (through surveys and other means)
• Analyzing results
• Translating them into actionable recommendations.

In fact, one study found that 91% of companies say that market research data increased their sales. Market research delivers the context behind your numbers, showing you not just what’s happening in your market, but why. This allows you to adapt strategy, optimize spend and improve your sales.

Now that you know why it’s important, let’s discuss how market research is structured. While every project is different, most research follows a similar sequence of steps:

1. Define your goals: Clarify what you want to learn. This could be understanding customer needs, testing a new product idea or measuring brand perception.
2. Choose your methods: Decide whether a qualitative, quantitative, or blended approach makes the most sense for your goals.
3. Identify your audience: Determine who you need to reach, which could include loyal customers or a potential new market segment.
4. Collect your data: Use your chosen methods, such as surveys, interviews, social listening or behavioral analytics tools (like website tracking or heatmaps, to gather insights directly from your audience.
5. Analyze and interpret results: Turn raw data into patterns, stories and actionable insights.
6. Report and act on findings: Present your results clearly and use them to guide marketing, product or strategic decisions.

This process can vary depending on your project’s scale and purpose. A small startup validating a new idea might run a fast, lean survey, while a global brand launching a new product line could conduct multi-market mixed-method studies.

For example, after doing market research, the global IT firm Oracle realized it needed to understand what people needed from the content they were creating. Its market research activities revealed that they needed a new approach to how they put together research reports. Implementing these changes increased new business opportunities by five times.

Importantly, market research isn’t a once-off exercise. Instead, it’s iterative. Each round of research helps you refine your understanding and adapt strategies based on what you learn. The best organizations build research into their ongoing decision-making cycle, which helps to continuously learn from their target audience and the market.

Types of market research

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You now know the structure that market research typically follows. Now let’s look at the two main ways to categorize market research: by where the data comes from (primary vs secondary research) and the type of data collected (qualitative vs quantitative). Below, we unpack these categories to help you choose the right approach for your goals:

Primary vs secondary research

When you conduct market research, you’ll often start by deciding whether to use primary or secondary research, or a combination of both.

Primary research involves collecting original data directly from your audience. This might include running surveys, interviews, focus groups or user testing to answer specific business questions.

Because you control the process, primary research delivers highly relevant and up-to-date research findings. The trade-off is that it can be more time-consuming and costly, especially if you need a large or hard-to-reach sample.

Secondary research uses existing data collected by someone else. Common sources include:

✔️ Industry reports (e.g. Statista)
✔️ Government statistics (e.g. Census Bureau, Office for National Statistics)
✔️ Analyst studies (e.g McKinsey, Gartner) 

It’s a cost-effective and fast way to understand your market’s broader context or validate trends before investing in new research. However, secondary data may be less specific to your audience and sometimes outdated or incomplete, which can affect your data analysis later on.

Many organizations use both primary and secondary research. Secondary research helps you build a foundation of knowledge, while primary research fills in the gaps with firsthand insights that guide your next move. When you use them together, they inform a complete picture of your market.

Qualitative vs quantitative research

Another key distinction in your market research efforts is between qualitative and quantitative research. Each of these answers different types of questions about your target market.

Qualitative research 

Qualitative research explores the “why” and “how” behind consumer attitudes and behaviors. It focuses on emotional drivers and motivations that shape decisions. 

Common methods include one-on-one interviews, open-ended questions and focus groups. While qualitative research delivers valuable insights with rich context and depth, its smaller sample sizes make it less representative of the broader market.

Quantitative research 

Quantitative research measures the “what,” “how many,” and “how often.” It’s built around numbers and statistics, which helps you identify patterns and validate hypotheses at scale. Typical methods include closed-question surveys, online polls and analytics dashboards.

In fact, online surveys are the most used quantitative method, with 85% of researchers saying they use this most frequently. Quantitative studies provide measurable, comparable data but sometimes miss the nuance and emotion behind the results.

The most effective strategies combine both. Qualitative research helps uncover the reasons behind behaviors, while quantitative research tests those findings at scale. Together, they transform raw data into insights that guide better decisions and ensure your results are precise.

Common methods of delivering market research

Market research can be delivered in many ways, which depend on your objectives, audience and resources. Here are some of the most common methods and when to use them.

Focus groups

Focus groups bring together a small group of participants (usually six to 10 people) to discuss a specific topic or product guided by a moderator. They’re best used to explore perceptions and motivations in-depth. For example, focus groups could be used to test early-stage advertising concepts or brand messaging.

The main strength of focus groups is the rich qualitative insight that emerges from open discussion. However, group dynamics can influence responses, and findings may not represent the wider population.

Phone interviews

Phone interviews allow researchers to collect detailed feedback quickly without meeting in person. They work well for researching busy professionals or geographically dispersed audiences. 

Phone interviews offer flexibility and immediacy, but response rates can vary, and the lack of visual cues sometimes limits the depth of data you’ll get compared to in-person interviews.

Face-to-face interviews

These interviews involve direct, one-on-one conversations for deeper exploration and richer context. These are done either in-person or online, and they’re ideal when studying complex topics or emotional decisions, such as understanding customer satisfaction or brand loyalty.

The main limitation is scalability, as these interviews can be time-intensive and expensive to conduct.

Surveys

Surveys are one of the most common and scalable research methods. You can use them to collect structured data through closed or open-ended questions, which helps you quantify opinions and behaviors. 

Also, surveys are ideal for tracking brand awareness, measuring satisfaction or validating hypotheses at scale. The downside is that poorly designed survey questions can lead to biased or incomplete results.

Observational research

This type of research involves watching how people behave in real-world settings. For example, this could mean observing shoppers in a store or users interacting with an app. It’s valuable for uncovering unconscious behaviors that participants might not mention in interviews. 

However, it can be limited by researcher bias because the researcher’s own assumptions or interpretation of data can influence how findings are analyzed or presented. It’s also less suited to understanding why people act in a certain way.

Online tools

Modern market research relies on online tools such as survey platforms and social listening software. These methods provide real-time, scalable data from large audiences. 

Tools like Attest, Google Trends and Brandwatch help track sentiment and monitor trends. They can also assist with measuring campaign performance. 

Right now, around 47% of researchers worldwide use AI market research tools regularly in their activities. The main challenge is ensuring data quality and interpreting insights within context, especially as AI and automation make research faster but potentially more

When to do market research

Market research isn’t a once-off project. It’s an ongoing process that supports smarter decision-making at every stage of growth. Whether you’re exploring new markets, testing a product concept or refining your brand positioning, revisiting your research helps you stay aligned with customer needs and market shifts.

 Below, we break down the scenarios where you need market research:

Buyer segmentation 

Understanding who your best customers are and what drives them is essential for effective marketing. Market research helps you segment buyers based on aspects like demographics and behaviors. 

For example, U.S. Cotton partnered with Attest to refine its buyer segmentation approach—shifting from broad demographic categories to detailed, behavior-driven personas. 

Through a large-scale consumer profiling survey, the company uncovered new insights about shopping habits, brand familiarity, and lifestyle attributes that define different customer types. These findings allowed U.S. Cotton to identify distinct shopper archetypes and sharpen its targeting strategy. 

The result was more precise messaging, stronger product positioning, and marketing campaigns that reflected the real behaviors and motivations of its audience.

Expanding into new markets

Before entering a new region or audience segment, market research uncovers the size of the opportunity and cultural nuances. Tools like consumer panels or industry reports help assess demand, price sensitivity and barriers to entry. This ensures your expansion is guided by data and not assumptions.

For example, Suntory America conducted consumer research to evaluate the potential for ready-to-drink beverages in the US. The study revealed strong demand for tequila-based drinks and packaged cocktails, even as overall alcohol consumption is declining.

These insights shaped the company’s US strategy and guided executive discussions, which enabled Suntory to focus investment on the most promising growth areas.

New product development

From concept testing to prototype feedback, market research reduces uncertainty in product launches. Surveys, focus groups or user testing can validate whether your idea meets real customer needs, which helps you prioritize features and refine your go-to-market strategy before investing heavily in development.

A good example here is Fever-Tree. They did market research to analyze consumer data across six European markets to explore the rising demand for ginger beer.

The research revealed stronger-than-expected growth and consistent trends across countries, which gave the team confidence to pursue a unified expansion strategy.

The insights also highlighted opportunities for innovation and product development, which helped Fever-Tree strengthen its position in the premium mixer category.

Brand positioning

Effective brand positioning depends on knowing how your audience perceives you versus competitors. Market research can track brand awareness, sentiment and associations, which helps you adjust your messaging or visual identity to resonate more strongly with your target audience.

Take Moneybox for example. They used market research to redefine its brand promise as its financial services expanded.

The data showed that customers valued Moneybox’s role in helping them reach their financial goals, which informed the new brand positioning.

The refreshed message drove an 84% positive response and a 30% lift in brand perception, which gave Moneybox the confidence to take the message to market.

Customer experience and satisfaction

Ongoing research through customer feedback surveys or Net Promoter Score (NPS) studies helps you measure satisfaction and identify pain points. Pain points are the moments where customers experience friction, unmet needs or dissatisfaction that may be affecting their loyalty to your brand.

These insights enable continuous improvement, from refining support processes to enhancing product visibility. This ultimately strengthens loyalty and retention.

Step-by-step guide on how to do market research

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Doing market research requires a structured approach to ensure your insights are reliable and actionable. While the process may seem complex, following the steps below will help you put together a solid plan and make informed decisions.

1. Define clear objectives

The first step in any research project is to define precise objectives. This involves identifying the core questions you need to answer, such as understanding customer needs, validating a product concept or analyzing market trends. Clear objectives give you direction for the entire process and prevent wasting time and resources. 

ℹ️ For example, rather than vaguely aiming to understand consumer behavior, framing the goal as “identify the top three features influencing purchase decisions in our target market” makes the study actionable. 

2. Select the right research methods

Once you’ve got your objectives defined, the next step is to choose the appropriate research methods. Decisions should be guided by the questions you want answered and the audience you aim to reach.

As we mentioned earlier, combining qualitative and quantitative approaches often provides the most complete picture. 

Balancing these approaches helps to ensure your findings are both rich and representative. Using a mix of methods also allows teams to monitor changes in customer behavior and market trends, which ensures insights stay current and actionable.

3. Design your research instruments

How you use your research methods, such as surveys or interview guides, is critical to collecting accurate data. Regardless of the types of surveys and questions you choose, they should be clear, concise and unbiased. 

Surveys should also avoid leading or double-barreled wording. Pilot testing your tools with a small sample can highlight confusing phrasing or technical issues before you deploy them fully. 

Good design ensures what you’ve collected is usable for data analysis and forms the foundation for strong conclusions. Poorly designed instruments risk generating misleading results, which undermine the value of your research.

4. Recruit the right participants

Effective research depends on reaching the right audience. Identifying the relevant demographic or user persona ensures insights accurately reflect the target market.

Recruitment methods vary depending on your study, which ranges from user panels and email outreach to social media targeting. 

Also, determining the right sample size is crucial. Surveying too few participants can lead to unreliable results, while overly large samples may waste time and resources. Choosing a representative sample size that accurately reflects your target population ensures your findings are statistically meaningful and representative.

Proper recruitment improves participation rates and increases the reliability of your findings. Without the right participants, even carefully collected data can fail to give you meaningful insights.

5. Collect data carefully

Once you’ve recruited your participants, the data collection phase begins. This step must be managed consistently to maintain data quality.

For qualitative research, recording interviews (with consent) ensures that you don’t lose any insights, while quantitative data should be monitored in real-time to track response rates and adjust your sampling if needed.

Meticulous data collection enables researchers to produce credible market research reports that stakeholders can trust when making decisions.

6. Analyze results thoroughly

Analyzing data is where raw information turns into actionable insights. Quantitative data should be examined for patterns, correlations and anomalies, while qualitative data can be organized and categorized to identify recurring themes and sentiments.

Incorporating competitive analysis alongside internal findings adds valuable context. Effective analysis also links results to objectives, which helps teams understand what the data implies for strategy, product development or marketing initiatives.

Careful interpretation prevents common pitfalls like confirmation bias or misleading statistical significance.

7. Present and implement findings

The final stage is presenting your findings in a clear, actionable way. Reports should highlight key takeaways, link insights to business objectives and suggest specific next steps. 

It’s important to tailor your presentation to your audience. Executives may need high-level trends and ROI insights, while product or marketing teams might benefit from detailed customer behaviors and actionable recommendations.  

Once insights are communicated, you’ll need to act on them. Ongoing evaluation and iteration enable teams to refine strategies and track whether changes influenced outcomes as expected.

Applying these insights consistently reinforces market research across your organization. 

In-house vs outsourced market research

Once you understand what market research is and how to do it, the next step is deciding how to run it: internally or with external support.

In-house research gives you control over the process and can be faster and more cost-effective. It works well for routine surveys or smaller-scale projects. The main limitations are access to specialized methodologies and tools, which can affect the depth of your insights.

External support is useful for more complex projects, such as predictive modeling or multi-market studies. Traditionally, this meant hiring a full-service market research agency. But platforms like Attest now allow companies to run research themselves while getting external guidance.

Benefits of market research

Before we wrap up, let’s take a look at the benefits of market research for your organization.

✅ Informed decision-making: Market research provides reliable data that guides strategic choices. For example, a retail brand that uses surveys and focus groups to decide which product to expand could reduce costly trial-and-error launches.

✅ Risk reduction: Research identifies potential pitfalls before they become costly mistakes. For instance, a software company could be testing pricing models through a survey panel, which may help them prevent a poorly received subscription plan that could’ve reduced revenue.

✅ Opportunity identification: Market research uncovers unmet customer needs and emerging trends. Lucky Saint, an alcohol-free beer brand, worked with Attest to do creative testing and ended up reaching 10 million people with their Dry January campaign.

✅ Improved customer satisfaction: By understanding pain points and preferences, companies can enhance the customer experience. For instance, an ecommerce platform that analyzes user feedback to redesign its checkout process could reduce cart abandonment rates.

✅ Competitive advantage: Market research helps companies benchmark their offerings against competitors to predict or anticipate market moves. For example, a startup doing a competitive analysis could find a gap in what’s currently available in terms of service offerings, which could help it to differentiate its product successfully.

✅ Optimizing marketing ROI: Segmentation and audience insights allow you to run highly targeted campaigns. Let’s say a fashion brand uses survey data to tailor digital ads to its most profitable segments. This could increase conversion rates and lower ad spend.

Make smarter decisions with Attest 

The benefits are clear: market research is essential for making informed business decisions, which reduces risk and helps to uncover novel opportunities. Whether you’re refining your brand or launching a product, insights from well-executed research guide strategy and maximize ROI.

Attest offers a powerful platform for companies looking to conduct market research efficiently. Our global audience access, intuitive analytics and customizable research tools make it easy to gather actionable insights.

For example, Bloom & Wild used Attest surveys to understand Valentine’s Day gift preferences. They discovered that consumers valued thoughtful gifts over traditional red roses, which led to their “No Red Roses” campaign, which quadrupled sales and increased their press coverage.

Little Mooons, a mochi ice cream brand, leveraged Attest to study its TikTok audience. Research revealed who its big spenders were, and the brand was able to increase sales by 1,000%.

Givaudan faced issues with the data quality of other solutions and turned to Attest for consumer insights. Our tool allowed them to listen to consumers and unveil new ingredients that their customers loved.

With Attest, businesses can turn audience insights into action. Whether you’re testing ideas or refining strategies, your decisions are grounded in real consumer data, which will ultimately improve performance and ROI.

Sources

¹ Hanover Research. The State of Market Research. October 5, 2022. Available at: https://www.hanoverresearch.com/reports-and-briefs/corporate/the-state-of-market-research/?org=corporate