How to Do Market Research Online

How to Do Market Research Online? For instance, you want to start a new business and you want to be sure that people will buy your product. Or maybe you’re just looking for some online marketing research examples,

Market research has been gaining popularity over the past decade. For example, if you want to start a new business and you want to be sure that people will buy your product. Or maybe you’re just looking for some online marketing research examples then we can help you.

Table of Contents

How to Do Market Research Online

Conduct keyword research.

Keyword research can help you figure out whether there’s a demand for the product that you want to sell online.

Even though high search volumes don’t mean the product’s idea is profitable, they do indicate genuine interest among consumers.

Moreover, keyword research is also useful when you are working on your inbound marketing strategy since it allows you to pinpoint opportunities for generating organic traffic with search engine optimization (SEO).

Some of the popular free keyword research tools are:

However, a premium tool such as Ahrefs or SEMRush provides business owners with deeper level insights.

While Ahrefs is a sophisticated tool that might take time to master, you can learn how to do basic keyword research with it in just 10 minutes.

Simply watch the “Keyword Research Tutorial: From Start to Finish” video in which Sam Oh explains everything you need to know to get started.

This tutorial is particularly helpful for ecommerce entrepreneurs because Sam uses a new ecommerce store that sells computers, computer parts, computer accessories and software to show the ropes of research.

Here’s a quick summary:

Generate keyword ideas. Start by typing in a few broad keywords related to your business (e.g., “computer”), then go to “Having same terms” report to expand your list of ideas. Then filter those keyword ideas down, group them by search intent (informational, navigational, commercial, transactional) and evaluate their business potential.
Analyze Google’s top ten search results. See which websites already rank for the target keyword. Pay attention to the content format. Consider using a similar type of content, but look for opportunities to improve upon the published posts.
Assess how hard it will be to rank on Google for that keyword. Take a look at the number of referring domains and the domain ratings for the top ten search results. Competing with websites that have a similar domain rating (DR) to yours is the best strategy.
Analyze topical relevance. See how your website compares to those in the top ten search results. Are you in the same industry? Is it a commercial domain? Is it a niche publisher, covering the topic exclusively? Doing so will give you more insights into the difficulty of ranking for that particular keyword.
Reverse-engineer the topics that are driving traffic to your competitors’ websites. Go to Ahrefs Site Explorer, enter a competitor’s domain name and go to the top pages report. Then look at the traffic, the top keywords and the referring domains.

Sam Oh also emphasizes that keyword research isn’t about search volume alone. Your goal is to find topics that potential customers are searching for, create educational content around them and soft-pitch your offers.

At the end of the day, traffic quality beats traffic quantity. When you are considering a particular keyword, ask yourself whether ranking for it will lead to more sales, not just extra traffic.

Scope out the competition.

You can learn a lot about a market by analyzing the competition, so figure out who your main competitors are and scrutinize them.

Note that even though you are doing market research for ecommerce, you shouldn’t only look at ecommerce businesses.ALSO READ: Passport Size Photo Editor Free

For example, LARQ sells water bottles online, but they are also competing against online marketplaces as well as niche online stores. Before launching the business, Justin Wang did a lot of market research to verify that there isn’t a direct competitor with the same offering.

Once you have a list of the key players in your industry, you should look into their:

Business model. How are they sourcing their products? Are they dropshipping or carrying inventory? Do they use third-party logistics (3PL) services? What is their pricing strategy? What is their marketing strategy? What is their returns policy? Jot down all the answers.
Sales funnel. How do they attract potential customers to their website (content marketing, paid advertising, SEO, etc.)? How do they convert those site visitors into paying customers? Do they upsell? Cross-sell? Down-sell? Do they send automatic abandoned cart emails? You may want to go through their entire sales funnel to see how everything is set up.
Website. Which type of ecommerce platform do they have? How long does it take for their site to load? Does their online store design look professional? What branding elements do they use? How does their checkout flow work (the number of steps, the number of field forms, etc.)? Overall, do they provide a satisfying user experience?

Researching all this will help you determine:

What works. You shouldn’t outright copy your competitors. But there’s no need to reinvent the wheel either. Cherry-pick the best practices and apply those to your own business.
What doesn’t work. You might come across common frictions such as slow loading pages, confusing navigation, low-quality product images, etc. Take note of all that and make sure that you don’t make the same mistakes in your business.
What can be optimized. When you dig into the logistics of a competitor’s business, you might uncover optimization opportunities that can then help you offer better products, lower prices and faster shipping.

And don’t be intimidated by established companies.

Remember that even the largest corporations in the world, such as Google, Facebook and Amazon, were once fledgling startups.

You too can carve out a space for yourself in your industry. In fact, extensive market research is precisely what allows small businesses to compete against big companies. You just need to uncover something that will give you a competitive advantage.

Research current trends.

When you are doing product research for ecommerce, you should always look into the latest consumer trends. Use Google Trends to uncover those.

Here are the two questions that can help with online product research:

Is the interest in this product declining, stable or growing?
Is the interest in this product seasonal or does it remain the same all year?

Simply type in a relevant keyword and pick a time period.

For example, if you type in “artificial plants” and pick “Past 5 Years” as your timeframe, you will see that the interest in this keyword has been stable, with a noticeable increase in the last year.

A moderate but stable level of interest like that may indicate an opportunity for building a sustainable, long-lasting business.

Check your assumption with a quick google search for such businesses. And yes, we have Autograph Foliages — a company that has been selling artificial plants for over 40 years!

Also, when you see an upcoming trend, analyze it from different angles. For example, CBD is a promising new market with a diverse range of business opportunities. So rather than doing CBD-everything, consider niching down.

Lab to Beauty, for instance, saw great success with selling CBD-infused beauty products.

Also, be wary when a trend has a crazy upward trajectory at the moment. Because a real-time spike in interest might turn out to be a short-lived fad.

While it’s okay to capitalize on hot trends, you shouldn’t build your entire business around them. Make sure that your foundation is stable.ALSO READ: How To Do Market Research For A Startup

Utilize social media.

Social media is a treasure trove of consumer insights. It’s the place where people broadcast their complaints, wishes, preferences and aspirations. But to find those golden nuggets of wisdom, you need to go on a deep dive.

To avoid getting too deep down the internet rabbit hole, keep your online business research focused on:

Following influencers in your industry. Analyze their opinions, conversations and past partnerships with brands.
Monitor relevant hashtags. Identify the most relevant hashtags for your products and then make it a habit to monitor them regularly.
Analyze competitor sentiment. Keep an ear on what people are saying about your competitors. This is a great way to figure out what their strengths and weaknesses are. Note that the most valuable information often lies in posts that mention a competing company or their products but don’t tag them.

Text analysis can come in handy here. This machine learning technique helps analyze massive quantities of textual data and extract relevant information from it.

For example, text analytics software could analyze all tweets with a specific hashtag. Then let you know whether the overall sentiment was positive or negative, which words appeared most frequently, etc. Investing in text analytics software would give you a much more accurate picture of the market and analyze a wider range of ideas shared online.

Picking out the language your customers use — words, slang, metaphors — to express their preferences is a short-cut to writing better copy. By infusing the voice of customer data into your messaging, you make your pitches feel more personal and relevant.

Build an online ecommerce store and test the waters.

At some point, it’s time to move from theory to practice. Once you’ve accumulated enough insights, test your business idea by presenting it to the market. Ultimately, the target market response is the only thing that matters.

Here’s how you should go about it:

Pick an ecommerce platform. Popular options include BigCommerce, Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, etc. Do your research and pick a solution that suits your needs best.
Set up your ecommerce website. You will need to sort out web design, write the copy and create product pages. You can do all this yourself or hire agency partners to help.
Drive traffic to your online store. SEO, content marketing and social media are all great, but they are long-term strategies that require time to work. Meanwhile, if you want to put your products in front of your target customers quickly, your best bet is performance marketing.

Don’t wait until everything is “perfect” to launch your business.

In fact, doing so would be a mistake. Because without first hand feedback, you won’t be able to right-size your offer anyway.

At launch, you need to make an educated guess based on your market research as to what will resonate with potential customers and then put your products in front of them.

That way you will start learning what works and what doesn’t and will be able to adjust your approach accordingly as you grow your business.

Leverage forums and customer feedback.

Niche online forums are another leeway into learning about your customers’ preferences.

To get the best scoops, do the following:

Find out which online forums are the most popular in your niche.
Register to those and check back regularly.
Contribute to the discussions to build up your credibility.
Pose questions and engage in conversations to better understand your audience.

Alternatively, you can ask your current customers to provide feedback.

That’s even easier to do:

Send an online market survey using SurveyMonkey or Typeform to your most loyal buyers.
Conduct one-on-one customer interviews. Ask super-fans to jump on 15-minute calls with you. People love to express their opinions and want to feel heard. So getting some respondents might turn out to be easier than you think!
Send automated emails asking for feedback. After you buy something from Amazon, you probably get an email asking you to rate it. You can do the same in your ecommerce business. In addition to receiving feedback on your products, you’ll also generate customer reviews.

Online Market Research Tools

The following techniques can be used to gather market information with the help of a few mouse clicks and keystrokes:

Keyword Search. You know how to do a simple Web search using search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Take that a step farther by searching for “keywords” that people would use to find your type of products or services on the Internet. See how much interest there is in these keywords — and how many competitors you have in this market. Keyword searches can also help remind you of product niches that you might not have considered. There are other reasons to conduct keyword searches. ‘First, you’re going to be reminded of product niches that you might not of thought of.’ says Jennifer Laycock, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Guide, an online guide to search engines, portals and directories. ‘Second, these services will also give you a guesstimate of how many existing sites already use that phrase,’ Laycock continues. ‘How many existing sites already offer that product.’ WordTracker and Trellian’s Keyword Discovery are popular keyword search engines.
Competitor Links. A traditional search engine can also help you check out your competitors, their prices, and their offerings. Try typing ‘link:www.[competitor’s name].com’ into Google to find out how many other sites link to your competitor’s website. ‘It is a great way to see a competitor’s link development and PR campaigns,’ says Shari Thurow, Web expert and author of the upcoming book Search Engine Visibility. ‘Is the competitor promoting a product or service similar to your own? Maybe you can get publicity because you have a new or better product.’
Read Blogs. Blogs are updated much more regularly than traditional websites and, therefore, they can be another gauge of public opinion. Search blogs by using blog-specific search engines, such as Technorati or Nielsen BuzzMetrics’ Blogpulse. ‘Blogs tend to move at a faster pace and be more informal in tone, so you’re more likely to pick up conversation about a new product type or need on a blog than on a standard web site,’ Laycock says.
Conduct Online Surveys. Another way to gauge public opinion is through online surveys. While not as scientific as in-person or phone surveys that use a random sampling of the population, online surveys are a low-cost way to do market research about whether an idea or a product will be appealing to consumers. Now many companies offer to conduct online research for you or give your company the tools to carry out your own surveying. Some online survey companies include EZquestionnaire, KeySurvey, and WebSurveyor.

Conclusion

There is no way of getting around the fact that you need to do some market research on your business plan if you are planning on making it succeed. And if you are planning on making it succeed you are going to have to do some marketing research.

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