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for growth-driven brands.

Our Market Research Checklist

When conducting market research, we don’t just look at one facet of the business and neither should you! The BottomLine approach to marketing is founded on the belief that marketing goals should align with your business goals – after all, that’s what marketing is supposed to support, right?

But in order to do this, research is critical – specifically good research.

Here’s how to do it.

Analysis

✅ Client Business Analysis

Here, take a step back and examine your business from an objective point of view. What obstacles are you facing? What are you trying to change? Who is your customer and why do you matter to them? We spend at least 3 hours with our clients on this stage.

✅ Pricing Strategy Review

What is your pricing structure? How does this align with your customers and what they’re after?

✅ Target Market Analysis

✅ Demographics
✅ Psychographics
✅ In-Depth Avatar Creation


✅ Digital Marketing Report

Create a digital marketing report (bonus points if you already have one on-the-go!) that gives you a clear snapshot of how your digital marketing efforts are performing against industry benchmarks. The goal here is to understand engagement, conversion and business impact metrics.

✅ Competitor Analysis

Identify direct and indirect competitors and use social listening and research to reveal insights. Evaluate the overall size of the market, any key trends and projected industry growth.
Then, take a closer look at those competitor insights through the lens of…

✅ Pricing
✅ Digital Marketing Presence


✅ Conversion Rate Review

This stage of the content marketing analysis evaluates the goal conversions across inbound and outbound marketing efforts.

✅ Online Analytics Review

Google Analytics is our friend here. Using your dashboard, look for trends in analytics that could indicate areas of the user experience that work really well or really don’t work. Then review your social platform analytics and report on data trends there as well.


Strategy

✅ Campaign Strategy

Here you allow your newfound insights to guide the strategy for your new campaign. Your strategy should be in direct service to one of the following objectives:

  • Promote a new product or service
  • Increase brand awareness
  • Gather customer feedback or content
  • Generate revenue
  • Boost user engagement
  • Advertise an upcoming event

✅ Outline the Top Challenge

Awareness is important here – in developing your campaign, what existing challenges are you trying to overcome? What might you need to plan for while you implement your strategy?

✅ Uncover the Big Idea

What overall idea, approach or theme will resonate with your audience given what you have to offer and what opportunities came out of your research.

✅ Message Strategy

With a general idea of your campaign idea, what messages about your brand and its offerings can support it? Just as importantly, what kind of content gets my audience’s attention? Do they respond to straightforward sales messages, or would they rather consume witty content? What cultural references would they understand?

✅ Select Marketing Tactics

What kind of content will you need to fuel the campaign? Here multiple content formats can exist in one campaign, such as video ads, blogs and email newsletters.

✅ Audience Recommendations

What stage of the buyer’s journey is your campaign targeting? What are your audience’s general interests, demographics and preferences as they relate to your brand’s market. The importance of this step can’t be understated!

✅ Measure of Success and Benchmarks

What’s the end goal of your campaign in quantifiable terms? The beauty of digital marketing is that there are clear ways to track key performance indicators, such as website traffic and conversions.

✅ Complete Overview

Wrap it all up together to present to leadership, but don’t forget to compile your findings and strategy in a way that’s actionable and easy to reference throughout the term of the campaign.

This approach to market research not only encompasses aspects of your business beyond that bounds of standard marketing efforts, it also encapsulates the 8 P’s of marketing – Product, Packaging, Price, Placement, Physical Evidence, People, Process and Promotion. In doing so, you can confidently manage your corner of the market, the customer’s buying journey, and, ultimately, work towards sustainable business growth through effective marketing efforts. Download a copy of the checklist by clicking here.

Curious to learn how market research can influence business revenue? Let’s talk.

P.S. you might also want to download a copy of our Customer Avatar Worksheet here.