If you want to save money and find the best market research tools for your small business, this article is for you. We will be discussing five affordable or free resources that can help any business in their marketing efforts and make informed decisions about their products.
The first tool we will talk about is Google Trends, which allows users to search keywords on a graph over time. This saves time and provides an easy way to analyze trends in the sales volume of various products or services over a period of years.
But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. The truth is that whether you’re interested in launching a new product or service, releasing an upgrade to an existing product, or opening up a new store, you’re in for a rough ride if you don’t do proper market research in advance.
To stay ahead of your competition, you will need to do your research and see what’s trending in the market. The sooner you know about a new product, service, or trend before it hits mainstream media, the better chance of success with your idea.
Now, let’s get to the meat of the subject and talk about the best market research tools that you can use for under $25.
Google Trends
As promised, we’ll highlight Google Trends first. This is a free tool that helps you measure online interest in your products, services, and topics. The service provides information about regions of the world, demographics, top queries, and more to help you gain an understanding of what people are looking for on Google.
It’s also fantastic when it comes to market research. For example, you can use it to find popular topics in your niche, determine seasonal patterns in customer behavior, and identify consumer demand.
Plus, Google Trends lets you compare data from a variety of sources to get the complete picture. You can employ this tool to discover what consumers in certain regions are talking about, which topics they’re interested in, then tailor your marketing and social media strategies accordingly.
Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan, independent fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes, and trends shaping the world.
You can use their website, which is super easy to navigate, to discover the organization’s wealth of information through public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis, and other data-driven social science research.
The Pew Research Center is an excellent market research tool, which you can take advantage of entirely for free. You’ll find that the information presented is nonpartisan, supports sound decision-making, and can inform business decisions you need to make.
The Pew Research Center is an option you should explore when it comes to affordable market research tools.
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is the #1 free SEO tool. Initially founded as a keyword scraper that scraped Google Suggest terms, it has since been acquired by entrepreneur Neil Patel and expanded significantly.
The tool shows you how to beat the game of SEO by providing insight into what strategies are working for your competitors in your market so you can adopt them, improve them, and gain an edge over your competition.
Additionally, Ubersuggest can help you expand your business to new markets by giving you the opportunity to view what keywords are being used by others. This kind of information could be invaluable when it comes time for an expansion or change in the types of products offered by your company.
You can get a business account with Ubersuggest for as little as $20 per month.
Data.Census.Gov
United States Census Bureau is the best resource for user-friendly data on local and national populations. You can use the Bureau’s website for market research entirely for free. In fact, data users who come to the site can use the single search bar to get primary data, as it is much quicker than searching through tables for a variety of high-level estimates.
Moreover, the Bureau can provide a number of data products to suit different needs. All are designed to be used by people without an extensive background in statistics or math, so if you don’t have time for advanced training, these products will still work well for your small business’ market research purposes.
Quora
Quora is an entirely free market research tool. Businesses can use Quora for market research by asking questions. The company’s platform is an excellent source for market research because its users are experts in their fields, making finding the information you need easier.
Quora can also be used as a tool to help educate yourself about your business targets and competitors before approaching them with proposals or products. You can ask these people what they think of your product idea, get advice on how best to reach them through social media platforms, and more.
Wrapping up
Conducting proper market research is never easy. Even when the tools you’re using provide all the information you could ever want and at an affordable price, there are still challenges you must overcome.
With that said, business owners would have killed to have the kind of research tools available to them twenty years ago, which you have available to you today. Therefore, we hope you find the list of market research tools listed above helpful in your research endeavors — and if not, no worries: there are others!
