market research tools and resources.

Presently, market research is one of the most critical factors in the success of any business. It helps examine customers and understand their desires and priorities. 

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That is why, even today, the most popular companies worldwide look after their customer responses to create a robust marketing plan. And you know what? 

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You can do it, too, because, in this article, we will discuss some of the best free marketing research tools, resources, and templates. 

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Let’s begin.

Top 7 Market Research Tools - Free & Paid

Following are some of the best market research tools for free and paid: . 

1. Hotjar 

Best for: Analysis of website behavior via heatmaps and recordings

Paid/ Free: Free with some paid plans. 

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Hotjar is a popular market research tool that visualizes how customers and visitors interact with your website. It offers heatmaps and session recordings to help you understand the effectiveness of your site layout. 

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How to use: 

1. Add the Hotjar tracking code to your website for the initial setup. 
2. Use heatmaps to see where users are clicking and scrolling and at which point they are entirely focussed, 
3. Analyze the behavior through session recording to understand their behavior. 
4. Identify areas for improvement. 

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2. Google Trends 

Best for: Tracking the popularity of keywords and determining current market trends

Paid/ Free: Free 

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Google Trends is undoubtedly an excellent free platform for market research that enables users to search for keywords or topics in demand worldwide. 

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You can search for the specific topic you plan to offer the customer to check whether it is the right decision. This way, anyone can determine what keywords and phrases are most appropriate.

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How to use 

1. Navigate to the Google Trends site and type any keyword or phrase in the search bar. 
2. See how the popularity of your keyword has shifted in recent times. 
3. Compare multiple search terms to determine which type of demand and competition. 
4. Lastly, select keywords that are high in demand but possess low competition. 

3. SurveyMonkey

Best for: Getting insights through online surveys and feedback. 

Paid/ Free: Paid, but has a free version. 

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SurveyMonkey allows us to gather customer data and identify customer interests. Analyzing the customer response can create an efficient marketing plan and generate an influential survey to attain goals. 

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How to use 

1. Navigate to SurveyMonkey and look at all the ready-made templates. You can also design your own template from scratch. 
2. Once selected or created, distribute your survey through email, social media or any other way you like. 
3. Gather and analyze results through the website's built-in data analytics. 
4. Get insights about customer preferences and pain points. 

4. Google Analytics 

Best for: Website analysis and for gaining visitor behavior insights 

Paid/ Free: Free

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You can leverage Google Analytics to help customers find your website for specific products they seek. It also tracks visitor behavior, conversion rates, and traffic sources to comprehensively view a website's market performance. 

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How to use: 

1. Set up the Google Analytics for your website. 
2. Monitor the website's traffic, including pages visited, the duration customers spent on your website, etc. 
3. Use demographic data and traffic sources to track the efficiency of your marketing campaign.
4. Make actionable implementation plans.

5. Ubersuggest

Best for: Keyword research and SEO performance optimization

Paid/ Free: Paid but comes with a free version. 

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Uber suggests it is a well-known platform for keyword research developed by a very well-known search engine expert: Niel Patel. However, the downside is that it offers only three daily searches in the free plan.

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How to use: 

1. Browse Ubersuggest.
2. Enter the keyword or your website to explore insights about relevant terms like search volume and competition. 
3. Use the SEO audit feature to check if your website is getting the optimization recommendation. 
4. Analyze the SEO strategies of your competition through backlinks and implement the tactics into your plan. 
5. Use keywords reaped from the site to enhance your search engine's site's exposure. 

6. Qualtrics.

Best for: Advanced surveys and customer experience management 

Paid/ Free: Paid

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Qualtrics is an advanced tool that helps in comprehensively collecting data through market research surveys to improve experience. It is extremely popular for its powerful analytics, high flexibility, and ability to handle large-scale projects. 

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How to use:

1. Navigate to the Qualtrics website.
2. Design the customer surveys according to your business needs. You can also choose a template from the library. 
3. Share surveys through multiple channels  like social media
4. Use the Qualtrics dashboards to visualize and analyze metrics like Net Promoter Score, customer satisfaction, etc. 

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7. DataDripper 

Best for: Gaining a competitive edge through real-time competitor tracking 

Paid/ Free: Paid but comes with one month trial period 

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DataDripper is a tool for tracking competitors in real-time. It monitors competitors' promotional campaigns, product offerings, and price changes, saving hours of manual effort. Thus, helping to gain an edge over competitors in no time.

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How to use: 

1. Navigate to the DataDripper site. 
2. Sign up to gain access to all the tools. 
3. Now, put your domain and your competitor's domain. 
4. Wait for a few moments and the site will provide all the actionable data into your dashboard including promotional strategies, price changes etc. 

Top 3 Comprehensive Market Research Templates for Data-Driven Success

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Templates help organize, structure, and manage market research. Here are a few market research templates you can consider.

1. SWOT analysis templates 

Strength, weakness, opportunity, and threats, short for SWOT, are excellent market research templates for maintaining any business's interior and exterior conditions. They help to point out possible threats by simply judging the business's weaknesses and potential. 

2. Competitor analysis template 

Competitor analysis tools provide a complete overview of your competitors. They are precious tools that analyze your competitors' performance, work, and offerings. 

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The template will help you compare your offerings with those of your closest competitors to gain a competitive advantage over them. 

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3. Customer Persona Template 

This template aims to visualize the picture of your ideal customer to determine the correct market segment and target customer. 

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You can also use the same template to understand customers' goals and pain points when designing a brand or launching a new product. 

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Where to find the market research templates 

These templates are easily available online at an extensive range of websites, including Milanote and Canva. Just type the name of your template in the search bar, and the customizable version will show up. 

Final words 

Market research tools and resources sometimes cost a manageable amount. With the above information, we have provided you with some of the best Market research tools and resources you can rely upon.

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So, use these market research tools, make awesome templates, gather necessary information and take your business to another height without worrying about expenses.

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