--- title: Market Research description: Market research is the systematic gathering, recording, and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data about marketing issues. Learners will understand how to design surveys, conduct interviews, analyze competitor behavior, and interpret data to identify market opportunities. category: business-entrepreneurship subcategory: marketing difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/marketing-market-research --- # Market Research Market research is the systematic gathering, recording, and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data about marketing issues. Learners will understand how to design surveys, conduct interviews, analyze competitor behavior, and interpret data to identify market opportunities. ## Available Resources 5 Books • 3 Courses • 4 Websites ## Websites ### 1. Google Trends Google's public interface to search-volume data, showing relative interest in queries over time, by region, and against related terms. Useful for sizing seasonal demand, comparing brands or categories, and spotting rising queries before they show in other sources. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://trends.google.com **Tags:** market-research, keyword-research, demand-validation, search-trends, consumer-insights ### 2. esomar.org ESOMAR is the global trade association for market, social, and opinion research. The site provides industry standards and ethical guidelines, training and events, publications and insights, plus member resources and a directory. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://esomar.org **Tags:** websites, business-entrepreneurship, marketing ### 3. hbr.org Harvard Business Review (hbr.org) offers research-based articles, case studies, and practical guidance on leadership, strategy, and organizational performance for managers and executives. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://hbr.org **Tags:** websites, business-entrepreneurship, business-fundamentals ### 4. MarketingProfs MarketingProfs publishes practitioner articles, case studies, templates and webinars on content marketing, digital campaigns, email, social media and B2B strategy. Readers can plan campaigns, benchmark their tactics against working examples, and keep current with established marketing practice. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://marketingprofs.com **Tags:** marketing-strategy, content-marketing, digital-marketing, b2b-marketing ## Courses ### 1. Startup School: How to Talk to Users Learn essential market research skills in Y Combinator's Startup School course: How to Talk to Users. Get valuable customer insights! **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.ycombinator.com/library/4A-how-to-talk-to-users **Tags:** customer-interviews, user-research, startups, market-research, product-discovery ### 2. How to Build a Startup **Author:** Steve Blank Free Udacity course taught by Steve Blank on customer development. Covers the business model canvas, customer segments, value propositions, channels, and revenue models. Learners can turn a startup idea into testable hypotheses and validate them through customer interviews before scaling. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.udacity.com/course/how-to-build-a-startup--ep245 **Tags:** customer-development, lean-startup, business-model-canvas, customer-discovery, startups ### 3. Market Research and Consumer Behavior Your marketing quest begins here! The first course in this specialization lays the neccessary groundwork for an overall successful marketing strategy. It is separated into two sections: Market Research and Consumer Behavior. Gain the tools and techniques to translate a decision problem into a research question in the Market Research module. Learn how to design a research plan, analyze the data gathered and accurately interpret and communicate survey reports, translating the results into practical recommendations. You will then focus in on the consumer decision-making process, highlighting the key moments from identifying a need to buying and consuming a product. Adopt a true “consumer focus” in your managerial decisions by analyzing how consumers make decisions, what happens (in their hearts and minds) at different stages of the decision making process, and the variables that influence those decisions. This course will equip you with the knowledge required to understand the state of your product before approaching the market strategy. There’s no better place to build the foundations of your marketing journey! **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Duration:** 4 weeks of study, 1-2 hours/week | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/market-research **Tags:** courses, business-entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship ## Books ### 1. Marketing Research **Author:** Alvin C. Burns, Ann Veeck, Ronald F. Bush A standard undergraduate marketing research textbook covering the process end to end: problem definition, research design, questionnaire construction, sampling, fieldwork, and statistical analysis. Readers finish able to plan a survey-based study and interpret the resulting data. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/9332584672?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, business-entrepreneurship, marketing ### 2. The Lean Product Playbook **Author:** Dan Olsen Olsen lays out a six-step process for reaching product-market fit: identifying target customers, articulating underserved needs, defining a value proposition and MVP feature set, then testing with users and iterating. Includes the Kano model and importance-versus-satisfaction analysis. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118960874?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, business-entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship ### 3. The Market Research Toolbox **Author:** Edward F. McQuarrie McQuarrie surveys the main research techniques, including secondary data, customer visits, focus groups, surveys, experiments and choice modelling, and when each is appropriate. Aimed at managers who commission research, it helps readers match a business question to a method. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/1412913195?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, business-entrepreneurship, marketing ### 4. Qualitative Consumer and Marketing Research **Author:** Russell W. Belk, Eileen Fischer, Robert V. Kozinets Belk, Fischer and Kozinets introduce qualitative methods for consumer research: depth interviews, ethnography, netnography, projective techniques, and visual and videographic approaches, plus how to analyse and write up such data. Written for graduate students and researchers. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0857027670?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, business-entrepreneurship, marketing ### 5. Market Research in Practice **Author:** Matthew Harrison, Julia Cupman, Oliver Truman, Paul Hague A practitioner-oriented Kogan Page introduction walking through a research project from brief and design to sampling, questionnaire writing, analysis and reporting. Readers finish able to scope a study, commission it sensibly, and judge whether findings hold up. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0749475854?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, business-entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).* View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/marketing-market-research