how to create a marketing research plan

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While having a great idea is an important part of establishing a business, you’ll only get so far without laying the proper groundwork. To help your business take off, not only do you need to size up the competition, but you also need to identify who will buy your product, how much it will cost, the best approach to selling it and how many people will demand it.

To get answers to these questions, you’ll need a market research plan, which you can create yourself or pay a specialist to create for you. Market research plans define an existing problem and/or outline an opportunity. From there, the marketing strategy is broken down task by task. Your plan should include objectives and the methods that you’ll use to achieve those objectives, along with a time frame for completing the work.

What should a market research plan include?

A market research plan should provide a thorough examination of how your product or service will fare in a defined area. It should include:

• An examination of the current marketplace and an analysis of the need for your product or service: To know where you fit in the market, it’s important to have a broad understanding of your industry — covering everything from its annual revenue to the industry standards to the total number of businesses operating within it. Start by gathering statistical data from sources like the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and BMI Research and consider the industry’s market size, potential customer base and how external factors such as laws, technology, world events and socioeconomic changes impact it.
• An assessment of the competition: By analyzing your competitors, you can discover strategies to fill market gaps. This involves identifying well-known competitors and noting trends they employ successfully, scrutinizing customer feedback about businesses in your sector, such as through online reviews, and understanding competitors’ product or service offerings. This knowledge can then guide the refinement of your own products or services to differentiate them from others in the market.
• Data about customers: Identify which segment of potential customers in your industry you can effectively target, considering their demographics — such as age, ethnicity, income and location and psychographics, including beliefs, values and lifestyle. Learn about the challenges your customers face in their daily lives and determine how the features and benefits of your offerings address their needs.
• The direction for your marketing in the upcoming year: Your plan should provide a clear roadmap for your marketing strategies for the next year, focusing on approaches to distinguish your brand from competitors. Develop marketing messages that resonate with and display empathy toward your target market and find ways to address customers’ needs and demonstrate value.
• Goals to be met: Outline goals your business would like to achieve and make these goals clear to all employees on your team. Create goals that are realistic and attainable while also making a meaningful impact on the business’s growth. Consider factors including your target number of products or services, the expected number of units to sell based on market size, target market behavior, pricing for each item and the cost of production and advertising.

How to create your market research plan

Doing business without having a marketing plan is like driving without directions. You may eventually reach your destination, but there will be many costly and time-consuming mistakes made along the way.

Many entrepreneurs mistakenly believe there is a big demand for their service or product but, in reality, there may not be, your prices may be too high or too low or you may be going into a business with so many restrictions that it’s almost impossible to be successful. A market research plan will help you uncover significant issues or roadblocks.

Step 1. Conduct a comprehensive situation analysis.

One of the first steps in constructing your marketing plan is to create a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis , which is used to identify your competition, to know how they operate and then to understand their strengths and weaknesses.

When developing a market research plan, it is essential that you do your homework to determine your possible customer base, to gain knowledge about the competition and to have a solid foundation for your marketing strategy.

Step 2: Develop clear marketing objectives.

In this section, describe the desired outcome for your marketing plan with realistic and attainable objectives, the targets and a clear and concise time frame. The most common way to approach this is with marketing objectives, which may include the total number of customers and the retention rate, the average volume of purchases, total market share and the proportion of your potential market that makes purchases.

Step 3: Make a financial plan.

A financial plan is essentia l for creating a solid marketing plan. The financial plan answers a range of questions that are critical components of your business, such as how much you intend to sell, what will you charge, how much will it cost to deliver your services or produce your products, how much will it cost for your basic operating expenses and how much financing will you need to operate your business.

In your business plan, be sure to describe who you are, what your business will be about, your business goals and what your inspiration was to buy, begin or grow your business.

Step 4: Determine your target audience.

Once you know what makes you stand out from your competitors and how you’ll market yourself, you should decide who to target with all this information. That’s why your market research plan should delineate your target audience. What are their demographics and how will these qualities affect your plan? How do your company’s current products and services affect which consumers you can realistically make customers? Will that change in the future? All of these questions should be answered in your plan.

Step 5: List your research methods.

Rarely does one research avenue make for a comprehensive market research plan. Instead, your plan should indicate several methods that will be used to determine the market share you can realistically obtain. This way, you get as much information as possible from as many sources as possible. The result is a more robust path toward establishing the exact footprint you desire for your company.

A good market research plan involves using more than one type of research to obtain the information you need.

Step 6: Establish a timeline.

With your plan in place, you’ll need to figure out how long your market research process will take. Project management charts are often helpful in this regard as they divide tasks and personnel over a timeframe that you have set. No matter which type of project management chart you use, try to build some flexibility into your timeframe. A two-week buffer toward the home stretch comes in handy when a process scheduled for one week takes two — that buffer will keep you on deadline.

Step 7: Acknowledge ethical concerns.

Market research always presents opportunities for ethical missteps. After all, you’ll need to obtain competitor information and sensitive financial data that may not always be readily available. Your market research plan should thus encourage your team to not take any dicey steps to obtain this information. It may be better to state, “we could not obtain this competitor information,” than to spy on the competitor or pressure their current employees for knowledge. Plus, there’s nothing wrong with simply feeling better about the final state of your plan and how you got it there.

Using a market research firm

If the thought of trying to create your own market research plan seems daunting or too time-consuming, there are plenty of other people willing to do the work for you.

You don’t need to pay thousands of dollars for assistance crafting a market research plan. University business schools often provide free resources that can assist you.

Pros of using a market research firm

As an objective third party, businesses can benefit from a market research firm’s impartial perspective and guidance, helping to shape impactful brand strategies and marketing campaigns. These firms, which can help businesses with everything from their marketing campaigns to brand launches, deliver precise results, drawing on their expertise and experience to provide in-depth insights and solutions tailored specifically to your company’s needs. 

Even more, working with a market research firm can elevate a brand above the competition, as they provide credible and unique research that is highly valued by the media, enhancing brand credibility and potentially increasing website traffic, social media shares and online visibility.

Cons of using a market research firm

Although hiring a firm can provide businesses with tremendous results, certain downsides can lead a business toward the do-it-yourself route. Most notably, market research firms can be a costly expense that some businesses can’t afford. However, businesses that can allocate the funds will likely see a positive return on investment, as they are paying for the expertise and proficiency of seasoned professionals in the field.

Additionally, finding the right market research firm for your business’s needs can take some time — and even longer, ranging from weeks to months, for a market research firm to complete a plan. This lack of immediate results can be detrimental for businesses that don’t have the time to wait. 

Market research firms can charge into the thousands of dollars for a market research plan, but there are ways to get help more affordably, including:

• Outline your plans carefully and spell out objectives.
• Examine as many sources as possible.
• Before paying for any information, check with librarians, small business development centers or market research professors to see if they can help you access market research data for free.
• You may think you’ll need to spend a hefty sum to create a market research plan, but there are plenty of free and low-cost sources available, especially through university business schools that will guide you through the process.

Miranda Fraraccio contributed to this article. 

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Home Market Research

How to Write a Market Research Plan

In the past, we BUDGETED for market research.  This usually included our annual customer satisfaction survey and then we simply looked at our marketing plan an set aside a budget for the new product research we were going to do in the next year.

These days things are a little different.  I find myself recommending a market research plan over and over to small businesses and that means that I had better start explaining what a market research plan looks like.

LEARN ABOUT: Market research vs marketing research

Why You Need a Research Plan NOW – When You Didn’t Need One in the Past?

The short answer is that it’s a response to several trends that are going on in our lives today – that weren’t there in the past:

• Social Media – The ability to use social media as a tool to collect feedback and analyze text and chatter from your marketplace about your company and your brand is a relatively new phenomenon.  The challenge is that if left unmanaged and under-leveraged, it goes to waste as a resource of valuable market research information.

LEARN ABOUT:  Market research industry

• Time Slicing – This is an interesting behavioral trend among all of us.  You can easily compare it to multi-tasking.   Time slicing, however is more like inserting short tasks in between larger tasks.  Such as checking emails on your mobile device while waiting in line.
• Mobile Devices – The use of mobile devices as computers and communication tools and quite literally “time killers” opens up a new way to reach our respondents when they have just a few minutes to spare.

The Market Research Plan Outline

• Set Goals :  I think it’s important to set a general goal or direction about what decisions you’re going to be making over the course of the year.  For the sake of this outline, I’m treating goals as more general statements such as “Start marketing products online.”  The benefit of making a general goal statement is that it gets your mind focused in a particular direction and allows for some flexibility – which you’re going to need as you start strategizing around the information and feedback that you’re planning on collecting.
• Set objectives :  Every research project has objectives and every marketing plan has objectives.  So it stands to reason that your research plan will too.  In this case, your objectives around the research plan might include the decisions that you are trying to make right now around that general goal of “marketing products online”.  Some possible objectives might include understanding who our customers would be online, or how our target customer shops online or to what degree do they use mobile devices to shop or research products and services.
• Lay out your collection channels. You’ve heard the term distribution channel, well in research I call it the collection channel.  This involves listing all the possible ways that you can collect feedback and information from your target audience.  These might include online surveys, MicroPoll, IdeaScale (Crowd sourcing), mobile device surveys, social media, and some others.
• Brainstorm a list of questions .  Now you can start brainstorming questions that will help you make your decisions.  I like brainstorming questions first because it focuses your mind on exactly what you want to know and why you want to know it.  We can always edit the questions later based on what collection channel is best suited for the question.
• Assign questions to the collection channels. Again none of this is cast in stone.  But it helps you get your mind around how to best leverage the collection tools that are available to you.  Start assigning your questions to the channels that will provide the best information.  For example – treat your social media channels as you might a focus group. Start conversations with your Facebook Fans and ask questions.  LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are all ideal channels for getting your target audience involved in helping you develop more specific questions around the issues that your customers care most about.  Not only are you getting input into how to frame questions and what to focus on – you’re getting some additional marketing and PR buzz about your mission and vision about what you’re developing.
• Use crowd sourcing tools like IdeaScale to prioritize suggestions .  Now that you’ve gotten ideas from social media conversations – create an IdeaScale space and seed the space with the feedback you’ve learned.  Then launch that page to your social media community and ask them to vote and continue the feedback on this space.  Don’t forget to visit the space and offer feedback to the community on how your development is going.  Again – this is more marketing and PR.
• Start putting your online surveys together. Now you might be ready to put some online marketing surveys together.  Keep in mind that NONE of your respondents want to spend more than 5 minutes on a survey.  Just like online videos. their attention span is about 2-3 minutes at best.  After that they are bored and tired and leave.  If your survey takes longer than 5 minutes – you will need to look for alternative ways to ask those questions.
• Use MicroPoll to supplement your online survey. MicroPoll is underutilized as a survey instrument.  People LOVE polls because they are short and they offer immediate feedback.  If your online survey takes longer than 5 minutes.  Take a look at which questions you can transfer to MicroPoll.  You can launch a new MicroPoll every week.  This will keep your audience engaged and involved in what you’re up to.  (I think that’s more marketing and PR – while doing research – that’s what I call leverage and multi-tasking)
• Can you take it viral? Another important question to ask yourself is if you can take your online survey viral in order to collect feedback from a broader market segment than you are able to reach.  One word of warning.  Viral surveys are most successful when you are asking very broad and socially relevant questions.  In other words – questions around topics that people in a broader community can answer.  NOT technically sophisticated questions or questions that contain customer or sensitive information.  A good question for a viral survey might be “What percentage or sales do you spend on market research?”  This is a general enough question anyone can answer AND the answers across industry segments would be valuable.

LEARN ABOUT: market research trends

Last Minute Tips for Successful Market Research Plans

• Keep it short and simple.  No more than 5 pages.
• Leverage the free and low-cost tools that are available
• Brainstorm great questions.  This is the key.  No respondent wants to answer bad questions.

In future posts – I will break some of these down into more focused practical how-to’s.  In the meantime — do YOU currently do a market research plan?  What are your tips, Do’s and Don’ts?

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6.3 Steps in a Successful Marketing Research Plan

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• 1 Identify and describe the steps in a marketing research plan.
• 2 Discuss the different types of data research.
• 3 Explain how data is analyzed.
• 4 Discuss the importance of effective research reports.

Define the Problem

There are seven steps to a successful marketing research project (see Figure 6.3 ). Each step will be explained as we investigate how a marketing research project is conducted.

The first step, defining the problem, is often a realization that more information is needed in order to make a data-driven decision. Problem definition is the realization that there is an issue that needs to be addressed. An entrepreneur may be interested in opening a small business but must first define the problem that is to be investigated. A marketing research problem in this example is to discover the needs of the community and also to identify a potentially successful business venture.

Many times, researchers define a research question or objectives in this first step. Objectives of this research study could include: identify a new business that would be successful in the community in question, determine the size and composition of a target market for the business venture, and collect any relevant primary and secondary data that would support such a venture. At this point, the definition of the problem may be “Why are cat owners not buying our new cat toy subscription service?”

Additionally, during this first step we would want to investigate our target population for research. This is similar to a target market, as it is the group that comprises the population of interest for the study. In order to have a successful research outcome, the researcher should start with an understanding of the problem in the current situational environment.

Develop the Research Plan

Step two is to develop the research plan. What type of research is necessary to meet the established objectives of the first step? How will this data be collected? Additionally, what is the time frame of the research and budget to consider? If you must have information in the next week, a different plan would be implemented than in a situation where several months were allowed. These are issues that a researcher should address in order to meet the needs identified.

Research is often classified as coming from one of two types of data: primary and secondary. Primary data is unique information that is collected by the specific researcher with the current project in mind. This type of research doesn’t currently exist until it is pulled together for the project. Examples of primary data collection include survey, observation, experiment, or focus group data that is gathered for the current project.

Secondary data is any research that was completed for another purpose but can be used to help inform the research process. Secondary data comes in many forms and includes census data, journal articles, previously collected survey or focus group data of related topics, and compiled company data. Secondary data may be internal, such as the company’s sales records for a previous quarter, or external, such as an industry report of all related product sales. Syndicated data , a type of external secondary data, is available through subscription services and is utilized by many marketers. As you can see in Table 6.1 , primary and secondary data features are often opposite—the positive aspects of primary data are the negative side of secondary data.

There are four research types that can be used: exploratory, descriptive, experimental, and ethnographic research designs (see Figure 6.4 ). Each type has specific formats of data that can be collected. Qualitative research can be shared through words, descriptions, and open-ended comments. Qualitative data gives context but cannot be reduced to a statistic. Qualitative data examples are categorical and include case studies, diary accounts, interviews, focus groups, and open-ended surveys. By comparison, quantitative data is data that can be reduced to number of responses. The number of responses to each answer on a multiple-choice question is quantitative data. Quantitative data is numerical and includes things like age, income, group size, and height.

Exploratory research is usually used when additional general information in desired about a topic. When in the initial steps of a new project, understanding the landscape is essential, so exploratory research helps the researcher to learn more about the general nature of the industry. Exploratory research can be collected through focus groups, interviews, and review of secondary data. When examining an exploratory research design, the best use is when your company hopes to collect data that is generally qualitative in nature. 7

For instance, if a company is considering a new service for registered users but is not quite sure how well the new service will be received or wants to gain clarity of exactly how customers may use a future service, the company can host a focus group. Focus groups and interviews will be examined later in the chapter. The insights collected during the focus group can assist the company when designing the service, help to inform promotional campaign options, and verify that the service is going to be a viable option for the company.

Descriptive research design takes a bigger step into collection of data through primary research complemented by secondary data. Descriptive research helps explain the market situation and define an “opinion, attitude, or behavior” of a group of consumers, employees, or other interested groups. 8 The most common method of deploying a descriptive research design is through the use of a survey. Several types of surveys will be defined later in this chapter. Descriptive data is quantitative in nature, meaning the data can be distilled into a statistic, such as in a table or chart.

Again, descriptive data is helpful in explaining the current situation. In the opening example of LEGO , the company wanted to describe the situation regarding children’s use of its product. In order to gather a large group of opinions, a survey was created. The data that was collected through this survey allowed the company to measure the existing perceptions of parents so that alterations could be made to future plans for the company.

Experimental research , also known as causal research , helps to define a cause-and-effect relationship between two or more factors. This type of research goes beyond a correlation to determine which feature caused the reaction. Researchers generally use some type of experimental design to determine a causal relationship. An example is A/B testing, a situation where one group of research participants, group A, is exposed to one treatment and then compared to the group B participants, who experience a different situation. An example might be showing two different television commercials to a panel of consumers and then measuring the difference in perception of the product. Another example would be to have two separate packaging options available in different markets. This research would answer the question “Does one design sell better than the other?” Comparing that to the sales in each market would be part of a causal research study. 9

The final method of collecting data is through an ethnographic design. Ethnographic research is conducted in the field by watching people interact in their natural environment. For marketing research, ethnographic designs help to identify how a product is used, what actions are included in a selection, or how the consumer interacts with the product. 10

Examples of ethnographic research would be to observe how a consumer uses a particular product, such as baking soda. Although many people buy baking soda, its uses are vast. So are they using it as a refrigerator deodorizer, a toothpaste, to polish a belt buckle, or to use in baking a cake?

Select the Data Collection Method

Data collection is the systematic gathering of information that addresses the identified problem. What is the best method to do that? Picking the right method of collecting data requires that the researcher understand the target population and the design picked in the previous step. There is no perfect method; each method has both advantages and disadvantages, so it’s essential that the researcher understand the target population of the research and the research objectives in order to pick the best option.

Sometimes the data desired is best collected by watching the actions of consumers. For instance, how many cars pass a specific billboard in a day? What website led a potential customer to the company’s website? When are consumers most likely to use the snack vending machines at work? What time of day has the highest traffic on a social media post? What is the most streamed television program this week? Observational research is the collecting of data based on actions taken by those observed. Many data observations do not require the researched individuals to participate in the data collection effort to be highly valuable. Some observation requires an individual to watch and record the activities of the target population through personal observations .

Unobtrusive observation happens when those being observed aren’t aware that they are being watched. An example of an unobtrusive observation would be to watch how shoppers interact with a new stuffed animal display by using a one-way mirror. Marketers can identify which products were handled more often while also determining which were ignored.

Other methods can use technology to collect the data instead. Instances of mechanical observation include the use of vehicle recorders, which count the number of vehicles that pass a specific location. Computers can also assess the number of shoppers who enter a store, the most popular entry point for train station commuters, or the peak time for cars to park in a parking garage.

When you want to get a more in-depth response from research participants, one method is to complete a one-on-one interview . One-on-one interviews allow the researcher to ask specific questions that match the respondent’s unique perspective as well as follow-up questions that piggyback on responses already completed. An interview allows the researcher to have a deeper understanding of the needs of the respondent, which is another strength of this type of data collection. The downside of personal interviews it that a discussion can be very time-consuming and results in only one respondent’s answers. Therefore, in order to get a large sample of respondents, the interview method may not be the most efficient method.

Taking the benefits of an interview and applying them to a small group of people is the design of a focus group . A focus group is a small number of people, usually 8 to 12, who meet the sample requirements. These individuals together are asked a series of questions where they are encouraged to build upon each other’s responses, either by agreeing or disagreeing with the other group members. Focus groups are similar to interviews in that they allow the researcher, through a moderator, to get more detailed information from a small group of potential customers (see Figure 6.5 ).

Link to Learning

Focus groups.

Focus groups are a common method for gathering insights into consumer thinking and habits. Companies will use this information to develop or shift their initiatives. The best way to understand a focus group is to watch a few examples or explanations. TED-Ed has this video that explains how focus groups work.

You might be asking when it is best to use a focus group or a survey. Learn the differences, the pros and cons of each, and the specific types of questions you ask in both situations in this article .

Preparing for a focus group is critical to success. It requires knowing the material and questions while also managing the group of people. Watch this video to learn more about how to prepare for a focus group and the types of things to be aware of.

One of the benefits of a focus group over individual interviews is that synergy can be generated when a participant builds on another’s ideas. Additionally, for the same amount of time, a researcher can hear from multiple respondents instead of just one. 11 Of course, as with every method of data collection, there are downsides to a focus group as well. Focus groups have the potential to be overwhelmed by one or two aggressive personalities, and the format can discourage more reserved individuals from speaking up. Finally, like interviews, the responses in a focus group are qualitative in nature and are difficult to distill into an easy statistic or two.

Combining a variety of questions on one instrument is called a survey or questionnaire . Collecting primary data is commonly done through surveys due to their versatility. A survey allows the researcher to ask the same set of questions of a large group of respondents. Response rates of surveys are calculated by dividing the number of surveys completed by the total number attempted. Surveys are flexible and can collect a variety of quantitative and qualitative data. Questions can include simplified yes or no questions, select all that apply, questions that are on a scale, or a variety of open-ended types of questions. There are four types of surveys (see Table 6.2 ) we will cover, each with strengths and weaknesses defined.

Let’s start off with mailed surveys —surveys that are sent to potential respondents through a mail service. Mailed surveys used to be more commonly used due to the ability to reach every household. In some instances, a mailed survey is still the best way to collect data. For example, every 10 years the United States conducts a census of its population (see Figure 6.6 ). The first step in that data collection is to send every household a survey through the US Postal Service (USPS). The benefit is that respondents can complete and return the survey at their convenience. The downside of mailed surveys are expense and timeliness of responses. A mailed survey requires postage, both when it is sent to the recipient and when it is returned. That, along with the cost of printing, paper, and both sending and return envelopes, adds up quickly. Additionally, physically mailing surveys takes time. One method of reducing cost is to send with bulk-rate postage, but that slows down the delivery of the survey. Also, because of the convenience to the respondent, completed surveys may be returned several weeks after being sent. Finally, some mailed survey data must be manually entered into the analysis software, which can cause delays or issues due to entry errors.

Phone surveys are completed during a phone conversation with the respondent. Although the traditional phone survey requires a data collector to talk with the participant, current technology allows for computer-assisted voice surveys or surveys to be completed by asking the respondent to push a specific button for each potential answer. Phone surveys are time intensive but allow the respondent to ask questions and the surveyor to request additional information or clarification on a question if warranted. Phone surveys require the respondent to complete the survey simultaneously with the collector, which is a limitation as there are restrictions for when phone calls are allowed. According to Telephone Consumer Protection Act , approved by Congress in 1991, no calls can be made prior to 8:00 a.m. or after 9:00 p.m. in the recipient’s time zone. 12 Many restrictions are outlined in this original legislation and have been added to since due to ever-changing technology.

In-person surveys are when the respondent and data collector are physically in the same location. In-person surveys allow the respondent to share specific information, ask questions of the surveyor, and follow up on previous answers. Surveys collected through this method can take place in a variety of ways: through door-to-door collection, in a public location, or at a person’s workplace. Although in-person surveys are time intensive and require more labor to collect data than some other methods, in some cases it’s the best way to collect the required data. In-person surveys conducted through a door-to-door method is the follow-up used for the census if respondents do not complete the mailed survey. One of the downsides of in-person surveys is the reluctance of potential respondents to stop their current activity and answer questions. Furthermore, people may not feel comfortable sharing private or personal information during a face-to-face conversation.

Electronic surveys are sent or collected through digital means and is an opportunity that can be added to any of the above methods as well as some new delivery options. Surveys can be sent through email, and respondents can either reply to the email or open a hyperlink to an online survey (see Figure 6.7 ). Additionally, a letter can be mailed that asks members of the survey sample to log in to a website rather than to return a mailed response. Many marketers now use links, QR codes, or electronic devices to easily connect to a survey. Digitally collected data has the benefit of being less time intensive and is often a more economical way to gather and input responses than more manual methods. A survey that could take months to collect through the mail can be completed within a week through digital means.

Design the Sample

Although you might want to include every possible person who matches your target market in your research, it’s often not a feasible option, nor is it of value. If you did decide to include everyone, you would be completing a census of the population. Getting everyone to participate would be time-consuming and highly expensive, so instead marketers use a sample , whereby a portion of the whole is included in the research. It’s similar to the samples you might receive at the grocery store or ice cream shop; it isn’t a full serving, but it does give you a good taste of what the whole would be like.

So how do you know who should be included in the sample? Researchers identify parameters for their studies, called sample frames . A sample frame for one study may be college students who live on campus; for another study, it may be retired people in Dallas, Texas, or small-business owners who have fewer than 10 employees. The individual entities within the sampling frame would be considered a sampling unit . A sampling unit is each individual respondent that would be considered as matching the sample frame established by the research. If a researcher wants businesses to participate in a study, then businesses would be the sampling unit in that case.

The number of sampling units included in the research is the sample size . Many calculations can be conducted to indicate what the correct size of the sample should be. Issues to consider are the size of the population, the confidence level that the data represents the entire population, the ease of accessing the units in the frame, and the budget allocated for the research.

There are two main categories of samples: probability and nonprobability (see Figure 6.8 ). Probability samples are those in which every member of the sample has an identified likelihood of being selected. Several probability sample methods can be utilized. One probability sampling technique is called a simple random sample , where not only does every person have an identified likelihood of being selected to be in the sample, but every person also has an equal chance of exclusion. An example of a simple random sample would be to put the names of all members of a group into a hat and simply draw out a specific number to be included. You could say a raffle would be a good example of a simple random sample.

Another probability sample type is a stratified random sample , where the population is divided into groups by category and then a random sample of each category is selected to participate. For instance, if you were conducting a study of college students from your school and wanted to make sure you had all grade levels included, you might take the names of all students and split them into different groups by grade level—freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior. Then, from those categories, you would draw names out of each of the pools, or strata.

A nonprobability sample is a situation in which each potential member of the sample has an unknown likelihood of being selected in the sample. Research findings that are from a nonprobability sample cannot be applied beyond the sample. Several examples of nonprobability sampling are available to researchers and include two that we will look at more closely: convenience sampling and judgment sampling.

The first nonprobability sampling technique is a convenience sample . Just like it sounds, a convenience sample is when the researcher finds a group through a nonscientific method by picking potential research participants in a convenient manner. An example might be to ask other students in a class you are taking to complete a survey that you are doing for a class assignment or passing out surveys at a basketball game or theater performance.

A judgment sample is a type of nonprobability sample that allows the researcher to determine if they believe the individual meets the criteria set for the sample frame to complete the research. For instance, you may be interested in researching mothers, so you sit outside a toy store and ask an individual who is carrying a baby to participate.

Collect the Data

Now that all the plans have been established, the instrument has been created, and the group of participants has been identified, it is time to start collecting data. As explained earlier in this chapter, data collection is the process of gathering information from a variety of sources that will satisfy the research objectives defined in step one. Data collection can be as simple as sending out an email with a survey link enclosed or as complex as an experiment with hundreds of consumers. The method of collection directly influences the length of this process. Conducting personal interviews or completing an experiment, as previously mentioned, can add weeks or months to the research process, whereas sending out an electronic survey may allow a researcher to collect the necessary data in a few days. 13

Analyze and Interpret the Data

Once the data has been collected, the process of analyzing it may begin. Data analysis is the distillation of the information into a more understandable and actionable format. The analysis itself can take many forms, from the use of basic statistics to a more comprehensive data visualization process. First, let’s discuss some basic statistics that can be used to represent data.

The first is the mean of quantitative data. A mean is often defined as the arithmetic average of values. The formula is:

A common use of the mean calculation is with exam scores. Say, for example, you have earned the following scores on your marketing exams: 72, 85, 68, and 77. To find the mean, you would add up the four scores for a total of 302. Then, in order to generate a mean, that number needs to be divided by the number of exam scores included, which is 4. The mean would be 302 divided by 4, for a mean test score of 75.5. Understanding the mean can help to determine, with one number, the weight of a particular value.

Another commonly used statistic is median. The median is often referred to as the middle number. To generate a median, all the numeric answers are placed in order, and the middle number is the median. Median is a common statistic when identifying the income level of a specific geographic region. 14 For instance, the median household income for Albuquerque, New Mexico, between 2015 and 2019 was $52,911. 15 In this case, there are just as many people with an income above the amount as there are below.

Mode is another statistic that is used to represent data of all types, as it can be used with quantitative or qualitative data and represents the most frequent answer. Eye color, hair color, and vehicle color can all be presented with a mode statistic. Additionally, some researchers expand on the concept of mode and present the frequency of all responses, not just identifying the most common response. Data such as this can easily be presented in a frequency graph, 16 such as the one in Figure 6.9 .

Additionally, researchers use other analyses to represent the data rather than to present the entirety of each response. For example, maybe the relationship between two values is important to understand. In this case, the researcher may share the data as a cross tabulation (see Figure 6.10 ). Below is the same data as above regarding social media use cross tabulated with gender—as you can see, the data is more descriptive when you can distinguish between the gender identifiers and how much time is spent per day on social media.

Not all data can be presented in a graphical format due to the nature of the information. Sometimes with qualitative methods of data collection, the responses cannot be distilled into a simple statistic or graph. In that case, the use of quotations, otherwise known as verbatims , can be used. These are direct statements presented by the respondents. Often you will see a verbatim statement when reading a movie or book review. The critic’s statements are used in part or in whole to represent their feelings about the newly released item.

Infographics

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. For this reason, research results are often shown in a graphical format in which data can be taken in quickly, called an infographic .

Check out this infographic on what components make for a good infographic. As you can see, a good infographic needs four components: data, design, a story, and the ability to share it with others. Without all four pieces, it is not as valuable a resource as it could be. The ultimate infographic is represented as the intersection of all four.

Infographics are particularly advantageous online. Refer to this infographic on why they are beneficial to use online .

Prepare the Research Report

The marketing research process concludes by sharing the generated data and makes recommendations for future actions. What starts as simple data must be interpreted into an analysis. All information gathered should be conveyed in order to make decisions for future marketing actions. One item that is often part of the final step is to discuss areas that may have been missed with the current project or any area of further study identified while completing it. Without the final step of the marketing research project, the first six steps are without value. It is only after the information is shared, through a formal presentation or report, that those recommendations can be implemented and improvements made. The first six steps are used to generate information, while the last is to initiate action. During this last step is also when an evaluation of the process is conducted. If this research were to be completed again, how would we do it differently? Did the right questions get answered with the survey questions posed to the respondents? Follow-up on some of these key questions can lead to additional research, a different study, or further analysis of data collected.

Methods of Quantifying Marketing Research

One of the ways of sharing information gained through marketing research is to quantify the research . Quantifying the research means to take a variety of data and compile into a quantity that is more easily understood. This is a simple process if you want to know how many people attended a basketball game, but if you want to quantify the number of students who made a positive comment on a questionnaire, it can be a little more complicated. Researchers have a variety of methods to collect and then share these different scores. Below are some of the most common types used in business.

Is a customer aware of a product, brand, or company? What is meant by awareness? Awareness in the context of marketing research is when a consumer is familiar with the product, brand, or company. It does not assume that the consumer has tried the product or has purchased it. Consumers are just aware. That is a measure that many businesses find valuable. There are several ways to measure awareness. For instance, the first type of awareness is unaided awareness . This type of awareness is when no prompts for a product, brand, or company are given. If you were collecting information on fast-food restaurants, you might ask a respondent to list all the fast-food restaurants that serve a chicken sandwich. Aided awareness would be providing a list of products, brands, or companies and the respondent selects from the list. For instance, if you give a respondent a list of fast-food restaurants and ask them to mark all the locations with a chicken sandwich, you are collecting data through an aided method. Collecting these answers helps a company determine how the business location compares to those of its competitors. 17

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

Have you ever been asked to complete a survey at the end of a purchase? Many businesses complete research on buying, returning, or other customer service processes. A customer satisfaction score , also known as CSAT, is a measure of how satisfied customers are with the product, brand, or service. A CSAT score is usually on a scale of 0 to 100 percent. 18 But what constitutes a “good” CSAT score? Although what is identified as good can vary by industry, normally anything in the range from 75 to 85 would be considered good. Of course, a number higher than 85 would be considered exceptional. 19

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and Customer Effort Score (CES)

Other metrics often used are a customer acquisition cost (CAC) and customer effort score (CES). How much does it cost a company to gain customers? That’s the purpose of calculating the customer acquisition cost. To calculate the customer acquisition cost , a company would need to total all expenses that were accrued to gain new customers. This would include any advertising, public relations, social media postings, etc. When a total cost is determined, it is divided by the number of new customers gained through this campaign.

The final score to discuss is the customer effort score , also known as a CES. The CES is a “survey used to measure the ease of service experience with an organization.” 20 Companies that are easy to work with have a better CES than a company that is notorious for being difficult. An example would be to ask a consumer about the ease of making a purchase online by incorporating a one-question survey after a purchase is confirmed. If a number of responses come back negative or slightly negative, the company will realize that it needs to investigate and develop a more user-friendly process.

Knowledge Check

It’s time to check your knowledge on the concepts presented in this section. Refer to the Answer Key at the end of the book for feedback.

• Defining the problem
• Developing the research plan
• Selecting a data collection method
• Designing the sample
• you are able to send it to all households in an area
• it is inexpensive
• responses are automatically loaded into the software
• the data comes in quickly
• Primary data
• Secondary data
• Secondary and primary data
• Professional data
• It shows how respondents answered two variables in relation to each other and can help determine patterns by different groups of respondents.
• By presenting the data in the form of a picture, the information is easier for the reader to understand.
• It is an easy way to see how often one answer is selected by the respondents.
• This analysis can used to present interview or focus group data.

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• Book title: Principles of Marketing
• Publication date: Jan 25, 2023
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How to Write a Market Research Plan (+ Free Template)

Chris martin, market research room 101: what would you banish.

This year’s Market Research Society Annual Conference was filled to the brim with insightful seminar...

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A market research plan, similar to a brief, is a vital document that details important information about your market research project. Though it is often an overlooked step of the market research process , an effective plan is often a critical factor in determining whether or not your market research efforts are successful.

Why? Because a well-thought through plan, more so than objectives alone, can be a vital instrument in focusing your investment. It ensures you know, ahead of the commencement date, the timeline, budget and desired outcomes from the project. It can even be used as a tool for receiving quicker sign-off from management when embarking on a new venture.

But it’s also important to remember that the research plan is not just for your team. To make full use of this document, it should be written in a way that can be distributed to agency partners as well – ensuring that your insight team and specialist partners are all working towards the same goal.

Tips for Crafting a Successful Plan

The first rule of writing a successful market research plan is to keep it short. The perfect length is between 1-2 pages, but as an absolute maximum try to ensure that it never exceeds 3. This will give you enough space to explain the background, scope and practicalities of the project while ensuring it is concise enough to be read in full. Throughout these few short pages, the tone of your plan should be informative. Remember that you are outlining information that you already know.

Write in a way that holistically encompasses all aspects of the project. Throughout the duration of your scripting, data collection, analysis and reporting stages of your project you should always be referring back to this document in order to remain focused. As any researcher knows, one of the biggest challenges in any research project is staying true to your original objectives.

With both exploratory and confirmatory research alike, new information is likely to arise which may spark other ideas or bring light to previously unknown issues. Remember these, but set them aside for further investigation at a later date. Travelling too far down the rabbit hole is the quickest way to overspend and under deliver on your original goal.

The 10 Elements of the Best Research Plans

First, let me preface this with a reminder: every project is different. A long term co-creation community will have different needs and requirements to a customer feedback survey or ad testing project. However, despite this – it is important to give equal consideration to all projects, and plan each with the same high degree of meticulous care. With this in mind, these are the 10 key aspects we recommend that all research plans should include:

1. Overview

Use this first section to outline the background to the problem that you are attempting to solve. Include background information on the business to provide context, as well as the circumstances that have led to the need for research. Overviews should be limited to 200 words at most, with most of the word count dedicated to the business circumstances & challenges surrounding the research.

2. Objectives

Arguably the most important aspect of the entire document, objectives should be in bullet point format. List 3-5 of the decisions or initiatives that the research will inform – this will become the remit of the project. Below are a few examples of both well and poorly written objectives:

Well written research objectives:

• Understand the channels in which our customers are most comfortable shopping, in order to decide which should be prioritised in the 2017 Q1 budget
• Develop an active co-creation community that contributes 2 user-generated product improvements for testing to the R & D team per month
• Learn what is leading to an increase in customer churn so that a new retention strategy can be put in place within 12 weeks

Poorly written research objectives:

• Survey 1,000 potential customers to find out how our products can be improved
• Develop a panel of employees that are able to provide answers to research questions on an ad-hoc basis
• Learn how our company is perceived in comparison to competitors and how we can stand out in the marketplace

3. Deliverable outcomes

This section acts as a list what you expect to be produced at the end of the project. This can include, but is not limited to: a target number of responses you expect to receive, descriptions of how the data should be presented and the extent to which the data will be used to inform future decisions. In long term projects such as panels or communities, this may include a target for the amount of decisions that research is expected to inform and/or a pipeline for new ideas in exploratory studies.

4. Target audience

Different to sample, your target audience describes the population that you wish to research. This can be defined by a number of factors depending on the nature of your project. Some of the most common include: demographics, psychographics, life stages and company/ product interaction.

5. Sample plan

The sample plan should be used to indicate the amount of participants you wish to research, as well as a breakdown of each group. This will be affected by the choice to use qualitative, quantitative or multi-method approaches, as well as the estimated size of the target population.

6. Research Methods

List the different research methods that you plan to use in your project. This will be used by your team and agency partners to ensure that the insight you need comes from the most appropriate tools. Be sure to include any non-traditional methods you plan to use as well – it’s important that your team are aware of how data will be captured, even if it is being gathered by an experimental technique.

7. Timeline

These usually take the form of a Gantt chart, but can vary depending on the scope and length of your project. Try to break down tasks as much as possible but be wary of dependencies within your chart. Be sure to schedule enough time in case some research tasks over-run or response rates are lower than expected.

Perhaps the most dreaded aspect of any research plan, budgeting is never easy. But by providing a breakdown of costs and outlining which elements of the project require most investment, a well-planned budget can be a benefit rather than a hurdle.

9 & 10. Ethical and Further considerations

Finally, you should outline any ethical/ other considerations or issues that may arise throughout the course of your project. Whether these are as simple as a conflict of interest or a concern about supplier relationships – this is your chance to address any problems that may arise before they do.

Free Market Research Plan Template

Use this link to download our   free market research plan template . The template comes complete with each of the sections outlined above, with instructions on usage and tips on how to make the most out of it. Currently available in .docx format, please email   [email protected]  if you have any problems with the download.

What do you believe should be included in a successful market research plan? Share your advice with us in the comments below and join the conversation.

About FlexMR

We are The Insights Empowerment Company. We help research, product and marketing teams drive informed decisions with efficient, scalable & impactful insight.

About Chris Martin

Chris is an experienced executive and marketing strategist in the insight and technology sectors. He also hosts our MRX Lab podcast.

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How to do market research in 4 steps: a lean approach to marketing research

From pinpointing your target audience and assessing your competitive advantage, to ongoing product development and customer satisfaction efforts, market research is a practice your business can only benefit from.

Learn how to conduct quick and effective market research using a lean approach in this article full of strategies and practical examples. 

Last updated

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A comprehensive (and successful) business strategy is not complete without some form of market research—you can’t make informed and profitable business decisions without truly understanding your customer base and the current market trends that drive your business.

In this article, you’ll learn how to conduct quick, effective market research  using an approach called 'lean market research'. It’s easier than you might think, and it can be done at any stage in a product’s lifecycle.

How to conduct lean market research in 4 steps

What is market research, why is market research so valuable, advantages of lean market research, 4 common market research methods, 5 common market research questions, market research faqs.

We’ll jump right into our 4-step approach to lean market research. To show you how it’s done in the real world, each step includes a practical example from Smallpdf , a Swiss company that used lean market research to reduce their tool’s error rate by 75% and boost their Net Promoter Score® (NPS) by 1%.

Research your market the lean way...

From on-page surveys to user interviews, Hotjar has the tools to help you scope out your market and get to know your customers—without breaking the bank.

The following four steps and practical examples will give you a solid market research plan for understanding who your users are and what they want from a company like yours.

1. Create simple user personas

A user persona is a semi-fictional character based on psychographic and demographic data from people who use websites and products similar to your own. Start by defining broad user categories, then elaborate on them later to further segment your customer base and determine your ideal customer profile .

How to get the data: use on-page or emailed surveys and interviews to understand your users and what drives them to your business.

How to do it right: whatever survey or interview questions you ask, they should answer the following questions about the customer:

Who are they?

What is their main goal?

What is their main barrier to achieving this goal?

Pitfalls to avoid:

Don’t ask too many questions! Keep it to five or less, otherwise you’ll inundate them and they’ll stop answering thoughtfully.

Don’t worry too much about typical demographic questions like age or background. Instead, focus on the role these people play (as it relates to your product) and their goals.

How Smallpdf did it: Smallpdf ran an on-page survey for a couple of weeks and received 1,000 replies. They learned that many of their users were administrative assistants, students, and teachers.

Next, they used the survey results to create simple user personas like this one for admins:

Who are they? Administrative Assistants.

What is their main goal? Creating Word documents from a scanned, hard-copy document or a PDF where the source file was lost.

What is their main barrier to achieving it? Converting a scanned PDF doc to a Word file.

💡Pro tip: Smallpdf used Hotjar Surveys to run their user persona survey. Our survey tool helped them avoid the pitfalls of guesswork and find out who their users really are, in their own words. 

You can design a survey and start running it in minutes with our easy-to-use drag and drop builder. Customize your survey to fit your needs, from a sleek one-question pop-up survey to a fully branded questionnaire sent via email. 

We've also created 40+ free survey templates that you can start collecting data with, including a user persona survey like the one Smallpdf used.

2. Conduct observational research

Observational research involves taking notes while watching someone use your product (or a similar product).

Overt vs. covert observation

Overt observation involves asking customers if they’ll let you watch them use your product. This method is often used for user testing and it provides a great opportunity for collecting live product or customer feedback .

Covert observation means studying users ‘in the wild’ without them knowing. This method works well if you sell a type of product that people use regularly, and it offers the purest observational data because people often behave differently when they know they’re being watched. 

Tips to do it right:

Record an entry in your field notes, along with a timestamp, each time an action or event occurs.

Make note of the users' workflow, capturing the ‘what,’ ‘why,’ and ‘for whom’ of each action.

Don’t record identifiable video or audio data without consent. If recording people using your product is helpful for achieving your research goal, make sure all participants are informed and agree to the terms.

Don’t forget to explain why you’d like to observe them (for overt observation). People are more likely to cooperate if you tell them you want to improve the product.

💡Pro tip: while conducting field research out in the wild can wield rewarding results, you can also conduct observational research remotely. Hotjar Recordings is a tool that lets you capture anonymized user sessions of real people interacting with your website. 

Observe how customers navigate your pages and products to gain an inside look into their user behavior . This method is great for conducting exploratory research with the purpose of identifying more specific issues to investigate further, like pain points along the customer journey and opportunities for optimizing conversion .

With Hotjar Recordings you can observe real people using your site without capturing their sensitive information

How Smallpdf did it: here’s how Smallpdf observed two different user personas both covertly and overtly.

Observing students (covert): Kristina Wagner, Principle Product Manager at Smallpdf, went to cafes and libraries at two local universities and waited until she saw students doing PDF-related activities. Then she watched and took notes from a distance. One thing that struck her was the difference between how students self-reported their activities vs. how they behaved (i.e, the self-reporting bias). Students, she found, spent hours talking, listening to music, or simply staring at a blank screen rather than working. When she did find students who were working, she recorded the task they were performing and the software they were using (if she recognized it).

Observing administrative assistants (overt): Kristina sent emails to admins explaining that she’d like to observe them at work, and she asked those who agreed to try to batch their PDF work for her observation day. While watching admins work, she learned that they frequently needed to scan documents into PDF-format and then convert those PDFs into Word docs. By observing the challenges admins faced, Smallpdf knew which products to target for improvement.

“Data is really good for discovery and validation, but there is a bit in the middle where you have to go and find the human.”

3. Conduct individual interviews

Interviews are one-on-one conversations with members of your target market. They allow you to dig deep and explore their concerns, which can lead to all sorts of revelations.

Listen more, talk less. Be curious.

Act like a journalist, not a salesperson. Rather than trying to talk your company up, ask people about their lives, their needs, their frustrations, and how a product like yours could help.

Ask "why?" so you can dig deeper. Get into the specifics and learn about their past behavior.

Record the conversation. Focus on the conversation and avoid relying solely on notes by recording the interview. There are plenty of services that will transcribe recorded conversations for a good price (including Hotjar!).

Avoid asking leading questions , which reveal bias on your part and pushes respondents to answer in a certain direction (e.g. “Have you taken advantage of the amazing new features we just released?).

Don't ask loaded questions , which sneak in an assumption which, if untrue, would make it impossible to answer honestly. For example, we can’t ask you, “What did you find most useful about this article?” without asking whether you found the article useful in the first place.

Be cautious when asking opinions about the future (or predictions of future behavior). Studies suggest that people aren’t very good at predicting their future behavior. This is due to several cognitive biases, from the misguided exceptionalism bias (we’re good at guessing what others will do, but we somehow think we’re different), to the optimism bias (which makes us see things with rose-colored glasses), to the ‘illusion of control’ (which makes us forget the role of randomness in future events).

How Smallpdf did it: Kristina explored her teacher user persona by speaking with university professors at a local graduate school. She learned that the school was mostly paperless and rarely used PDFs, so for the sake of time, she moved on to the admins.

A bit of a letdown? Sure. But this story highlights an important lesson: sometimes you follow a lead and come up short, so you have to make adjustments on the fly. Lean market research is about getting solid, actionable insights quickly so you can tweak things and see what works.

💡Pro tip: to save even more time, conduct remote interviews using an online user research service like Hotjar Engage , which automates the entire interview process, from recruitment and scheduling to hosting and recording.

You can interview your own customers or connect with people from our diverse pool of 200,000+ participants from 130+ countries and 25 industries. And no need to fret about taking meticulous notes—Engage will automatically transcribe the interview for you.

4. Analyze the data (without drowning in it)

The following techniques will help you wrap your head around the market data you collect without losing yourself in it. Remember, the point of lean market research is to find quick, actionable insights.

A flow model is a diagram that tracks the flow of information within a system. By creating a simple visual representation of how users interact with your product and each other, you can better assess their needs.

You’ll notice that admins are at the center of Smallpdf’s flow model, which represents the flow of PDF-related documents throughout a school. This flow model shows the challenges that admins face as they work to satisfy their own internal and external customers.

Affinity diagram

An affinity diagram is a way of sorting large amounts of data into groups to better understand the big picture. For example, if you ask your users about their profession, you’ll notice some general themes start to form, even though the individual responses differ. Depending on your needs, you could group them by profession, or more generally by industry.

We wrote a guide about how to analyze open-ended questions to help you sort through and categorize large volumes of response data. You can also do this by hand by clipping up survey responses or interview notes and grouping them (which is what Kristina does).

“For an interview, you will have somewhere between 30 and 60 notes, and those notes are usually direct phrases. And when you literally cut them up into separate pieces of paper and group them, they should make sense by themselves.”

Pro tip: if you’re conducting an online survey with Hotjar, keep your team in the loop by sharing survey responses automatically via our Slack and Microsoft Team integrations. Reading answers as they come in lets you digest the data in pieces and can help prepare you for identifying common themes when it comes time for analysis.

Hotjar lets you easily share survey responses with your team

Customer journey map

A customer journey map is a diagram that shows the way a typical prospect becomes a paying customer. It outlines their first interaction with your brand and every step in the sales cycle, from awareness to repurchase (and hopefully advocacy).

The above  customer journey map , created by our team at Hotjar, shows many ways a customer might engage with our tool. Your map will be based on your own data and business model.

📚 Read more: if you’re new to customer journey maps, we wrote this step-by-step guide to creating your first customer journey map in 2 and 1/2 days with free templates you can download and start using immediately.

Next steps: from research to results

So, how do you turn market research insights into tangible business results? Let’s look at the actions Smallpdf took after conducting their lean market research: first they implemented changes, then measured the impact.

Implement changes

Based on what Smallpdf learned about the challenges that one key user segment (admins) face when trying to convert PDFs into Word files, they improved their ‘PDF to Word’ conversion tool.

We won’t go into the details here because it involves a lot of technical jargon, but they made the entire process simpler and more straightforward for users. Plus, they made it so that their system recognized when you drop a PDF file into their ‘Word to PDF’ converter instead of the ‘PDF to Word’ converter, so users wouldn’t have to redo the task when they made that mistake. 

In other words: simple market segmentation for admins showed a business need that had to be accounted for, and customers are happier overall after Smallpdf implemented an informed change to their product.

Measure results

According to the Lean UX model, product and UX changes aren’t retained unless they achieve results.

Smallpdf’s changes produced:

A 75% reduction in error rate for the ‘PDF to Word’ converter

A 1% increase in NPS

Greater confidence in the team’s marketing efforts

"With all the changes said and done, we've cut our original error rate in four, which is huge. We increased our NPS by +1%, which isn't huge, but it means that of the users who received a file, they were still slightly happier than before, even if they didn't notice that anything special happened at all.”

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Market research (or marketing research) is any set of techniques used to gather information and better understand a company’s target market. This might include primary research on brand awareness and customer satisfaction or secondary market research on market size and competitive analysis. Businesses use this information to design better products, improve user experience, and craft a marketing strategy that attracts quality leads and improves conversion rates.

David Darmanin, one of Hotjar’s founders, launched two startups before Hotjar took off—but both companies crashed and burned. Each time, he and his team spent months trying to design an amazing new product and user experience, but they failed because they didn’t have a clear understanding of what the market demanded.

With Hotjar, they did things differently . Long story short, they conducted market research in the early stages to figure out what consumers really wanted, and the team made (and continues to make) constant improvements based on market and user research.

Without market research, it’s impossible to understand your users. Sure, you might have a general idea of who they are and what they need, but you have to dig deep if you want to win their loyalty.

Here’s why research matters:

Obsessing over your users is the only way to win. If you don’t care deeply about them, you’ll lose potential customers to someone who does.

Analytics gives you the ‘what’, while research gives you the ‘why’. Big data, user analytics , and dashboards can tell you what people do at scale, but only research can tell you what they’re thinking and why they do what they do. For example, analytics can tell you that customers leave when they reach your pricing page, but only research can explain why.

Research beats assumptions, trends, and so-called best practices. Have you ever watched your colleagues rally behind a terrible decision? Bad ideas are often the result of guesswork, emotional reasoning, death by best practices , and defaulting to the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion (HiPPO). By listening to your users and focusing on their customer experience , you’re less likely to get pulled in the wrong direction.

Research keeps you from planning in a vacuum. Your team might be amazing, but you and your colleagues simply can’t experience your product the way your customers do. Customers might use your product in a way that surprises you, and product features that seem obvious to you might confuse them. Over-planning and refusing to test your assumptions is a waste of time, money, and effort because you’ll likely need to make changes once your untested business plan gets put into practice.

Lean User Experience (UX) design is a model for continuous improvement that relies on quick, efficient research to understand customer needs and test new product features.

Lean market research can help you become more...

Efficient: it gets you closer to your customers, faster.

Cost-effective: no need to hire an expensive marketing firm to get things started.

Competitive: quick, powerful insights can place your products on the cutting edge.

As a small business or sole proprietor, conducting lean market research is an attractive option when investing in a full-blown research project might seem out of scope or budget.

There are lots of different ways you could conduct market research and collect customer data, but you don’t have to limit yourself to just one research method. Four common types of market research techniques include surveys, interviews, focus groups, and customer observation.

Which method you use may vary based on your business type: ecommerce business owners have different goals from SaaS businesses, so it’s typically prudent to mix and match these methods based on your particular goals and what you need to know.

1. Surveys: the most commonly used

Surveys are a form of qualitative research that ask respondents a short series of open- or closed-ended questions, which can be delivered as an on-screen questionnaire or via email. When we asked 2,000 Customer Experience (CX) professionals about their company’s approach to research , surveys proved to be the most commonly used market research technique.

What makes online surveys so popular?  

They’re easy and inexpensive to conduct, and you can do a lot of data collection quickly. Plus, the data is pretty straightforward to analyze, even when you have to analyze open-ended questions whose answers might initially appear difficult to categorize.

We've built a number of survey templates ready and waiting for you. Grab a template and share with your customers in just a few clicks.

💡 Pro tip: you can also get started with Hotjar AI for Surveys to create a survey in mere seconds . Just enter your market research goal and watch as the AI generates a survey and populates it with relevant questions. 

Once you’re ready for data analysis, the AI will prepare an automated research report that succinctly summarizes key findings, quotes, and suggested next steps.

An example research report generated by Hotjar AI for Surveys

2. Interviews: the most insightful

Interviews are one-on-one conversations with members of your target market. Nothing beats a face-to-face interview for diving deep (and reading non-verbal cues), but if an in-person meeting isn’t possible, video conferencing is a solid second choice.

Regardless of how you conduct it, any type of in-depth interview will produce big benefits in understanding your target customers.

What makes interviews so insightful?

By speaking directly with an ideal customer, you’ll gain greater empathy for their experience , and you can follow insightful threads that can produce plenty of 'Aha!' moments.

3. Focus groups: the most unreliable

Focus groups bring together a carefully selected group of people who fit a company’s target market. A trained moderator leads a conversation surrounding the product, user experience, or marketing message to gain deeper insights.

What makes focus groups so unreliable?

If you’re new to market research, we wouldn’t recommend starting with focus groups. Doing it right is expensive , and if you cut corners, your research could fall victim to all kinds of errors. Dominance bias (when a forceful participant influences the group) and moderator style bias (when different moderator personalities bring about different results in the same study) are two of the many ways your focus group data could get skewed.

4. Observation: the most powerful

During a customer observation session, someone from the company takes notes while they watch an ideal user engage with their product (or a similar product from a competitor).

What makes observation so clever and powerful?

‘Fly-on-the-wall’ observation is a great alternative to focus groups. It’s not only less expensive, but you’ll see people interact with your product in a natural setting without influencing each other. The only downside is that you can’t get inside their heads, so observation still isn't a recommended replacement for customer surveys and interviews.

The following questions will help you get to know your users on a deeper level when you interview them. They’re general questions, of course, so don’t be afraid to make them your own.

1. Who are you and what do you do?

How you ask this question, and what you want to know, will vary depending on your business model (e.g. business-to-business marketing is usually more focused on someone’s profession than business-to-consumer marketing).

It’s a great question to start with, and it’ll help you understand what’s relevant about your user demographics (age, race, gender, profession, education, etc.), but it’s not the be-all-end-all of market research. The more specific questions come later.

2. What does your day look like?

This question helps you understand your users’ day-to-day life and the challenges they face. It will help you gain empathy for them, and you may stumble across something relevant to their buying habits.

3. Do you ever purchase [product/service type]?

This is a ‘yes or no’ question. A ‘yes’ will lead you to the next question.

4. What problem were you trying to solve or what goal were you trying to achieve?

This question strikes to the core of what someone’s trying to accomplish and why they might be willing to pay for your solution.

5. Take me back to the day when you first decided you needed to solve this kind of problem or achieve this goal.

This is the golden question, and it comes from Adele Revella, Founder and CEO of Buyer Persona Institute . It helps you get in the heads of your users and figure out what they were thinking the day they decided to spend money to solve a problem.

If you take your time with this question, digging deeper where it makes sense, you should be able to answer all the relevant information you need to understand their perspective.

“The only scripted question I want you to ask them is this one: take me back to the day when you first decided that you needed to solve this kind of problem or achieve this kind of a goal. Not to buy my product, that’s not the day. We want to go back to the day that when you thought it was urgent and compelling to go spend money to solve a particular problem or achieve a goal. Just tell me what happened.”

— Adele Revella , Founder/CEO at Buyer Persona Institute

Bonus question: is there anything else you’d like to tell me?

This question isn’t just a nice way to wrap it up—it might just give participants the opportunity they need to tell you something you really need to know.

That’s why Sarah Doody, author of UX Notebook , adds it to the end of her written surveys.

“I always have a last question, which is just open-ended: “Is there anything else you would like to tell me?” And sometimes, that’s where you get four paragraphs of amazing content that you would never have gotten if it was just a Net Promoter Score [survey] or something like that.”

What is the difference between qualitative and quantitative research?

Qualitative research asks questions that can’t be reduced to a number, such as, “What is your job title?” or “What did you like most about your customer service experience?” 

Quantitative research asks questions that can be answered with a numeric value, such as, “What is your annual salary?” or “How was your customer service experience on a scale of 1-5?”

 → Read more about the differences between qualitative and quantitative user research .

How do I do my own market research?

You can do your own quick and effective market research by 

Surveying your customers

Building user personas

Studying your users through interviews and observation

Wrapping your head around your data with tools like flow models, affinity diagrams, and customer journey maps

What is the difference between market research and user research?

Market research takes a broad look at potential customers—what problems they’re trying to solve, their buying experience, and overall demand. User research, on the other hand, is more narrowly focused on the use (and usability ) of specific products.

What are the main criticisms of market research?

Many marketing professionals are critical of market research because it can be expensive and time-consuming. It’s often easier to convince your CEO or CMO to let you do lean market research rather than something more extensive because you can do it yourself. It also gives you quick answers so you can stay ahead of the competition.

Do I need a market research firm to get reliable data?

Absolutely not! In fact, we recommend that you start small and do it yourself in the beginning. By following a lean market research strategy, you can uncover some solid insights about your clients. Then you can make changes, test them out, and see whether the results are positive. This is an excellent strategy for making quick changes and remaining competitive.

Net Promoter, Net Promoter System, Net Promoter Score, NPS, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld, and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.

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How to Develop A Market Research Plan

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Market research can often get de-prioritized. Yet, having an effective market research can be a game changer for your marketing strategy.

By taking the time to craft a goal-oriented market research plan , you can ensure that your team is keeping its focus on high value initiatives that will either give you a leg up on the competition, strengthen your connection with your audience, or both.

But what does a effective, goal-oriented market research plan look like? We’ve compiled dozens (if not hundreds) here at Alchemer, and these are what we’ve found to be key drivers of success.

4 Common Market Research Areas

Most market research surveys are conducted to gain insight about the target audience and ways to expand market reach. Here are some common market research types:

Brand Awareness: Brand awareness studies measure consumers’ awareness of your product or service.

They are usually anonymous and ask consumers how familiar they are with a brand, or what familiar brands they recall for a particular product or service. These studies often include questions about buying behavior (usage, convenience, attributes, price, etc.).

Brand awareness studies will help you determine your brand’s relative position in the marketplace and where your competitors may have an edge.

Target Audience: You can’t afford to target everyone. Knowing who your target audience is will help you craft relevant messages that resonate with them. By focusing on those who are most likely to purchase from you can prioritize your marketing spend and get the best possible ROI.

Customer Acquisition: To acquire new customers, you need to understand what makes them tick. Surveying your ideal customers can be a great way to learn how and why they chose your brand so you can acquire more customers like them.

Customer Retention: As marketers, we know that it is cheaper to retain current customers than acquire new ones. Conduct market research to measure customer satisfaction, increase customer loyalty, and drive up those retention numbers.

What Market Research Can Tell You

Simply knowing these common subjects of market research is a great place to start, but you also need a strong understanding of what you hope to learn at the end of the process.

A well-designed market research survey can help you determine whether you need to:

• Enter a new market
• Launch a new product or service
• Promote brand awareness
• Optimize your marketing campaign
• Improve customer service
• Change messaging perception of your product or service
• Adjust price points
• Change your product packaging or delivery method

Once you’ve identified your objectives, it’s time to start creating the plan itself.

5 Success Tips for Market Research Surveys

These are our top five tips for giving your market research the best chance for success.

1. Define Your Marketing Challenge

The first step to designing a good market research plan is to define your need. What issue do you want to address? What do you hope to achieve? Set a survey goal to keep your market research focused on the decisions you are trying to make.

You may need to conduct a qualitative research study first to identify which issue is the most pressing or test a hypothesis. This exploratory market survey can be distributed to a focus group, or you could conduct a phone or personal interview.

Social media has become increasingly popular for gauging people’s interest and is a great way to engage your audience around a topic you would like to address. You can post a short survey or a one question poll to quickly test your hypothesis before conducting a full study.

2. Craft Your Survey Questions Carefully

With your market research goal in mind, you are ready to design and build your survey questions.

Since the exploratory phase has already been completed, the majority of your questions should be of a quantitative nature. Quantifiable data will give you data you can act on. You can use a few qualitative questions, but keep these to a minimum to avoid survey fatigue and abandonment.

Only ask questions that are relevant to your objectives. Asking the wrong questions will result in misleading answers that in turn will lead to poor business decisions.

Knowing how to ask a question is just as important as what to ask. Avoid leading questions and be aware of sensitive questions that some respondents may find too personal or offensive. Keep your questions simple, specific and direct.

3. Distribute Your Research Survey to the Right Audience

Before you start collecting data, you need to consider the sample size needed to draw a statistically sound conclusion, as well as the distribution method that’s needed to reach the audience you’re after.

Market Sample Size

It is not realistic to think that you will be able to survey your entire target population, but you do need an adequate percentage and a representative cross-section of your consumer base.

If there are variations in your target population or if you are interested in finding statistically significant differences between subgroups in the sample, the sample size should be adjusted for these goals. You can read more about the intricacies of these types of analysis survey sample size here.

Survey Distribution Method

Choosing the right distribution method to collect your data is important, because the distribution method determines the audience you can access. Additionally, different modes introduce different forms of bias.

Carefully consider your target audience and then find the best channel for reaching them.

For instance, if your target audience is an older demographic group, social media or internet channels may not be the best distribution options. Direct mail, phone, or personal interview may be the best option for reaching this audience.

If, however, your audience is young and active, social media, email invitations, mobile surveys, or a survey embedded on your website may be the way to go. Also consider other distribution methods, such as QR code or web addresses on receipts, newsletters, and printed brochures to expand your survey’s reach.

4. Review Your New Market Research Data

Before you report and share your results, there are several steps you should take to review and prepare your data.

Clean your survey data:

Consider cleaning your survey data to locate any low-quality responses that could distort your conclusions.

Identify and weed out responses that have straight-line, Christmas tree, red herring, and/or outlier patterns.

You may also need to keep an eye on completion times; people who finish considerably faster than average may not be giving the questions their full attention.

Analyze your data:

Analyze the data to determine if your questions were answered in the format you expected. Unusual trends could indicate a problem with the question or question type.

If so, you may need to discount the question or run another study related to the learning objective.

Segment your data:

Filter your report by population segments to see if you have a ratio that accurate represents the demographics of your audience. If not, you may need to adjust the weight of your responses.

You can also segment your data by learning objective so that you can identify trends and patterns.

Report your results:

It’s time to highlight and share your findings! Consider data visualizations such as pie charts, bar graphs, and infographics that help to visually convey your message.

These visuals can drive home your data without requiring your audience to read each individual response.

5. Make Data-Driven Marketing Decisions

Armed with your market research data, you can confidently make sound marketing decisions. You can proceed with new campaigns with confidence, knowing that you’ve gotten in touch with your audience directly and can create relevant messages.

Plan Your Next Online Market Research Survey

Budgeting and planning your market research can save you time, effort, and money in the long run by ensuring that you are targeting the right audience, investing in the right sectors, and delivering the right branding message.

A well-designed marketing plan allows you to make tactical and strategic business decisions with confidence. So start planning your next market research survey!

Discussion: How often to you conduct a market research study? Share how your organization has benefited from them!

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Business Research

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• Marketing Plans

Creating a Marketing Plan

I. executive summary, ii. situation analysis, iii. market analysis, iv. market strategy, v. financial analysis, vi. implementation and control, additional sources of information.

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A marketing plan is one component of a  business plan. Marketing plans contain information about a company's products and/or services and discuss how potential customers will be identified and how the company's products and/or services will be marketed to them.

Putting together a marketing plan is a time-intensive process that involves conducting a great deal of research using a variety of different resources and then synthesizing that research into one cohesive document that provides a detailed discussion of a company's target market, its competitors, industry trends, etc.

Below is a list of some of the elements generally included in a marketing plan, as well as -- for some of the elements -- suggestions on where to find more information regarding that element.

A brief synopsis of the marketing plan that provides highlights about a company's offerings and marketing strategies

Presents pertinent information about a company. Commonly included sections include:

• Mission statement  - explains a company's purpose, goals, and/or strategy. See  Finding a Company's Mission Statement  for more information about how to find existing company mission statements and how to write a mission statement.  
• Product or service description  - provides a detailed description of a company's products and/or services  
• Value proposition  - explains the benefits that customers will receive from a company's products and/or services. For more information, see  How to Create an Effective Value Proposition .  
• SWOT analysis  - explains a company's internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as its external opportunities and threats. For more information, see  SWOT Analysis Research .  
• Critical issues  - outlines the strategy that would best utilize a company's strengths and opportunities while minimizing the effects of its weaknesses and threats

includes information about market trends and dynamics, as well as about the target market and the competitive environment. Commonly included sections are:

• Macro environment  - includes information about the political, economic, social, and technological factors affecting a company, as well as information about the industry in which the company operates   Suggested resources: For information about establishing a company in another country, see  Finding Country Information . For information about establishing a company in a U.S. city or town, use Google, Bing, or another search engine to find the city's or town's chamber of commerce, which will provide information about existing area businesses and may provide information about establishing a new business in a particular locale, etc. For economic information, see  Economic Surveys in the Economic Census  and/or  Economic Indicators  and/or  Federal Reserve Economic Data . For demographic and psychographic information, see  Finding Demographic or Psychographic Information . For technology research, search in some of the Library's  Marketing databases , using a search strategy such as  [your topic] AND technolog* For industry research, see  Finding Industry Overviews  and  Finding Industry Trends and Projections .
• Market size  - discusses current market size as well as expected growth rate. See  Finding Market Size Information .  
• Market trends  - discusses the market factors that may affect purchasing behavior. See  Conducting Market Research  and/or  Finding Industry Trends and Projections.  
• Target market analysis  - explains which particular population will be the focus of a company's marketing efforts and why the population's characteristics are relevant to the company's marketing plans  
• Consumer analysis  - discusses demographic, psychographic, and behavior characteristics of the target market identified above. Search in some of the Library's  Marketing databases , using a search strategy such as [your target market] AND (demograph* OR psychograph* OR "consumer behavior")  
• Need analysis  - explains what needs the target market has and how a company's products and/or services could meet those needs. Target market needs may be identified from the consumer analysis conducted above.  
• Competitive analysis  - lists a company's major competitors and their marketing strategies. See  Finding a Company's Competitors  to find a company's major competitors. To find those companies' marketing strategies, search in some of the Library's  Marketing databases , using a search strategy such as [company name] AND "market* strategy"

Provides measurable information about how a company will meet its objectives and the time frame in which it will do this

• Marketing objectives  - describes a company's goals, usually in terms of sales (units or dollars) or market share  
• Financial objectives  - describes a company's expected profits or revenue  
• Positioning strategy  - discusses how a company's products or services will be introduced to the marketplace and differentiated from the products or services of its competitors  
• Product strategy  - provides detailed information about a company's products or services, including potential future offerings  
• Price strategy  - explains how a company's products or services will be priced, taking into account internal as well as external factors that may affect supply and demand, etc.  
• Distribution strategy  - describes where and how a company's products or services will be provided to customers  
• Integrated marketing communications strategy  - discusses how customers will be informed about a company's products or services  
• Branding strategy  - describes how a company's name, logo, slogan, design, etc. will be marketed so that they will be increasingly recognized by members of the company's target market. For more information, see  Brand Management .  
• Marketing research  - describes the market research activities that will be conducted during the period for which the marketing plan is being written -- for example, consumer research, industry research, forecasting, competitive analysis, etc.

Provides detailed information about a company's projected financial situation

• Break-even analysis  - estimates how much of a company's products or services need to be sold in order to cover the company's costs  
• Sales forecast  - estimates a company's sales for a given period of time. For more information, see  Business Forecasting .  
• Expense forecast  - lists the marketing expenses needed to achieve a company's marketing objectives

Explains how a company's marketing plan will be implemented and what measures the company could in place in order to handle unexpected events

• Implementation  - provides a detailed timeline for the execution of the various activities described in the company's marketing plan  
• Controls  - discusses the benchmarks a company will use to chart its progress against its implementation schedule  
• Marketing organization chart  - outlines the structure of a company's marketing team, specifying which person is responsible for which marketing activity  
• Contingency planning  - explains how a company will handle unexpected events

The print books, ebooks, and websites listed below are good sources of additional information about marketing plans and the various elements that make up such plans.

Print books

• 30-minute social media marketing: Step-by-step techniques to spread the word about your business fast and free
• Guerrilla marketing in 30 days
• How to make money with social media: An insider's guide on using new and emerging media to grow your business
• Marketing plan handbook: Develop big picture marketing plans for pennies on the dollar
• The procrastinator's guide to marketing, or how to get off your butt and develop your marketing plan!
• 30 minutes to write a marketing plan
• Direct marketing: Strategy, planning, execution
• How to write a successful marketing plan: A disciplined and comprehensive approach
• The marketing plan: How to prepare and implement it
• Understanding consumer decision making: The means-end approach to marketing and advertising strategy
• Entrepreneur: How to create a marketing plan This site, affiliated with the print Entrepreneur magazine, explains what marketing plans are and how to do the research needed to write one.
• Mplans: How to write a marketing plan This site contains links to articles that describe the planning process for creating a marketing plan and that give tips for writing effective plans.
• Mplans: Sample marketing plans This site provides access to hundreds of free sample marketing plans in a variety of categories.
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How to Do Market Research

Noah Parsons

18 min. read

Updated February 21, 2024

One of the biggest and most expensive mistakes I’ve made in my business career could have been avoided by doing a little homework.

In the late 2000s, my team and I came up with what we thought was a great idea for a product . Tons of businesses would need it, and it was almost guaranteed to be a huge hit!

But, we neglected to do our market research. 

We ended up with a product searching for a market instead of figuring out who our ideal customer was and building a product specifically for them.

You can avoid making this same mistake. 

Let’s learn from my experience and go over the basics of how to conduct market research. 

• What is market research?

Market research is the process of gathering information about your potential customers. 

It helps you define your target market, craft customer personas , and understand the viability of your business, by answering questions like: 

• Who are your customers?
• What are their buying and shopping habits?
• How many of them are there? 

By exploring your ideal customers’ problems, desires, and current solutions, you can build your product, service, and overall business strategy to better serve them.

• Why is market research important?

When starting a business , conducting market research to get to know your customers is one of the most important things you can do. 

If you don’t understand your customer, you don’t know:

• How you can solve their problems . 
• What kind of marketing messages and advertising work. 
• If your product or service is actually something your customers will spend money on.

Beyond that, market research can help you:

• Reduce risk: Inform critical decisions with real-world data.
• Understand your competitors: Know how competitors and alternatives to your business represent themselves in pricing, quality, and placement.
• Identify market trends: Stay ahead by spotting emerging trends and shifts in the market.
• Enhance customer experience: Improve customer satisfaction by addressing their pain points.

Gathering data on your customers should become a regular practice for your business. 

The more in tune you are with your customers, the better you can serve them and the more likely you are to grow your business. You should never just let assumptions about your customers drive business decisions.

Developing primary and secondary data through market research is how you get an accurate reflection of your customers’ needs.

Further Reading: 6 things to consider before entering a market

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Things to consider before conducting market research

Market research can be incredibly time-consuming (and even a waste of time) when done without the right preparation.

Here are a few questions to answer to help ensure you make the most of your efforts.

What are your objectives?

A research objective is a stated purpose that explains why you’re doing market research. It should include a specific result you intend to achieve, using available resources within a certain time frame. 

Without an objective, you’ll pour over a sea of data without knowing what you’re looking for. And if you speak to customers without a goal, you’ll struggle to ask useful questions and dig deeper.

Don’t overthink it.

Your objective should be easy to understand and connected to your business needs. 

For example, if you’re just starting, your objective may be to verify before investing in production if your chosen customer base is interested and willing to purchase your product or service.

What research methods will you use?

You don’t need to have every question prepped or a list of people to interview at the start—but you should know what research methods you intend to use.

The research options you choose will impact the data you collect, and the time it will take to complete it. By doing this ahead of time, you’ll be better prepared to create a timeline of when to take specific actions and what milestones to hit to stay on track.

What tools and resources do you need?

You likely won’t know every resource you’ll need until you start doing research. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t be proactive. 

If you know the methods you’ll be using, research what tools you’ll need to:

• Conduct interviews
• Create surveys
• Observe customer behavior

If you use third-party data, identify reputable sources to provide the information you want.

• How to conduct market research

Every business will do market research differently. The sources, the methods of data collection, and how you’ll use that data are entirely up to you. 

However, the core steps you should take remain the same. Here’s my recommendation for how to structure your research efforts:

1. Start by identifying your target market

Imagine that someone walks into your business, reaches out online, or picks up the phone and calls you. 

It’s your perfect customer: someone who has the problem that you solve and is willing to spend money on your solution. 

Now imagine the details about this person. Who are they? Can you describe them?

Ideal customers and common traits

This “ideal customer” is your target market . Your business might have several target markets, but it will usually serve you best to keep your list of target customers to two or three.

Each of your target markets should share common traits . These might be demographic traits such as: 

• Income levels
• Locations 

They might be psychographic traits—groups of people that like the same things or have similar interests. Or, your target market might be a certain type of employee at another company, such as a Chief Technology Officer or head of marketing.

Most often, target markets are blends of demographic and psychographic groups. For example, you might develop a new type of shoe targeted at female triathletes. Or you might be opening a hair salon targeting urban, hipster men.

Further Reading: Why niche audiences are important and how to find yours

Market segmentation

Creating multiple target markets for your company is doing what’s called “ market segmentation .” 

This sounds complex, but all you’re doing is dividing your target markets into different groups you hope to sell to. Each market segment might have different characteristics and buy your product or service for different reasons.

You might create different marketing campaigns or customize your product or service for each segment.

Further Reading:

Target marketing explained

Your target market is your ideal customer who needs your solution. They share common traits like age, gender, income, interests, or job roles. To start, focus your efforts on one target customer.

Consider focusing on a younger audience

Younger consumers are often overlooked in favor of older customers who currently make purchasing decisions. However, if you can crack the interests of a younger audience, it may lead to long-term loyalty.

2. Find out if your market is big enough

Are there enough potential customers to sustain you and your competitors? If the answer is no, then you need to consider changing your product or service offering.

Use the attributes you defined in the target market step and determine how many people meet your demographic, psychographic, or location criteria. I’ve got some links to resources to help you figure this out at the end of this article.

For example: If your target market only has a few thousand potential customers, you must either sell to them frequently or at a fairly high price to create a sustainable, profitable business.

Further Reading: How to use TAM, SAM, SOM to determine market size

If you are targeting an existing market with established competitors, you do what’s called industry research . 

For example, perhaps you are building a new company in the market for sports drinks or the market for cell phones. In cases like this, understanding how much people buy of existing offerings will give you the best sense of your potential market size. 

In this case, you want to look for industry reports and read trade publications for your industry. These publications often summarize the market size.

Further Reading: Differences between industry and market research explained

3. Talk to your potential customers

Once you have identified your target market, or at least made a good guess at who your target market is, you need to take the most important step in this entire market research process. 

You need to get up from your desk, leave behind your computer, and go outside. That’s right, you need to go and talk to people in your potential target markets. 

Yes, you can do online surveys and other research, but that’s no substitute for actually talking to potential customers. 

You’ll gain more insight into your customers through first-hand accounts than any survey will ever tell you.

Do this one thing, and you’ll be miles ahead of your competition. Why? Because most people skip this step. It’s intimidating to talk to strangers. What if they don’t want to buy what you plan on making?

So, don’t be like most entrepreneurs (including me!) and skip this critical step. 

It can mean the difference between success and failure. Getting this step done early will help you refine your business model and make a clear impact on your future success.

Further Reading: How to Create a Market Penetration Strategy  

4. Identify and analyze your competitors

Part of understanding your customers is knowing what solutions they already use. 

These are your competitors, and they may directly compete with you or provide a reasonable substitution customers settle for. 

You’ll understand how to position your business to take advantage of potential opportunities and mitigate risks by analyzing who they are, what they do, and how customers respond.  

Document your known competitors

To keep things simple, start by listing your known competitors . Account for businesses that offer a similar product/service, and those that indirectly compete with their solution or industry expertise. 

Example:   You operate an outdoor goods retail store. Your mission is to provide hands-on direction for customers to find camping, hiking, and survival gear that they will love. You offer a wide selection of well-known brands, local options, and in-house creations.

Your direct competitors are the large brands themselves, less niche retail stores, and online sellers. You must also account for other businesses that provide expert-level information on outdoor activities. 

They likely don’t sell the products, but may provide guided tours, reviews, or other insights that overlap with your business. 

Analyze your competitors

Once you have your list, it’s time to get to know the competition. Check out their websites, social media, customer reviews, and news stories from the last year. 

Sign up for their email lists, visit their stores (if they have them), and track down any industry reports that give you an idea of their size, performance, and strategic direction.

You don’t have to do everything I just listed. But you must go deep enough to clearly understand your competitors and why potential customers may choose them over you. 

It may even be useful to use the SWOT analysis framework to provide additional structure for your research. 

Further Reading: 10 ways to determine what your competitors are doing

5. Document your findings

The final (and easiest) step is to document your findings. How formal your documentation is will depend on how you plan on using it.

If you only need to share your findings with business partners and others in your business, then you can probably communicate fairly informally. 

However, if you’re looking for investors for your business, you may need to write a more formal market analysis and do a market forecast.

Presenting your market research

The single piece of documentation that every business should create is a buyer persona . 

A persona is a description of a person that hits on all of the key aspects of your target market. And, just like you might have several target markets for your business, you might have several different buyer personas.

Creating a buyer persona converts your target marketing information from dry research into a living, breathing person. 

For LivePlan , we’ve created a persona named Garrett, who drives much of our product development. Garrett embodies the attributes of our ideal customer.

When we think about creating a new marketing campaign or developing a new feature for our products, we ask, “Would Garrett like this?” You can read about the process we used to create Garrett in this article.

How to create a detailed user or buyer persona

Visualizing your customers when reviewing a sea of data can be tricky. So, create a customer persona and turn that data into the living, breathing person you imagine your customer to be.

LivePlan customer persona example

Check out this real-world customer persona used by the business planning and management software LivePlan.

When should you conduct market research?

Market research is vital when starting a business. It will improve your product or service and help you avoid starting a business without customers.

However, market research shouldn’t be exclusive to new businesses. Conditions are bound to change, and you must stay up-to-date on your industry , competitors, and emerging trends. 

Here are a few other business events where market research can make a difference:

• Launching a new product/service or updating current features.
• Expanding into a new market.
• Consistent dips in financial performance. 
• Widespread market changes.
• New competitors enter the market.

Primary vs secondary market research explained

No matter how you decide to gather information, the methods can be boiled down to primary and secondary research. As a business owner, it’s worth understanding the basics of each type of research and how they work together.

What is primary research?

Primary research is the first-hand information collected (by you or someone you’ve hired) from customers within your market. Primary research cuts out the middleman and ensures that the results you are gathering are straight from the source. 

That’s why you should conduct primary research when validating your business idea. 

Furthermore, it can be broken down into two result categories — exploratory and specific.

Exploratory primary research

Exploratory primary research involves non-quantifiable customer feedback. This means you’re not trying to measure results but to record interest or an emotional response. You’ll accomplish this by asking open-ended questions in formats like focus groups or 1:1 interviews.

Asking for open-ended feedback ensures that the results are unfiltered and honest. You aren’t unintentionally leading or hindering their responses. 

Specific primary research

Specific research allows you to dig deeper into issues or opportunities you identified through your exploratory research. 

You may target a smaller segment of customers from the larger group you’ve spoken to, conduct additional interviews, or shift to more quantifiable research such as beta-testing or surveys.

What is secondary research?

Secondary research covers every other piece of data you have available. This includes resources such as:

• Public sources: Typically free and highly accessible information gathered through government-sponsored research projects. 
• Commercial sources: Research studies conducted by private organizations regarding the state of specific markets, industries, or innovations. 
• Internal sources: Data you have collected through everyday business operations. Everything from financial statements to Analytics reports can qualify.

Which is better: primary or secondary research?

Neither primary nor secondary research is better than the other. They simply have different use cases. So, aim for a healthy mix.

When starting, focus on conducting primary research to ensure you get the necessary information to validate your business. 

Compare those findings to secondary resources such as industry benchmarks , market reports, and internal data you’ve collected. 

You’ll likely leverage secondary research more consistently as you grow—but it’s wise to run primary research initiatives occasionally, especially when approaching a strategic decision. Only with both types of research will you fully understand the story of your place in the market. 

Further Reading: Types of market research explained and how to use them

Types of market research to try

1. face-to-face, remote, or phone interviews.

I mentioned this before, but the best thing you can do is get out and talk to your potential or current customers, virtually or in person. 

Be sure you have a refined set of closed and open-ended questions ready, and consider the interviewee’s tone, body language, and interest alongside their answers.

2. Focus groups

Similar to interviews, focus groups can provide direct feedback from your customer mix. Rather than receiving answers or reactions in a bubble, you get to see how customers may act when influenced by others in the market. You can simply ask questions, run product tests, or have them watch a demo.

3. Observational research

Observational research is about watching how potential customers engage with your product or service. You’re attempting to understand what roadblocks or frustrations they may be hitting, what functionality seems to resonate, what they want from your business, etc.

To conduct observational research, you can set up an official testing environment that you control. Or you can just go out and observe your potential customers and see how they shop, make purchases, and what factors encourage or deter them from purchasing.

4. Pricing research

You may include questions about pricing when conducting interviews or focus groups, but you can also specifically develop research around pricing. 

This can be anything from testing different pricing options on your website ( A/B testing ), offering discounts to exclusive segments, or running ad campaigns with different pricing positions. The goal is to understand what your customers are willing to pay and what they consider a fair price .

5. Brand awareness research

This type of research is about understanding if your target market knows about your brand and how much they happen to know. What do they associate with your brand? What competitors come to mind first?

It’s a great way to understand your current market penetration and who your competitors are. You can integrate this type of questioning within your other tests or conduct surveys to get this data.

6. Customer interest

As part of your initial validation process, you should try to understand current customer interest. At its most basic, you’re asking: Are customers willing to buy your product or service? 

You can simply ask questions and look for yes or no answers, but it may be wise to run a limited-time sale or pre-sale to actually line up initial revenue for your business. 

You can offer the chance to purchase during your interviews or focus groups, as well as run pre-orders through a simple landing page or by measuring engagement with a paid ad campaign.

7. Customer satisfaction

This research will help you understand current customer loyalty and what it will take to get customers to come back. Again, you can do this research within focus groups or interviews. 

Still, you can also test loyalty programs, limited-time promotions, customer service initiatives, and other ways to improve customer loyalty. 

Market research tools and resources

Finding market research data depends on the market you are targeting and the industry you are in. 

Here are a few of my go-to sources for market research:

• U.S. Census : If you’re opening a business in the U.S., the U.S. Census site is a goldmine of information. Check out the Census Business Builder to get population data and data on how much people spend in a given area on your type of business.
• Bureau of Labor Statistics : Another U.S.-centric resource, but a fantastic site for information on specific industries: hiring and expense trends as well as industry sizes. If your target market is other businesses, this is a good place to look for data.
• Consumer Expenditure Survey : If you want to know what people spend their money on, this is your source.
• SBDCNet Business Snapshots : You’ll find a great collection of industry profiles that describe how industries are growing and changing, who their customers are, and what typical startup costs are. You should also check out their list of market research resources, sorted by industry .
• ChatGPT : All data generated from AI models like ChatGPT must be verified. But it can still be an excellent market research assistant. With the right prompting, you can generate customer segments, understand their nuances, and prioritize them based on your needs.

Further Reading: 21 best market research resources for small businesses

Market research informs your startup decisions

Effective market research can help you avoid costly mistakes early on in the life of your business. 

However, it should remain a core practice that you regularly implement when approaching crucial business decisions, growth opportunities, or just to reaffirm your understanding of the market. 

Revisit this framework whenever you’re approaching a key strategic decision . Confirm that you still understand your customers, competitors, and where the market is headed.

Then use this information to inform your planning and adjust your strategy if necessary.

Clarify your ideas and understand how to start your business with LivePlan

Noah is the COO at Palo Alto Software, makers of the online business plan app LivePlan. He started his career at Yahoo! and then helped start the user review site Epinions.com. From there he started a software distribution business in the UK before coming to Palo Alto Software to run the marketing and product teams.

Table of Contents

• Before conducting market research
• When to conduct market research
• Primary vs secondary research
• Types of market research
• Tools and resources
• Market research informs your decisions

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How to write a research plan: Step-by-step guide

Last updated

30 January 2024

Reviewed by

Today’s businesses and institutions rely on data and analytics to inform their product and service decisions. These metrics influence how organizations stay competitive and inspire innovation. However, gathering data and insights requires carefully constructed research, and every research project needs a roadmap. This is where a research plan comes into play.

There’s general research planning; then there’s an official, well-executed research plan. Whatever data-driven research project you’re gearing up for, the research plan will be your framework for execution. The plan should also be detailed and thorough, with a diligent set of criteria to formulate your research efforts. Not including these key elements in your plan can be just as harmful as having no plan at all.

Read this step-by-step guide for writing a detailed research plan that can apply to any project, whether it’s scientific, educational, or business-related.

• What is a research plan?

A research plan is a documented overview of a project in its entirety, from end to end. It details the research efforts, participants, and methods needed, along with any anticipated results. It also outlines the project’s goals and mission, creating layers of steps to achieve those goals within a specified timeline.

Without a research plan, you and your team are flying blind, potentially wasting time and resources to pursue research without structured guidance.

The principal investigator, or PI, is responsible for facilitating the research oversight. They will create the research plan and inform team members and stakeholders of every detail relating to the project. The PI will also use the research plan to inform decision-making throughout the project.

• Why do you need a research plan?

Create a research plan before starting any official research to maximize every effort in pursuing and collecting the research data. Crucially, the plan will model the activities needed at each phase of the research project.

Like any roadmap, a research plan serves as a valuable tool providing direction for those involved in the project—both internally and externally. It will keep you and your immediate team organized and task-focused while also providing necessary definitions and timelines so you can execute your project initiatives with full understanding and transparency.

External stakeholders appreciate a working research plan because it’s a great communication tool, documenting progress and changing dynamics as they arise. Any participants of your planned research sessions will be informed about the purpose of your study, while the exercises will be based on the key messaging outlined in the official plan.

Here are some of the benefits of creating a research plan document for every project:

Project organization and structure

Well-informed participants

All stakeholders and teams align in support of the project

Clearly defined project definitions and purposes

Distractions are eliminated, prioritizing task focus

Timely management of individual task schedules and roles

Costly reworks are avoided

• What should a research plan include?

The different aspects of your research plan will depend on the nature of the project. However, most official research plan documents will include the core elements below. Each aims to define the problem statement, devising an official plan for seeking a solution.

Specific project goals and individual objectives

Ideal strategies or methods for reaching those goals

Required resources

Descriptions of the target audience, sample sizes, demographics, and scopes

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

Project background

Research and testing support

Preliminary studies and progress reporting mechanisms

Cost estimates and change order processes

Depending on the research project’s size and scope, your research plan could be brief—perhaps only a few pages of documented plans. Alternatively, it could be a fully comprehensive report. Either way, it’s an essential first step in dictating your project’s facilitation in the most efficient and effective way.

• How to write a research plan for your project

When you start writing your research plan, aim to be detailed about each step, requirement, and idea. The more time you spend curating your research plan, the more precise your research execution efforts will be.

Account for every potential scenario, and be sure to address each and every aspect of the research.

Consider following this flow to develop a great research plan for your project:

Define your project’s purpose

Start by defining your project’s purpose. Identify what your project aims to accomplish and what you are researching. Remember to use clear language.

Thinking about the project’s purpose will help you set realistic goals and inform how you divide tasks and assign responsibilities. These individual tasks will be your stepping stones to reach your overarching goal.

Additionally, you’ll want to identify the specific problem, the usability metrics needed, and the intended solutions.

Know the following three things about your project’s purpose before you outline anything else:

What you’re doing

Why you’re doing it

What you expect from it

Identify individual objectives

With your overarching project objectives in place, you can identify any individual goals or steps needed to reach those objectives. Break them down into phases or steps. You can work backward from the project goal and identify every process required to facilitate it.

Be mindful to identify each unique task so that you can assign responsibilities to various team members. At this point in your research plan development, you’ll also want to assign priority to those smaller, more manageable steps and phases that require more immediate or dedicated attention.

Select research methods

Research methods might include any of the following:

User interviews: this is a qualitative research method where researchers engage with participants in one-on-one or group conversations. The aim is to gather insights into their experiences, preferences, and opinions to uncover patterns, trends, and data.

Field studies: this approach allows for a contextual understanding of behaviors, interactions, and processes in real-world settings. It involves the researcher immersing themselves in the field, conducting observations, interviews, or experiments to gather in-depth insights.

Card sorting: participants categorize information by sorting content cards into groups based on their perceived similarities. You might use this process to gain insights into participants’ mental models and preferences when navigating or organizing information on websites, apps, or other systems.

Focus groups: use organized discussions among select groups of participants to provide relevant views and experiences about a particular topic.

Diary studies: ask participants to record their experiences, thoughts, and activities in a diary over a specified period. This method provides a deeper understanding of user experiences, uncovers patterns, and identifies areas for improvement.

Five-second testing: participants are shown a design, such as a web page or interface, for just five seconds. They then answer questions about their initial impressions and recall, allowing you to evaluate the design’s effectiveness.

Surveys: get feedback from participant groups with structured surveys. You can use online forms, telephone interviews, or paper questionnaires to reveal trends, patterns, and correlations.

Tree testing: tree testing involves researching web assets through the lens of findability and navigability. Participants are given a textual representation of the site’s hierarchy (the “tree”) and asked to locate specific information or complete tasks by selecting paths.

Usability testing: ask participants to interact with a product, website, or application to evaluate its ease of use. This method enables you to uncover areas for improvement in digital key feature functionality by observing participants using the product.

Live website testing: research and collect analytics that outlines the design, usability, and performance efficiencies of a website in real time.

There are no limits to the number of research methods you could use within your project. Just make sure your research methods help you determine the following:

What do you plan to do with the research findings?

What decisions will this research inform? How can your stakeholders leverage the research data and results?

Recruit participants and allocate tasks

Next, identify the participants needed to complete the research and the resources required to complete the tasks. Different people will be proficient at different tasks, and having a task allocation plan will allow everything to run smoothly.

Prepare a thorough project summary

Every well-designed research plan will feature a project summary. This official summary will guide your research alongside its communications or messaging. You’ll use the summary while recruiting participants and during stakeholder meetings. It can also be useful when conducting field studies.

Ensure this summary includes all the elements of your research project. Separate the steps into an easily explainable piece of text that includes the following:

An introduction: the message you’ll deliver to participants about the interview, pre-planned questioning, and testing tasks.

Interview questions: prepare questions you intend to ask participants as part of your research study, guiding the sessions from start to finish.

An exit message: draft messaging your teams will use to conclude testing or survey sessions. These should include the next steps and express gratitude for the participant’s time.

Create a realistic timeline

While your project might already have a deadline or a results timeline in place, you’ll need to consider the time needed to execute it effectively.

Realistically outline the time needed to properly execute each supporting phase of research and implementation. And, as you evaluate the necessary schedules, be sure to include additional time for achieving each milestone in case any changes or unexpected delays arise.

For this part of your research plan, you might find it helpful to create visuals to ensure your research team and stakeholders fully understand the information.

Determine how to present your results

A research plan must also describe how you intend to present your results. Depending on the nature of your project and its goals, you might dedicate one team member (the PI) or assume responsibility for communicating the findings yourself.

In this part of the research plan, you’ll articulate how you’ll share the results. Detail any materials you’ll use, such as:

Presentations and slides

A project report booklet

A project findings pamphlet

Documents with key takeaways and statistics

Graphic visuals to support your findings

• Format your research plan

As you create your research plan, you can enjoy a little creative freedom. A plan can assume many forms, so format it how you see fit. Determine the best layout based on your specific project, intended communications, and the preferences of your teams and stakeholders.

Find format inspiration among the following layouts:

Written outlines

Narrative storytelling

Visual mapping

Graphic timelines

Remember, the research plan format you choose will be subject to change and adaptation as your research and findings unfold. However, your final format should ideally outline questions, problems, opportunities, and expectations.

• Research plan example

Imagine you’ve been tasked with finding out how to get more customers to order takeout from an online food delivery platform. The goal is to improve satisfaction and retain existing customers. You set out to discover why more people aren’t ordering and what it is they do want to order or experience. 

You identify the need for a research project that helps you understand what drives customer loyalty. But before you jump in and start calling past customers, you need to develop a research plan—the roadmap that provides focus, clarity, and realistic details to the project.

Here’s an example outline of a research plan you might put together:

Project title

Project members involved in the research plan

Purpose of the project (provide a summary of the research plan’s intent)

Objective 1 (provide a short description for each objective)

Objective 2

Objective 3

Proposed timeline

Audience (detail the group you want to research, such as customers or non-customers)

Budget (how much you think it might cost to do the research)

Risk factors/contingencies (any potential risk factors that may impact the project’s success)

Remember, your research plan doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel—it just needs to fit your project’s unique needs and aims.

Customizing a research plan template

Some companies offer research plan templates to help get you started. However, it may make more sense to develop your own customized plan template. Be sure to include the core elements of a great research plan with your template layout, including the following:

Introductions to participants and stakeholders

Background problems and needs statement

Significance, ethics, and purpose

Research methods, questions, and designs

Preliminary beliefs and expectations

Implications and intended outcomes

Realistic timelines for each phase

Conclusion and presentations

How many pages should a research plan be?

Generally, a research plan can vary in length between 500 to 1,500 words. This is roughly three pages of content. More substantial projects will be 2,000 to 3,500 words, taking up four to seven pages of planning documents.

What is the difference between a research plan and a research proposal?

A research plan is a roadmap to success for research teams. A research proposal, on the other hand, is a dissertation aimed at convincing or earning the support of others. Both are relevant in creating a guide to follow to complete a project goal.

What are the seven steps to developing a research plan?

While each research project is different, it’s best to follow these seven general steps to create your research plan:

Defining the problem

Identifying goals

Choosing research methods

Recruiting participants

Preparing the brief or summary

Establishing task timelines

Defining how you will present the findings

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5 Steps to Create an Outstanding Marketing Plan [Free Templates]

Published: January 04, 2024

Free Marketing Plan Template

Outline your company's marketing strategy in one simple, coherent plan.

Thank you for downloading the offer.

Do you take a good, hard look at your team's marketing strategy every year?

You should. Without an annual marketing plan, things can get messy — and it's nearly impossible to put a number on your budget for the projects, hiring, and outsourcing over the course of a year if you don't have a plan.

To make your plan's creation easier, we've put together a list of what to include in your plan and a few different planning templates where you can easily fill in the blanks.

To start, let's dive into how to create a marketing plan and then take a look at what a high-level marketing plan has inside.

In this article, we're going to discuss:

• What a High-Level Marketing Plan Includes

How to Create a Marketing Plan

• Marketing Plan Templates You Can Use
• Simplified Marketing Plan Template
• Plus — Social Media Plan Templates

• Pre-Sectioned Template
• Completely Customizable
• Example Prompts
• Professionally Designed

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Fill out this form to access a free marketing plan template.

Marketing plan outline.

Download This Marketing Plan Outline for Free

The above marketing plan outline will help you create an effective plan that easily generates buy-in from stakeholders and effectively guides your marketing efforts.

Marketing plans can get quite granular to reflect the industry you're in, whether you're selling to consumers (B2C) or other businesses (B2B), and how big your digital presence is. Nonetheless, here are the elements every effective marketing plan includes:

1. Business Summary

In a marketing plan, your business summary is exactly what it sounds like: a summary of the organization. It's essential to include this information so that all stakeholders, including your direct reports, learn about your company in detail before delving into the more strategic components of your plan.

Even if you’re presenting this plan to people who’ve been in the company for a while, it doesn’t hurt to get everyone on the same page.

Most business summaries include:

The company name

Where it's headquartered

Its mission statement

Our marketing plan outline also includes information on marketing leadership, which is especially helpful for companies with large marketing teams.

2. SWOT Analysis

Your marketing plan's business summary also includes a SWOT analysis , which covers your business's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It’s essential to include this information so you can create targeted strategies that help you capitalize on your strengths and improve upon your weaknesses.

In my experience, you need a lot of patience when doing a SWOT analysis; it requires market research and competitive analysis to become truly accurate. I tend to revisit this section periodically, adjusting it as I discover more information about my own business and competition.

3. Business Initiatives

The business initiatives element of a marketing plan helps you segment the various goals of your department. Be careful not to include big-picture company initiatives, which you'd normally find in a business plan. This section should outline the projects that are specific to marketing. You'll also describe the goals of those projects and how those goals will be measured.

Every initiative should follow the SMART method for goal-making . They should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, a broad goal might be something like, "Increase my Facebook following." But a SMART-ified version of this goal could be, "Increase my Facebook following by 30% by June." See the difference?

4. Customer Analysis

In this part of the marketing plan outline, you get plenty of space to share all the data you collected during your market research . If your company has already done a thorough market research study, this section of your marketing plan might be easier to put together. Either way, try to do your research before synthesizing it in a shareable document like this one.

Ultimately, this element of your marketing plan will help you describe the industry you're selling to and your buyer persona . A buyer persona is a semi-fictional description of your ideal customer, focusing on traits like:

Personal challenges

Triggering event

5. Competitor Analysis

Positioning

Market share

Our marketing plan template includes space to list out the specific products you compete with, as well as other facets of the other company’s strategy, such as their blogging efforts or customer service reputation. Keep this part of your plan simple — your full competitive analysis should be done separately. Here are a few competitive analysis templates to get started.

6. Market Strategy

Your market strategy uses the information included in the above sections to describe how your company should approach the market. 

For instance, when I'm filling out this section, I always pull insights from my SWOT analysis, my competitive analysis, and my general market research. This helps me write targeted, effective descriptions of my strategies.

Here's an example: if you found that one of your competitors employs stronger social media marketing strategies , you might add "We'll post 3 times per week on our social media profiles" under "Promotion."

In our full-length marketing plan outline, the market strategy section contains the "seven Ps of marketing" (or the “ extended marketing mix ”):

Physical Evidence

(You'll learn more about these seven sub-components inside our free marketing plan template, which you can download below.)

When I created my first marketing plan, I made the mistake of confusing the marketing budget section of my plan with my product's price and other financials.

Here's a better way to think of this section: it should describe how much money the business has allotted the marketing team to pursue the initiatives and goals outlined in the elements above.

Depending on how many individual expenses you have, you should consider itemizing this budget by what specifically you'll spend your budget on. Example marketing expenses include:

Outsourcing costs to a marketing agency and/or other providers

Marketing software

Paid promotions

Events (those you'll host and/or attend)

Knowing the budget and doing analysis on the marketing channels you want to invest in, you should be able to come up with a plan for how much budget to invest in which tactics based on expected ROI. From there, you'll be able to come up with financial projections for the year. These won't be 100% accurate but can help with executive planning.

Remember: Your marketing plan only includes a summary of the costs. We recommend keeping a separate document or Excel sheet to help you calculate your budget much more effectively. Here’s a marketing budget template to get started .

8. Marketing Channels

Your marketing plan should also include a list of your marketing channels. While your company might promote the product itself using certain ad space, your marketing channels are where you'll publish the content that educates your buyers, generates leads, and spreads awareness of your brand.

If you publish (or intend to publish) on social media, this is the place to talk about it. Use the Marketing Channels section of your marketing plan to map out which social networks you want to launch a business page on, what you'll use this social network for, and how you'll measure your success on this network.

Part of this section's purpose is to prove to your superiors, both inside and outside the marketing department, that these channels will serve to grow the business.

Businesses with extensive social media presences might even consider elaborating on their social strategy in a separate social media plan template.

9. Marketing Technology

Last, but certainly not least, your marketing plan should include an overview of the tools you'll include in your marketing technology (MarTech) stack . These are the tools that will help you achieve the goals you outlined in the previous sections. Since all types of marketing software usually need a generous investment from your company’s leadership, it’s essential to connect them to a potential ROI for your business.

For each tool, describe what exactly you’ll use it for, and be sure that it’s a strategy that you’ve mentioned elsewhere. For instance, we wouldn't recommend listing an advertising management tool if you didn’t list “ PPC Advertising ” under “Marketing Channels.”

• Conduct a situation analysis.
• Define your target audience.
• Write SMART goals.
• Analyze your tactics.
• Set your budget.

1. Conduct a situation analysis.

The first step I take when creating a marketing plan is conducting a SWOT analysis. It helps me uncover the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats facing my business.

Additionally, I need a good picture of the current market. How do I compare to my competitors? Doing a competitor analysis can help.

In doing so, I can identify the gaps (and opportunities) in a competitor's approach. What are they missing? What can I offer that'll give me a competitive advantage?

Answering questions like this should help you figure out what your customer wants, which brings us to step number two.

2. Define your target audience.

If your company already has buyer personas , this step might just mean you have to refine your current personas.

But if you don't have a buyer persona, you should create one. To do this, you might have to conduct market research.

Your buyer persona should include demographic information such as age, gender, and income. However, it will also include psychographic information such as pain points and goals. What drives your audience? What problems do they have that your product or service can fix?

Once you have this information written out, it'll help you define your goals, which brings us to step number three.

3. Write SMART goals.

My mother always used to tell me, "You can't go somewhere unless you have a road map." Now, for me, someone who's geographically challenged, that was literal advice.

However, it can also be applied metaphorically to marketing. You can't improve your ROI unless you know what your goals are.

After you've figured out your current situation and know your audience, you can begin to define your SMART goals .

SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. This means that all your goals should be specific and include a time frame for which you want to complete them.

For example, your goal could be to increase your Instagram followers by 15% in three months. Depending on your overall marketing goals, this should be relevant and attainable. Additionally, this goal is specific, measurable, and time-bound.

Before you start any tactic, you should write out your goals. Then, you can begin to analyze which tactics will help you achieve that goal. That brings us to step number four.

4. Analyze your tactics.

At this point, you've written down your goals based on your target audience and current situation.

Now, you have to figure out what tactics will help you achieve your goals. Plus, what are the right channels and action items to focus on?

For example, if your goal is to increase your Instagram followers by 15% in three months, your tactics might include hosting a giveaway, responding to every comment, and posting three times on Instagram per week.

Once you know your goals, brainstorming several tactics to achieve them should be easy. That said, you may not be able to pursue every tactic on your list (unless you have an unlimited budget, which, if so, jealous ) — which brings us to step number five.

5. Set your budget.

Before you can begin implementing any of the ideas that you've come up with in the steps above, you have to know your budget.

For example, your tactics might include social media advertising. However, if you don't have the budget for that, then you might not be able to achieve your goals.

While you're writing out your tactics, be sure to note an estimated budget. You can include the time it'll take to complete each tactic in addition to the assets you might need to purchase, such as ad space.

Now that you know how to create your marketing plan, let's dive into creating a marketing campaign outline that will help you reach the goals outlined plan.

Marketing Plan Timeline

Rolling out a new marketing plan is a big lift. To make sure things are running smoothly with all of your projects, you'll want to create a timeline that maps out when each project is happening.

A marketing plan timeline allows your team to view all projects, campaigns, events, and other related tasks in one place — along with their deadlines. This ensures everyone on your team knows what’s due, when it’s due, and what’s up next in the pipeline. Typically these plans cover marketing efforts for the entire year, but some companies may operate on a bi-annual or quarterly basis.

Once you’ve completed your analysis, research, and set goals, it’s time to set deadlines for your assignments. From new blog posts and content initiatives to product launches, everything will need a deadline. Take into account any holidays or events taking place over the course of the year.

While setting deadlines for the entire year may seem daunting, start by estimating how long you think each task will take and set a deadline accordingly. Track the time it actually takes for you to complete similar types of projects. Once you’ve completed a few of them, you’ll have a better idea of how long each takes and will be able to set more accurate deadlines.

For each project, you’ll want to build in time for:

• Brainstorming : This is the first phase where your idea comes to life in a project outline. Decide what you want to achieve and which stakeholders need to be involved to meet your goal. Set a due date and set up any necessary meetings.
• Planning : This can include determining the project’s scope, figuring out how much budget will be allocated for it, finalizing deadlines and who is working on each task. Map out any campaigns needed for each project (social media, PR, sales promotions, landing pages, events, etc.).
• Execution : This third phase is all about your project launch. Decide on a date to launch and monitor the progress of the project. Set up a system for tracking metrics and KPIs.
• Analysis : In this final phase you will analyze all of your performance data to see whether or not your marketing efforts paid off. Did you meet your goals? Did you complete your projects on time and within budget?

All projects and their deadlines should be in a central location where your team can access them whether that’s a calendar like HubSpot's tool , shared document, or project management tool.

One-Page Marketing Plan Template

As demonstrated above, a marketing plan can be a long document. When you want to share information with stakeholders or simply want an overview of your plan for quick reference, having a shorter version on hand can be helpful. A one-page marketing plan can be the solution, and we’ll discuss its elements below.

Include your company name, list the names of individuals responsible for enacting the different stages of your plan, and a brief mission statement.

2. Business Initiatives

3. Target Market

Outline your target audience(s) that your efforts will reach. You can include a brief overview of your industry and buyer personas.

This is an overview of the money you’ll spend to help you meet your marketing goals. Create a good estimate of how much you'll spend on each facet of your marketing program.

5. Marketing Channels

List the channels you’ll use to achieve your marketing goals. Describe why you're using each channel and what you want to accomplish so everyone is on the same page.

Free Marketing Plan Template [Word]

Now that you know what to include in your marketing plan, it's time to grab your marketing plan template and see how best to organize the six elements explained above. The following marketing plan template opens directly in Microsoft Word, so you can edit each section as you see fit:

Download your marketing plan template here .

Marketing campaign template.

Your marketing plan is a high-level view of the different marketing strategies you’ll use to meet your business objectives. A marketing campaign template is a focused plan that will help achieve those marketing goals.

A marketing campaign template should include the following key components:

• Goals and KPIs: Identify the end goal for each of the individual campaigns you’ll run and the metrics you will use to measure the results of your campaign when it ends. For example, conversion rates, sales, sign-ups, etc.
• Channels: Identify the different channels you’ll use to enact your marketing campaign to reach your audience. Maybe you run a social media campaign on Twitter to raise brand awareness or a direct mail campaign to notify your audience of upcoming sales.
• Budget : Identify the budget you’ll need to run your campaign and how it will be distributed, like the amount you’ll spend on creating content or ad placements in different areas. Having these numbers also helps you later on when you quantify the success of your campaign, like ROI.
• Content: Identify the type of content you’ll create and distribute during your campaigns—for example, blog posts , video ads, email newsletters, etc.
• Teams and DRIs: Identify the teams and people that will be part of enacting your marketing plan from start to finish, like those responsible for creating your marketing assets, budgets, or analyzing metrics once campaigns are complete.
• Design: Identify what your marketing campaigns will look like and how you’ll use design elements to attract your audience. It’s important to note that your design should directly relate to the purpose of your campaign.

Digital Marketing Plan Template

A digital marketing plan is similar to a marketing campaign plan, but, as the name suggests, it’s tailored to the campaigns that you run online. Let’s go over the key components of a digital marketing plan template to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

• Objectives: The goals for your digital marketing and what you’re hoping to accomplish, like driving more traffic to your website . Maybe you want to drive more traffic to your website, or
• Budget : Identify how much it will cost to run your digital marketing campaign and how the money will be distributed. For example, ad placement on different social media sites costs money, and so does creating your assets.
• Target audience: Which segments of your audience are you hoping to reach with this campaign? It’s essential to identify the audiences you want to reach with your digital marketing, as different channels house different audience segments.
• Channels: Identifies the channels that are central to your digital marketing campaign.
• Timeline: Explains the length of time your digital campaigns will run, from how long it should take to create your assets to the final day of the campaign.

Many people use social media in their digital campaigns, and below we’ll discuss some ideas you can use for inspiration.

Social Media Marketing Plan Templates

As your marketing department grows, so will your presence on social media. And as your social media presence grows, so will your need to measure, plan, and re-plan what types of content you want to publish across each network.

If you're looking for a way to deepen your social media marketing strategy — even further than the marketing plan template above — the following collection of social media marketing plan templates is perfect for you:

Download 10 social media reporting templates here .

In the above collection of marketing plan templates, you'll get to fill in the following contents (and more) to suit your company:

• Annual social media budget tracking
• Weekly social media themes
• Required social media image dimension key
• Pie chart on social media traffic sorted by platform
• Social media post calendar and publish time

Below, let's review the social media reporting templates, and what you'll find in each one.

1. Social Media Questions

This template lists out questions to help you decide which social media management platform you should use.

What We Like

Once you know what social media tactics you're going to implement in your marketing plan, it's time to figure out what channels are right for you. This template will help you do that.

2. Facebook Live Schedule

If Facebook Live is one of the marketing tactics in your plan, this template will help you design an editorial calendar. With this template, you can organize what Facebook live's you want to do and when.

Once you've decided on dates, you can color-code your FB calendar and coordinate with your editorial calendar so everyone can see what lives are running in relation to other campaigns.

3. Instagram Post Log

Are you going to begin using Instagram regularly? Do you want to increase your following? With this template, you can organize your Instagram posts, so everyone on your team knows what posts are going live and when.

This is more than just a content calendar. You can use this doc to collaborate with your team on messaging, landing pages linked in your bio, and campaign rollouts.

4. Paid Social Media Template

With this template, you can organize your annual and monthly budget for your paid social media calendar.

With this spreadsheet, all you need to do is plug in your numbers and the formulas will do the works for you. I recommend using this in conjunction with your marketing plan budget to make sure you are not overspending and funds are allocated appropriately.

5. Social Media Audit

Conducting a social media audit? You can use this template to help you gather the right analytics. Tracking the results of your marketing efforts is key to determining ROI.

Use this template to track each of your campaigns to determine what worked and what didn't. From there, you can allocate funds for the strategies that deliver the results you want.

6. Social Media Editorial Calendar

With this template, you can organize your social media editorial calendar. For example, you can include social media posts for each platform, so your team knows what's going live on any given day.

This calendar makes it easy to track activity across every social media platform, since each platform is assigned a specific color. 

7. Social Media Image Sizes

With this template, your team can have the latest social media image sizes handy. This template includes image sizes for all major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Having a resource like this readily available for your team ensures that everyone is on the same page regarding image sizes and prevents delays.

8. Social Media Marketing Proposal

With this template, you can create an entire social media marketing proposal. This will outline the social media goals, the scope of the work, and the tactics that you plan to implement.

This proposal functions as more of a deep dive into the marketing channel section of your marketing plan. It's relatively straightforward and contains all the essential sections of a proposal.

9. Social Media Reporting Template

With this template, you'll gain access to a slide deck that includes templates for social media reporting.

If you plan to implement social media in your marketing plan, these reporting templates can help you track your progress. If using the social media audit above, you can add all of your data here once it's been collected.

10. Hashtag Holidays

If you're going to lean into social media in your marketing plan, you can use hashtag holidays to generate ideas.

These holidays are a great way to fill out your social media publishing schedule. With this template, you'll get a list of all the hashtag holidays for the year. Once you've come up with content ideas, you can add them to your social media calendar.

Simple Marketing Plan Template

Of course, this type of planning takes a lot of time and effort. So if you're strapped for time before the holidays, give our new Marketing Plan Generator a try.

This tool simplifies yearly planning by asking prompted questions to help guide your process. You’ll be asked to input information about:

Try our free Marketing Plan Generator here .

• Your annual marketing mission statement, which is what your marketing is focused on for the year.
• The strategy that you’ll take with your marketing throughout the year to accomplish your marketing goals.
• Three main marketing initiatives that you’ll focus on during the year (i.e., brand awareness or building a high-quality pipeline) metrics you’ll use to measure your success.
• Your target goals for those marketing initiatives like generating 100 leads per week.
• Marketing initiatives that are not aligned with your current strategy to stay focused on your goals and activities that will help you be successful.

Once you input all information, the tool will spit out a table (as shown in the image below) that you can use to guide your processes.

Pro Tip: If the tool doesn't work, clear your browser's cache or access it in incognito mode.

Start the Marketing Planning Process Today

The best way to set up your marketing plan for the year is to start with quick wins first, that way you can ramp up fast and set yourself (and your team) up to hit more challenging goals and take on more sophisticated projects by Q4. So, what do you say? Are you ready to give it a spin?

Editor's note: This post was originally published in December 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Don't forget to share this post!

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• Marketing |
• How to create a winning marketing plan, ...

How to create a winning marketing plan, with 3 examples from world-class teams

A marketing plan helps leaders clearly visualize marketing strategies across channels, so they can ensure every campaign drives pipeline and revenue. In this article you’ll learn eight steps to create a winning marketing plan that brings business-critical goals to life, with examples from word-class teams.

To be successful as a marketer, you have to deliver the pipeline and the revenue.”

In other words—they need a well-crafted marketing plan.

Level up your marketing plan to drive revenue in 2024

Learn how to create the right marketing plan to hit your revenue targets in 2024. Hear best practices from marketing experts, including how to confidently set and hit business goals, socialize marketing plans, and move faster with clearer resourcing.

7 steps to build a comprehensive marketing plan

How do you build the right marketing plan to hit your revenue goals? Follow these eight steps for success:

1. Define your plan

First you need to define each specific component of your plan to ensure stakeholders are aligned on goals, deliverables, resources, and more. Ironing out these details early on ensures your plan supports the right business objectives, and that you have sufficient resources and time to get the job done. 

Get started by asking yourself the following questions: 

What resources do I need? 

What is the vision?

What is the value?

What is the goal?

Who is my audience?

What are my channels?

What is the timeline?

For example, imagine you’re creating an annual marketing plan to improve customer adoption and retention in the next fiscal year. Here’s how you could go through the questions above to ensure you’re ready to move forward with your plan: 

I will need support from the content team, web team, and email team to create targeted content for existing customers. One person on each team will need to be dedicated full-time to this initiative. To achieve this, the marketing team will need an additional $100K in budget and one new headcount. 

What is the vision?  

To create a positive experience for existing customers, address new customer needs, and encourage them to upgrade. We’ll do this by serving them how-to content, new feature updates, information about deals and pricing, and troubleshooting guides. 

According to the Sales Benchmark Index (SBI) , CEOs and go-to-market leaders report that more than 60% of their net-new revenue will come from existing customers in 2023. By retaining and building on the customers we have, we can maintain revenue growth over time. 

To decrease the customer churn rate from 30% to 10%, and increase upgrades from 20% to 30% in the next fiscal year. 

All existing customers. 

The main channel will be email. Supporting marketing channels include the website, blog, YouTube, and social media. 

The first half of the next fiscal year. 

One of the most important things to do as you create your marketing strategy is to identify your target audience . As with all marketing, you need to know who you’re marketing to. If you’re having a hard time determining who exactly your target audience is, try the bullseye targeting framework . The bullseye makes it easy for you to determine who your target audience is by industry, geography, company size, psychographics, demographics, and more.

2. Identify key metrics for success 

Now it’s time to define what key marketing metrics you’ll use to measure success. Your key metrics will help you measure and track the performance of your marketing activities. They’ll also help you understand how your efforts tie back to larger business goals. 

Once you establish key metrics, use a goal-setting framework—like objectives and key results (OKRs) or SMART goals —to fully flush out your marketing objectives. This ensures your targets are as specific as possible, with no ambiguity about what should be accomplished by when. 

Example: If a goal of your marketing plan is to increase email subscriptions and you follow the SMART goal framework (ensuring your objective is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound) your goal might look like this: Increase email subscription rate from 10% to 20% in H1 . 

3. Research your competition 

It’s easy to get caught up in your company’s world, but there’s a lot of value in understanding your competitors . Knowing how they market themselves will help you find opportunities to make your company stand out and capture more market share.

Make sure you’re not duplicating your competitors’ efforts. If you discover a competitor has already executed your idea, then it might be time to go back to the drawing board and brainstorm new ways to differentiate yourself.  By looking at your competitors, you might be surprised at the type of inspiration and opportunities you’ll find.

To stay ahead of market trends, conduct a SWOT analysis for your marketing plan. A SWOT analysis helps you improve your plan by identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. 

Example: If your competitor launches a social media campaign identical to what you had planned, go back to the drawing board and see how you can build off their campaign. Ask yourself: How can we differentiate our campaign while still getting our message across? What are the weaknesses of their campaign that we can capitalize on? What angles did they not approach?

4. Integrate your marketing efforts

Here’s where the fun comes in. Let’s dive into the different components that go into building a successful marketing plan. You’ll want to make sure your marketing plan includes multiple supporting activities that all add up into a powerful marketing machine. Some marketing plan components include: 

Lead generation

Social media

Product marketing

Public relations

Analyst relations

Customer marketing

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Conversational marketing

Knowing where your consumer base spends the most time is significant for nailing this step. You need to have a solid understanding of your target audience before integrating your marketing efforts. 

Example: If your target audience is executives that spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, focus your social media strategy around placing branded content on LinkedIn. 

5. Differentiate with creative content

Forty-nine percent of marketers say visual images are hugely important to their content strategy. In other words, a clear brand and creative strategy is an essential component to every marketing plan. As you craft your own creative strategy, here are some tips to keep in mind: 

Speak to your audience: When defining your creative strategy, think about your audience—what you want them to feel, think, and do when they see your marketing. Will your audience find your creative work relevant? If your audience can’t relate to your creative work, they won’t feel connected to the story you’re trying to tell. 

Think outside the box: Find innovative ways to engage your audience, whether through video, animations, or interactive graphics. Know what screens your creative work will live on, whether desktop, mobile, or tablet, and make sure they display beautifully and load quickly across every type of device. 

Tie everything back to CTAs: It’s easy to get caught up in the creative process, so it’s important to never lose sight of your ultimate goal: Get your audience to take action. Always find the best way to display strong Calls to Action (CTAs) in your creative work. We live in a visual world—make sure your creative content counts.

Streamline creative production:   Once you’ve established a strong creative strategy, the next step is to bring your strategy to life in the production stage. It’s vital to set up a strong framework for your creative production process to eliminate any unnecessary back and forth and potential bottlenecks. Consider establishing creative request forms , streamlining feedback and approval processes, and taking advantage of integrations that might make your designers’ lives easier.

Example: If your brand is fun and approachable, make sure that shows in your creative efforts. Create designs and CTAs that spark joy, offer entertainment, and alleviate the pressure in choosing a partner.

6. Operationalize your marketing plan

Turn your plan into action by making goals, deliverables, and timelines clear for every stakeholder—so teams stay accountable for getting work done. The best way to do this is by centralizing all the details of your marketing plan in one platform , so teams can access the information they need and connect campaign work back to company goals.  

With the right work management tool , you can: 

Set goals for every marketing activity, and connect campaign work to overarching marketing and business objectives so teams focus on revenue-driving projects. 

Centralize deliverables for your entire marketing plan in one project or portfolio .

Mark major milestones and visualize your plan as a timeline, Gantt chart, calendar, list, or Kanban board—without doing any extra work. 

Quickly loop in stakeholders with status updates so they’re always up to date on progress. This is extremely important if you have a global team to ensure efforts aren’t being duplicated. 

Use automations to seamlessly hand off work between teams, streamlining processes like content creation and reviews. 

Create dashboards to report on work and make sure projects are properly staffed , so campaigns stay on track. 

With everything housed in one spot, you can easily visualize the status of your entire marketing plan and keep work on track. Building an effective marketing plan is one thing, but how you operationalize it can be your secret to standout marketing.

Example: If your strategy focuses on increasing page views, connect all campaign work to an overarching OKR—like “we will double page views as measured by the amount of organic traffic on our blog.” By making that goal visible to all stakeholders, you help teams prioritize the right work. 

See marketing planning in action

With Asana, marketing teams can connect work, standardize processes, and automate workflows—all in one place.

7. Measure performance

Nearly three in four CMOs use revenue growth to measure success, so it’s no surprise that measuring performance is necessary. You established your key metrics in step two, and now it’s time to track and report on them in step eight.

Periodically measure your marketing efforts to find areas of improvement so you can optimize in real-time. There are always lessons to be learned when looking at data. You can discover trends, detect which marketing initiatives performed well, and course-correct what isn’t performing well. And when your plan is complete, you can apply these learnings to your next initiative for improved results. 

Example: Say you discover that long-form content is consistently bringing in 400% more page views than short-form content. As a result, you’ll want to focus on producing more long-form content in your next marketing plan.

Marketing plan examples from world-class teams

The best brands in the world bring their marketing plans to life every day. If you’re looking for inspiration, check out these examples from successful marketing teams.

Autodesk grows site traffic 30% three years in a row

When the Autodesk team launched Redshift, it was initially a small business blog. The editorial team executed a successful marketing plan to expand it into a premier owned-media site, making it a destination for stories and videos about the future of making. 

The team scaled content production to support seven additional languages. By standardizing their content production workflow and centralizing all content conversations in one place, the editorial team now publishes 2X more content monthly. Read the case study to learn more about how Autodesk runs a well-oiled content machine.

Sony Music boosts creative production capacity by 4X

In recent years the music industry has gone through a pivotal transition—shifting from album sales to a streaming business model. For marketing and creative teams at Sony Music, that meant adopting an “always on” campaign plan. 

The team successfully executed this campaign plan by centralizing creative production and approvals in one project. By standardizing processes, the team reduced campaign production time by 75%. Read the case study to learn more about how Sony Music successfully scaled their creative production process.

Trinny London perfects new customer acquisition 

In consumer industries, social media is crucial for building a community of people who feel an affinity with the brand—and Trinny London is no exception. As such, it was imperative that Trinny London’s ad spend was targeted to the correct audience. Using a work management tool, Trinny London was able to nail the process of creating, testing, and implementing ads on multiple social channels.

With the help of a centralized tool, Trinny London improved its ad spend and drove more likes and subscriptions on its YouTube page. Read the case study to learn more about how Trinny London capitalized on paid advertising and social media. 

Turn your marketing plan into marketing success 

A great marketing plan promotes clarity and accountability across teams—so every stakeholder knows what they’re responsible for, by when. Reading this article is the first step to achieving better team alignment, so you can ensure every marketing campaign contributes to your company’s bottom line. 

Use a free marketing plan template to get started

Once you’ve created your marketing strategy and are ready to operationalize your marketing plan, get started with one of our marketing templates . 

Our marketing templates can help you manage and track every aspect of your marketing plan, from creative requests to approval workflows. Centralize your entire marketing plan in one place, customize the roadmap, assign tasks, and build a timeline or calendar. 

Once you’ve operationalized your entire marketing plan with one of our templates, share it with your stakeholders so everyone can work together in the same tool. Your entire team will feel connected to the marketing plan, know what to prioritize, and see how their work contributes to your project objectives . Choose the best marketing template for your team:

Marketing project plan template

Marketing campaign plan template

Product marketing launch template

Editorial calendar template

Agency collaboration template

Creative requests template

Event planning template

GTM strategy template

Still have questions? We have answers. 

What is a marketing plan.

A marketing plan is a detailed roadmap that outlines the different strategies your team will use to achieve organizational objectives. Rather than focusing solely on the end goal, a marketing plan maps every step you need to reach your destination—whether that’s driving pipeline for sales, nurturing your existing customer base, or something in-between. 

As a marketing leader, you know there’s never a shortage of great campaign and project ideas. A marketing plan gives you a framework to effectively prioritize work that aligns to overarching business goals—and then get that work done. Some elements of marketing plans include:

Current business plan

Mission statement  

Business goals

Target customers  

Competitive analysis 

Current marketing mix

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

Marketing budget  

What is the purpose of a marketing plan?

The purpose of a marketing plan is to grow your company’s consumer base and strengthen your brand, while aligning with your organization’s mission and vision . The plan should analyze the competitive landscape and industry trends, offer actionable insights to help you gain a competitive advantage, and document each step of your strategy—so you can see how your campaigns work together to drive overarching business goals. 

What is the difference between a marketing plan and a marketing strategy? 

A marketing plan contains many marketing strategies across different channels. In that way, marketing strategies contribute to your overall marketing plan, working together to reach your company’s overarching business goals.

For example, imagine you’re about to launch a new software product and the goal of your marketing plan is to drive downloads. Your marketing plan could include marketing strategies like creating top-of-funnel blog content and launching a social media campaign. 

What are different types of marketing plans? 

Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, what your timeline is, or which facet of marketing you’re driving, you’ll need to create a different type of marketing plan. Some different types of marketing plans include, but aren’t limited to:

General marketing plan: A general marketing plan is typically an annual or quarterly marketing plan that details the overarching marketing strategies for the period. This type of marketing plan outlines marketing goals, the company’s mission, buyer personas, unique selling propositions, and more. A general marketing plan lays the foundation for other, more specific marketing plans that an organization may employ. 

Product launch marketing plan: A product launch marketing plan is a step-by-step plan for marketing a new product or expanding into a new market. It helps you build awareness and interest by targeting the right audience, with the right messaging, in the right timeframe—so potential customers are ready to buy your new offering right away. Nailing your product launch marketing plan can reinforce your overall brand and fast-track sales. For a step-by-step framework to organize all the moving pieces of a launch, check out our product marketing launch template .

Paid marketing plan: This plan includes all the paid strategies in your marketing plan, like pay-per-click, paid social media advertising, native advertising, and display advertising. It’s especially important to do audience research prior to launching your paid marketing plan to ensure you’re maximizing ROI. Consult with content strategists to ensure your ads align with your buyer personas so you know you’re showing ads to the right people. 

Content marketing plan: A content marketing plan outlines the different content strategies and campaigns you’ll use to promote your product or service. When putting together a content marketing plan, start by identifying your audience. Then use market research tools to get the best insights into what topics your target audience is most interested in.

SEO marketing plan: Your SEO marketing plan should work directly alongside your content marketing plan as you chart content that’s designed to rank in search results. While your content marketing plan should include all types of content, your SEO marketing plan will cover the top-of-funnel content that drives new users to your site. Planning search engine-friendly content is only one step in your SEO marketing plan. You’ll also need to include link-building and technical aspects in order to ensure your site and content are as optimized as possible.

Social media marketing plan: This plan will highlight the marketing strategies you plan to accomplish on social media. Like in any general or digital marketing plan , your social media strategy should identify your ideal customer base and determine how they engage on different social media platforms. From there, you can cater your social media content to your target audience.  

Related resources

How Asana uses work management for smoother creative production

Build a marketing operations strategy in 4 steps

How Asana uses work management for more impactful campaigns

Marketing vs. advertising: What’s the difference?

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• Starting the research process
• How to Write a Research Proposal | Examples & Templates

How to Write a Research Proposal | Examples & Templates

Published on October 12, 2022 by Shona McCombes and Tegan George. Revised on November 21, 2023.

A research proposal describes what you will investigate, why it’s important, and how you will conduct your research.

The format of a research proposal varies between fields, but most proposals will contain at least these elements:

Introduction

Literature review.

• Research design

Reference list

While the sections may vary, the overall objective is always the same. A research proposal serves as a blueprint and guide for your research plan, helping you get organized and feel confident in the path forward you choose to take.

Table of contents

Research proposal purpose, research proposal examples, research design and methods, contribution to knowledge, research schedule, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about research proposals.

Academics often have to write research proposals to get funding for their projects. As a student, you might have to write a research proposal as part of a grad school application , or prior to starting your thesis or dissertation .

In addition to helping you figure out what your research can look like, a proposal can also serve to demonstrate why your project is worth pursuing to a funder, educational institution, or supervisor.

Research proposal length

The length of a research proposal can vary quite a bit. A bachelor’s or master’s thesis proposal can be just a few pages, while proposals for PhD dissertations or research funding are usually much longer and more detailed. Your supervisor can help you determine the best length for your work.

One trick to get started is to think of your proposal’s structure as a shorter version of your thesis or dissertation , only without the results , conclusion and discussion sections.

Download our research proposal template

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

Writing a research proposal can be quite challenging, but a good starting point could be to look at some examples. We’ve included a few for you below.

• Example research proposal #1: “A Conceptual Framework for Scheduling Constraint Management”
• Example research proposal #2: “Medical Students as Mediators of Change in Tobacco Use”

Like your dissertation or thesis, the proposal will usually have a title page that includes:

• The proposed title of your project
• Your supervisor’s name
• Your institution and department

The first part of your proposal is the initial pitch for your project. Make sure it succinctly explains what you want to do and why.

Your introduction should:

• Introduce your topic
• Give necessary background and context
• Outline your  problem statement  and research questions

To guide your introduction , include information about:

• Who could have an interest in the topic (e.g., scientists, policymakers)
• How much is already known about the topic
• What is missing from this current knowledge
• What new insights your research will contribute
• Why you believe this research is worth doing

As you get started, it’s important to demonstrate that you’re familiar with the most important research on your topic. A strong literature review  shows your reader that your project has a solid foundation in existing knowledge or theory. It also shows that you’re not simply repeating what other people have already done or said, but rather using existing research as a jumping-off point for your own.

In this section, share exactly how your project will contribute to ongoing conversations in the field by:

• Comparing and contrasting the main theories, methods, and debates
• Examining the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches
• Explaining how will you build on, challenge, or synthesize prior scholarship

Following the literature review, restate your main  objectives . This brings the focus back to your own project. Next, your research design or methodology section will describe your overall approach, and the practical steps you will take to answer your research questions.

To finish your proposal on a strong note, explore the potential implications of your research for your field. Emphasize again what you aim to contribute and why it matters.

For example, your results might have implications for:

• Improving best practices
• Informing policymaking decisions
• Strengthening a theory or model
• Challenging popular or scientific beliefs
• Creating a basis for future research

Last but not least, your research proposal must include correct citations for every source you have used, compiled in a reference list . To create citations quickly and easily, you can use our free APA citation generator .

Some institutions or funders require a detailed timeline of the project, asking you to forecast what you will do at each stage and how long it may take. While not always required, be sure to check the requirements of your project.

Here’s an example schedule to help you get started. You can also download a template at the button below.

Download our research schedule template

If you are applying for research funding, chances are you will have to include a detailed budget. This shows your estimates of how much each part of your project will cost.

Make sure to check what type of costs the funding body will agree to cover. For each item, include:

• Cost : exactly how much money do you need?
• Justification : why is this cost necessary to complete the research?
• Source : how did you calculate the amount?

To determine your budget, think about:

• Travel costs : do you need to go somewhere to collect your data? How will you get there, and how much time will you need? What will you do there (e.g., interviews, archival research)?
• Materials : do you need access to any tools or technologies?
• Help : do you need to hire any research assistants for the project? What will they do, and how much will you pay them?

If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Methodology

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

Once you’ve decided on your research objectives , you need to explain them in your paper, at the end of your problem statement .

Keep your research objectives clear and concise, and use appropriate verbs to accurately convey the work that you will carry out for each one.

I will compare …

A research aim is a broad statement indicating the general purpose of your research project. It should appear in your introduction at the end of your problem statement , before your research objectives.

Research objectives are more specific than your research aim. They indicate the specific ways you’ll address the overarching aim.

A PhD, which is short for philosophiae doctor (doctor of philosophy in Latin), is the highest university degree that can be obtained. In a PhD, students spend 3–5 years writing a dissertation , which aims to make a significant, original contribution to current knowledge.

A PhD is intended to prepare students for a career as a researcher, whether that be in academia, the public sector, or the private sector.

A master’s is a 1- or 2-year graduate degree that can prepare you for a variety of careers.

All master’s involve graduate-level coursework. Some are research-intensive and intend to prepare students for further study in a PhD; these usually require their students to write a master’s thesis . Others focus on professional training for a specific career.

Critical thinking refers to the ability to evaluate information and to be aware of biases or assumptions, including your own.

Like information literacy , it involves evaluating arguments, identifying and solving problems in an objective and systematic way, and clearly communicating your ideas.

The best way to remember the difference between a research plan and a research proposal is that they have fundamentally different audiences. A research plan helps you, the researcher, organize your thoughts. On the other hand, a dissertation proposal or research proposal aims to convince others (e.g., a supervisor, a funding body, or a dissertation committee) that your research topic is relevant and worthy of being conducted.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. & George, T. (2023, November 21). How to Write a Research Proposal | Examples & Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved March 27, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/research-process/research-proposal/

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Put Marketing at the Core of Your Growth Strategy

• Marc Brodherson,
• Jennifer Ellinas,

Three ways to use marketing as a lever for growth, according to McKinsey research.

Companies that make the decision to put marketing at the core of their growth strategy outperform the competition, according to McKinsey research. Specifically, both B2C and B2B companies who view branding and advertising as a top two growth strategy are twice as likely to see revenue growth of 5% or more than those that don’t (67% to 33%). Yet their research also showed that few CEOs recognize the potential for marketing as a growth accelerator. They recommend three actions for CEOs to hit the reset button. The first is to define what you need from marketing. While it sounds obvious, their research found that more than half the time CEOs and CMOs in the same company were misaligned on marketing’s primary role. Second, nominate one person to serve as the chief voice of the customer. In two many organizations this is fragmented, and when everyone owns the customer, then no one does. Third, the CEO should function as a growth coach. They should have a handle on the challenges and opportunities of modern marketing, but their job is to draw up the strategy, not toss the ball down the field.

Growth is a perpetual business priority. So it’s imperative that CEOs understand how their marketing function and chief marketing officers (CMOs) can contribute to that goal. Few do — and that misalignment can be costly.

• Marc Brodherson is a senior partner in McKinsey & Company’s New York office.
• Jennifer Ellinas is an associate partner in McKinsey & Company’s Toronto office.
• Ed See is a partner in McKinsey & Company’s Stamford, Connecticut office.
• Robert Tas is a partner in McKinsey & Company’s Stamford, Connecticut office.

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•  Marketing

How to Create a Marketing Plan: Tips and Essential Components

Learn how to create a marketing plan that will help you attract & convert more customers. Learn strategies to drive business growth & maximize ROI.

Table of Contents

For acquiring and converting consumers in the realm of business-to-business (B2B) marketing, having a thoughtful marketing strategy is essential. B2B marketing places more of an emphasis on selling goods and services to other businesses than it does on individual customers. It entails special methods and strategies created to meet the distinct requirements and preferences of organizations.

Recent data shows that B2B marketers that have a structured marketing plan are 538 percent more likely to be successful than those without one. This emphasizes how crucial it is to have a detailed marketing plan in place.

Essential components of a great marketing plan

There are a number of crucial elements that you must incorporate into your B2B marketing approach. These elements provide your marketing initiatives a strong basis and increase success. Let's look more closely at each of these elements.

1. Setting clear goals

Prior to beginning any marketing initiatives, it's critical to define specific, attainable targets. Your objectives should be in line with your overall business goals and serve as a guide for your marketing initiatives. Whether you want to grow revenue, attract more leads, or raise brand recognition, setting clear goals can help you stay motivated.

2. Effective web design strategy

A successful B2B marketing strategy in the modern digital era requires a well-designed, user-friendly website. Your website acts as a digital showroom and should showcase your company's principles, products, and brand identity.

Make sure your website is user-friendly, pleasing to the eye, and mobile-friendly. Use engaging content, user-friendly design features, and clear calls to action to capture visitors' attention and boost conversion rates.

3. Generating compelling content

The foundation of B2B marketing is content. Building trust with potential consumers via the creation of high-quality, educational, and interesting content positions your company as an industry thought leader.

Create a content plan that includes infographics, videos, whitepapers, case studies, and blog entries. Create content that is specifically tailored to your target audience's problems and issues by offering insightful information and solutions.

4. Social media presence

Social media platforms are essential for B2B marketing because they provide you the chance to engage with your target market and spread the word about your business. Develop a strong presence on the social media channels that are most appropriate for your industry and target demographic.

In order to increase your audience and draw in new clients, share engaging material, interact with your followers, and make use of social media advertising.

5. Robust SEO strategy

Implementing and understanding search engine optimization (SEO) is critical for ensuring your business is discoverable online. To find the words and phrases your target audience uses to search, conduct keyword research, and then optimize your website and content accordingly.

Create a link-building plan to raise your website's search engine ranks and increase organic traffic. To make data-driven modifications and stay ahead of the competition, regularly track and analyze your SEO performance.

6. Comprehensive analytics

Effective measurement and analysis of your marketing efforts are crucial for optimizing your strategies and achieving your goals. To monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) including website traffic, conversion rates, lead generation, and client acquisition expenses, implement powerful analytics solutions.

Make educated judgments based on the data analysis results to determine trends, marketing campaign strengths, and shortcomings.

5 Types of marketing plans

After going through the key elements of a solid marketing strategy, let's examine the various types of marketing strategies that can be used in B2B marketing.

1. Quarterly or annual marketing plans

These plans outline marketing strategies and activities for a specific time period, usually a quarter or a year. They provide a comprehensive overview of your marketing goals, target audience, messaging, channels, and budgets.

2. Social media marketing plan

This plan focuses on using social media channels to interact with your target market, increase brand recognition, and accelerate conversions. It includes content creation, posting schedules, engagement strategies, and performance tracking.

3. Content marketing plan

A content marketing plan focuses on producing and delivering useful, timely, and consistent content to draw in and keep your target market. In order to increase reach, it specifies the content kinds to be created, the platforms to be used, and the distribution methods.

4. New product launch marketing plan

A focused marketing strategy is required when launching a new good or service. To guarantee a successful product launch, it specifies the launch plan, target audience, messaging, promotional activities, and key performance measures.

5. Growth marketing plan

This plan focuses on strategies and tactics to drive business growth. It includes customer acquisition, retention, and upselling strategies, as well as referral programs, partnerships, and expansion into new markets.

6 Marketing plan examples

Let's take a look at some real-world marketing plan examples:

1. Visit Oxnard

Visit Oxnard, a destination marketing organization, developed a comprehensive marketing plan to promote tourism in Oxnard, California. Their plan included a mix of digital marketing, content creation, social media campaigns, and partnerships with local businesses to attract visitors.

2. Safe Haven Family Shelter

Safe Haven Family Shelter, a nonprofit organization, created a marketing plan to raise awareness and attract donations. Their plan involved storytelling through impactful videos, social media campaigns, and partnerships with local businesses to generate support for their cause.

3. Wright County Economic Development

Wright County Economic Development focused on attracting businesses to the region through a targeted marketing plan. They utilized digital marketing strategies, content creation, and industry partnerships to showcase the benefits and opportunities available in Wright County.

4. The Cultural Council of Palm Beach County

The Cultural Council of Palm Beach County developed a marketing plan to promote the cultural offerings of the region. Their plan included a mix of online and offline marketing tactics, collaborations with local artists, and engaging content to position Palm Beach County as a vibrant cultural destination.

5. Cabarrus County Convention and Visitors Bureau

In order to draw tourists and business travelers to Cabarrus County, North Carolina, the Cabarrus County Convention and visitors bureau adopted a marketing strategy. To highlight the region's unique offerings, their strategy includes collaborations with nearby hotels and attractions, targeted digital advertising, and social media initiatives.

6. Visit Billings

Visit Billings, a destination marketing organization, developed a marketing plan to promote tourism in Billings, Montana. Their plan incorporated a mix of online and offline marketing strategies, content creation, and collaboration with local businesses to position Billings as a must-visit destination.

A well-executed B2B marketing plan is crucial for attracting and converting customers in today's competitive business landscape. By setting clear goals, leveraging effective web design, creating compelling content, establishing a social media presence, implementing robust SEO strategies, and utilizing comprehensive analytics, businesses can develop successful marketing plans.

Don't forget to adjust your marketing plan to your particular sector, target market, and business goals. You may increase client attraction and conversion rates, which will fuel the expansion and success of your B2B business, by following the instructions provided in this article and getting ideas from actual case studies.

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TikTok Shop joins the social commerce boom but Meta is still on top

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The merging of shopping and social media is more than a trend; it’s a response to evolving consumer behavior. Social commerce is fueled by the significant amount of time that consumers spend on social media —US adults will spend 11.4% of their total daily media time and 17.9% of their digital media time with social platforms in 2024, per EMARKETER’s June 2023 forecast. 

With social commerce, every interaction on social platforms like TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram is a revenue-driving opportunity without the friction of leaving that digital environment. 

In this guide, we’ll explore the state of social commerce , examining the most popular platforms so retailers and advertisers can make the most of this dynamic digital shopping journey.

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Overview of social commerce

Social commerce fuses social media with ecommerce, allowing purchases to be made directly within a social platform. Social commerce enables consumers to not only discover products and engage with a brand’s greater community, but also to shop from brands without switching platforms and disrupting the customer experience. 

For marketers, the ability to advertise and sell in the same space streamlines the buying journey and gives them access to a host of benefits, including direct access to customers, more transparent return on ad spend, and new opportunities to take advantage of peer recommendations and the creator economy .

Social commerce thrives on inspiration, trends, and generating demand for products users may not have considered. Unlike ecommerce, where people often shop with specific products in mind, social commerce excels in promoting discretionary items like fashion and beauty products.

Who engages in social commerce?

Although early social commerce adopters have included younger generations who are more comfortable with navigating digital spaces, older generations are also embracing it as social media platforms become more user-friendly. 

• Nearly a quarter (23.1%) of US social buyers are between the ages of 25 and 34, per a September 2023 EMARKETER forecast, and more than two-thirds (66.5%) are under 44.
• US digital buyers ages 18 to 34 have made purchases on Instagram (28%), Facebook (26%), and TikTok (22%), per an October 2023 EMARKETER survey conducted by Bizrate Insights. 
• More than half (53%) of US shoppers ages 18 to 29 planned to use TikTok for holiday shopping in 2023, compared with just 36% of adults overall, according to September 2023 ESW data. 

Swayed by endorsements, peer reviews, and social connections, shoppers who follow influencers also make up a large social commerce audience. 

• A third (33%) of Gen Zers have purchased a product from an influencer-founded brand in the last year, per a November 2023 Morning Consult survey. 
• Gen Z is more likely than any other generation to purchase a product after watching a review from an influencer they follow, per November 2022 data from Deloitte. 

Top social commerce platforms

Major social media platforms have evolved, seamlessly integrating commerce into their core experience. These platforms have not only redefined manners of social interaction—they’ve also established themselves as modern digital storefronts. 

Facebook Marketplace

Facebook leads with the largest number of social commerce buyers, expected to reach 64.6 million in 2024, according to a September 2023 EMARKETER forecast. Its massive user base allows brands to reach a diverse, global audience, while extensive storefront features and insights-collecting capabilities add to a competitive ecosystem for online shopping. 

Facebook Marketplace is a dedicated platform for buying and selling secondhand items. Although the platform allows businesses to sell products and place ads, its roots are in local, community-based listings. Marketplace is a major reason why Facebook has such a strong lead in social commerce. In fact, Instagram would take the top spot with the biggest social buyer audience among platforms if Marketplace was excluded from social commerce data, according to third-party research cited in EMARKETER’s Social Commerce Forecast 2023 report. 

Facebook Shops

Unlike the peer-to-peer nature of Facebook Marketplace, Facebook Shops enables businesses to set up digital storefronts, where customers can explore and purchase products without leaving the platform. 

The storefront functionality allows richer product catalogs, visuals, and descriptions. For immersive, customizable experiences, businesses can also showcase featured products, seasonal collections and launches, promotions, and bundles.

Instagram Shopping

In 2024, Instagram will see 46.8 million US social buyers, per EMARKETER’s September 2023 forecast.

At its core is Instagram Shopping, which allows businesses to tag products in their posts and stories. When users click on a tagged item, they can view product details, prices, and a direct link to make a purchase.

Instagram and Facebook parent Meta is mandating all Meta Shops in the US to use Checkout on Facebook and Instagram in 2024. While frustrations have arisen regarding the in-app checkout tool’s effectiveness among both sellers and buyers, Meta is pushing forward as a way to compensate for the losses incurred due to iOS 14.5 changes, which reduced access to tracking data for advertisers and publishers. By making Checkout mandatory, Meta aims to boost adoption, particularly on Instagram, which plays a vital role in social commerce strategies. This move will also limit consumers’ options, as they won’t have the choice to complete their purchases on a retailer’s website.

TikTok Shop

With its Gen Z stronghold, the TikTok user base alone—which passed 100 million in the US in 2023 (102.3 million), according to EMARKETER’s May 2023 forecast—is enough to make it a competitive social commerce platform. We predict TikTok will reach 107.8 million users in 2024. In 2023, 35.3 million of those users were social buyers; during that time, TikTok gained more shoppers (11.6 million) than the net increase of Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest combined (6.4 million), per a September 2023 EMARKETER forecast. We predict TikTok will continue adding social buyers in 2024, reaching 40.7 million. 

However, uncertainty looms over the viability of the platform’s integrated commerce solution, TikTok Shop , given the slow adoption by US merchants, lukewarm reception to live shopping, and a potential nationwide ban.

TikTok Shop enables brands and creators to offer products directly to their viewers. Starting from short videos or livestreams, TikTok Shop aims to own the full buyer journey. A standout feature is the ability for users to consolidate products from various brands into a single cart and finalize their purchase without navigating away from the app.

The shopping service’s US journey seems to have encountered early turbulence:

• TikTok Shop was projected to lose more than $500 million in the US in 2023, per The Information, due to major investments—in its staff, building out a fulfillment network, and seller incentivizations—that hadn’t paid off. 
• In the summer of 2023, US consumers were spending around $3 million to $4 million per day on TikTok. The platform expected that figure to exceed $10 million by the end of 2023.

Social commerce stats and growth 

Continued growth for social shopping is on the horizon, with sales growing well into the double digits through the end of EMARKETER’s forecast period in 2027. Although converting non-buyer social media users into buyers is becoming more challenging, the overall landscape remains robust. One significant trend is the increasing spending per buyer, which is expected to nearly double between 2023 and 2027, per an October 2023 EMARKETER forecast. This is expected to drive most of the sales growth, rather than the acquisition of new buyers.

Consumers aren’t sold yet on social commerce.

• Almost 4 in 10 shoppers hold back from shopping on social media over concerns about how platforms manage personal data, per a May 2023 PYMNTS.com survey.
• Younger consumers don’t want to use a social platform’s in-app checkout tools. In fact, about three-quarters of US social shoppers ages 16 to 24 prefer purchasing through established retailers that handle transactions, shipping, and delivery, per an October 2022 SimplicityDX survey.
• UK shoppers have reported counterfeit goods and poor shipping experiences on TikTok Shop, according to the Financial Times, which could trigger more apprehension in other markets. 

Still, social commerce is on an upward trajectory. 

• US retail social commerce sales will pass the $100 billion milestone in 2025, representing a 22.4% growth from the year prior, per EMARKETER’s September 2023 forecast. 
• In 2024, there will be 110.4 million US social buyers, accounting for 42.0% of all internet users and nearly half (50.3%) of all social media users.  
• US social commerce sales will claim 6.6% of total ecommerce sales in 2024.
• For now, most social commerce transactions take place off platform, by clicking links to retailer product pages. 

The rise in new buyers is only marginally ahead of the growth in the total social media user population, resulting in a relatively consistent percentage of users engaging in purchasing activities, holding steady at around 50% through 2027, per a September 2023 forecast.

Marketing strategies for social commerce 

User-generated content (UGC) and influencer marketing are two effective strategies that brands can harness to connect with consumers authentically.

UGC is generally created by consumers, showcasing their experiences without direct brand involvement, whereas influencer marketing involves brand collaboration and incentives to ensure the content aligns with the correct messaging and goals.  

User-generated content 

UGC is a powerful tool that taps into authenticity and trust. Forty-six percent of US consumers are more likely to trust a brand if an online content creator they trust has reviewed it, according to a November 2022 Deloitte survey. Encouraging users to create and share content featuring their experiences with products or services cultivates a sense of community and credibility. 

Brands can initiate UGC campaigns, prompting customers to share testimonials, unboxing videos, or creative uses of their purchases. By showcasing real-life experiences, UGC bolsters brand authenticity, fosters engagement, and influences potential buyers’ perceptions positively. Additionally, reposting and engaging with UGC amplifies brand reach while nurturing a loyal and involved customer base.

Influencer marketing

From large, well-known influencers with massive followings to micro-influencers with niche communities, choosing the right person to vouch for your brand can bolster your social commerce investments. 

Collaborating with influencers allows brands to tap into their audience and leverage their credibility. Influencers create engaging content, seamlessly integrating product endorsements or reviews into their posts, stories, or videos. These endorsements often resonate deeply with their audience, establishing trust and driving purchasing decisions. 

Social commerce trends in 2024 and beyond 

Tech innovations, immersive experiences, and retailer collaborations will present new opportunities in the social commerce space.

AI integration 

Social platforms are taking advantage of AI to enhance the user experience and streamline product discovery. TikTok’s product identification feature, now in its testing phase, uses AI to suggest similar or relevant items available on its ecommerce marketplace. This new shoppable feature to non-shopping content is TikTok’s attempt at fully embedding commerce into the in-app experience.

In-person events 

Events help bridge the gap between the real world and social media, and can help drive user engagement and sales. The Pinterest Predicts pop-up event held in New York City in December 2023 brought to life its anticipated trends, allowing users to draw inspiration for the year ahead and, more importantly, shop. 

Retailer partnerships 

Retailers are also getting behind social commerce, partnering with streaming platforms to have their products in front of new audiences. Walmart’s holiday-themed romantic comedy “Add to Heart” is its first shoppable video series. Available on Roku, TikTok, and YouTube, the 23-part series integrates 330 shoppable products throughout its plot, creating a new avenue for Walmart to connect with consumers through content. 

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Published March 18 th 2024

How to Market Your Sustainability as a Brand in 2024

This Global Recycling Day, we’re diving into why it’s important to market your brand’s sustainability efforts – and how to do it properly.

Worldwide investments in renewable energy are higher than ever before. Brands are continuing to focus on improving their sustainability initiatives, for the sake of the planet – and your profits.

With consumers demanding greener operations from their favorite brands, companies need to listen to see a benefit to their bottom line.

But what methods should brands implement to make customers aware of their sustainability efforts?

We dove into the online sustainability conversation to see what the sentiment is towards recycling and sustainability, and discover how you can market sustainable products and practices the right way.

Do consumers actually care about sustainable products?

We used Brandwatch Consumer Research to look at mentions about sustainability on social media, blogs, forums, and review sites over the last five years. And the results were intriguing.

Online mentions about sustainability and recycling are at the highest they’ve been. In the last few months, a number of things have contributed to this uptick in climate concerns, including Nigeria and Germany signing agreements towards sustainable developments and sustainable initiatives being revealed at technology event CES 2024 .

In November, online mentions hit a peak of almost 5 million, showing just how important sustainability is for consumers right now.

So, how does this translate to business?

In January and February this year, 52% of online mentions about sustainability and recycling also mentioned brands, products, and services. This means consumers are actively discussing brands and products that promote – or avoid – sustainability.

We must follow in the footsteps of leading companies to reduce plastic waste and protect our planet. — Jeannie Santos (@JeannieSan32116) March 10, 2024

A huge percentage of mentions about sustainable brands and products were positive, showing that consumers are quick to celebrate companies for their efforts towards sustainability.

Alternatively, it’s also common for brands to come under fire for not acknowledging or working towards incorporating greener practices.

So, it’s clear that working towards having a more sustainable brand or product is important for consumers. But how can you translate these efforts into bottom-line growth?

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The power of marketing your sustainability efforts

Interestingly, some brands are anecdotally reporting an inability to generate sufficient consumer demand for sustainable products. So it’s understandable that some brands are skeptical about investing in greener operating methods.

But what do the facts say about the profitability of incorporating ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) initiatives into businesses?

McKinsey set out to answer this question: Is it actually beneficial to a brand’s bottom line to implement sustainability?

And as it turns out, yes – it is. Products making ESG-related claims averaged 28% cumulative growth over the past five-year period, versus 20% for products that made no such claims.

As McKinsey puts it, “Creating such products turns out to be not just a moral imperative but also a solid business decision.”

So, why are some brands not seeing any success with their sustainability efforts? In part, the answer can be found in their marketing efforts.

Marketing sustainable products effectively could be the deciding factor on whether consumers are receptive to your ESG activities. So, let's look at how your brand can ensure you benefit from your green initiatives.

How to market your sustainability efforts effectively

Let’s look at some ways you can keep sustainability at the forefront of your marketing efforts, and look at ways other brands are seeing success.

Release a report on your sustainability efforts

A deep dive into your business’ current sustainability standings is always a good place to start for any company wanting to improve their green initiatives. While this can be great for brands to have a format to assess their sustainability efforts internally, sharing your sustainability report online can also bring great publicity.

You don’t need to be perfectly sustainable to put effort into creating a sustainability report, either. If anything, acknowledging your downfalls and committing to improving over time is exactly what consumers want to see.

If you have a report, or you’re looking to make one, make sure you show it off online. Make it visible on your website, share it on social media, and consider keeping consumers in the loop over email.

Shipping and logistics company Maersk is a great example of leading with sustainability reports . The brand releases one every year in accordance with regulations to keep themselves accountable – but they don’t shy away from shouting about the report. Their ESG commitments – which include a comprehensive strategy to reach net zero across their business by 2040 – have a dedicated page on their website , making it easy for customers to learn and understand that sustainability is one of Maersk’s core values.

Customers are receptive to this kind of content too – there were over 13k mentions about Maersk’s sustainability initiatives on social media last year. And over 65% of emotion-categorized mentions expressed joy, proving there’s a largely positive reception to these initiatives.

The brand also regularly posts about their latest environmentally-friendly schemes to a receptive audience.

Another incredible extraction by The Ocean Cleanup🗑️🌊 We are on board as proud partners in the effort to remove plastic waste from the oceans and look forward to see the new system 03 in action. #sustainability #environment #plasticwaste #theoceancleanup #maersk https://t.co/UpBj4wYTlC — Maersk (@Maersk) August 9, 2023

Committing to sustainable practices and demonstrating concrete changes to your operations can often be enough for customers (and potential customers) to be pleased with your green initiatives. So, if you have the resources, consider putting together – and showing off – a report analyzing your commitment to sustainability.

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Utilize your packaging

If you’re looking for ways to show your customers that you’re committed to caring for the environment, why not consider your packaging?

Your packaging is something that is seen by all of your customers, so by tweaking the design – think reduced packaging, using sustainable or recycled materials, or seeking certifications – you can be certain that your sustainability initiatives will not go unnoticed.

Adding a small note about your sustainability on your packaging can be enough for customers to notice your green commitments. But if you’re really committed to sustainability – why not explore the possibility of giving your brand a complete overhaul? Let's delve into an example of additional steps a company can take for sustainability.

You could offer limited edition products that have a greener focus, or use more of your packaging’s real estate for your sustainability messaging. You could even alter your product entirely, offering “greener versions,” which might cost more, but where some of the profits go to relevant charities.

An excellent example of this is toilet paper retailer Who Gives A Crap, who offer 100% recycled toilet paper and packaging. The company is all about sustainability, which is a core value that eclipses their branding. They even donate 50% of their profits to “ensure everyone has access to clean water and a toilet.”

Their packaging is covered with nods towards their sustainability efforts, including both the box the paper is delivered in and the individual wrappers.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Who Gives A Crap (@whogivesacraptp)

They also recently ran a campaign dedicated to raising awareness about deforestation. They reworked illustrations of the popular children’s character Winnie the Pooh, where Winnie and his friends are surrounded by felled tree stumps that represent the impact of land clearing to make traditional toilet paper .

And people were receptive. The brand released a series of Instagram post’s about the campaign which saw plenty of engagement, and many followers expressed their appreciation of the awareness campaign in the comments.

So why not consider implementing different packaging options, or simply tweaking your design slightly, to better market your green initiatives?

Focus on community through events

Sustainability is a physical problem, so you might argue some of your marketing campaigns should be too. Focus on ways you can host local events targeted at solving sustainability issues, or get involved in local communities to see how you can help.

Try to keep these activities relevant to your brand so consumers can make a connection between your brand and the messaging behind the event you’re hosting. An excellent example of this is the activewear brand Athleta , who hosted an activation in February aimed at recycling old leggings.

Athleta asked locals to bring used leggings from any brand in-store to exchange them for a brand new pair of Athleta leggings. Used leggings were then sold via resale platforms or recycled. The campaign was a hit – over 2,000 people showed up to the New York City store and queued for their free trade-in.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by ATHLETA (@athleta)

Athleta went a step further and promoted the activation after it happened with an online giveaway for those who missed out – making sure to keep non-local customers engaged too.

Promoting and engaging a community – both online and offline – is a trend we predict will dominate this year . And brands wanting to promote sustainability can utilize communities to assist in these efforts.

Digital Marketing Trends

Read the latest trends every digital marketer should know

It’s undoubtedly beneficial to work towards running a greener company – both for your brand image and for the planet. But it’s only advantageous to your profits if you market these sustainability efforts successfully.

From sharing ways you’re committed to greener operating practices to hosting events that showcase and encourage local sustainability, there are plenty of ways you can market your brand’s ESG efforts effectively.

Emily Smith

Content Marketing Manager

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