10 strong ways to leverage market insight for your success
Market insight is crucial for business success. This post presents ten ways to leverage market insight. If you need to convince someone, here are plenty of good reasons to start right now!
If you doubt why you should collect market insight systematically, here’s a list of solid reasons:
- Pick up trending topics in your communication
- Find inspiration for your product development
- Keep your educational material up-to-date
- Tailor products to upcoming market changes
- Spot chances for collaborations early on
- Find up-to-date triggers and hooks for sales conversations
- Gain insight from other markets and adapt it to yours
- Analyze and compare successful content patterns on different platforms – best practices for each channel
- Analyze successful communication patterns – how different channels play together
- Gain insight for your positioning
But we can’t settle with the list. Let’s dive in and take a closer look.
Only some ways to use market insight might be relevant to you. That’s okay. Find the ones that matter most to you and zero in on these. Only do what promises to move the needle.
#1 Pick up trending topics in your communication
They say that on the internet, every business becomes a media company.
And there’s quite some truth in that. Do you provide insightful content on your website? Maybe you even add new content from time to time? Do you post on social media using a business account? If so, you’re already in the middle of the game. You see: a part of your business is a media company.
That means you have to think about good content to publish. Because it’s not just for fun. It’s part of your business now. And to choose good topics, it helps to look at what’s trending.
What are your competitors talking about?
Your competitors are a good indicator of what’s relevant in the market. They pick up the topics they consider relevant, so there might be some truth to it. Follow their communication channels and watch out for trends. Then, you can consciously decide if you want to join in.
However, competitors tend to focus on communicating with a focus on their products. Thought leaders have a different approach.
What do thought leaders emphasize?
Thought leaders are being recognized as such because their communication is relatively neutral and not biased by specific products. They share a broad perspective on the topics they cover. Part of that is predicting the future. If they prove to be strong fortune tellers, they strengthen their position, and even more people turn to them to follow their direction.
That makes it easy for you to spot new topics. Just follow the thought leaders of your market. They know where the market is heading. If you listen to them, you get ideas for new topics constantly.
But remember the group that is most important in the market.
Problems potential customers talk about that you can address
The market’s customers are indeed the most critical group.
They spend the money to feed the market.
It’s mandatory to talk to them. But there’s more you can do. Find public channels where customers congregate to discuss their pains and needs. Start to listen there to expand your horizon beyond your customer base. You can also engage with them. But this is about learning from them, not about selling.
What you can learn here is gold. Pick up the market’s wording and struggles to promote respective solutions in your communication.
#2 Find inspiration for your product development
Understand the ever-changing market needs to shape the roadmap for your product development.
Your product is fantastic, that’s for sure. 😉
But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to improve or adapt to changing environments. Here’s what you can do:
Identify user needs your product doesn’t address yet
Listen to people complaining about existing products – not necessarily yours – or talking about needs and feature requests. You can learn a lot about their pains and ways to address them. If you understand what customers need, improving your product gets easier.
The best is to cross-check the insight you gain with your existing customers. Ask them for their opinion to assess the impact on your current business. Also, ask prospects if you have the chance to do so.
You can also listen to your competitor’s customers.
Think about ways to apply your competitors’ case studies to your product
Calling your competitors’ customers and asking them about their experience might be difficult. Luckily, there’s another helpful way: Check your competition’s case studies for relevant insight.
Yes, case studies are marketing. Keep that in mind.
But they also feature topics your competition considers most relevant about their offer. Gather that insight to analyze what could add value to your product.
If case studies are rare, there’s a more frequent type of communication.
Check if your competitors’ product announcements contain valuable ideas for your offer
Depending on the industry, product announcements are an established way to communicate product changes. Just listen to them to be up-to-date. They cover recent changes. If they look promising, dig deeper and see how you can apply them to your offer.
Product updates are insightful because they emphasize what your competitor considers relevant. And they are concise because people want to avoid reading extensive product updates.
Take advantage of that.
#3-10
If you want to read more about the numbers 3-10, head over to our Picasi website.
Market insights are important for the business to scale up. This gives the clear picture of where you lack and where you have to improve.
I agree, John. Taking a close look at your market makes it easier to understand where you're standing in the market. This is an essential addition to talking to prospects and customers.