Conducting market research analysis is essential for brands seeking to expand their audience and get their product and services into the hands of customers.
You can spend hours and thousands of dollars conducting market research, but if you don’t analyze it properly, then the data becomes nothing but meaningless numbers.
Market research blends insights on consumer behavior with knowledge of industry trends. By bringing all the data into a centralized platform like Cision, you can then analyze your data and draw significant conclusions and insights.
Strong market research analysis can make the difference between success and failure. It helps identify who your potential customers are, what they need, and how they behave. Without these valuable insights, businesses risk launching products or services that don't resonate.
This guide provides a hypothetical example of how to conduct market research analysis. By the end, you'll see how a thorough market analysis translates raw data into key insights and informed marketing strategies that drive business growth.
Before we look at an example of market research analysis, it’s important to understand the background, objectives, and practices first. So, this guide will also examine types of research and the methods used to conduct market research before diving into our example.
In This Guide:
What Is Market Research Analysis?
Types of Market Research: Primary vs. Secondary, Qualitative vs. Quantitative
Key Market Research Methods and Techniques
The Market Research Analysis Process: Step by Step
Market Research Analysis Example
Conduct Your Own Market Research Analysis Today
What Is Market Research Analysis?
Market research analysis is all about interpreting market data you’ve gathered and processed. That market data could be:
Your target audience
Your competitors
Your industry environment
The aim is to crunch the data and find answers to questions such as:
Who is our target audience?
What problems do they need solved?
How big is the market size for our offering?
Who are our main competitors?
What are they doing better, worse, and differently to us?
Is there a gap in the market?
By analyzing data on these fronts, you can uncover market trends, spot market gaps (unmet needs or underserved segments), and gauge your market potential.
We’ll show you an example of conducting market research analysis later in this guide. However, first, we need to examine the types of research you can conduct.
Types of Market Research: Primary vs. Secondary, Qualitative vs. Quantitative
When approaching research, it's important to understand the four different types of market research available. These generally fall into two categories:
Primary market research (original data you collect) vs. secondary market research (existing data collected by others).
Quantitative research (numbers and statistics) vs. qualitative research (opinions and reasons).
Primary vs. Secondary Research
In primary market research, you gather fresh data directly from sources. This can be achieved through market research surveys, interviews, focus groups, or observational studies. You own the data and benefit from it being highly relevant and up to date.
Secondary market research involves leveraging existing data that's already out there. This includes publications such as industry reports, government statistics, and academic studies. You can dig further by conducting social listening and gathering relevant data from websites and forums.
Secondary research is usually faster and cheaper since someone else did the legwork, but the data may be more general and not perfectly aligned to your needs.
Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research
Quantitative research deals with numerical data and answers questions like "how many?" or "how much?"
If you need hard stats, you'd use quantitative methods. Surveys with closed-ended questions (such as multiple-choice questions or rating scales) are a typical quantitative tool, as are sales data analysis and web analytics.
Qualitative research explores the "why" and "how” to provide depth and context.
Techniques like focus groups, open-ended interview questions, or analysis of social media comments fall into this category.
Key Market Research Methods and Techniques
Now that you know the types of market research available, it’s time to look at what methods and techniques you can utilize to extract valuable data. Remember, you’ll analyze this data and discover insights beneficial to your brand, so it’s essential to conduct thorough research.
Surveys and Questionnaires
Surveys and questionnaires are a staple of market research, even in 2025 when people’s attention spans are much shorter than they used to be.
Surveys allow you to collect information from a large sample quickly and efficiently. With online survey tools, you can distribute questionnaires to hundreds or thousands of people and get results in real time.
Surveys are especially useful for collecting quantitative data, as they allow you to ask a series of questions to measure customer satisfaction or determine which features customers value most.
Focus Groups
Focus groups are a classic qualitative research method that involves bringing together a small group of target consumers to discuss a product, service, or concept. Political parties often use focus groups, for example, to gauge the public's reaction to policy ideas.
With a skilled moderator guiding the conversation, participants are encouraged to share their honest opinions, reactions, and even debate with each other. The group discussion can reveal consumer insights that might not surface in a simple survey – you'll hear in participants' own words what they think and why they feel that way.
Preparation is key to a successful focus group. You'll want to prepare a discussion guide or focus group template that outlines the topics and questions to cover, so each session stays on track.
It's also crucial to recruit the right participants – they should represent your target market so that their feedback is relevant.
Interviews
One-on-one interviews are a really powerful qualitative method. Speaking directly with a customer or prospect in an in-depth interview allows you to explore topics in great detail.
Interviews can be structured (with a fixed set of questions) or semi-structured (a flexible conversation around key themes). They are time-consuming, but the payoff is rich detail, as you can uncover things such as:
Individual customer stories
Pain points
Preferences
Decision-making processes
Interviews yield qualitative data that adds a human voice to your research findings.
Social Media Listening and Analytics
There are 5.4 billion social media users worldwide. We share a lot of personal information on social platforms – even when we don’t mean to! – and brands can use this information to better align their products and services with their audiences.
Social listening is the practice of monitoring online conversations (on networks like X, LinkedIn, Facebook, forums, etc.) to see what people are saying about your brand, competitors, or industry.
Social listening tools like Cision can aggregate and analyze these mentions, using techniques such as sentiment analysis to determine the percentage of posts that are positive or negative.
You can use social listening as an ongoing research tactic to complement formal studies, and it can serve as an early warning system for shifts in public opinion.
Using a Market Research "Toolkit"
To streamline your efforts, it is helpful to have a standard set of market research tools and templates that you can reuse for various projects.
For instance, you might develop a go-to survey questionnaire template, a focus group template for discussion guides, and a SWOT analysis template to compile competitive intel.
You can also use market research software to house your toolkit and roll each method out easily.
By using a consistent format each time, it's much easier to compare results from one study to the next and ensure you're covering all the important bases in your analysis.
The Market Research Analysis Process: Step by Step
Now that you know about the types and core methods of market research, it’s time to build a step-by-step process that you can template every time you want to conduct an analysis.
Here's a streamlined step-by-step approach:
1. Define Your Objective
Start with a clear goal or question. This may be something as simple as a curious search, such as “How big is my target market in a neighboring state?”. Or it may be more complex, such as “What’s the average age and income of my product’s target customer?”
Defining the objective sharpens your focus and provides a question to answer when analyzing your data.
2. Identify Your Target Market / Audience
Next, determine whose opinions or behavior you need to study. You may already know your target market, or you may be entering this for the first time.
Use a market research tool to help find your target audience. Be specific about demographics, interests, and other traits to build a strong picture of your customer base.
If you're unsure, you may need to segment the market into several possibilities and decide which to focus on. The key is that you recruit respondents or find data that truly represent your target customers.
3. Choose Your Research Methods
This is a core step of the customer analysis process, as it will shape what data you eventually analyze.
Select the most effective method to obtain the information you need. If you need numbers or percentages (quantitative data), you might conduct a structured survey or analyze existing datasets.
If you need deep qualitative insights, methods like focus groups or in-depth interviews are appropriate.
Getting the mix right is crucial, which typically involves conducting primary and secondary research in tandem. For example, running competitive analysis on your rivals requires robust secondary research.
Planning the methods – and considering practical details like budget, tools, and timeline – will set your study up for success.
4. Collect the Data
Execute your research plan in a consistent and unbiased manner. Stick to your scripts or discussion guides to ensure consistency if you’re interacting with research subjects. Equally, if you’re conducting social listening, ensure you eliminate bias from your practices to avoid affecting your results.
Stay objective – don't lead participants to certain answers, and don’t overlook data just because it tells you something you don’t want to hear.
This stage can take some time (especially if you're aiming for a large sample), but careful data collection is the foundation of trustworthy insights.
5. Analyze the Data
Finally, it’s time to start conducting research analysis! Pull all your data into a central platform. This could be something as simple as a Google Sheet, although a market research tool like Cision will make the process much easier.
Look for patterns, trends, and surprises in your data.
If it's quantitative data, calculate the metrics that matter – such as averages, percentages, and correlations. For qualitative data, read through the interview notes or social listening sentiment to identify common themes and notable quotes.
The goal here is to transform raw data into key insights that answer your original questions.
6. Draw Conclusions
Interpret the findings and draw conclusions for your business. You can accomplish this using the built-in reporting tools in your chosen market research software.
Your aim is to answer the "So what?" question – what do the results mean in practical terms?
Ensure that your market analysis conclusions align with your original objectives. If you focused on competitive analysis and your question concerns why a rival is ahead of you, and the research reveals customers love that competitor's loyalty program, the conclusion might be: "We should consider a similar rewards program to win back loyalty."
Distill everything into a few key findings that you can clearly communicate to your team or stakeholders.
7. Develop Action Plans
Finally, use the research insights to inform the development of strategies and make informed decisions. This is where analysis turns into action.
Outline what changes or initiatives you'll undertake and prioritize actions that will improve customer experience, fill any market gaps, and enhance your competitive advantage.
Assign owners and timelines to each action to ensure these plans are implemented. And remember, market research is iterative – as you roll out these strategies, monitor the results and be ready to refine your approach with new insights.
Market Research Analysis Example
Now let’s look at a market research analysis in action. Imagine a motor company planning to expand into the electric vehicle (EV) market for the first time in 2025. They’re already playing catch-up, with scores of brands competing in the EV market.
First, the company needs to define its objective. In this instance, it’s to determine what products would suit their initial entry into the EV market. Would they launch an SUV, estate, coupe, or other type of vehicle?
Identifying an Audience
Next, the brand identifies its audience. Using existing consumer data on its gas-generated car sales and industry data on the most popular types of EV cars, the brand can determine who it needs to market to.
In this instance, they realize middle-class families who are eco-conscious, own their home, and have purchased/leased mid-range cars before are the ones most keenly looking to buy an EV model.
Selecting Research Methods
Armed with an understanding of their audience, the company settles on a number of research methods. They send email surveys to their network of existing customers asking for answers to quantitative-focused questions, such as: “On a scale of 1-10, how important are these factors in your purchase decision for a new car?”
Then, they employ qualitative methods to gauge the emotions and feelings of their target audience. What are their pressure points when choosing a car, and, importantly, why do they need a car?
The company then uses social listening and media tracking to gauge both what audience members and the wider media say in public about EV cars.
Conducting Research and Collecting Data
The brand then conducts its research. It speaks to target customers in focus groups and via questionnaires, and collects data from email surveys. It runs a social listening exercise that tracks sentiment of existing and prospective EV users, and monitors the media for mentions of electric vehicle stories and brands.
Then, the brand consolidates all the data into a single tool to initiate the data analysis.
Analyzing the Data
Data analysis pulls all the quantitative and qualitative feedback into one place. The company begins to interpret the data, examining buying habits, preferences, sentiment shifts, and other insights – all within the context of user demographics.
The brand discovers its target market – middle-class families that own their home and are eco-conscious – is willing to spend more on a comfortable electric SUV than a similar gas model.
However, the data also shows the same market isn’t interested in smaller cars or high-end luxury EVs. The core focus is the family SUV.
Decision Time
And so, the brand decides to begin the research and development (R&D) stage of creating an electric version of its best-selling gas SUV. The brand will need to conduct further research over time to ensure the model continues to meet changing habits and user preferences, but the initial analysis provides stakeholders with the confidence to move forward.
Conduct Your Own Market Research Analysis Today
A solid market research practice eliminates the guesswork from decision-making and grounds your strategies in reality.
By understanding your customers' needs, tracking market dynamics, and assessing the competitive landscape, it becomes easier to make informed choices that positively impact your business.
Our analysis example looked at how a car manufacturer can begin the process of launching an EV armed with reliable research data. But you don’t need a project on that scale to benefit from market analysis.
Whether it's simply tweaking a product feature, crafting a message that clicks with your audience, or finding an underserved niche to pursue, a research-driven approach to your marketing strategies ultimately gives you a competitive edge.
Ready to harness the power of data in your own strategy? Cision offers a suite of solutions to help you gather and act on media and consumer insights. Request a demo and see where your market research analysis can take you!
