Market Intelligence (MI) refers to external data or information that a business collects from a specific market that it plans to enter or make particular decisions. It’s the first set of data collected for a business before its leaders make an investment decision, for instance, involving products, competitors, and consumer behaviors.
What Market Intelligence Tools Do – Importance of MI
Market intelligence tools guide business decisions. When marketers collect and analyze contextual information about customers and different industry trends and behaviors, they gain a broad comprehension of things that work and ones that need improvements. This understanding gives a business a competitive edge over competing firms through more learning about products, consumers, and the entire industry. Also, enterprises use MI tools to set smart goals, which improve their effectiveness and efficiency in operations.
How Businesses Can Get Started using Market Intelligence
Marketers use variable MI methodologies to have a better grasp of markets that they explore.
1. Focus Groups
While using focus groups, business marketers develop a market sample size after handpicking or selecting groups of people. Moderators then pose a set of questions to the group, prompting more discussions about specific issues. Marketers use these groups to get more insights from the audience’s different opinions, allowing businesses to make better-informed decisions.
2. Polls
Using polls, marketers pose a single question. They use this method when a business uses market intelligence to collect information about a specific aspect, for instance, consumer behavior and trends. Unlike other types, people respond to polls faster and quickly, resulting in incomparably high response rates.
3. Personal Interviews
Marketers use this method to collect more in-depth information about specific topics, for instance, a product. Personal interviews are in the form of open-ended questions without a specific structure, which means they consume more time as an interviewee addresses each question. They are organized expansively, providing critical information about the subject of discussion. Their personal-based format implies that businesses cannot entirely rely on them since they are personal opinions and not representative of the entire market’s view. This method is most applicable when a business needs technical information, which an expert gives through a personal interview.
4. Field Trials
Field trials present businesses with an opportunity to experiment with their products or brands. Marketers test new brands or products at particular stores while minimizing promotion costs and wastes. Also, new product lines are evaluated in a specific geographical region where performance results then determine whether the products are introduced to larger audiences.
5. Observation
In some cases, data that marketers collect using other methods does not provide accurate insights into a market, for instance, buying patterns and customer behaviors. Therefore, marketers use observations to gather critical information about customers’ behavior, purchasing habits, and changing product trends. Collecting this information first hand enables better decision-making and organizing for changes that suit the market. For instance, surveillance cameras fitted in stores are essential to study and understand consumer behavior, tapping into their unconscious attitudes to improve decisions.
NetBase Quid
NetBase Quid is a market intelligence and consumer platform that businesses use to gain significant insights about market trends, link with their customers, and improve understanding of competitors regarding the entire market. In the NetBase Quid platform, developers used artificial intelligence as the primary method of collecting and processing variable information, which businesses use to make better, faster, and accurate decisions. Businesses use this platform to achieve their goals by having more intelligence for competitors, improved innovation strategies for products, better branding, and more critical analysis of the market and consumer trends. These measures drive businesses to achieve their goals as the involved departments make more informed decisions following in-depth market analytics.