market research to launch a new product

Market Research for Launching New Products: A Step-by-Step Guide

• Posted on March 6, 2024
• |     Modified on March 13, 2024
• |     Starting Your Business
• March 6, 2024

Key Points:

• Understand FMCG vs CPG Differences
• Methods: Primary, Secondary Research
• Critical Steps in the Pre-launch Process
• Cost-Conscious Market Research Methods

Key Steps After Gathering Market Insights

Article summary.

• Business owners must know the difference between FMCG and CPG.
• Doing thorough research is vital for a successful product launch.
• Research helps owners understand what customers need and who they’re up against.
• Use both primary and secondary methods to research well.
• Key steps: know the market, target customers, create a unique product, plan marketing, test, launch, and track.
• Use surveys, social media, and interviews for affordable research.
• After research, work with a CPG branding agency for clear strategies.

Market Research Can Make or Break Your Business

If you’re launching a new food , beauty, or supplement product, making your product stand out amidst intense competition is likely top of mind. Going up against industry giants and established FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) and CPG (consumer packaged goods) brands can seem daunting. To effectively launch a FMCG or CPG brand and compete against established products, new brands must undergo methodical branding and packaging development and conduct thorough market research to define their niche and find opportunities. Our step-by-step guide on market research for launching new products will help you get started on the right path to a profitable business.

Before we explore the specific steps for market research tailored to new product businesses, let’s first define what is CPG vs FMCG.

What is CPG vs FMCG?

What is CPG?

CPG is a broader category that includes FMCG but also includes other consumer products for personal or household use beyond just consumables. In addition to foods and beverages, CPG spans apparel, cosmetics, cleaning products, pet supplies, and consumer electronics – essentially any product designed for frequent replenishment or personal consumption from traditional retail channels.

What are the 5 main categories of CPGs?

• Food and beverages:  This includes items like bread, juice , soups , cookies , and sauces .
• Household products:  This includes items like laundry detergent, paper towels, trash bags, and cleaning supplies.
• Personal care products:  This includes items like shampoo, soap, toothpaste, and deodorant.
• Beauty products:  This includes items like makeup , skincare products , and hair care products .
• Over-the-counter drugs:  This includes items like pain relievers, allergy medication, and cold medicine.

Examples of well-known CPG companies

• Food and beverages:  Nestle, Unilever, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Kraft Heinz
• Household products:  Procter & Gamble, Clorox, Kimberly-Clark, SC Johnson & Son
• Personal care products:  L’Oreal, Johnson & Johnson, Colgate-Palmolive, Unilever
• Beauty products:  Estee Lauder, L’Oreal, Avon , Shiseido

What is FMCG?

FMCG refers to affordable consumer products that are purchased frequently and consumed rapidly. These fast-moving goods include food items, beverages, toiletries, over-the-counter medicines, and other consumables found in grocery, convenience, and drugstore settings. Key attributes of FMCG products are their low cost, high volume, and short shelf life.

FMCG Key Market Segments:

• Food and Beverages : Juice, Soda, Snacks, Tea, Coffee , Chocolate .
• Personal care products: Skincare, Cosmetics, Hair care
• Health care products: Over-the-counter Drugs, Vitamins & Dietary Supplements , Oral Care, Feminine Care

Examples of top FMCG companies

• Procter & Gamble (P&G): Including Pampers, Tide, Gillette, and Crest.
• Nestlé: Popular brands under Nestlé’s umbrella include KitKat, Nescafé, Maggi, and Purina.
• Unilever: Some of its famous brands are Dove, Knorr, Lipton, and Axe.
• The Coca-Cola Company: Including Coca-Cola, Sprite, Fanta, and Minute Maid.
• PepsiCo: Including soft drinks (Pepsi, Mountain Dew), snacks (Lays, Doritos), and beverages (Gatorade, Tropicana).

Here are the key differences:

Cpg – consumer packaged goods.

• A broader category that includes FMCG as well as other consumer products
• Encompasses both durable and non-durable goods used for personal/household purposes
• Examples: food, beverages, cosmetics, cleaning products, apparel, electronics
• Sold through various channels – retail, wholesale, online etc.

FMCG – Fast Moving Consumer Goods

• Refers to low-cost, non-durable products that are frequently purchased and rapidly consumed
• Examples: food, beverages, toiletries, over-the-counter drugs
• High volume and high turnover products
• Typically sold at retail stores, supermarkets, convenience stores

So in essence:

• CPG is the overall umbrella term for most consumer products packaged for purchase
• FMCG is a sub-category focused on faster turnover consumer items

Some other key differences:

• FMCGs generally have lower price points than other CPGs
• FMCG marketing emphasizes volume, impulse purchases, constant promotions
• CPG marketing varies based on product category and purchase cycles

While there is overlap, FMCG goods are consumed rapidly and purchased frequently, while the CPG category also includes more durable, higher-priced goods meant for longer-term consumption. 

While FMCG places more emphasis on value pricing and rapid turnover, CPG products can span a wider range in terms of price point, purchase cycles, and shopping experiences. However, both categories are consumer-driven and highly competitive when it comes to earning enduring brand loyalty and market share.

Understanding where your new product offering fits within the CPG or FMCG landscape is critical before undertaking market research. 

What is market research and why is it done?

Market research is about figuring out if new opportunities are worth pursuing by looking at how much they can grow, who else is competing, and if customers are interested.

The primary purpose of market research is to tackle complex issues related to new product development, technology innovation, market exploration, strategic planning, and competitive analysis . Market research provides a crucial customer-centric foundation for businesses by deeply understanding their target audience . 

Why do you do market research before starting a business?

Conducting market research before launching a product business is crucial for laying a strong brand foundation . It provides essential insights and foresight necessary for estimating, refining, and precisely planning various aspects of the business. 

Two main benefits are:

Maintaining a customer-centric approach.

• Market research reveals customer needs, desires, pain points
• This allows companies to truly prioritize the customer experience
• Customer-centric businesses are 60% more profitable
• The STP (segmentation-targeting-positioning) process enables laser-focused customer-centricity

Making More Effective Connections with the Audience

• Research identifies the right marketing channels for reaching the target market
• It prevents wasting resources on ill-fitted platforms
• Content and messaging can be tailored to “speak the language” of the audience
• This resonates better and drives higher engagement

Investing in market research upfront highlights specific characteristics and preferences of the intended customer base. This insight allows businesses to align their entire product, positioning, and promotion strategy around those customers which leads to a more profitable business.

Types of Market Research:

Market research typically involves two main types: primary and secondary. Each serves distinct purposes and offers unique advantages.

What is Primary Market Research?

Primary market research for a new product involves conducting a specialized study by yourself to uncover the wants and needs of individuals who match the profile of your target market, typically by directly engaging with them and asking them questions about your product. You can achieve this using various interviewing techniques: face-to-face, phone calls, focus groups, and online surveys and competitor visits, to gather information directly from customers or potential customers.This method aims to delve into individual preferences, behaviors, and experiences.

What is Secondary Market Research?

Secondary research involves accessing pre-existing data, reports, and studies compiled by others, such as government agencies, trade associations, or industry publications, which can be obtained faster and more affordably, primarily through online sources, articles, reference libraries, or industry associations. Yet it also comes with constraints. The information gathered from a different audience may not align with your target audience, leading to biased data. Simply put, if you didn’t gather the data firsthand, it’s secondhand information that may not be as trustworthy as primary research data. It provides insights into market size, trends, competitors, and industry dynamics. 

Differences between primary and secondary research:

Primary research offers firsthand product insights into individual consumer behavior, while secondary research provides a broader understanding of market dynamics and trends. Both types of research play crucial roles in informing strategic business decisions for new product businesses.

Primary research typically requires more time as it involves conducting surveys, interviews, or focus groups. Secondary research, on the other hand, is quicker as it relies on existing data sources.

Data Collection Methods

Primary research utilizes techniques like surveys and focus group discussions, while secondary research relies on online sources and published materials.

Presentation of Insights

Primary research often presents findings through charts, tables, and participant quotes. Secondary research uses decision-making models such as Porters 5 Forces , SWOT analysis , and value proposition canvases to organize and present information effectively.

Why do CPG & FMCG Companies use Market Research?

Companies use market research for several key reasons:

Understanding customer needs.

Market research for new and existing products help companies grasp what their customers want, their preferences, and behaviors. This knowledge is vital for tailoring products and services to meet customer demands effectively.

Gaining competitive insight

Market research offers valuable information about competitors, their strengths, weaknesses, and strategies. This allows companies to identify opportunities, stay ahead of rivals, and make strategic decisions.

Developing new products

Market research enables companies to test new product ideas and gather feedback from potential customers before launching. This minimizes the risk of product failure and ensures that products align with customer needs.

Analyzing markets

Product market research helps companies determine the size of their target market and segment it into different customer groups with distinct needs and behaviors. This segmentation aids in targeting and positioning new products effectively.

Setting prices

Product market research assists companies in determining optimal product pricing strategies by considering factors like customer willingness to pay, market conditions, and competition.

Overall, market research equips companies with crucial insights to make informed decisions, spot new product opportunities, and enhance their operations.

How is consumer research conducted in FMCG & CPG companies?

Major FMCG and CPG companies conduct a variety of market research methods and techniques to gain insights into consumer behavior, preferences, and trends. 

Here are some common ways CPG & FMCG companies conduct market research:

Consumer surveys and polls.

Companies use online surveys, phone interviews, focus groups, and in-person polls to gather data directly from consumers about their purchasing habits, brand perceptions, product usage, and feedback.

Retail Data Analysis

CPG and FMCG companies closely analyze point-of-sale (POS) data from retailers to track sales volumes, market shares, pricing dynamics, and distribution metrics across product categories and geographic regions.

Ethnographic Research

Companies send researchers to observe consumers in their natural environments (homes, workplaces, etc.) to understand how existing products are used, shopped for, and consumed in real life.

Online Behavior Tracking

With consumer permissions, companies can track online activity like website visits, social media engagement, search queries, and ecommerce purchases to map the digital consumer journey.

Product Testing and Sampling

New products, packaging , and marketing campaigns are tested amongst consumer panels to measure product appeal, buying intent, and feedback before launching.

Ad Tracking and Testing

Advertising concepts, campaigns and media placements are continuously tested and optimized based on ongoing measurement of their impact on consumer perception and behavior.

Leading Indicator Monitoring 

Economic and demographic data as well as cultural/lifestyle trend reports are analyzed to forecast emerging consumer needs and sentiments.

Market Intelligence

Companies subscribe to market research firms and industry reports to access detailed consumer insights, sales data, competitor analysis, and macro market trends. Market research firms help companies understand audience behavior across media platforms by providing valuable data and insights for informed decision-making.

FMCG & CPG giants are data-driven

Successful FMCG & CPG giants are heavily data-driven, constantly gathering intelligence from multiple sources to fine-tune products, promotions and positioning in an intensely competitive landscape. 

For industry giants like Coca-Cola and Starbucks, product market research is an extremely detailed and multi-pronged exercise. Focus groups provide a broad understanding, complemented by surveys, questionnaires, social media monitoring and other techniques to uncover deeper consumer motivations, unmet needs, and emotional connections with products.

This comprehensive market analysis identifies potential threats and opportunities, tracks evolving tastes, informs improvements to existing products, and ultimately aims to boost sales by giving customers more of what they truly want.

While focus groups are powerful, companies leverage a diverse toolkit for research – from surveys to digital tracking to observational studies – to assemble a 360° view of the market landscape. Investing in rigorous, professional market research is critical for large enterprises to stay ahead of customer needs and make smart, data-backed decisions. 

Major market research firms like Nielsen , Euromonitor , and Mintel are well-known for conducting syndicated research studies spanning consumer insights, product categories, geographies and more. Their off-the-shelf reports provide ready market intelligence.

What is syndicated market research?

The key difference between syndicated and custom market research is that custom studies are proprietary, conducted for and funded by a single client company. Syndicated research follows a standardized methodology with broader scope, with the findings packaged into reports sold across multiple clients in that industry.

Many companies utilize both syndicated and custom market research, because syndicated provides shared comprehensive market intelligence more economically, while custom offers narrow but personalized insights.

For new businesses in CPG and FMCG categories, syndicated research offers a cost-efficient way to gain comprehensive understanding of market dynamics, unmet consumer needs, white spaces and the competitive landscape. This can be invaluable for guiding product development and marketing strategies.

What is the first step in marketing research?

For new businesses launching products in the CPG space, the first step in marketing research is clearly identifying the specific consumer need or problem you are trying to solve.

• For a new food product line, your goal may be to understand what flavors or nutritional aspects consumers are lacking in current offerings.
• For a beauty brand, you may want to research what skincare concerns are not being adequately addressed by existing products.
• For a supplement company, you need to identify gaps in the market for certain vitamin formulations or health focus areas.

In simple terms, this boils down to asking yourself – “What consumer pain point or desire is my new product fulfilling that competitors are not adequately serving?”

Conducting research at this initial stage aims to validate that you have pinpointed a genuine unmet consumer need before investing further into product development.

This step involves:

• Clearly defining the consumer segment/target audience you want to serve.
• Exploring their current frustrations, challenges or desires related to your product category through surveys, social listening, focus groups etc.
• Assessing how well existing CPG/FMCG brands are solving those consumer problems based on their product portfolios.
• Identifying the specific whitespace opportunity for your new product to fill that unmet need better than incumbents.

Without this crucial upfront validation, you risk developing a product that lacks a meaningful point of differentiation or consumer rationale for purchasing it over established brands.

Getting clarity on the core consumer insight problem you are solving lays the strategic foundation to then build out the rest of your marketing research, product development, branding and go-to-market planning. We will dive further into this topic in the next section.

How do you conduct market research for a new business? 

When thinking about market research for launching new products, new CPG or FMCG businesses need to first start with researching their market and understanding what gaps are in the market and where their is a need for a new product. Most new businesses do their own market research for launching new products versus hiring expensive market research firms.

There are seven critical steps in the pre-launch market research process:

Understand the market and competition.

Uncover surprising insights about the market. For instance, successful snack products often incorporate food-like ingredients such as cereal, nuts, or fruit to appeal to customers.

Analyze competitors’ offerings and marketing materials to identify your product’s unique selling points and potential threats to success. You’ll want to make notes about their packaging, website and social media. How are they talking to their customers? Is there anything your competitors are doing well? That may be a niche for you to explore. Download the competitive analysis worksheet .

Analyze pricing to understand how to price your product. Use the product pricing sheet .

Target Your Customer

Focus on prospects most likely to purchase your product. Consider customers currently buying similar products and how your offering adds value to their experience. Create a buyer persona for your brand.

Define Your Unique Value Proposition

Determine what sets your product apart from competitors and why customers should choose it. Communicate your unique value proposition effectively to attract buyers.

Determine Your Marketing Strategy

Utilize market insights to craft an effective marketing plan. Consider various channels such as retailers, online platforms, and email marketing for high ROI .

Test the Product and Approach

Conduct thorough testing of the product and marketing approach before the launch. Gather feedback from potential customers to identify areas for improvement and ensure alignment with their needs and preferences. For example if you have a food product, test at your local farmers market to get feedback on your product.

Roll Out Your Campaign

Implement your marketing strategy across chosen channels, keeping consistency in messaging and branding . Monitor the performance closely and make adjustments as needed to optimize results.

Track the Overall Customer Lifecycle

Continuously monitor the product’s performance in the market and gather feedback from customers. Stay adaptable and be prepared to make changes to the product or marketing strategy to maintain competitiveness and meet evolving consumer demands.

How to do cost-effective market research for a new product?

If hiring a market research is not within your budget don’t worry. It is absolutely possible to conduct market research for launching new products on a budget.

Here are some cost-effective strategies:

Leverage online surveys.

• Use free survey tools like Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, Typeform
• Share surveys through your website, email lists, social media
• Offer incentives like discounts or giveaways to increase participation
• Keep surveys short and focused

Social Media Listening

• Monitor relevant hashtags, topics on Twitter, Instagram, Reddit etc.
• Join Facebook groups in your niche to understand pain points
• Analyze sentiment around your product category and competitors

Interview Your Current Customers

• Ask for feedback calls/emails with loyal customers
• Incentivize with samples/discounts for their time
• Discuss what they like, what’s missing and suggestions

Low-Cost Focus Groups

• Recruit friends, family or offer cash incentives
• Use free conference call/screen sharing tools
• Facilitate taste tests or product demonstrations

Observe Consumer Behavior

• Visit stores/locations where your target customers shop
• Watch how they evaluate and buy similar products

Free Market Reports

• Check resources like government databases, research journals
• Look for generalized industry reports even if not product-specific

Competitive Price and Product Analysis

• Examine competitors’ offerings, pricing, marketing messaging
• Identify potential gaps or areas to differentiate

Start Small and Economical

• Test concepts/prototypes in one area before scaling
• Validate interest and refine based on early feedback

Leverage Your Network

• Discuss with distributors, retailers, influencers in your space
• Get insider insights about market demands and white spaces

Get Creative with Your Market Research

The key is getting creative, taking advantage of free or low-cost tools, and directly engaging with your target audience as much as possible on a limited budget. Start lean but make research an ongoing priority. 

Remember your brand is always evolving. As you learn more about your customers, you will continue to refine and tailor everything from your packaging design , to your messaging, to your social media marketing.

If you are just starting your brand you may be wondering how you do market research if you don’t have customers yet. Think about your family, friends, anyone who might be in your target market that will give you honest feedback. Think about who you know in your community, can you set up a table at your local gym to test out your new supplement brand , or maybe you know a the owner of the local spa and you can test your new skincare product there. If you have a food or beverage, a farmer’s market is a great way to test and gain market insights.

Steps to follow if you want to conduct market research:

• Develop a plan
• Understand the nature of the marketing problem
• Define the sampling method and sample size.
• Develop the survey tool and gather data.
• Analyze the findings and present them in a customer-centric manner.
• Extract the key insights from the data.

Segmentation, targeting, and positioning are pivotal in understanding the buyer’s journey and consumer behavior throughout this process. However, it’s important to note that market research cannot fully explain consumer behavior. 

What is one of the significant challenges for marketing research?

One thing to keep in mind is what legendary ad man David Ogilvy said:

“The trouble with market research is that people do not think how they feel, don’t say what they think, and don’t do what they say.” 

So before you base all your decisions on what people say you’ll want to consider observing their actions, analyzing their behavior, and validating their responses through various research methods. 

Another challenge for marketing research is the lack of time and resources. Gathering relevant data without falling behind the competition can be a challenge as well as conducting comprehensive marketing research can be costly and time-consuming.

Market Research Questions for a New Product

Examples of Market Research Questions

• Demographic questions e.g. How old are you? Where do you live?
• How likely are you to recommend us to a friend?
• Did you consider any of our competitors? Who and why?
• What do you wish our product could do?
• How would you rate your most recent experience with us?
• How long have you been a customer?
• How much money do you usually spend on X products?
• What’s the maximum you’d pay for X?

What to Consider When Creating Market Research Questions

Consider the following as you create your questions. Be mindful not to create biased questions .

Set SMART Goals:

• Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timely.
• Keep focus on end goals throughout the process.

Understand Your Customer:

• Identify ideal customer personas.
• Address their struggles, desires, and preferences.
• Different perspectives from various departments enhance understanding.

Organize Questions into Topics:

• Prioritize essential information.
• Group questions by relevance and similarity.

Start Broad, Then Refine:

• Begin with general inquiries.
• Progress to more specific questions.
• Consider multiple surveys for detailed insights.

Use Conversational Language:

• Ensure questions are clear and unbiased.
• Read aloud for tone and clarity.
• Strive for a balance between engagement and neutrality.

Target Audience Selection:

• Focus on key stakeholders.
• Avoid surveying irrelevant or inactive customers.
• Consider diverse perspectives for comprehensive insights

Once you have gathered your market research for launching your new products or existing ones, what are your next steps? 

Whether you are looking to rebrand with your new market insights or start a new brand (check out our food packaging design guide ), working with a CPG branding agency to identify actionable insights from your market research is worth the investment. They can help you take the information you gather and design products with your target audience in mind. They possess deep industry knowledge and expertise, ensuring that CPG packaging designs not only catch consumers’ attention but also effectively communicate brand identity and product benefits. 

Market research for new product development in 6 steps

Market research for new product development will help you understand your users' needs, as well as potential risks and market opportunities.

What is market research in new product development?

Why do market research for new product development, the importance of market research in product development, choose the correct type of market research, how to conduct market research for a new product , examples of market research for new products, what product development idea have you been dallying off.

Picture this: you’ve got a great idea for a new product, or for improving your current product or service. At least, you think it’s great. When you explain it to others, they raise their eyebrows.

While you are incredibly enthusiastic about the product, they have critical questions about consumer trends , the market , and those latest developments in the world. Ouch.

‘My gut told me to go for’ won’t convince a lot of investors to invest in your idea. Plus, your designers, marketers and engineers will work in a much more confident way if they know that what they’re working on has a chance to succeed. The only way to give them that confidence, is through market research. And one of the most valuable types of research is that which you’ve carried out among your target consumers. This research provides you with proprietary data (also known as zero-party data ).

In this article, we’ll explore why consumer research is so important when you’re developing a new product or want to change something you’re currently already selling. We’ll take you through five crucial steps and give you some valuable tips along the way.

Market research for new product development can focus on different areas. You can research market viability, the demand for the product you have in mind, the features your target group is looking for, or the best way to position, price, communicate and market your product to your target audience. You take into account your competitors, market developments, and important trends. And whether you’re running market research for a startup or a massive brand, it’s an essential step to make sure your new products hit the mark. This can be a difficult task, leading many to consult US market research companies .

Market research for new product development is all about identifying opportunities and finding out if it’s worth bringing your product idea to life. And if so, how to do that in the best way.

It’s about more than what the competition is doing, and if your target audience would be willing to spend money on you. You can also dive into market trends to identify the best ways to market your product.

You can use market research to fine-tune your product development and the relevant aspects around it. Based on how your audience is developing, what price and type of message would grab their attention? What kind of marketing tactics are likely to work, and what channels dominate your market?

Consumer research is about understanding all the aspects of your market. You can approach it as a big puzzle, and once you have all the pieces in place, you can proudly present a solid plan or research to your investors and team, to help them understand why your product development idea is worth working on.

To get the best consumer insights, send a survey with our concept testing template . And for a sector-specific lowdown, find out all about the food product development process .

Market research for your new product development strategy helps you minimise risks and prepares you for a successful product launch. You get to know your market and audience in a way that helps you create not just the perfect product concept, but also the right messaging and marketing around it—something that will actually resonate with your audience.

Market research is used to base your decisions on facts, not just ideas and hunches – however good you might be at guessing games. Before spending time and money on a product idea, you get a good idea of how likely it is to be a success. This will also help you plan how much time and money you’ll actually need.

Investors and stakeholders will also want to see market research if you want to launch a new idea: they want some kind of security that the product will actually sell. Even though market research isn’t a crystal ball and doesn’t exactly predict the future, when it’s done right it can definitely give you a clear picture of how your product concept will be welcomed into the market.

Market research is not only important to verify if your completely new product idea is worth the work. You can also use it to optimise existing products, by keeping a close eye on how competitors are changing their products. You might even read online reviews on products similar to yours and see that customers are asking for specific features. This is also market research.

This also goes for adding new products to a line to supplement your current assortment, or if you want to start an entirely new adventure with your breakthrough product idea.

Market research for product development, whether new or existing, is all about listening to what is happening in the market. Step outside of your organisation and ask the people who pay for your products how you would make them even happier, or find out what trends you can jump onto now, so you can become a frontrunner in the future.

Product development shouldn’t just be done in-house, with your designers and developers closely looking at the product. It’s easy to get tunnel vision and build a product that’s more focused on what you can and want to deliver, and less on what the customer wants.

Market research done right forces you to step out of that bubble and not just look at how you can make the product shinier, faster and stronger, but how you can give it the right place in the market . Because product development is also developing a marketing and sales strategy . It’s having a customer journey and experience ready to put the product in and turn your customers into fans. All you need to do, is go talk to them!

Moreover, market research helps you determine what the marketing mix should look like, since developing a new product is never just about a product.

Turn customers into fans with market research tools

Compare the top market research tools of 2022, including details on their features and the best ways to use each tool.

Let’s get back to basics: what types of market research are there? We often lose ourselves in the wide variety of tools out there that give you data – but what kind of data is available, and how relevant is it to you?

It’s important to understand where data is coming from and how complete it is. How can you supplement it with additional research to get the full picture? Let’s look at the types of research you can – and should! – combine.

Quantitative market research

Don’t let the saying ‘quality over quantity’ fool you for this one—if you’re trying to make money, quantity certainly does matter. Quantitative research focuses on things you can measure .

How many people are interested in your type of product? What are they willing to spend, on average? Has that number been growing, been steady or are they willing to pay less and less? And if the latter is the case, is the group growing in size at least?

You can also gather information on how happy people are about a product or service. What’s lacking in this type of information is the motives behind it. For that, you need qualitative market research .

Qualitative market research

Qualitative research gives context to the numbers . Yes, people are increasingly interested in product X – but why is that? What were they looking at before, and what made them make the switch? Was it a change in price, a recommendation from a friend, something they saw in the news?

Now, it’s nearly impossible to gather qualitative data for all the quantitative data you measure. That’s why it’s incredibly important that you get that qualitative data from a hyper-relevant part of your target group. Don’t send out surveys to gather quantitative data from a specific part of your target group, and then ask another part to explain those numbers. That wouldn’t be helpful at all.

Qualitative data often comes from focus groups . You could find a focus group in the people that you survey, or by interviewing existing customers that fit the profile you’re studying. This will help you get a real-life picture of consumer needs and consumer problems. The best person to ask is the one you’re trying to fit into a buyer’s persona.

How is qualitative market research important for your product development process? It’ll help you understand the needs of your target market better. You conduct research that will steer your product idea generation in the right direction, gathered by real consumer insights and consumer feedback.

Of course, you can’t come to your market consumer in the initial stages of the process and ask them to design the product for you. You’ll gather the base information you have through quantitative methods and online new product development surveys , so you can ask focused concept testing questions to your focus group.

Primary market research

Primary market research is collecting raw data directly from your target customers or market by doing your own research. It simply means you only use data you yourself have collected,  from things like surveys and focus groups – no trend reports from third parties.

This is important for product development research , because you can’t base your decisions and product development process on someone else’s findings for different product and target group entirely.

Anything you directly collect from your market, whether it’s through focus groups, surveys, interviews or product research is primary data.

Inform your product development with our JTBD template

Get up and running with your next product development project and learn what customers really need with our jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) template.

Secondary market research

Secondary research can be done using existing data . The fact that it’s not brand-new information, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hold valuable insights. You just need to collect the right information and connect that to information that’s relevant for your case specifically.

Secondary research can be done to identify business risks, for instance by looking at market developments. Competitor research is also a valuable form of secondary research. Through competitor research you’ll get a real understanding of the other options your potential customers have – a good starting point for any new product development strategy.

What parts of market research can you not skip over when your goal is using it for product development research? We’ve divided it up into five bite-sized steps that will give you a solid framework to work within.

Step 1. Exploratory research

Basically, this is researching what you specifically want to research. It’s completely normal not to immediately know what your research goal is, or how you’ll get there. That’s where exploratory research comes in.

You start by gathering secondary data on all kinds of aspects. Find things that stand out, developments that you hadn’t thought about and things you want to know more about.

With that information, you can start defining what’s most relevant for you in this stage. Where are your knowledge gaps, and how do you make sure you get the relevant data to make wise business decisions?

This is not necessarily about gathering as much data as you can – you want to keep it manageable and relevant. Find out what questions you can’t answer straight away, and focus your exploratory research on that.

Step 3. Define research objectives

After your exploratory research, you can start pinpointing what you really need to know to move forward in your product development process.

Will you be focussing on customer needs, or how to get a competitive advantage? Will the market analysis focus on product demand and pricing, or is there still a lot of ground to cover in the physical product and usage habits?

It’s important to have a clear idea of what you’ll be researching. Ask yourself: what actionable insights do I need to win in this market segment? Make your objectives as concrete as you can, so your answers will be focused and you can confidently use them to base your next step on.

Step 4. Define the scope of the research

Of course, market research is a way to minimise risk. But there’s always a risk if you’re venturing out with a new product. You can never get a 100 percent guarantee of what will happen, until you launch your product.

That’s why it’s important to define a scope around your objectives. It can also help you to decide where you can use secondary data, and where you definitely need primary data.

Step 5. Decide on market research tools or partners

Are you going to focus on the product or business as usual while a research agency does the heavy lifting? Or do you want to keep everything in-house? In that case, you’re going to be in charge of deciding what market research tools you use. And the possibilities are nearly endless…

There’s a tool for every part of research, but it’s important that you use tools that are easy to work with, and collect all the data you want, so you don’t need to glue it all together from different tools. Especially if you’re going to talk directly to your consumers, you want to use a tool that’s as easy and pleasant to use for them as it is for you.

Of course, we have some suggestions. Check out our article on the 6 best—tried and tested—market research tools out there. And if you’re leaning towards agencies in the UK, here’s our rundown of the top market research agencies in London . And here are the top market research companies in the US .

Or, if you’d prefer to focus on sending out insightful customer insights surveys, see our list of the top 11 Qualtrics alternatives .

Step 6. Concept testing

As interesting as the market itself may be, this specific research is still about your product development idea. Is the idea you have in mind good enough to enter the market, or do you need input to fine-tune it?

That’s where concept testing comes in. With concept testing, you create an MVP that you can show to your focus groups. You find out what they think about it. What features do they miss and love? What would they pay for this? How easy is it to use?

But, like we said, you’re not just developing a product. You are also developing the marketing and communication around it, and that also needs to be tested thoroughly. That’s why you can also target your market research at your marketing for the new or improved product, by creating mock-ups and testing messaging with your focus group. 

How are brands you love using Attest to do market research around product development? Let’s tale a look at US farming cooperative,  Organic Valley . They save time and money by using quantitive analysis for new product development.

‘For a lot of our day-to-day work we had been using other tools that weren’t necessarily user-friendly, easy to use or intuitive. We were looking for a tool with a fairly rapid turnaround and I wanted my team to be able to use it themselves, I didn’t want to have to go out and hire somebody else,’ says Tripp Hughes, Organic Valley’s Senior Director of Consumer Strategy. He saw a need for a tool that his team could use, without having to go through excessive training.

After seeing Attest demoed at a conference, Hughes brought in some of his peers to take a look. They now use it for market analysis, concept ideation and testing, creative testing, and messaging testing.

Hughes estimates that being able to make quick initial learnings through Attest saves Organic Valley between 10 to 20 times what it would cost to make the discoveries later down the line.

‘The impact is coming in reduced time and improved next-round thinking that we’re taking into focus groups where we’ve got a high-cost factor. If we don’t go in with the right materials and the right framework, we’re wasting money. And so Attest has helped us do a lot of the front-end work that then we’re able to go and build on.’

Read more about how Organic Valley is developing awesome products with insights from Attest in this case study.

We get it – taking risks is scary. But developing new products is exciting, and could lift your business to the next level. And while doing product development research, you could find a lot more inspiration about other improvements you can make in your business.

If you’re looking for a tool that brings you closer to your target audience and helps you find hyper relevant results, try Attest.

Ask the right questions for NPD

Learn which product development survey questions you should ask to discover what customers value most, from pricing to features.

Customer Research Lead 

Nick joined Attest in 2021, with more than 10 years' experience in market research and consumer insights on both agency and brand sides. As part of the Customer Research Team team, Nick takes a hands-on role supporting customers uncover insights and opportunities for growth.

Related articles

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How To Do Market Research For New Product Development

Market research for new product development can be overwhelming.

It’s easy to get lost in a mountain of market reports with thousands of data points…. yet get no clear insights on which product is best for your brand.

Instead of aimlessly searching for new product ideas and sifting through endless market reports, this post will walk you through a simple step-by-step process that outlines:

• How to quickly find relevant new product ideas.
• Specific data and metrics you need to analyze each product opportunity (and how to find these metrics).
• How to use market research data to assess a product opportunity.

What Is Market Research For New Product Development?

Market research for new product development is the process of evaluating the demand, growth, and gaps in a market for a particular product (typically a physical product sold in a retail setting or direct to consumer).

These insights help you understand which products your target market wants, which ones are most profitable, and the key characteristics customers like and dislike about competitors' products.

With this data, you can more accurately predict which product will perform best for your business.

Types Of Market Research For New Product Development

There are four types of market research typically used for researching and developing products: 

• Qualitative research
• Quantitative research
• Primary research
• Secondary research

Quantitative Research

Examples of quantitative data you might collect during the product market research process include:

• Market size and growth rates
• Pricing data
• Sales forecasts
• Website traffic data
• Market share of the top competitors

Quantitative data is helpful for benchmarking and is often the main type of research used to quickly gauge the potential of market opportunities.

Quantitative data can be fact-checked, but accuracy still varies depending on factors like sample size and data collection methods.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is data based on subjective opinions.

An example of qualitative data is customer feedback.

This data is helpful for product market research, as you can better understand customer pain points and what they like and dislike about what's already out there.

Some examples of qualitative research methods include:

• Interviews with potential customers
• Customer reviews
• Questionnaires and surveys
• Discussion analysis (monitoring conversations on social media, in forums, etc.)
• Feedback from focus groups

Primary Research

Primary research is data collected by you or your company.

Here are some examples of primary research:

• Results from a survey you conducted
• A report from sales data your team analyzed
• Customer interviews conducted by your team

The advantage of primary market research is that it's proprietary data your company owns. So your competitors won't have access to it. You can also tailor the data to answer your specific questions about the market.

The downside of primary research is that it’s expensive and time-consuming. You'll have to conduct the research, clean the data, and analyze it yourself.

You can hire a market research firm to help, but this will make it even more costly.

Secondary Research

Secondary research is data collected and published by other third-party sources, like an industry publication or government agency.

Here are some examples of secondary research:

• Free and paid market reports published by a source like Grand View Research or MarketResearch.com .
• Statistics published by a source like The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics or the U.S. Energy Information Administration .
• Data in the Census Business Builder .

Secondary research is usually cheaper than primary research, so it's great for the early stages of product market research when you're narrowing down your list of product ideas.

For example, if you're interested in the padel market, search "padel market forecast" to find free industry reports. You can look at statistics like compounding annual growth rate and market size to quickly gauge if the padel market is worth exploring in more detail.

The drawback of secondary research is that the data quality may vary as you can't control data quality.

So research how each provider collects and cleans the data they publish.

Step By Step Process To Conduct Market Research For Product Development

​​In this step-by-step market research process for new product development, you'll learn how to find, validate, and develop a great product.

Step 1: Research And Identify Trending Products

Many people browse social media and Amazon to find trending product ideas.

But emerging products, by definition, aren't easy to find.

You might spend hours browsing these platforms to find a few promising product ideas. And even the most diligent product researchers might still overlook the best emerging product ideas.

One solution to find great product ideas faster is to use a product research tool.

However, each tool contains different product ideas.

So the tool you choose significantly impacts the product ideas you find.

For example, many product research tools only show products that have grown significantly in the past few weeks. These are often fads, and demand may die out when you’re ready to launch your product.

Other product research tools show you products that are currently trending. Yet this isn't helpful if you want to launch a product before demand peaks.

Or, the product research tool might simply overlook the best product ideas. This is common with product research tools relying on human analysts to find product ideas, as even the best analysts may overlook a great product idea.

To solve these problems, we built our own product research tool, Exploding Topics.

It has a unique trend identification and qualification method that uses AI and ML to scan millions of data points across sources like YouTube, Amazon, Spotify, Google Search, and Reddit. This ensures it consistently spots emerging product ideas. Then, we use Google Search volume data to ensure the topic has a steady compounding growth trajectory.

This process allows Exploding Topics to consistently identify emerging products with long-term growth potential.

It's also easy to use.

When you open the Trending Products dashboard, you'll see a list of trending products. You can filter the database by category (fitness, fashion, beauty, gaming, pets, etc.), BSR, monthly sales, price, revenue, and reviews.

The graph next to the product information also represents the keyword's Google Search volume trend so that you can gauge its growth trajectory:

When you see a product that interests you, click on it for more details, like a forecast of its growth trend for the coming year.

Further down the product page is a list of the Top Sellers for that product on Amazon.

You’ll also see related trending products and topics. You can also click on any of those products for more detailed information.

To track a product, click "Track Topic" and add it to a Project.

Projects are folders that live inside the Trend Tracking dashboard, and Exploding Topics updates each topic's growth trend in real time.

This makes it easy to gauge product growth at a glance so that you never have to worry about managing a product idea spreadsheet.

You can try Exploding Topics Pro for $1 to start researching product ideas.

Step 2: Analyze The Market For Each Product Idea

Your product is much more likely to succeed if it’s part of a growing market.

An easy way to quickly analyze a market’s general growth trajectory is to look at a market forecast.

Sources like Grand View Research , Globe Newswire , and Market.us usually offer free market reports with forecast data.

To find these reports, Google the product keyword and "market report:"

Next, identify the brands with the largest market share and analyze their growth trajectory.

If the market leaders are growing rapidly, the market is probably also expanding.

There are two ways to easily gauge a brand's growth.

1. Check the brand’s Google Search volume trend .

You can find a brand's Google Search volume trend by typing the brand name into Google Trends or the Trends Search feature in Exploding Topics.

You can also click "Track Topic" and add it to a Project to monitor growth.

2. Employee headcount

A company is probably growing if it has steadily increased employee headcount over the past few years.

You can find employee headcount data by typing the brand name into LinkedIn and scrolling down to the bottom of the company page:

Funding data is also a great indicator of a market's growth trajectory.

Investors spend a lot of time and resources assessing market growth, so a lot of funding activity is a good sign the market is growing.

Paid tools like CB Insights and Pitchbook offer detailed funding data for most industries. You can also search "funding" and the industry name to find press releases, funding reports, and other relevant investment news.

Step 3: Conduct Customer Research

Once you find a trending product in a growing market, the next step is figuring out how to create the best product possible.

First, identify what customers like and dislike about existing products. Then, create a product that incorporates the elements customers like about existing products and solves the pain points they experience.

The easiest way to conduct customer research is to analyze customer reviews.

Amazon is the best resource to find verified reviews. As you're reading through the reviews, make notes on:

• Target Audience Demographics : Who is buying the product? (gender, age, location, etc.).
• Use Case : What problem did they purchase the product to solve?
• Praise : What do they like about the product?
• Pain Points : What do they like about the product?

For example, from the review below, you can tell that customers value soft material, accurate color descriptions, and expensive aesthetics. You can also see that customers want a more durable product.

Reading through reviews can help you better understand your target customers, but most people don't have time to read thousands of customer reviews.

So you can also copy and paste customer reviews into ChatGPT and ask it to extract insights on audience demographics, product use cases, likes, and dislikes.

Here's a prompt you can use to analyze the reviews. (In this screenshot, all of the reviews are pasted in quotes following the prompt):

Here’s a snippet of the response it generated:

You can also find Reddit or Facebook groups of your target audience.

For example, if you're considering selling infant vitamins, you could join these Facebook groups for moms:

After joining the group, you can ask members about the product you're researching. Here are some specific questions you can ask:

• Why did they purchase the product?
• How did they select the brand they purchased from?
• What do they like/dislike about the product?

You can also ask respondents if they would consider getting on a quick call. One-on-one interviews let you ask more follow-up questions to better understand the audience.

Talking to prospects is also a great way to build up some demand for your product and even recruit a group of beta testers.

If you already have an audience, ask them about your new product idea.

For example, this creator asked her TikTok followers what they thought of her sleepwear product idea.

Then, she documented the product development process and gathered feedback from her followers to craft a product they want.

For example, after designing a few concepts with the manufacturer, she created another video of the initial product designs and asked her audience for feedback.

Her product launch went on to be a major success and she sold out in a matter of hours.

Step 4: Pre-Sell Your Product And Gather Initial Feedback

The best way to validate market demand for your product concept is to see if people will buy it.

So design a few product samples and then run a pre-order sale.

If nobody buys the product, you'll avoid wasting thousands of dollars developing tens or hundreds of products that nobody wants.

And if your pre-order sale is successful, you can use that revenue to fund product development.

For example, Nebia ran a pre-order sale for its bidets to validate the product concept.

There are a few different ways you can generate pre-orders.

If you already have an audience, you can create a social media post or email your list and announce the pre-order sale.

This post is a great example of a pre-order sale video. The influencer explains how the product works, its benefits, and how it solves common pain points.

If you don't have an audience, you can work with an influencer to create a pre-order video for you.

You can also run Facebook or Instagram ads to a landing page to generate pre-orders. Facebook has a step-by-step guide explaining how to set up and run ads for pre-order sales.

Another option is to run a pre-order sale on Kickstarter.

Nebia is a great example of an ecommerce brand that validated its product idea on Kickstarter.

The Kickstarter community will also give you initial feedback on the product before you launch it to the public. Kickstarter users also know they're beta testers, so they tend to be more forgiving if the initial product concept isn't perfect.

You can also ask some Kickstarter buyers to record video reviews of the product for your public product launch.

Step 5: Launch Your New Product And Gather Feedback

After launching your product, gather feedback from your audience to continue iterating on the original product.

If you have a social media following, you can ask your audience what they like and dislike about the product.

You can also email your list offering a discount or coupon to complete a product survey.

Survey tools like Pollfish and SurveyMonkey make it easy to create and send a product survey.

In the survey, ask specific questions about the product. For example, if you’re selling athletic clothing, you could ask them to rate the product fit, material quality, durability, style, color, and other specific factors.

If you leave the questions too open ended, people will give you generic feedback that might not be very helpful for improving the product.

Start The New Product Market Research Process Today

A solid product market research process takes the guesswork out of product launches by giving you the data you need to identify and design the best product for your audience.

It will also give you more confidence on launch day, as you'll have solid evidence of strong demand for your product.

To get started with the first step of the product market research process, use Exploding Topics to browse thousands of emerging trending products today.

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How to Conduct Market Research for a Startup

• 17 Mar 2022

With every innovative product idea comes the pressing question: “Will people want to buy it?”

As an entrepreneur with a big idea, what’s the best way to determine how potential customers will react to your product? Conducting market research can provide the data needed to decide whether your product fits your target market.

Before launching a new venture, you should understand market research. Here’s how to conduct market research for a startup and why it’s important.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is Market Research?

Market research is the process of gathering information about customers and the market as a whole to determine a product or service’s viability. Market research includes interviews, surveys, focus groups, and industry data analyses.

The goal of market research is to better understand potential customers, how well your product or service fits their needs, and how it compares to competitors’ offerings.

There are two types of research you can conduct: primary and secondary.

• Primary research requires collecting data to learn about your specific customers or target market segment. It’s useful for creating buyer personas, segmenting your market, and improving your product to cater to customers’ needs .
• Secondary research is conducted using data you didn’t collect yourself. Industry reports, public databases, and other companies’ proprietary data can be used to gain insights into your target market segment and industry.

Why Is Market Research Important for Entrepreneurs?

Before launching your venture, it’s wise to conduct market research to ensure your product or service will be well received. Feedback from people who fall into your target demographics can be invaluable as you iterate on and improve your product.

Performing market research can also help you determine a pricing strategy by gauging customers’ willingness to pay for your product. Additionally, it can improve the user experience by revealing what features matter most to potential customers.

When assessing which startups to fund, investors place heavy importance on thorough market research that indicates promising potential. Providing tangible proof that your product fulfills a market need and demonstrating you’ve taken the time to iterate on and improve it signal that your startup could be a worthwhile investment.

Related: How to Talk to Potential Investors: 5 Tips

How to Do Market Research for a Startup

1. form hypotheses.

What questions do you aim to answer through market research? Using those questions, you can make predictions called hypotheses . Defining your hypotheses upfront can help guide your approach to selecting subjects, researching questions, and testing designs.

An example question you may ask is: “How much are people in my target demographic willing to pay for the current version of my product?” Your hypothesis could be: “If my product contains all its current features, customers will be willing to pay $500 for it.”

Another example question you may ask is: “What’s the user’s biggest pain point, and is my product meeting their needs?” Your hypothesis could be: “I believe the user’s biggest pain point is needing an easy, unintimidating way to learn basic car maintenance, and I predict that my product meets that need.”

You can and should test multiple hypotheses, but try to select no more than a few per test, so the research stays focused.

Related: A Beginner’s Guide to Hypothesis Testing in Business

2. Select the Type of Research Needed to Test Hypotheses

Once you’ve formed your hypotheses, determine which type of research to conduct.

If your hypotheses focus on determining your startup’s place in the broader market, start with secondary research. This can include using existing data to determine market size, how much of that market your startup could reasonably own, who your biggest competitors are, and how your brand and product compare to theirs.

If your hypotheses require primary research, decide which data collection method best fits your needs. These can include one-on-one interviews, surveys, focus groups, and polls. Primary research allows you to gather insights into customer satisfaction and loyalty, brand awareness and perception, and real-time product usability.

3. Identify Target Demographics and Recruit Subjects

To gather meaningful insights, you need to understand your target demographic. Do you aim to cater to working parents, young athletes, or pet owners? Determine the type of person who can benefit from your product.

If you conduct primary research, you need to recruit subjects. This can be done in several ways, including:

• Word of mouth: The simplest but least reliable way to recruit participants is by word of mouth. Ask people you know to refer others to be research subjects, then screen them to confirm they fit your target demographic.
• Promoting the study on social media: Many social media platforms enable you to show an ad to people who fall into specific demographic categories or have certain interests. This allows you to get the word out to a large number of people who qualify.
• Hiring a third-party market research company: Some companies provide full market research services and recruit participants and conduct research on your behalf.

However you recruit subjects, ensure they take a screener survey beforehand, which allows you to determine whether they fit the specific demographic you want to study or have a trait that eliminates them from the research pool. It also provides demographic data—such as age and race—that enables you to select a diverse subset of your target demographic.

In addition, you can offer compensation to boost participation, such as money, meal vouchers, gift cards, or early access to your product. Make it clear that compensation is in appreciation for subjects’ time and honest feedback.

4. Conduct the Research

Once you’ve determined the type of research and target demographic necessary to test your hypotheses, conduct your research. To reduce bias, enlist someone unfamiliar with your hypotheses to perform interviews or lead focus groups.

Ask questions based on your audience and hypotheses. For instance, if you’re aiming to test existing customers’ purchase motivations, you may ask: “What challenge were you trying to solve when you first bought the product?”

If examining brand perception, your audience should consist of potential customers who don’t yet know your brand. Present them with a list of competitor logos—with yours in the mix—and ask them to rank the brands by perceived reliability.

While the questions you ask are vehicles to prove or disprove hypotheses, ensure they don’t lead subjects in one direction. To craft unbiased research questions , use neutral language and vary the order of options in multiple-choice questions. This can keep subjects from selecting the same option each time if they sense the third option is always mapped to a certain outcome. It also helps account for primacy bias (the tendency to select the first option in a list) and recency bias (the tendency to select the final option in a list).

Once you’ve collected data, ensure it’s organized efficiently and securely so you can protect subjects’ identities .

Related: 3 Examples of Bad Survey Questions and How to Fix Them

5. Gather Insights and Determine Action Items

After you’ve organized your data, analyze it to extract actionable insights. While some of the data will be qualitative rather than quantitative, you can detect patterns in responses to make it quantifiable. For instance, noting that 15 of 20 subjects mentioned feeling overwhelmed when attempting to assemble your product.

Once you’ve analyzed the data and communicated emerging trends using data visualizations , outline action items.

If the majority of users in your target demographic reported feeling overwhelmed while assembling your product, action items might include:

• Creating different versions of assembly instructions to test with other groups, varying diagrams and instructional language
• Researching instruction manual best practices

Each round of market research can offer more information about how your product is perceived and experienced by potential users.

Market Research as an Ongoing Endeavor

While it’s useful to conduct market research before launching your product, you should revisit your hypotheses and form new ones over the course of building your venture.

By conducting market research with each version of your product, you can gradually improve it and ensure it continues to fit target customers’ needs.

Are you interested in bolstering your entrepreneurship skills? Explore our four-week online course Entrepreneurship Essentials and our other entrepreneurship and innovation courses to learn to speak the language of the startup world.

About the Author

8 Tips to Optimize Your New Product Launch in a New Market

Are you running a startup or getting ready for a new product launch and feeling afraid to fail? You have good reason to be concerned. According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of product launches fail to entice consumers .

Visibility into potential profits and revenues and the ability to perform market research for your business plan with data analysis can be crucial for securing additional funding or scaling your business. To help, we’ve come up with eight tips for you to maximize your odds of successfully launching a new product in a new market. These same tips can be used when launching a new service or brand.

How to launch a new product in a new market

When you work to expand your market size, you should keep in mind that there are always risks involved, including the possibility of incurring heavy losses and even layoffs.

Data-driven decision-making is the number one way to avoid the pitfalls of launching in a new market and improving your brand’s online visibility.

1. Define your target market

Entering a new market requires creating a long-term strategy that clearly defines goals and outlines milestones for your new product launch. What are the main user demographics of your target market ? Are they mobile-first or social-savvy? When and where do they shop online? What is their age distribution?

Answering these questions about demographics and potential customers is a vital step in order for you to present your product in a way that makes sense to your target market whether it’s in your marketing plan or in your design.

Your starting point is to calculate your serviceable obtainable market (SOM) and, based on that, prepare a list of primary user personas. A user persona is a fictional character created to represent a customer type that might use a product or service based on their use case and how it can solve an existing problem. For more on how to create user personas, check out this blog post by Hotjar.

Target market example: Young adults aged 20- 30, who live in the United Kingdom and are potential students or new parents. They’re very keen on online shopping and, on average, spend 1,000 hours and 2,500 British pounds a year online.

Questions to ask about your target audience before your new product launch

Defining your market is one thing, getting the right people to act is another ball game. These questions will help you focus and refine your strategy.

• Which action do you want your target audience to take?
• Who are the people most likely to take the specific action and use your new product? (get specific about demographics: age, gender, location, device, etc.)
• What are their pain points that you can address with your product?
• What is the solution your product offers for these issues?
• Which comparable products does your target audience currently use?
• How much does it cost them to use the competitor’s product?
• Which communication channels do they use most frequently?
• How and when are they most likely to purchase your product (is it seasonal, time-sensitive, one-time, or recurring; will they purchase online or offline, cash or card, etc.)?
• Which communication channels would they prefer for feedback and support?
• What can you offer as an incentive? What would be most attractive for your target audience in relation to your product (a discount, demo, free trial)?

The next critical step is to figure out the best way to reach the specific audience you are targeting.

Ways to reach your audience

Answering the ten questions above puts you on the right track. You’ve assessed which channels your audience uses and how they prefer to communicate.

If you are already marketing to a similar audience, identify your most effective channels by analyzing your existing audience’s behavior . Check performance metrics, such as top referring domains, social media networks and affiliates, views and conversions, email open and click-through rates, and engagement metrics .

Next, you need to determine how to leverage what you know about your target audience’s behavior for your new product launch.

Imagine the purchasing funnel and how you will gently guide your potential customers through. You will need to prepare different content types for different funnel stages and distribute them on various channels.

Consider the funnel

Typically, your initial effort will focus on raising awareness for something new. You want to determine the best tactics that let you create a buzz. Social Media, blogs, native advertising , infographics, other visual content, and video clips are handy for the top of the funnel (TOFU). Large brands often start building up the anticipation level before the launch date.

In the middle of the funnel (MOFU), which is the consideration stage, you need to start engaging and presenting your product features more clearly. When people evaluate your product and consider a purchase, useful channels are podcasts, webinars, free guides, e-books, reports, and reviews. You can use PPC and display ads to promote some of your high-value content.

The final step towards deciding is usually the hardest for the prospect. At the bottom of the funnel (BOFU) you want to help them take the final step by finding ways to engage so you can address individual pain points. Use email marketing to distribute gated content that lets you collect leads. White Papers, comparisons, reports, and product presentations can provide the audience with the needed input.

Another approach could be to offer live events, workshops, and conferences, or you could do a raffle, a contest, or another challenge on social media. Get more ideas about how to get started with your content marketing and which content is best for each funnel stage.

2. Define your goals

Goal setting adds clarity and is an essential part of any successful product launch strategy. There are a number of goals that are commonly found in relation to launching in a new market:

Financial goals

If you want to set revenue goals, ask yourself: how many product units will I need to sell in order to cover my production and marketing costs? When do I expect to reach profitability? How much income can I generate in a month/quarter/year?

Financial goal examples: Add $1 million in incremental revenue over a year; increase profit margins by 10%; boost customer retention or renewals rates; increase profit margins by 10%.

Customer goals

Are you releasing a new product in the market (even an add-on or premium feature) to an existing customer base or a tried-and-tested product to a new market? You need to understand who your customers are in order to anticipate the likelihood they’ll purchase the product – and determine your customer goals accordingly.

Customer goal examples: Sell a premium product to 1,000 highly engaged new customers; release and sell 100 units of a top-performing product in a new country.

Brand awareness goals

Creating a branding strategy is an important step in creating hype around any new product launch. Make sure you understand the various stages of your product’s positioning and then translate that into clear marketing objectives within your marketing strategy. It’s also vital to measure your brand awareness and track progress over time so you can evaluate and optimize your strategy on a regular basis.

Brand awareness goal examples: Increase organic website traffic by 20%; become a go-to resource for information about the topic your product is addressing by doubling the share of traffic for high-intent keywords; add 2,000 social media followers through relevant influencers and online communities.

3. Track and measure your progress over time

From the very beginning of your new product launch, make it a routine to track and review your key performance metrics. Use that information to tailor your offering to both your prospects’ and your customers’ needs. You can use an online tracking tool such as Google Analytics to gain an overall understanding of traffic behavior on your site. Metrics to look out for include: Sessions, Bounce Rate , Average Session Duration , Traffic Channels, and Conversion Rate .

4. Increase customer engagement

Whether big or small, all companies should seek out and implement ideas for increasing customer engagement. Engaged customers deliver 23% more revenue than average and are generally more loyal, making them less likely to switch to rival brands.

Here are a few things that can help you increase your customer engagement:

• Live chat : Adding a human factor (or bot) to your website, which offers real-time support, helps your visitors when they need you the most. Intercom is a live chat software that lets you easily connect with prospects and clients, improving their customer experience.
• Free trial : Sites that offer a time-limited free trial (giving users a taste of the product or service) are more likely to convert those users into paying customers.
• In-app and push messaging : With in-app and push messaging, you can deliver customized information to customers when they’re active. OneSignal and Google’s Firebase are two popular services that offer in-app notifications.
• Customer feedback: Proactively collect information shared by your community about their overall experiences with your company, product, or services. You can do this by using customer satisfaction surveys or market research questionnaires .

5. Conduct market research and analysis

Market research is never easy to do. There are plenty of factors and considerations to keep in mind when looking at your target market. Everything from customers’ wants and needs and your product’s unique value proposition to your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. Capabilities relevant for market research include:

• Competitor Analysis : Uncovering your competitors’ online performance and market strategies.
• Keyword Research : Revealing organic and paid keywords that are prominent in your target market, as well as their traffic share and level of competition, in order to develop an international SEO strategy .
• Competitive Benchmarking : Understanding the target market’s attractiveness by comparing your website against a number of key competitors.

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6. Develop your marketing strategy

How you want to approach launching a new product in a new market depends on your long-term marketing strategy. To develop an effective launch strategy that is synchronized with your long-term objectives, identify your strategic challenges and opportunities so that you can define a set of marketing objectives to scale your business. Your marketing strategy should include a combination of multiple marketing channels – ranging from paid search to referrals and social media – based on your product, target audience, and competitors’ marketing strategies.

Your starting point here is to evaluate your direct competitors’ websites and the digital benchmarks in your industry . How is their email marketing working? Have they made any changes lately that have resulted in a higher conversion rate?

Then you can identify which marketing channels are underused by competitors and devise a plan to take advantage of the holes in their digital strategies .

For example, say you notice your competitors are not spending any money on referrals. You might decide to create an affiliate marketing program by reaching out to the most visited websites in several categories – review sites, bloggers, and influencers in the market you want to enter and create exclusive referral contracts in which these sites send traffic to your website based on monthly commission payouts.

7. Grow a niche

Having a product that has a unique benefit is just one way to differentiate yourself from others. Another great way is to tap into a niche market within a larger market that is being overlooked or unchallenged — for instance, selling electric toothbrushes that are designed especially for elderly people or offering an online delivery service for the deaf. The key here is to pinpoint your target audience and seek out as many ways as possible to let them know why your service is a fit for their specific pain points .

You can use Similarweb to do this as well. Simply look for similar websites or ideas using the Keyword Generator Tool , which provides hundreds of keyword suggestions that let you uncover the traffic volume and search intent for any topic or search query.

8. Test run your digital strategy

When you ask yourself how to launch a new product in a new market, remember, the only thing worse than not trying is rushing. Start with baby steps by exploring a product’s acceptance in a small segment of your market in order to obtain a measure of its sales performance. You can test everything from landing pages to email campaigns to early-bird discounts. Optimizely and Unbounce offer easy-to-use testing tools that let you run experiments between multiple landing pages and find out where your conversions are coming from.

Getting started

See how Similarweb can help you improve your business strategy, try Similarweb platform for free now.

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How to Do Market Research: The Complete Guide

Learn how to do market research with this step-by-step guide, complete with templates, tools and real-world examples.

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What are your customers’ needs? How does your product compare to the competition? What are the emerging trends and opportunities in your industry? If these questions keep you up at night, it’s time to conduct market research.

Market research plays a pivotal role in your ability to stay competitive and relevant, helping you anticipate shifts in consumer behavior and industry dynamics. It involves gathering these insights using a wide range of techniques, from surveys and interviews to data analysis and observational studies.

In this guide, we’ll explore why market research is crucial, the various types of market research, the methods used in data collection, and how to effectively conduct market research to drive informed decision-making and success.

What is market research?

Market research is the systematic process of gathering, analyzing and interpreting information about a specific market or industry. The purpose of market research is to offer valuable insight into the preferences and behaviors of your target audience, and anticipate shifts in market trends and the competitive landscape. This information helps you make data-driven decisions, develop effective strategies for your business, and maximize your chances of long-term growth.

Why is market research important? 

By understanding the significance of market research, you can make sure you’re asking the right questions and using the process to your advantage. Some of the benefits of market research include:

• Informed decision-making: Market research provides you with the data and insights you need to make smart decisions for your business. It helps you identify opportunities, assess risks and tailor your strategies to meet the demands of the market. Without market research, decisions are often based on assumptions or guesswork, leading to costly mistakes.
• Customer-centric approach: A cornerstone of market research involves developing a deep understanding of customer needs and preferences. This gives you valuable insights into your target audience, helping you develop products, services and marketing campaigns that resonate with your customers.
• Competitive advantage: By conducting market research, you’ll gain a competitive edge. You’ll be able to identify gaps in the market, analyze competitor strengths and weaknesses, and position your business strategically. This enables you to create unique value propositions, differentiate yourself from competitors, and seize opportunities that others may overlook.
• Risk mitigation: Market research helps you anticipate market shifts and potential challenges. By identifying threats early, you can proactively adjust their strategies to mitigate risks and respond effectively to changing circumstances. This proactive approach is particularly valuable in volatile industries.
• Resource optimization: Conducting market research allows organizations to allocate their time, money and resources more efficiently. It ensures that investments are made in areas with the highest potential return on investment, reducing wasted resources and improving overall business performance.
• Adaptation to market trends: Markets evolve rapidly, driven by technological advancements, cultural shifts and changing consumer attitudes. Market research ensures that you stay ahead of these trends and adapt your offerings accordingly so you can avoid becoming obsolete. 

As you can see, market research empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions, cater to customer needs, outperform competitors, mitigate risks, optimize resources and stay agile in a dynamic marketplace. These benefits make it a huge industry; the global market research services market is expected to grow from $76.37 billion in 2021 to $108.57 billion in 2026 . Now, let’s dig into the different types of market research that can help you achieve these benefits.

Types of market research 

• Qualitative research
• Quantitative research
• Exploratory research
• Descriptive research
• Causal research
• Cross-sectional research
• Longitudinal research

Despite its advantages, 23% of organizations don’t have a clear market research strategy. Part of developing a strategy involves choosing the right type of market research for your business goals. The most commonly used approaches include:

1. Qualitative research

Qualitative research focuses on understanding the underlying motivations, attitudes and perceptions of individuals or groups. It is typically conducted through techniques like in-depth interviews, focus groups and content analysis — methods we’ll discuss further in the sections below. Qualitative research provides rich, nuanced insights that can inform product development, marketing strategies and brand positioning.

2. Quantitative research

Quantitative research, in contrast to qualitative research, involves the collection and analysis of numerical data, often through surveys, experiments and structured questionnaires. This approach allows for statistical analysis and the measurement of trends, making it suitable for large-scale market studies and hypothesis testing. While it’s worthwhile using a mix of qualitative and quantitative research, most businesses prioritize the latter because it is scientific, measurable and easily replicated across different experiments.

3. Exploratory research

Whether you’re conducting qualitative or quantitative research or a mix of both, exploratory research is often the first step. Its primary goal is to help you understand a market or problem so you can gain insights and identify potential issues or opportunities. This type of market research is less structured and is typically conducted through open-ended interviews, focus groups or secondary data analysis. Exploratory research is valuable when entering new markets or exploring new product ideas.

4. Descriptive research

As its name implies, descriptive research seeks to describe a market, population or phenomenon in detail. It involves collecting and summarizing data to answer questions about audience demographics and behaviors, market size, and current trends. Surveys, observational studies and content analysis are common methods used in descriptive research. 

5. Causal research

Causal research aims to establish cause-and-effect relationships between variables. It investigates whether changes in one variable result in changes in another. Experimental designs, A/B testing and regression analysis are common causal research methods. This sheds light on how specific marketing strategies or product changes impact consumer behavior.

6. Cross-sectional research

Cross-sectional market research involves collecting data from a sample of the population at a single point in time. It is used to analyze differences, relationships or trends among various groups within a population. Cross-sectional studies are helpful for market segmentation, identifying target audiences and assessing market trends at a specific moment.

7. Longitudinal research

Longitudinal research, in contrast to cross-sectional research, collects data from the same subjects over an extended period. This allows for the analysis of trends, changes and developments over time. Longitudinal studies are useful for tracking long-term developments in consumer preferences, brand loyalty and market dynamics.

Each type of market research has its strengths and weaknesses, and the method you choose depends on your specific research goals and the depth of understanding you’re aiming to achieve. In the following sections, we’ll delve into primary and secondary research approaches and specific research methods.

Primary vs. secondary market research

Market research of all types can be broadly categorized into two main approaches: primary research and secondary research. By understanding the differences between these approaches, you can better determine the most appropriate research method for your specific goals.

Primary market research 

Primary research involves the collection of original data straight from the source. Typically, this involves communicating directly with your target audience — through surveys, interviews, focus groups and more — to gather information. Here are some key attributes of primary market research:

• Customized data: Primary research provides data that is tailored to your research needs. You design a custom research study and gather information specific to your goals.
• Up-to-date insights: Because primary research involves communicating with customers, the data you collect reflects the most current market conditions and consumer behaviors.
• Time-consuming and resource-intensive: Despite its advantages, primary research can be labor-intensive and costly, especially when dealing with large sample sizes or complex study designs. Whether you hire a market research consultant, agency or use an in-house team, primary research studies consume a large amount of resources and time.

Secondary market research 

Secondary research, on the other hand, involves analyzing data that has already been compiled by third-party sources, such as online research tools, databases, news sites, industry reports and academic studies.

Here are the main characteristics of secondary market research:

• Cost-effective: Secondary research is generally more cost-effective than primary research since it doesn’t require building a research plan from scratch. You and your team can look at databases, websites and publications on an ongoing basis, without needing to design a custom experiment or hire a consultant. 
• Leverages multiple sources: Data tools and software extract data from multiple places across the web, and then consolidate that information within a single platform. This means you’ll get a greater amount of data and a wider scope from secondary research.
• Quick to access: You can access a wide range of information rapidly — often in seconds — if you’re using online research tools and databases. Because of this, you can act on insights sooner, rather than taking the time to develop an experiment. 

So, when should you use primary vs. secondary research? In practice, many market research projects incorporate both primary and secondary research to take advantage of the strengths of each approach.

One rule of thumb is to focus on secondary research to obtain background information, market trends or industry benchmarks. It is especially valuable for conducting preliminary research, competitor analysis, or when time and budget constraints are tight. Then, if you still have knowledge gaps or need to answer specific questions unique to your business model, use primary research to create a custom experiment. 

Market research methods

• Surveys and questionnaires
• Focus groups
• Observational research
• Online research tools
• Experiments
• Content analysis
• Ethnographic research

How do primary and secondary research approaches translate into specific research methods? Let’s take a look at the different ways you can gather data: 

1. Surveys and questionnaires

Surveys and questionnaires are popular methods for collecting structured data from a large number of respondents. They involve a set of predetermined questions that participants answer. Surveys can be conducted through various channels, including online tools, telephone interviews and in-person or online questionnaires. They are useful for gathering quantitative data and assessing customer demographics, opinions, preferences and needs. On average, customer surveys have a 33% response rate , so keep that in mind as you consider your sample size.

2. Interviews

Interviews are in-depth conversations with individuals or groups to gather qualitative insights. They can be structured (with predefined questions) or unstructured (with open-ended discussions). Interviews are valuable for exploring complex topics, uncovering motivations and obtaining detailed feedback. 

3. Focus groups

The most common primary research methods are in-depth webcam interviews and focus groups. Focus groups are a small gathering of participants who discuss a specific topic or product under the guidance of a moderator. These discussions are valuable for primary market research because they reveal insights into consumer attitudes, perceptions and emotions. Focus groups are especially useful for idea generation, concept testing and understanding group dynamics within your target audience.

4. Observational research

Observational research involves observing and recording participant behavior in a natural setting. This method is particularly valuable when studying consumer behavior in physical spaces, such as retail stores or public places. In some types of observational research, participants are aware you’re watching them; in other cases, you discreetly watch consumers without their knowledge, as they use your product. Either way, observational research provides firsthand insights into how people interact with products or environments.

5. Online research tools

You and your team can do your own secondary market research using online tools. These tools include data prospecting platforms and databases, as well as online surveys, social media listening, web analytics and sentiment analysis platforms. They help you gather data from online sources, monitor industry trends, track competitors, understand consumer preferences and keep tabs on online behavior. We’ll talk more about choosing the right market research tools in the sections that follow.

6. Experiments

Market research experiments are controlled tests of variables to determine causal relationships. While experiments are often associated with scientific research, they are also used in market research to assess the impact of specific marketing strategies, product features, or pricing and packaging changes.

7. Content analysis

Content analysis involves the systematic examination of textual, visual or audio content to identify patterns, themes and trends. It’s commonly applied to customer reviews, social media posts and other forms of online content to analyze consumer opinions and sentiments.

8. Ethnographic research

Ethnographic research immerses researchers into the daily lives of consumers to understand their behavior and culture. This method is particularly valuable when studying niche markets or exploring the cultural context of consumer choices.

How to do market research

• Set clear objectives
• Identify your target audience
• Choose your research methods
• Use the right market research tools
• Collect data
• Analyze data 
• Interpret your findings
• Identify opportunities and challenges
• Make informed business decisions
• Monitor and adapt

Now that you have gained insights into the various market research methods at your disposal, let’s delve into the practical aspects of how to conduct market research effectively. Here’s a quick step-by-step overview, from defining objectives to monitoring market shifts.

1. Set clear objectives

When you set clear and specific goals, you’re essentially creating a compass to guide your research questions and methodology. Start by precisely defining what you want to achieve. Are you launching a new product and want to understand its viability in the market? Are you evaluating customer satisfaction with a product redesign? 

Start by creating SMART goals — objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Not only will this clarify your research focus from the outset, but it will also help you track progress and benchmark your success throughout the process. 

You should also consult with key stakeholders and team members to ensure alignment on your research objectives before diving into data collecting. This will help you gain diverse perspectives and insights that will shape your research approach.

2. Identify your target audience

Next, you’ll need to pinpoint your target audience to determine who should be included in your research. Begin by creating detailed buyer personas or stakeholder profiles. Consider demographic factors like age, gender, income and location, but also delve into psychographics, such as interests, values and pain points.

The more specific your target audience, the more accurate and actionable your research will be. Additionally, segment your audience if your research objectives involve studying different groups, such as current customers and potential leads.

If you already have existing customers, you can also hold conversations with them to better understand your target market. From there, you can refine your buyer personas and tailor your research methods accordingly.

3. Choose your research methods

Selecting the right research methods is crucial for gathering high-quality data. Start by considering the nature of your research objectives. If you’re exploring consumer preferences, surveys and interviews can provide valuable insights. For in-depth understanding, focus groups or observational research might be suitable. Consider using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods to gain a well-rounded perspective. 

You’ll also need to consider your budget. Think about what you can realistically achieve using the time and resources available to you. If you have a fairly generous budget, you may want to try a mix of primary and secondary research approaches. If you’re doing market research for a startup , on the other hand, chances are your budget is somewhat limited. If that’s the case, try addressing your goals with secondary research tools before investing time and effort in a primary research study. 

4. Use the right market research tools

Whether you’re conducting primary or secondary research, you’ll need to choose the right tools. These can help you do anything from sending surveys to customers to monitoring trends and analyzing data. Here are some examples of popular market research tools:

• Market research software: Crunchbase is a platform that provides best-in-class company data, making it valuable for market research on growing companies and industries. You can use Crunchbase to access trusted, first-party funding data, revenue data, news and firmographics, enabling you to monitor industry trends and understand customer needs.

• Survey and questionnaire tools: SurveyMonkey is a widely used online survey platform that allows you to create, distribute and analyze surveys. Google Forms is a free tool that lets you create surveys and collect responses through Google Drive.
• Data analysis software: Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets are useful for conducting statistical analyses. SPSS is a powerful statistical analysis software used for data processing, analysis and reporting.
• Social listening tools: Brandwatch is a social listening and analytics platform that helps you monitor social media conversations, track sentiment and analyze trends. Mention is a media monitoring tool that allows you to track mentions of your brand, competitors and keywords across various online sources.
• Data visualization platforms: Tableau is a data visualization tool that helps you create interactive and shareable dashboards and reports. Power BI by Microsoft is a business analytics tool for creating interactive visualizations and reports.

5. Collect data

There’s an infinite amount of data you could be collecting using these tools, so you’ll need to be intentional about going after the data that aligns with your research goals. Implement your chosen research methods, whether it’s distributing surveys, conducting interviews or pulling from secondary research platforms. Pay close attention to data quality and accuracy, and stick to a standardized process to streamline data capture and reduce errors. 

6. Analyze data

Once data is collected, you’ll need to analyze it systematically. Use statistical software or analysis tools to identify patterns, trends and correlations. For qualitative data, employ thematic analysis to extract common themes and insights. Visualize your findings with charts, graphs and tables to make complex data more understandable.

If you’re not proficient in data analysis, consider outsourcing or collaborating with a data analyst who can assist in processing and interpreting your data accurately.

7. Interpret your findings

Interpreting your market research findings involves understanding what the data means in the context of your objectives. Are there significant trends that uncover the answers to your initial research questions? Consider the implications of your findings on your business strategy. It’s essential to move beyond raw data and extract actionable insights that inform decision-making.

Hold a cross-functional meeting or workshop with relevant team members to collectively interpret the findings. Different perspectives can lead to more comprehensive insights and innovative solutions.

8. Identify opportunities and challenges

Use your research findings to identify potential growth opportunities and challenges within your market. What segments of your audience are underserved or overlooked? Are there emerging trends you can capitalize on? Conversely, what obstacles or competitors could hinder your progress?

Lay out this information in a clear and organized way by conducting a SWOT analysis, which stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Jot down notes for each of these areas to provide a structured overview of gaps and hurdles in the market.

9. Make informed business decisions

Market research is only valuable if it leads to informed decisions for your company. Based on your insights, devise actionable strategies and initiatives that align with your research objectives. Whether it’s refining your product, targeting new customer segments or adjusting pricing, ensure your decisions are rooted in the data.

At this point, it’s also crucial to keep your team aligned and accountable. Create an action plan that outlines specific steps, responsibilities and timelines for implementing the recommendations derived from your research. 

10. Monitor and adapt

Market research isn’t a one-time activity; it’s an ongoing process. Continuously monitor market conditions, customer behaviors and industry trends. Set up mechanisms to collect real-time data and feedback. As you gather new information, be prepared to adapt your strategies and tactics accordingly. Regularly revisiting your research ensures your business remains agile and reflects changing market dynamics and consumer preferences.

Online market research sources

As you go through the steps above, you’ll want to turn to trusted, reputable sources to gather your data. Here’s a list to get you started:

• Crunchbase: As mentioned above, Crunchbase is an online platform with an extensive dataset, allowing you to access in-depth insights on market trends, consumer behavior and competitive analysis. You can also customize your search options to tailor your research to specific industries, geographic regions or customer personas.

• Academic databases: Academic databases, such as ProQuest and JSTOR , are treasure troves of scholarly research papers, studies and academic journals. They offer in-depth analyses of various subjects, including market trends, consumer preferences and industry-specific insights. Researchers can access a wealth of peer-reviewed publications to gain a deeper understanding of their research topics.
• Government and NGO databases: Government agencies, nongovernmental organizations and other institutions frequently maintain databases containing valuable economic, demographic and industry-related data. These sources offer credible statistics and reports on a wide range of topics, making them essential for market researchers. Examples include the U.S. Census Bureau , the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Pew Research Center .
• Industry reports: Industry reports and market studies are comprehensive documents prepared by research firms, industry associations and consulting companies. They provide in-depth insights into specific markets, including market size, trends, competitive analysis and consumer behavior. You can find this information by looking at relevant industry association databases; examples include the American Marketing Association and the National Retail Federation .
• Social media and online communities: Social media platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter (X) , forums such as Reddit and Quora , and review platforms such as G2 can provide real-time insights into consumer sentiment, opinions and trends. 

Market research examples

At this point, you have market research tools and data sources — but how do you act on the data you gather? Let’s go over some real-world examples that illustrate the practical application of market research across various industries. These examples showcase how market research can lead to smart decision-making and successful business decisions.

Example 1: Apple’s iPhone launch

Apple ’s iconic iPhone launch in 2007 serves as a prime example of market research driving product innovation in tech. Before the iPhone’s release, Apple conducted extensive market research to understand consumer preferences, pain points and unmet needs in the mobile phone industry. This research led to the development of a touchscreen smartphone with a user-friendly interface, addressing consumer demands for a more intuitive and versatile device. The result was a revolutionary product that disrupted the market and redefined the smartphone industry.

Example 2: McDonald’s global expansion

McDonald’s successful global expansion strategy demonstrates the importance of market research when expanding into new territories. Before entering a new market, McDonald’s conducts thorough research to understand local tastes, preferences and cultural nuances. This research informs menu customization, marketing strategies and store design. For instance, in India, McDonald’s offers a menu tailored to local preferences, including vegetarian options. This market-specific approach has enabled McDonald’s to adapt and thrive in diverse global markets.

Example 3: Organic and sustainable farming

The shift toward organic and sustainable farming practices in the food industry is driven by market research that indicates increased consumer demand for healthier and environmentally friendly food options. As a result, food producers and retailers invest in sustainable sourcing and organic product lines — such as with these sustainable seafood startups — to align with this shift in consumer values. 

The bottom line? Market research has multiple use cases and is a critical practice for any industry. Whether it’s launching groundbreaking products, entering new markets or responding to changing consumer preferences, you can use market research to shape successful strategies and outcomes.

Market research templates

You finally have a strong understanding of how to do market research and apply it in the real world. Before we wrap up, here are some market research templates that you can use as a starting point for your projects:

• Smartsheet competitive analysis templates : These spreadsheets can serve as a framework for gathering information about the competitive landscape and obtaining valuable lessons to apply to your business strategy.
• SurveyMonkey product survey template : Customize the questions on this survey based on what you want to learn from your target customers.
• HubSpot templates : HubSpot offers a wide range of free templates you can use for market research, business planning and more.
• SCORE templates : SCORE is a nonprofit organization that provides templates for business plans, market analysis and financial projections.
• SBA.gov : The U.S. Small Business Administration offers templates for every aspect of your business, including market research, and is particularly valuable for new startups. 

Strengthen your business with market research

When conducted effectively, market research is like a guiding star. Equipped with the right tools and techniques, you can uncover valuable insights, stay competitive, foster innovation and navigate the complexities of your industry.

Throughout this guide, we’ve discussed the definition of market research, different research methods, and how to conduct it effectively. We’ve also explored various types of market research and shared practical insights and templates for getting started. 

Now, it’s time to start the research process. Trust in data, listen to the market and make informed decisions that guide your company toward lasting success.

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Product Launch Strategy: A Comprehensive Guide for Success

What is a Product Launch Strategy? 

Getting a product to market successfully takes significant planning and research, resources, and time. With so much invested in transforming an innovative idea into a tangible offering, it’s not enough to build the product—you need consumers to buy it.

A product launch strategy is a comprehensive plan designed to jumpstart, accelerate, and scale product adoption once something hits the market. It involves a series of coordinated actions and decisions to create awareness, generate interest, and appeal to specific target audiences. From market research, positioning, and messaging to pricing, distribution, and promotional activities, the goal is to make an impactful, positive first impression, and maximize the product’s chances of success against competitors. 

Why is a Product Launch Strategy Important?

As the blueprint for introducing products to market in a purposeful and organized way, the product launch strategy provides a framework for aligning various aspects of the launch. It ensures that efforts are coordinated and resources are optimized, and that all aspects of the product roadmap are reflected as the product becomes a reality. 

Without a well-defined strategy, a product launch will lack direction, risking miscommunication, inconsistent messaging, and wasted resources. A carefully crafted strategy helps build anticipation, showcase the unique value of the product, capture the attention of the target audience, and establish a solid foundation for sustained success. It’s essential for upping the chances of a new product’s initial acceptance—and its total lifetime.

Benefits of having a Product Launch Strategy

A product launch strategy isn’t a checklist; it’s a pathway to profit that deeply influences the overall success of introducing something new to market. Key benefits include:

• Clarity and direction that helps cross-functional teams understand roles and responsibilities, goals, timelines, and expectations.
• Consistent and cohesive messaging across all communication channels, reinforcing the product’s value proposition and brand identity, and making it easier for prospects to understand and remember.
• Proactive risk mitigation that helps PMs anticipate potential challenges, and that includes contingency plans to minimize any roadblocks to launch.
• Deeper market understanding through thorough market research, ensuring that what’s delivered is relevant and truly resonates with potential customers.
• Efficient resource allocation that’s clearly connected to outcomes, preventing unnecessary work and improving ROI across the product’s lifecycle .
• Competitive positioning that highlights unique selling points and directly addresses consumer needs, allowing the product to stand out in a crowded space.
• Post-launch steps for sustained success that supports ongoing marketing efforts, customer feedback, and product improvements.

What’s the Difference Between a Product Launch Strategy and a Product Launch Plan?

In short, a product launch strategy sets down the guiding principles and objectives of a release, while a product launch plan translates those principles into actionable steps for the product team to follow.

The product launch strategy outlines the overall approach and goals for introducing a new product. It establishes the target audience, positioning, messaging, and the overall market landscape. It’s a handbook for how the product will be presented to the market and how it will expand and function over time, with a focus on the broader context and vision for the launch.

On the other hand, a product launch plan is a more detailed, tactical document that’s built from the overarching strategy. It breaks down the strategy into specific actions, tasks, and timelines, and includes granular details such as specific marketing tactics, communication channels, budget allocations, and responsibilities assigned to different team members or departments. The launch plan is essentially the step-by-step guide that operationalizes the strategy.

Components of an Effective Product Launch Strategy 

While a product launch strategy can vary quite a bit depending on the nature of the product and the industry being served, core pieces include:

• Conducting thorough research to understand the target market, customer needs, preferences, and existing competitors. 
• Clearly defining the target audience for the product by understanding the demographics, behaviors, and preferences of the intended consumers.
• Articulating the unique value proposition of the product, like what sets it apart from competitors, and how it addresses specific needs or problems for the target audience.
• Determining the positioning of the product in the market, from how it fits into the existing portfolio and landscape, and what key messages should be emphasized to communicate those outcomes.
• Developing a comprehensive messaging strategy that communicates the key benefits of the product, from compelling taglines to product descriptions and other promo assets.
• Creating a complete timeline that outlines the sequence of activities leading up to the launch and after. This includes pre-launch teasers, the launch itself, and post-launch efforts.
• Determining the distribution and pricing strategy based on market research, production costs, and perceived value. 
• Planning promotional activities and assets to generate awareness and interest, such as digital marketing, traditional advertising, PR, content marketing, and social media.
• Developing training and enablement programs for sales and CS teams and equipping them to accurately communicate the product’s features and benefits.
• Establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success of the launch, like sales goals, usage thresholds, and website traffic.
• Anticipating potential challenges and identifying potential risks, as well as outlining strategies to address them promptly.

Tactics to Creating a Successful Product Launch Strategy

Understanding the market and target audience, crafting a compelling value proposition, strategically positioning the product, and developing clear and cohesive messaging: four steps to success, when built on the foundation of a thoughtful and well-rounded plan. 

1. Pre-Launch Activities

Before the official introduction of the product, the goal is to build anticipation, generate awareness, and lay the groundwork for a seamless and impactful product launch. Success starts with market research, audience identification, setting a strategic launch timeline, and creating promotional tactics. But it also takes solid messaging, positioning, and competitive intel—in addition to a narrative that speaks directly to the target audience.

1. Writing a Compelling Story

A product’s story—or, how it’s discussed and placed within a market—should highlight the unique value of the offering. It goes beyond listing features, instead creating a clear connection between the product and user benefit, solution and pain point. A compelling story is an authentic and aspirational tool, and sets the stage for a memorable and impactful product launch that resonates with the target audience.

4. Product Promotion in Multiple Channels

The most effective product promotions are diverse and deliberate. Businesses that make a coordinated effort to advertise and create awareness for new products across platforms and channels will have a broader reach, and an expanded pool of prospects to engage.

3. Making Use of Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is a widespread and growing way to do one-to-many marketing and advocacy in the same motion. By partnering with creators or professionals who have significant online followings and platforms to promote and endorse products, businesses add credibility to their claims while generating awareness, building trust, and creating interest. 

How to Create a Product Launch Strategy

5 essential stages of a product launch strategy.

Here are five essential stages (with steps) to guide you through the process of creating an effective product launch strategy.

Market Research and Analysis

• Conduct thorough market research to understand the industry, target audience, and competitive landscape.
• Identify market trends, customer needs, and potential gaps in the market.
• Analyze competitor product launches to learn from successes and failures.

Define Your Target Audience

• Clearly define the target audience based on insights gathered from market research.
• Develop detailed buyer personas to understand the demographics, behaviors, and preferences of ideal customers.
• Tailor the product and launch strategy to address the specific needs and pain points of the target audience.

Craft a Compelling Value Proposition

• Clearly articulate the unique value that the product brings to the market.
• Define the key benefits and advantages that set the product apart from competitors.
• Ensure that any value propositions resonate with the identified needs of the target audience.

Develop a Comprehensive Launch Plan

• Create a detailed launch plan that outlines the sequence of activities leading up to and following the product launch.
• Specify the marketing channels, promotional tactics, and communication strategies.
• Set a realistic timeline for each phase of the launch, considering factors such as pre-launch teasers, the launch event, and post-launch follow-ups.

Determine Metrics and Measurement

• Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of the product launch.
• Define specific goals related to sales, customer acquisition, brand awareness, and other relevant metrics.
• Regularly monitor and analyze the performance data to assess the effectiveness of the launch strategy and make informed adjustments.

Common Reasons Why Product Launch Strategies Fail

Product launch strategies can fail for a variety of reasons, whether environmental, conditional, or unintentional. A successful strategy requires a holistic approach that considers everything with the potential to influence market reception.

Often, unsuccessful launches are rooted in a lack of market understanding and insufficient audience research, both of which result in unclear value propositions and ineffective messaging. Poor timing, subpar promotional efforts, and reluctance to adapt with feedback are equally damaging, as is underestimating the competition.

But the fastest route to failure is misaligning pricing with perceived value—something that’s much easier to avoid when businesses invest in understanding their audience’s goals, pain points, and limitations up front.

Post-Product Launch Strategy

The post-product launch strategy phase is crucial for sustaining momentum, addressing customer feedback, and creating long-term success. It should enable cross-functional teams to:

• Actively gather and analyze customer feedback to identify areas for improvement, and iteratively enhance the product based on user experiences and preferences.
• Maintain consistent marketing efforts to keep the product in the spotlight, share success stories, and provide updates to reinforce the product’s value.
• Provide robust customer support to address inquiries and issues promptly, and engage with customers through various channels to build loyalty.
• Continuously monitor and assess key performance indicators (e.g., sales, customer satisfaction scores, market share) to gauge the product’s ongoing success.
• Explore opportunities for product line extensions, additional features, or entry into new markets.
• Stay vigilant to changes in the market, industry trends, and competitor efforts, and be able to adapt the product strategy accordingly.
• Foster a sense of community among users through forums, social media, or other platforms, as well as encourage user-generated content and discussions to enhance the product’s ecosystem.
• Explore collaborations with other businesses or influencers to expand reach and appeal, and seek out partnerships to introduce new perspectives and opportunities for growth .
• Regularly reassess the product’s pricing strategy and positioning in the market to ensure alignment with customer perceptions and the evolving competitive landscape.
• Maintain a long-term vision for the product’s evolution and success by continuously innovating and evolving to stay ahead.

Success Metrics

It’s important to align whatever metrics a product is measured by with the overall objectives of the launch (and the business overall). A mix of short-term and long-term metrics will give PMs a comprehensive view of the product’s success and its total impact on the business. 

Regularly monitoring and analyzing these metrics will also provide insight into the effectiveness of the launch strategy, and inform adjustments and improvements over time. Here’s a list of metrics to consider:

Sales Performance

• Total sales revenue
• Sales growth rate

Customer Acquisition

• Number of new customers
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
• Conversion rates from leads to customers

Market Share

• Percentage of market share gained
• Competitive positioning in the market

Customer/Prospect Engagement

• Website/campaign page traffic
• Social media engagement (likes, shares, comments)
• Email open and click-through rates

Product Adoption

• Number of product sign-ups or registrations
• Rate of product adoption among target users

Customer Satisfaction

• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Customer feedback and reviews
• Customer support ticket volume and resolution time

Brand Awareness

• Brand mentions and sentiment on social media
• Media coverage and PR mentions
• Website and social media follower growth

Return on Investment (ROI)

• ROI on marketing and promotional activities
• ROI on overall product development and launch costs

Product Performance

• User engagement with key product features
• Product performance metrics (e.g., app downloads, usage frequency)

Retention Rates and Strategic KPIs

• Customer retention rates
• Churn rates
• Completion of specific strategic goals outlined in the product launch strategy

Feedback/Reviews

Feedback and reviews are pivotal for a product’s success and perception. Integrating them into your launch strategy requires thoughtful consideration. Key aspects include timing—gathering pre-launch feedback and encouraging post-launch reviews. Choose appropriate feedback channels, align with user personas, and provide incentives. 

Establish a responsive mechanism for addressing concerns and integrate feedback into product development. Regularly monitor, analyze, and promote positive feedback. Educate users on sharing feedback, employ moderation, and view this as a long-term strategy for continuous improvement and customer satisfaction.

Promotions Post-Launch

Post-launch promotions are vital for maintaining momentum and maximizing a product’s impact. Things like limited-time offers create urgency, while bundle offers provide increased value, and referral programs incentivize customers to share reviews and recommendations. Business should also implement: 

• Cross-sell and upsell campaigns to promote additional purchases
• Exclusive access rewards for specific customer actions
• Loyalty programs, flash sales, and social media contests
• Ongoing email marketing, partnerships, and product demonstrations to target specific and new segments 
• Customer-focused events, both virtual and in-person, to foster ongoing user engagement and positive relationships beyond the initial launch.

Productboard: You Partner In Creating an Effective Product Launch Strategy

Productboard is a comprehensive product management platform , ideal for creating flexible, thorough product launch strategies. By providing a centralized hub for all product-related information, Productboard integrates user persona details and ongoing user feedback, helping PMs gain a deep, detailed understanding of customer needs that can evolve alongside shifts in demand. 

With features like roadmap planning and idea management, teams can strategically prioritize and plan product launches with confidence that both broad context and details are being captured and considered. Productboard’s analytics and performance tracking enable consistent, data-driven decision-making, and iterative development support allows teams to refine strategies based on real-time updates. 

Leading businesses in every industry rely on Productboard to drive cross-functional visibility, foster transparency, and bring clarity to the product launch strategy process. Start a free trial today to see how your business can build products that see accelerated adoption and sustained success with every launch.

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The Role of Market Research in Successful Product Launches

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In the dynamic world of business, launching a new product is both an exciting opportunity and a considerable challenge. The difference between a successful product launch and a market miss often lies in the depth and quality of the market research that informs it. Understanding the critical importance of tailored market research is essential for any company looking to identify and capitalize on new market opportunities for product development. This article explores how effective market research can pave the way for successful product launches.

Understanding Your Market

Before introducing a new product, it’s crucial to have a comprehensive understanding of the market landscape. This includes knowing who your potential customers are, what needs and problems your product solves, and how it fits into the existing market. Market research provides these insights, offering a detailed picture of consumer preferences, market trends, competitive analysis, and potential barriers to entry. Tailored market research goes a step further by customizing this analysis to fit the unique aspects of your product and target audience, ensuring the insights you gain are directly applicable to your launch strategy.

Identifying Customer Needs and Preferences

At the heart of any successful product launch is a product that meets customer needs and preferences. Tailored market research allows companies to delve into the specifics of what their target customers want, need, and expect from a product. This can involve a variety of research methods, including surveys, focus groups, and customer interviews. By understanding these aspects, businesses can fine-tune their product features, design, and marketing messages to resonate with their intended audience, significantly increasing the likelihood of a successful launch.

Analyzing Competitive Landscape

A thorough analysis of the competitive landscape is another crucial element that market research provides. Knowing who your competitors are, their strengths and weaknesses, and how your product compares is vital. This information helps in positioning your product effectively, identifying unique selling propositions (USPs) that can differentiate your product in the marketplace. Tailored market research can provide detailed insights into competitive strategies, market gaps, and areas where your product can offer superior value.

Reducing Risks and Informing Strategies

Launching a new product involves significant investment and risk. Tailored market research helps mitigate these risks by providing data-driven insights that inform your product development and marketing strategies. It can reveal potential challenges and opportunities in the market, allowing businesses to adjust their launch strategy proactively. Whether it’s pricing strategies, distribution channels, or promotional tactics, market research ensures that decisions are based on evidence rather than assumptions, increasing the likelihood of success.

Enhancing Post-Launch Evaluation

The role of market research doesn’t end once the product is launched. Post-launch market research is critical for evaluating the success of your product launch, understanding customer feedback, and identifying areas for improvement. This ongoing research supports product iterations and helps maintain competitiveness in the market.

The role of market research in successful product launches cannot be overstated. Tailored market research provides the insights needed to understand the market, identify customer needs, analyze the competitive landscape, reduce risks, and inform strategies, ultimately leading to a more successful product launch. In an era where market dynamics are constantly shifting, the ability to leverage targeted market research is a powerful tool for any business looking to innovate and grow.

For businesses seeking to harness the power of market research in their product development process, partnering with a knowledgeable and experienced market research firm can make all the difference. Learn how Nerac’s Market Research Services can help you unlock new market opportunities and drive successful product launches.

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3 ways to use market research for product development.

Right off the bat, let’s make sure we’re on the same page in terms of definitions.

In its simplest form, a market consists of buyers and sellers. Technically, we could also include suppliers, partners, regulators—but that’s an unnecessary level of complexity for this blog post.

Market research , therefore, is the process of gathering information about the buyers and sellers within a given market. Meanwhile, product development is the process of conceptualizing, creating, and launching a product. It begins with ideation, and it … well, it never really ends . The “final” stage of product development is iteration.

Simply put, it’s extraordinarily difficult to launch a successful product without conducting some form of market research. At a minimum, you need to know what drives your prospects, who you’re competing with, and how those competitors position themselves to your shared audience.

Cool? Cool. Now, let’s discuss three ways your company (or business unit) can use market research throughout the process of conceptualizing, creating, and launching a new product:

• To generate your initial ideas (conceptualizing)
• To work out the kinks before you launch (creating)
• To optimize your messaging (launching)

1. Generate your initial ideas (conceptualizing)

Some products are happy accidents. In the mid-20th century, a Canadian engineer named John Hopps “serendipitously observed that an electrical impulse would cause the heart to contract and that repetitive stimuli would allow this to occur over a prolonged time.”

The pacemaker was born .

It’s a remarkable story. But, alas, we can’t all be John Hopps; we can’t all rely on serendipity. What you can rely on is data. Specifically, you can use primary and secondary data to identify pain points —which, in turn, can spark initial ideas for new products.

As an example, let’s say you work for an education solutions company that’s known for helping teachers with math instruction. This specialization has served the brand well up until this point, but the time has come to branch out—and you’ve been tasked with leading the effort to develop the company’s new breakthrough product.

In this case, you could gather primary data by surveying teachers and administrators at the schools that already use your company’s existing solutions. Outside of math, in what subject are students finding the most difficulty? What specific roadblocks make this subject so difficult? Do students tend to respond particularly well to certain methods of instruction, such as animated videos or hands-on activities? Answers to questions like these can help build the foundation of your team’s early brainstorms.

Of course, it’s often wise to supplement primary data with secondary data. In the education world—and many other industries—government websites are gold mines of free information. Here in the U.S., the Department of Education has dedicated an entire section of their website to data and statistics. By synthesizing third-party quantitative research with your own qualitative research, you and your team can get a strong sense of what students are struggling with—and use that as a launchpad for early ideation.

The takeaway

Although you probably don’t work for an education solutions company like the hypothetical one we’ve described, the point remains: Identifying pain points helps to jumpstart the product development process, and your team can do it by (1) interviewing customers and (2) diving into data that other organizations have already gathered.

Competitive best practice

For each of your initial ideas, do a quick Google search to get a sense of what your future competitive landscape may look like. Is it a crowded space? How are existing sellers differentiated from one another? Is there a lot of hype surrounding this industry? The sooner you adopt a competitive mindset, the better.

2. Work out the kinks before you launch (creating)

Let’s fast forward. At this point in the product development process, you and your team have settled on a problem that needs to be solved and begun working on a potential solution.

Once again, an example is useful here. Say you work for a pet supplies company. One of the company’s most lucrative product lines is a variety of cat litters, and through your initial market research, you’ve identified a major pain point: Disposing of used cat litter is a hassle—and it often feels unsanitary. As such, your team has created a prototype of a device that purports to enable quick, clean, and odorless disposal.

Although you know for a fact that litter disposal is a pain point amongst your target audience, you do not know for a fact that consumers will find success with your new product. And that’s where prototype testing comes in.

Prototype testing is the process of observing people as they use your prototype and collecting their feedback on the user experience. The goal, of course, is to identify any issues that need to be remedied before moving forward in the development process. Ultimately, prototype testing enables you to learn more about your prospects’ tendencies and preferences and, in turn, create the best solution possible. Oh—and it saves your company a lot of money in the long run.

Sticking with our example of the litter disposal device, issues that may be identified through prototype testing include:

• Unintuitive design
• Insufficient odor protection
• Lack of durability

Different types of companies practice prototype testing in different ways; using a cat litter disposal device and using an email marketing tool are two very different experiences. In general, however, it’s critical to choose the right audience. As product design expert Caitlin Goodale says , “you want a diverse group of testers [that reflect] the different personas within your product—as well as people who are not currently users but might become them.”

Although you’re probably not in the cat litter business, the point remains: Knowing what to solve is one thing; knowing how to solve it is another. Working out the kinks prior to launch day is an essential step towards creating a successful product, and your team can do it by observing people as they engage with early iterations.

If public customer reviews are available in your industry, make sure to check them out; at this stage, negative reviews are particularly valuable. Do you see any flaws across each of your competitor’s products? Any defects that drive buyers in this market crazy? If so, pay special attention to these details when testing your prototype. For example, if several competitors have gotten complaints about durability, you’d better make sure you’re testing all the different ways your prototype could potentially suffer damage.

3. Optimize your messaging (launching)

Let’s fast forward one more time. At this point in the product development process, you and your team are putting the finishing touches on a product that’s ready to launch .

This time, let’s say your company is known for selling technical content management software to manufacturers. In the earliest stages of product development, you learned that translating documentation into different languages is a major pain point. After months of building, testing, and tweaking, your team is just about ready to introduce your translation solution to the world.

Although you know for a fact that your new product is a viable solution to the translation problem, you do not know for a fact that prospects will be drawn to it. And that’s where message testing comes in.

To be clear, message testing—the process of determining which marketing messages are most effective amongst your target audience—is not strictly a pre-launch exercise. In fact, message testing can and should take place well after a product has been brought to market. For the purposes of this blog post, however, we’ll focus on pre-launch message testing.

Pre-launch message testing entails the collection of qualitative feedback from both internal stakeholders—your colleagues—and external stakeholders—your customers. Whereas the former group is intimately familiar with your brand’s overarching identity and story, the latter group is intimately familiar with the challenges that your new product purports to address.

Issues that may be identified through pre-launch message testing include:

• Misalignment with your company’s brand promise
• Unclear value proposition
• Insufficient differentiation from other solutions

Again, message testing can and should be conducted throughout the product life cycle. But pre-launch testing in particular is important because it gives your new product a better chance of succeeding right out of the gate—which, in turn, boosts employee morale, improves brand authority, and enables immediate feedback collection.

Chances are your company has nothing to do with translation, but it doesn’t matter: Even the strongest of products cannot survive lackluster marketing. Optimizing your messaging prior to launch day makes immediate success all the more attainable, and your team can do it by tapping the minds of colleagues and customers alike.

If the product you’re launching is not the first of its kind, take note of how your competitors position and promote their alternatives. And if the product you’re launching is the first of its kind—but your company has competitors within other business units—you should still take note of your competitors’ marketing strategies. Even if they don’t offer direct alternatives to your new product, they’re probably still on your prospects’ radars in some capacity.

Using real-time market data to optimize product development

Want access to competitive intelligence as soon as you start conceptualizing a new product? Want a centralized repository of every customer review across your industry? Want side-by-side snapshots of changes to your competitors’ positioning and messaging?

That’s only scratching the surface of what’s offered by Crayon—the award-winning competitive intelligence platform that enables you to track, analyze, and act on everything happening outside the four walls of your business. Request a demo today , and start competing like you mean it.

Seeing is believing! Check out Crayon for yourself.

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How to do market research: The complete guide for your brand

Written by by Jacqueline Zote

Published on  April 13, 2023

Reading time  10 minutes

Blindly putting out content or products and hoping for the best is a thing of the past. Not only is it a waste of time and energy, but you’re wasting valuable marketing dollars in the process. Now you have a wealth of tools and data at your disposal, allowing you to develop data-driven marketing strategies . That’s where market research comes in, allowing you to uncover valuable insights to inform your business decisions.

Conducting market research not only helps you better understand how to sell to customers but also stand out from your competition. In this guide, we break down everything you need to know about market research and how doing your homework can help you grow your business.

Table of contents:

What is market research?

Why is market research important, types of market research, where to conduct market research.

• Steps for conducting market research
• Tools to use for market research

Market research is the process of gathering information surrounding your business opportunities. It identifies key information to better understand your audience. This includes insights related to customer personas and even trends shaping your industry.

Taking time out of your schedule to conduct research is crucial for your brand health. Here are some of the key benefits of market research:

Understand your customers’ motivations and pain points

Most marketers are out of touch with what their customers want. Moreover, these marketers are missing key information on what products their audience wants to buy.

Simply put, you can’t run a business if you don’t know what motivates your customers.

And spoiler alert: Your customers’ wants and needs change. Your customers’ behaviors today might be night and day from what they were a few years ago.

Market research holds the key to understanding your customers better. It helps you uncover their key pain points and motivations and understand how they shape their interests and behavior.

Figure out how to position your brand

Positioning is becoming increasingly important as more and more brands enter the marketplace. Market research enables you to spot opportunities to define yourself against your competitors.

Maybe you’re able to emphasize a lower price point. Perhaps your product has a feature that’s one of a kind. Finding those opportunities goes hand in hand with researching your market.

Maintain a strong pulse on your industry at large

Today’s marketing world evolves at a rate that’s difficult to keep up with.

Fresh products. Up-and-coming brands. New marketing tools. Consumers get bombarded with sales messages from all angles. This can be confusing and overwhelming.

By monitoring market trends, you can figure out the best tactics for reaching your target audience.

Not everyone conducts market research for the same reason. While some may want to understand their audience better, others may want to see how their competitors are doing. As such, there are different types of market research you can conduct depending on your goal.

Interview-based market research allows for one-on-one interactions. This helps the conversation to flow naturally, making it easier to add context. Whether this takes place in person or virtually, it enables you to gather more in-depth qualitative data.

Buyer persona research

Buyer persona research lets you take a closer look at the people who make up your target audience. You can discover the needs, challenges and pain points of each buyer persona to understand what they need from your business. This will then allow you to craft products or campaigns to resonate better with each persona.

Pricing research

In this type of research, brands compare similar products or services with a particular focus on pricing. They look at how much those products or services typically sell for so they can get more competitive with their pricing strategy.

Competitive analysis research

Competitor analysis gives you a realistic understanding of where you stand in the market and how your competitors are doing. You can use this analysis to find out what’s working in your industry and which competitors to watch out for. It even gives you an idea of how well those competitors are meeting consumer needs.

Depending on the competitor analysis tool you use, you can get as granular as you need with your research. For instance, Sprout Social lets you analyze your competitors’ social strategies. You can see what types of content they’re posting and even benchmark your growth against theirs.

Brand awareness research

Conducting brand awareness research allows you to assess your brand’s standing in the market. It tells you how well-known your brand is among your target audience and what they associate with it. This can help you gauge people’s sentiments toward your brand and whether you need to rebrand or reposition.

If you don’t know where to start with your research, you’re in the right place.

There’s no shortage of market research methods out there. In this section, we’ve highlighted research channels for small and big businesses alike.

Considering that Google sees a staggering 8.5 billion searches each day, there’s perhaps no better place to start.

A quick Google search is a potential goldmine for all sorts of questions to kick off your market research. Who’s ranking for keywords related to your industry? Which products and pieces of content are the hottest right now? Who’s running ads related to your business?

For example, Google Product Listing Ads can help highlight all of the above for B2C brands.

The same applies to B2B brands looking to keep tabs on who’s running industry-related ads and ranking for keyword terms too.

There’s no denying that email represents both an aggressive and effective marketing channel for marketers today. Case in point, 44% of online shoppers consider email as the most influential channel in their buying decisions.

Looking through industry and competitor emails is a brilliant way to learn more about your market. For example, what types of offers and deals are your competitors running? How often are they sending emails?

Email is also invaluable for gathering information directly from your customers. This survey message from Asana is a great example of how to pick your customers’ brains to figure out how you can improve your quality of service.

Industry journals, reports and blogs

Don’t neglect the importance of big-picture market research when it comes to tactics and marketing channels to explore. Look to marketing resources such as reports and blogs as well as industry journals

Keeping your ear to the ground on new trends and technologies is a smart move for any business. Sites such as Statista, Marketing Charts, AdWeek and Emarketer are treasure troves of up-to-date data and news for marketers.

And of course, there’s the  Sprout Insights blog . And invaluable resources like The Sprout Social Index™  can keep you updated on the latest social trends.

Social media

If you want to learn more about your target market, look no further than social media. Social offers a place to discover what your customers want to see in future products or which brands are killin’ it. In fact, social media is become more important for businesses than ever with the level of data available.

It represents a massive repository of real-time data and insights that are instantly accessible. Brand monitoring and social listening are effective ways to conduct social media research . You can even be more direct with your approach. Ask questions directly or even poll your audience to understand their needs and preferences.

The 5 steps for how to do market research

Now that we’ve covered the why and where, it’s time to get into the practical aspects of market research. Here are five essential steps on how to do market research effectively.

Step 1: Identify your research topic

First off, what are you researching about? What do you want to find out? Narrow down on a specific research topic so you can start with a clear idea of what to look for.

For example, you may want to learn more about how well your product features are satisfying the needs of existing users. This might potentially lead to feature updates and improvements. Or it might even result in new feature introductions.

Similarly, your research topic may be related to your product or service launch or customer experience. Or you may want to conduct research for an upcoming marketing campaign.

Step 2: Choose a buyer persona to engage

If you’re planning to focus your research on a specific type of audience, decide which buyer persona you want to engage. This persona group will serve as a representative sample of your target audience.

Engaging a specific group of audience lets you streamline your research efforts. As such, it can be a much more effective and organized approach than researching thousands (if not millions) of individuals.

You may be directing your research toward existing users of your product. To get even more granular, you may want to focus on users who have been familiar with the product for at least a year, for example.

Step 3: Start collecting data

The next step is one of the most critical as it involves collecting the data you need for your research. Before you begin, make sure you’ve chosen the right research methods that will uncover the type of data you need. This largely depends on your research topic and goals.

Remember that you don’t necessarily have to stick to one research method. You may use a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches. So for example, you could use interviews to supplement the data from your surveys. Or you may stick to insights from your social listening efforts.

To keep things consistent, let’s look at this in the context of the example from earlier. Perhaps you can send out a survey to your existing users asking them a bunch of questions. This might include questions like which features they use the most and how often they use them. You can get them to choose an answer from one to five and collect quantitative data.

Plus, for qualitative insights, you could even include a few open-ended questions with the option to write their answers. For instance, you might ask them if there’s any improvement they wish to see in your product.

Step 4: Analyze results

Once you have all the data you need, it’s time to analyze it keeping your research topic in mind. This involves trying to interpret the data to look for a wider meaning, particularly in relation to your research goal.

So let’s say a large percentage of responses were four or five in the satisfaction rating. This means your existing users are mostly satisfied with your current product features. On the other hand, if the responses were mostly ones and twos, you may look for opportunities to improve. The responses to your open-ended questions can give you further context as to why people are disappointed.

Step 5: Make decisions for your business

Now it’s time to take your findings and turn them into actionable insights for your business. In this final step, you need to decide how you want to move forward with your new market insight.

What did you find in your research that would require action? How can you put those findings to good use?

The market research tools you should be using

To wrap things up, let’s talk about the various tools available to conduct speedy, in-depth market research. These tools are essential for conducting market research faster and more efficiently.

Social listening and analytics

Social analytics tools like Sprout can help you keep track of engagement across social media. This goes beyond your own engagement data but also includes that of your competitors. Considering how quickly social media moves, using a third-party analytics tool is ideal. It allows you to make sense of your social data at a glance and ensure that you’re never missing out on important trends.

Email marketing research tools

Keeping track of brand emails is a good idea for any brand looking to stand out in its audience’s inbox.

Tools such as MailCharts ,  Really Good Emails  and  Milled  can show you how different brands run their email campaigns.

Meanwhile, tools like  Owletter  allow you to monitor metrics such as frequency and send-timing. These metrics can help you understand email marketing strategies among competing brands.

Content marketing research

If you’re looking to conduct research on content marketing, tools such as  BuzzSumo  can be of great help. This tool shows you the top-performing industry content based on keywords. Here you can see relevant industry sites and influencers as well as which brands in your industry are scoring the most buzz. It shows you exactly which pieces of content are ranking well in terms of engagements and shares and on which social networks.

SEO and keyword tracking

Monitoring industry keywords is a great way to uncover competitors. It can also help you discover opportunities to advertise your products via organic search. Tools such as  Ahrefs  provide a comprehensive keyword report to help you see how your search efforts stack up against the competition.

Competitor comparison template

For the sake of organizing your market research, consider creating a competitive matrix. The idea is to highlight how you stack up side-by-side against others in your market. Use a  social media competitive analysis template  to track your competitors’ social presence. That way, you can easily compare tactics, messaging and performance. Once you understand your strengths and weaknesses next to your competitors, you’ll find opportunities as well.

Customer persona creator

Finally, customer personas represent a place where all of your market research comes together. You’d need to create a profile of your ideal customer that you can easily refer to. Tools like  Xtensio  can help in outlining your customer motivations and demographics as you zero in on your target market.

Build a solid market research strategy

Having a deeper understanding of the market gives you leverage in a sea of competitors. Use the steps and market research tools we shared above to build an effective market research strategy.

But keep in mind that the accuracy of your research findings depends on the quality of data collected. Turn to Sprout’s social media analytics tools to uncover heaps of high-quality data across social networks.

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Written by Mary Kate Miller | June 1, 2021

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Market research is a cornerstone of all successful, strategic businesses. It can also be daunting for entrepreneurs looking to launch a startup or start a side hustle . What is market research, anyway? And how do you…do it?

We’ll walk you through absolutely everything you need to know about the market research process so that by the end of this guide, you’ll be an expert in market research too. And what’s more important: you’ll have actionable steps you can take to start collecting your own market research.

What Is Market Research?

Market research is the organized process of gathering information about your target customers and market. Market research can help you better understand customer behavior and competitor strengths and weaknesses, as well as provide insight for the best strategies in launching new businesses and products. There are different ways to approach market research, including primary and secondary research and qualitative and quantitative research. The strongest approaches will include a combination of all four.

“Virtually every business can benefit from conducting some market research,” says Niles Koenigsberg of Real FiG Advertising + Marketing . “Market research can help you piece together your [business’s] strengths and weaknesses, along with your prospective opportunities, so that you can understand where your unique differentiators may lie.” Well-honed market research will help your brand stand out from the competition and help you see what you need to do to lead the market. It can also do so much more.

The Purposes of Market Research

Why do market research? It can help you…

• Pinpoint your target market, create buyer personas, and develop a more holistic understanding of your customer base and market.
• Understand current market conditions to evaluate risks and anticipate how your product or service will perform.
• Validate a concept prior to launch.
• Identify gaps in the market that your competitors have created or overlooked.
• Solve problems that have been left unresolved by the existing product/brand offerings.
• Identify opportunities and solutions for new products or services.
• Develop killer marketing strategies .

What Are the Benefits of Market Research?

Strong market research can help your business in many ways. It can…

• Strengthen your market position.
• Help you identify your strengths and weaknesses.
• Help you identify your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.
• Minimize risk.
• Center your customers’ experience from the get-go.
• Help you create a dynamic strategy based on market conditions and customer needs/demands.

What Are the Basic Methods of Market Research?

The basic methods of market research include surveys, personal interviews, customer observation, and the review of secondary research. In addition to these basic methods, a forward-thinking market research approach incorporates data from the digital landscape like social media analysis, SEO research, gathering feedback via forums, and more. Throughout this guide, we will cover each of the methods commonly used in market research to give you a comprehensive overview.

Primary vs. Secondary Market Research

Primary and secondary are the two main types of market research you can do. The latter relies on research conducted by others. Primary research, on the other hand, refers to the fact-finding efforts you conduct on your own.

This approach is limited, however. It’s likely that the research objectives of these secondary data points differ from your own, and it can be difficult to confirm the veracity of their findings.

Primary Market Research

Primary research is more labor intensive, but it generally yields data that is exponentially more actionable. It can be conducted through interviews, surveys, online research, and your own data collection. Every new business should engage in primary market research prior to launch. It will help you validate that your idea has traction, and it will give you the information you need to help minimize financial risk.

You can hire an agency to conduct this research on your behalf. This brings the benefit of expertise, as you’ll likely work with a market research analyst. The downside is that hiring an agency can be expensive—too expensive for many burgeoning entrepreneurs. That brings us to the second approach. You can also do the market research yourself, which substantially reduces the financial burden of starting a new business .

Secondary Market Research

Secondary research includes resources like government databases and industry-specific data and publications. It can be beneficial to start your market research with secondary sources because it’s widely available and often free-to-access. This information will help you gain a broad overview of the market conditions for your new business.

Identify Your Goals and Your Audience

Before you begin conducting interviews or sending out surveys, you need to set your market research goals. At the end of your market research process, you want to have a clear idea of who your target market is—including demographic information like age, gender, and where they live—but you also want to start with a rough idea of who your audience might be and what you’re trying to achieve with market research.

You can pinpoint your objectives by asking yourself a series of guiding questions:

• What are you hoping to discover through your research?
• Who are you hoping to serve better because of your findings?
• What do you think your market is?
• Who are your competitors?
• Are you testing the reception of a new product category or do you want to see if your product or service solves the problem left by a current gap in the market?
• Are you just…testing the waters to get a sense of how people would react to a new brand?

Once you’ve narrowed down the “what” of your market research goals, you’re ready to move onto how you can best achieve them. Think of it like algebra. Many math problems start with “solve for x.” Once you know what you’re looking for, you can get to work trying to find it. It’s a heck of a lot easier to solve a problem when you know you’re looking for “x” than if you were to say “I’m gonna throw some numbers out there and see if I find a variable.”

How to Do Market Research

This guide outlines every component of a comprehensive market research effort. Take into consideration the goals you have established for your market research, as they will influence which of these elements you’ll want to include in your market research strategy.

Secondary Data

Secondary data allows you to utilize pre-existing data to garner a sense of market conditions and opportunities. You can rely on published market studies, white papers, and public competitive information to start your market research journey.

Secondary data, while useful, is limited and cannot substitute your own primary data. It’s best used for quantitative data that can provide background to your more specific inquiries.

Find Your Customers Online

Once you’ve identified your target market, you can use online gathering spaces and forums to gain insights and give yourself a competitive advantage. Rebecca McCusker of The Creative Content Shop recommends internet recon as a vital tool for gaining a sense of customer needs and sentiment. “Read their posts and comments on forums, YouTube video comments, Facebook group [comments], and even Amazon/Goodreads book comments to get in their heads and see what people are saying.”

If you’re interested in engaging with your target demographic online, there are some general rules you should follow. First, secure the consent of any group moderators to ensure that you are acting within the group guidelines. Failure to do so could result in your eviction from the group.

Not all comments have the same research value. “Focus on the comments and posts with the most comments and highest engagement,” says McCusker. These high-engagement posts can give you a sense of what is already connecting and gaining traction within the group.

Social media can also be a great avenue for finding interview subjects. “LinkedIn is very useful if your [target customer] has a very specific job or works in a very specific industry or sector. It’s amazing the amount of people that will be willing to help,” explains Miguel González, a marketing executive at Dealers League . “My advice here is BE BRAVE, go to LinkedIn, or even to people you know and ask them, do quick interviews and ask real people that belong to that market and segment and get your buyer persona information first hand.”

Market research interviews can provide direct feedback on your brand, product, or service and give you a better understanding of consumer pain points and interests.

When organizing your market research interviews, you want to pay special attention to the sample group you’re selecting, as it will directly impact the information you receive. According to Tanya Zhang, the co-founder of Nimble Made , you want to first determine whether you want to choose a representative sample—for example, interviewing people who match each of the buyer persona/customer profiles you’ve developed—or a random sample.

“A sampling of your usual persona styles, for example, can validate details that you’ve already established about your product, while a random sampling may [help you] discover a new way people may use your product,” Zhang says.

Market Surveys

Market surveys solicit customer inclinations regarding your potential product or service through a series of open-ended questions. This direct outreach to your target audience can provide information on your customers’ preferences, attitudes, buying potential, and more.

Every expert we asked voiced unanimous support for market surveys as a powerful tool for market research. With the advent of various survey tools with accessible pricing—or free use—it’s never been easier to assemble, disseminate, and gather market surveys. While it should also be noted that surveys shouldn’t replace customer interviews , they can be used to supplement customer interviews to give you feedback from a broader audience.

Who to Include in Market Surveys

• Current customers
• Past customers
• Your existing audience (such as social media/newsletter audiences)

Example Questions to Include in Market Surveys

While the exact questions will vary for each business, here are some common, helpful questions that you may want to consider for your market survey. Demographic Questions: the questions that help you understand, demographically, who your target customers are:

• “What is your age?”
• “Where do you live?”
• “What is your gender identity?”
• “What is your household income?”
• “What is your household size?”
• “What do you do for a living?”
• “What is your highest level of education?”

Product-Based Questions: Whether you’re seeking feedback for an existing brand or an entirely new one, these questions will help you get a sense of how people feel about your business, product, or service:

• “How well does/would our product/service meet your needs?”
• “How does our product/service compare to similar products/services that you use?”
• “How long have you been a customer?” or “What is the likelihood that you would be a customer of our brand?

Personal/Informative Questions: the deeper questions that help you understand how your audience thinks and what they care about.

• “What are your biggest challenges?”
• “What’s most important to you?”
• “What do you do for fun (hobbies, interests, activities)?”
• “Where do you seek new information when researching a new product?”
• “How do you like to make purchases?”
• “What is your preferred method for interacting with a brand?”

Survey Tools

Online survey tools make it easy to distribute surveys and collect responses. The best part is that there are many free tools available. If you’re making your own online survey, you may want to consider SurveyMonkey, Typeform, Google Forms, or Zoho Survey.

Competitive Analysis

A competitive analysis is a breakdown of how your business stacks up against the competition. There are many different ways to conduct this analysis. One of the most popular methods is a SWOT analysis, which stands for “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.” This type of analysis is helpful because it gives you a more robust understanding of why a customer might choose a competitor over your business. Seeing how you stack up against the competition can give you the direction you need to carve out your place as a market leader.

Social Media Analysis

Social media has fundamentally changed the market research landscape, making it easier than ever to engage with a wide swath of consumers. Follow your current or potential competitors on social media to see what they’re posting and how their audience is engaging with it. Social media can also give you a lower cost opportunity for testing different messaging and brand positioning.

SEO Analysis and Opportunities

SEO analysis can help you identify the digital competition for getting the word out about your brand, product, or service. You won’t want to overlook this valuable information. Search listening tools offer a novel approach to understanding the market and generating the content strategy that will drive business. Tools like Google Trends and Awario can streamline this process.

Ready to Kick Your Business Into High Gear?

Now that you’ve completed the guide to market research you know you’re ready to put on your researcher hat to give your business the best start. Still not sure how actually… launch the thing? Our free mini-course can run you through the essentials for starting your side hustle .

About Mary Kate Miller

Mary Kate Miller writes about small business, real estate, and finance. In addition to writing for Foundr, her work has been published by The Washington Post, Teen Vogue, Bustle, and more. She lives in Chicago.

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Home • Knowledge hub • How to write a market research report for a new product launch

How to write a market research report for a new product launch

When launching a new product to market, it’s imperative to be prepared with relevant information. You need a deep understanding of your market, how your products will benefit that market, the potential challenges you might run into, and much more.

This is why it’s so important to write an in-depth, professional, and relevant market research report. Not only to gather and display all the right information but also so that you can share that information clearly and easily with people within and outside your organization. This is important for a wide range of different reasons.

In this article, we’ll look at why market research reports for product launches are so important and show you how to do it as effectively as possible.

Why market research reports are important

Conducting a detailed and relevant market research report before you launch your new product is a good idea for all kinds of reasons. Here are some of the main ones:

• Get buy-in from senior decision-makers . When launching any product, you’ll always want the full support of the top decision-makers at your organization. This can be a tricky thing to acquire, especially if your team is relatively unproven. A detailed and informative market research report can be the deciding factor in winning their support, convincing them that your product is well-placed to succeed, and making it much easier to achieve your goals.
• Learn more about your customers and target audience . One of the main reasons to conduct market research is to understand your prospective customers in more detail. The work you do to compile a report will give you a clear and detailed understanding of what your customers want, what they already like, where they conduct their own research, and much more. This will arm you with the insights and knowledge you need to launch your product confidently and successfully.

Discover ideas for new products and how to improve existing ones . When you research your target market, you’ll likely stumble upon inspiration for new products in addition to the one you’re planning to launch. The feedback you get from your research will also be laced with ideas for improving and tweaking existing products

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How to write a market research report effectively

In the rest of this guide, we’ll show you what you need to do to ensure your market research report is as detailed, relevant, and valuable as it possibly can be. Let’s start with the type of information you need to include.

What you need to include:

Buyer personas.

This is a crucial part of getting to know your customers and the different groups they fall into. You should start by researching your target market members as much as possible through a range of channels — interviews, social media research, email surveys, and more. Then, divide them into demographics and create a detailed persona to represent each one.

This is an incredibly valuable step because it allows you to break down your market and make broad predictions about each group’s preferences, pain points, habits, and desires. If done right, this helps you target your future marketing much more accurately and effectively.

Understand your competitors

Getting to know your competitors is a key element of market research. It allows you to understand what you will be up against when launching your product and what segments of your market might be easier or more difficult to sway from their loyalty to your competitors.

Your research report should contain detailed information about each of your competitors and what they offer. What do their products lack that yours can provide? Why do your customers go to them? How dominant are they in your market? What kind of loyalty do they command? What are some of the keys to their success? All this will help you understand what you’re up against and strengthen your chances of success.

Who did you talk to?

Much of your market research will involve talking to various people and groups of people in situations like focus groups, interviews, and surveys. It’s important to document this side of your research carefully and include it in your market research report. Be sure to break down the people you spoke to into demographics and be as specific as possible — try to align this with your buyer personas.

This will help you understand what different demographics want, identify any areas you may have missed, and see any opportunities for segmentation or expansion, as well as providing clear visibility into your research process and allowing you to justify your findings and decisions to other company members carefully.

Clearly show what will happen next — how will you use your findings? 

When you present your market research report to decision-makers in your organization, their primary concern will be what you want to do with it. Research is only valuable if it has a practical application, which should be a key element of your report.

It’s best to be specific — create plans and roadmaps for campaigns, build strategies, and include timelines and carefully researched cost estimates. If you can present a clear and viable plan for your product launch, it will be much easier to gain the support and buy-in of the higher-ups in your company. Be ready to defend and justify these plans.

Primary vs Secondary Market Research

There are two main types of research you’ll need to do when preparing your market research report: primary and secondary. Here is the difference:

• Primary research . This refers to the first-hand information you have gathered during your research — straight from the primary source. Examples include interviews with individuals, focus groups, surveys, and information from sales teams. It helps add a human touch to your research, incorporating real people’s distinct voices and opinions.
• Secondary research. This is data that your company didn’t personally collect but is available in the form of things like public records, trend reports, and market statistics. While it lacks the specific human element of primary research, it’s a great way to gain valuable overall insights about your target market without having to conduct huge research projects yourself.

Convincing company decision-makers with your market research report

One of the most essential functions of a market research report is to convince your company’s key stakeholders that you are prepared for a product launch and have everything in place to begin the process successfully.

When creating your report, you should always have this goal in mind. Here are some ways to do that:

• Always clearly tie your research for business outcomes. For every conclusion your report reaches, explain what this means for the business and what concrete actions you will take as a result.
• Use as many stats and as much hard data as possible. Clearly express this data in the form of graphs and other visual aids. Show where your data came from, how you collected it, and how your findings will impact your product launch.
• Consider using Porter’s 5 Forces Model . This business model is aimed at understanding and explaining the fundamental market forces at work in any given industry. It can be illuminating to tie your research into this model.

A well-researched and detailed market research report is an essential part of a successful product launch strategy. It allows you to clearly understand your market, formulate concrete plans and strategies, and gain the support of your organization’s decision-makers.

Without one, you’ll be plunged into the dark, facing the monumentally challenging task of launching a product without the support of extensive research and data. To find out more about how Kadence can help you prepare a market research report and launch your product with confidence, contact us .

Helping brands uncover valuable insights

We’ve been working with Kadence on a couple of strategic projects, which influenced our product roadmap roll-out within the region. Their work has been exceptional in providing me the insights that I need. Senior Marketing Executive Arla Foods

Kadence’s reports give us the insight, conclusion and recommended execution needed to give us a different perspective, which provided us with an opportunity to relook at our go to market strategy in a different direction which we are now reaping the benefits from. Sales & Marketing Bridgestone

Kadence helped us not only conduct a thorough and insightful piece of research, its interpretation of the data provided many useful and unexpected good-news stories that we were able to use in our communications and interactions with government bodies. General Manager PR -Internal Communications & Government Affairs Mitsubishi

Kadence team is more like a partner to us. We have run a number of projects together and … the pro-activeness, out of the box thinking and delivering in spite of tight deadlines are some of the key reasons we always reach out to them. Vital Strategies

Kadence were an excellent partner on this project; they took time to really understand our business challenges, and developed a research approach that would tackle the exam question from all directions.  The impact of the work is still being felt now, several years later. Customer Intelligence Director Wall Street Journal

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The Ultimate Guide to a Successful New Product Launch

Picture this: You've been working on your top-secret product for months, maybe even years. You've poured your heart and soul into it, tweaked every knob, and polished every pixel . 

Now, it's finally ready for the spotlight. But what's next? Enter the product launch.

What is a product launch?

In a nutshell, a product launch is like your product's big debut. It's the grand unveiling, the red carpet moment when your product steps out from behind the curtain and struts its stuff for the world to see. 

And just like any great show, it takes careful planning, a dash of pizzazz, and an audience eagerly waiting in anticipation.

A product launch isn't just about popping confetti cannons and toasting with champagne (though that's fun too). 

It's a coordinated extravaganza that includes everything from crafting catchy taglines to rallying your fans on social media . The goal? To create buzz, win hearts, and—drumroll, please—make sales.

The 5 stages of launching a new product

Like any great performance, a successful product launch requires careful choreography, perfect timing, and a little bit of magic. So, without further ado, let's raise the curtain and explore the five acts of a showstopping product launch.

Stage #1 - Planning

Before the curtain rises, let's get our ducks in a row (or dancing chorus line, if you prefer). We'll need a marketing plan that's jazzier than a Broadway musical, complete with all the razzle-dazzle to promote your product and create buzz. 

Let's figure out where to sell it, how to price it, and how to get your sales team tapping to the beat. Trust me, a little planning goes a long way.

Stage #2 - Launch Day

It's showtime! Let's roll out the red carpet and officially release your product to the world. We'll pull out all the stops with a coordinated launch campaign—think promotional activities, glitzy events, and media spotlights. 

We'll shimmy our way onto social media, email inboxes, and influencer feeds to maximize visibility and reach. Lights up, the stage is yours!

Stage #3 - Monitoring and Support

The applause is still ringing in our ears, but the show's not over yet. Let's listen to our audience—monitor customer feedback, reviews, and sales data to see how we're faring in the limelight. 

And hey, if there are any hiccups or questions, we're here to provide top-notch customer support. 

Stage #4 - Analysis and Optimization

Time for a little self-reflection. Let's take a look at the key performance metrics and sales data to see what worked and what could use a little more pizzazz. 

We'll use customer feedback to make updates and enhancements, ensuring your product stays as fresh as opening night. And let's keep our eyes on the market trends, so we're always one step ahead of the competition.

Stage #5 - Ongoing Marketing and Engagement

The launch may be over, but our work is just beginning. Let's keep the marketing magic going to sustain momentum and build customer loyalty . 

Whether it's content marketing, social media, or community-building efforts, we'll keep our audience engaged and coming back for more. 

How to launch your product successfully

Introducing a new product to the market is both an art and a science. At the heart of a successful introduction lies a well-thought-out product launch process—one that combines creativity, analysis, and strategic planning. 

To help you navigate this exciting journey, we've crafted a comprehensive product launch strategy that will guide you step-by-step through the critical phases of bringing your product to life. From initial planning to post-launch analysis, each step is designed to maximize your product's impact and ensure a triumphant debut. 

Step 1) Research and Understand Your Target Audience

Before the curtain rises on your product launch, there's a critical first step that sets the stage for the entire performance: researching and understanding your target audience . 

It's about getting to know the people you're creating your product for—their desires, challenges, and what makes them tick. Here's how to shine the spotlight on your audience and ensure your product hits all the right notes.

Conduct Market Research

Market research is your backstage pass to understanding your customers . It's about gathering valuable insights and data that help you make informed decisions. 

So, roll up your sleeves and start investigating:

• Conduct surveys, interviews, and focus groups to get firsthand feedback from potential customers.
• Analyze market trends, competitors , and industry reports to understand the landscape.
• Identify gaps in the market and opportunities where your product can make a splash.

The goal? To uncover the needs, preferences, and pain points of your audience. This knowledge guides everything from product development to marketing, ensuring your product resonates with the right people.

Create Customer Personas

Meet your cast of characters—your customer personas. These fictional profiles represent different segments of your target market, bringing your audience to life in vivid detail. 

Each persona is a unique character with their own story, motivations, and quirks:

• Craft personas based on your market research, demographics , and behavioral patterns.
• Give each persona a name, background, and defining characteristics.
• Outline their goals, challenges, and how your product can make a difference in their lives.

Customer personas are more than just profiles; they're your guiding stars. They help you tailor your messaging, design user experiences, and ultimately create a product that earns a standing ovation from your audience.

Step 2) Develop and Refine the Product

With the stage set and your audience in focus, it's time for the next act in your product launch journey: developing and refining the star of the show—your product. 

This is all about bringing your vision to life, from concept to creation, and ensuring it's polished to perfection. So, let's take a closer look at how to craft a product that captivates your audience and steals the spotlight.

Collaborate with Product Development Teams

Creating a masterpiece is a collaborative effort, and that's where your product development team comes in. This talented ensemble of designers, engineers, and innovators work in harmony to design and create the product based on customer needs. 

Here's how to hit the right notes:

• Share your market research and customer personas with the team to inform the design process.
• Foster open communication, creativity, and collaboration to explore ideas and solutions.
• Iterate and refine the product based on feedback, testing, and alignment with your value proposition.

With everyone working in sync, you'll transform your vision into a tangible product that resonates with your audience and meets their needs.

Test Beta Versions with Real Users

Before the curtain rises on launch day, it's time for the dress rehearsal. Testing beta versions with real users is your chance to gather feedback and make necessary improvements. So, let's put your product to the test:

• Invite users from your target audience to try out your product and share their experiences.
• Create a structured feedback process to capture insights, suggestions, and any issues encountered.
• Use the feedback to identify areas of improvement, fix bugs, and enhance usability.

Think of this testing phase as the final touches, ensuring your product is primed and ready for its big debut. It's about fine-tuning the details, so your product shines in the spotlight and delivers a showstopping performance .

Step 3) Create a Unique Value Proposition and Messaging

With your product primed and polished, it's time to turn our attention to the script—the compelling narrative that brings your product to life.

A unique value proposition and messaging captures the essence of your product, tells its story, and leaves your audience spellbound. 

So, grab your quill and compose a tale that resonates with your target audience and sets your product apart.

Develop a Unique Value Proposition

The unique value proposition is the heart and soul of your product—the captivating hook that captures your audience's attention. 

It's the promise of value, the reason your product deserves the limelight. Here's how to craft a value proposition that shines:

• Highlight the key benefits of your product and how it addresses the needs and pain points of your audience.
• Articulate what makes your product different and why it stands out from the competition.
• Keep it clear, concise, and compelling—a statement that strikes a chord and evokes emotion.

The right value proposition is like a standing ovation—it resonates, inspires, and leaves a lasting impression.

Craft Compelling Messaging and Positioning Statements

With your value proposition in hand, it's time to craft the messaging and positioning statements that bring your product's story to life. 

This is your chance to engage, persuade, and connect with your audience. Here's how to compose messaging that resonates:

• Tailor your messaging to your customer personas, speaking to their goals, desires, and motivations.
• Create positioning statements that showcase your product's strengths, features, and advantages.
• Use language that's clear, relatable, and evocative, drawing your audience into the narrative.

Think of your messaging as the script for your product launch—a tale that captivates your audience, showcases your product's brilliance, and leaves them eager to experience it for themselves.

Step 4) Plan Your Marketing and Promotion Strategies

As the curtain rises on the next act of your product launch journey, it's time to turn the spotlight on marketing and promotion. 

It's all about creating buzz, building anticipation, and getting your audience on the edge of their seats, eager for the grand debut of your product. 

With the right marketing plan and promotional strategies, your product will take center stage and capture the hearts and minds of your audience. 

Build a Pre-Launch Marketing Plan

Before the big day arrives, set the stage with a pre-launch marketing plan that turns heads and creates a buzz. 

This plan is your roadmap to building excitement and anticipation for your product launch. Here's how to create a pre-launch marketing plan that's pitch-perfect:

• Craft teasers, sneak peeks, and countdowns that spark curiosity and leave your audience wanting more.
• Engage your audience with interactive content, behind-the-scenes insights, and exclusive previews.
• Build an email list of interested subscribers, and keep them in the loop with regular updates and news.

With a well-executed pre-launch marketing plan, you'll create a sense of anticipation that has your audience counting down the days until the product launch.

Utilize Various Marketing Channels

Your audience awaits, and it's time to reach them through the marketing channels they love. From social media to influencer partnerships, each channel is an opportunity to connect, engage, and share your product's story. Here's how to utilize various marketing channels to amplify your message:

• Leverage social media platforms to share engaging content, launch promotions, and interact with your audience.
• Create email campaigns that inform, inspire, and drive action, whether it's pre-orders, sign-ups, or event registrations.
• Produce and share captivating content— blog posts , videos, webinars—that showcases your product's value and benefits.
• Collaborate with influencers, bloggers, and industry experts to reach new audiences and gain credibility.

By utilizing a diverse array of marketing channels, you'll maximize visibility, reach a broader audience, and ensure that your product launch is the talk of the town.

Step 5) Set Up Distribution and Sales Channels

As we move into the next act of your product launch journey, the spotlight shifts to distribution and sales—the essential channels that bring your product to the hands of eager customers. 

Establish partnerships, set up distribution networks, and train sales teams to effectively sell and promote your product. With the right distribution and sales channels in place, your product will take center stage and become a star in the eyes of your audience. 

Establish Partnerships with Distributors, Retailers, and Online Platforms

Distribution is the magic that brings your product to the world. It's about making your product available and accessible to your target audience, wherever they may be. 

Here's how to establish partnerships and distribution channels that deliver:

• Identify and collaborate with distributors and retailers that align with your product and target market.
• Leverage online platforms, including e-commerce websites and digital marketplaces, to expand your reach.
• Build strong relationships with partners, negotiate terms, and ensure smooth supply chain operations.

With the right distribution partnerships, you'll bring your product to market with efficiency and ease, ensuring it's readily available to customers far and wide.

Train Sales Teams 

Your sales team is the face of your product—the ambassadors that introduce your product to customers and showcase its value. 

To ensure they hit all the right notes, it's essential to provide training and support. Here's how to prepare your sales team for a stellar performance:

• Educate sales teams on the product's features, benefits, and unique value proposition .
• Provide training on messaging, positioning, and how to address common customer questions and objections.
• Equip sales teams with access to internal beta tests , marketing materials, product demos, and tools to effectively promote and sell the product.

With a well-trained sales team, you'll create meaningful connections with customers, inspire confidence, and drive sales that contribute to a successful product launch.

Step 6) Prepare for Launch Day

The anticipation is palpable, the excitement is building, and the stage is set for the grand finale—launch day. 

This is the moment when your product takes center stage, dazzling your audience and making its mark on the world. But before the curtain rises on this momentous day, there are final preparations to be made and details to be fine-tuned. 

Finalize your launch timeline, coordinate the moving pieces, and plan a launch event that leaves a lasting impression. 

Finalize the Launch Timeline and Coordinate All Aspects of the Launch

Every great performance relies on timing, precision, and coordination, and your product launch is no exception. As launch day approaches, it's time to ensure everything is perfectly in place. 

Here's how to finalize the launch timeline and coordinate all aspects of the launch:

• Review and confirm the launch timeline, including key milestones, deadlines, and activities.
• Coordinate with marketing, sales, distribution, and customer support teams to align efforts and responsibilities.
• Ensure that marketing materials, promotional campaigns, and product inventory are ready for the launch.
• Conduct a final review of the product, website, and landing pages to ensure quality and readiness.

With careful coordination and a well-defined timeline, you'll create a harmonious launch experience that flows seamlessly from start to finish.

Plan a Launch Event, Either In-Person or Virtual

The launch event is the spotlight moment when your product is unveiled to the world. It's an opportunity to engage with your audience, showcase your product's brilliance, and celebrate this milestone. 

Here's how to plan a launch event that captivates and inspires:

• Determine the format of the event—whether in-person, virtual, or a hybrid approach—and choose a suitable venue or platform.
• Design an engaging agenda that includes product demonstrations, guest speakers, and interactive sessions.
• Promote the event through social media, email campaigns, and influencer partnerships to attract attendees.
• Prepare presentation materials, visuals, and media assets that tell your product's story in a compelling way.

Whether you're hosting an intimate gathering or a virtual event that spans the globe, a well-planned launch event is a perfect way to introduce your product, connect with your audience, and celebrate your achievements.

Step 7) Execute the Product Launch

The moment has arrived—the stage lights are shining, the audience is waiting with bated breath, and it's time for your product to take its rightful place in the spotlight. 

This is the climax of your product launch journey, where meticulous planning gives way to flawless execution, and your vision becomes a reality. 

Execute Your Marketing and Promotion Strategies

The curtain rises, and your marketing and promotion strategies take center stage. This is your chance to generate awareness, capture attention, and drive sales for your product. Here's how to execute a marketing performance that resonates with your audience:

• Launch your promotional campaigns across social media, email, and other marketing channels to reach your target audience.
• Share engaging content, impactful visuals, and compelling stories that showcase the value and benefits of your product.
• Leverage influencer partnerships and media outreach to amplify your message and expand your reach.
• Monitor and respond to customer inquiries, comments, and feedback, fostering a sense of connection and excitement.

With well-executed marketing and promotion strategies, you'll create a buzz that echoes far and wide, drawing your audience into the narrative of your product and its potential to make a difference.

Host the Launch Event

The launch event is the crescendo of your product launch—a moment of celebration, connection, and unveiling. It's the opportunity to engage with customers, media, influencers, and stakeholders in a meaningful way. Here's how to host a launch event that leaves a lasting impression:

• Kick off the event with a captivating introduction that sets the tone and welcomes attendees.
• Conduct product demonstrations, presentations, and interactive sessions that highlight your product's features and capabilities.
• Invite guest speakers, industry experts, and influencers to share their insights and perspectives on your product.
• Actively engage with attendees, answer their questions, and encourage them to share their thoughts and experiences.
• End the event with a heartfelt thank-you to attendees, partners, and team members who contributed to the launch's success.

Whether in-person or virtual, a well-hosted launch event creates a sense of community, showcases your product in its best light, and marks the beginning of a journey that continues to unfold.

Step 8) Monitor and Analyze Post-Launch Performance

As the applause fades and the curtain closes on your product launch, the journey is far from over. 

Monitor and analyze the performance of your product launch, assess its success, and identify areas for improvement. With a keen eye for data and insights, you'll gain valuable knowledge that informs your next steps and shapes the future of your product. 

Take a closer look at how to monitor and analyze post-launch performance with precision and purpose.

Track Sales, Customer Feedback, and Key Performance Metrics

The spotlight is on the data—the numbers, feedback, and metrics that tell the story of your product launch. 

By tracking and monitoring this information, you'll gain a clearer understanding of how your product is received, perceived, and embraced by your audience. Here's how to track the essentials:

• Monitor sales data to measure revenue, units sold, and overall demand for your product.
• Gather customer feedback through surveys, reviews, and testimonials to understand satisfaction levels and customer sentiment.
• Track key performance metrics, such as website traffic, conversion rates, and engagement, to gauge the impact of your marketing efforts.

With data in hand, you'll have a comprehensive view of your product's performance and the factors that contribute to its success.

Analyze the Data to Identify Strengths, Weaknesses, and Opportunities for Improvement

With the spotlight on the data, it's time to analyze, interpret, and glean valuable insights. This analysis is your opportunity to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement, shaping your future strategies and decisions. 

Here's how to analyze with intention:

• Evaluate sales trends and patterns to identify best-selling features, peak times, and potential areas for expansion.
• Review customer feedback to uncover common themes, praise, and constructive criticism, informing your product enhancements and updates.
• Analyze key performance metrics to assess the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and identify successful channels.

The goal is to learn from the data, adapt based on the insights, and continuously improve your product and marketing efforts.

Step 9) Continue Post-Launch Marketing and Engagement

The grand debut may be over, but the performance continues. It's about keeping the spotlight on your product, showcasing its ongoing value, and creating meaningful connections with your audience. 

With strategic marketing activities, attentive customer support, and active engagement, you'll foster loyalty, drive growth, and ensure your product remains a star in the eyes of your customers. 

Continue the journey and discover how to keep your audience captivated, inspired, and eager for more.

Implement Ongoing Marketing Activities

The show must go on, and your marketing efforts play a starring role in keeping your product front and center. 

Through ongoing marketing activities, you'll sustain momentum, build brand awareness, and retain customers. Here's how to keep the spotlight shining bright:

• Create and share engaging content—articles, videos, tutorials—that educates and inspires your audience.
• Launch promotional campaigns, discounts, and incentives that reward loyal customers and attract new ones.
• Leverage email marketing and newsletters to keep subscribers informed about product updates, news, and events.
• Utilize social media to share user-generated content, success stories, and community highlights.

By continuously showcasing the value and benefits of your product, you'll reinforce your brand, deepen customer relationships, and drive repeat business.

Address Customer Inquiries, Gather Feedback, and Provide Excellent Customer Support

Your audience takes center stage, and attentive customer support is key to ensuring they feel heard, valued, and supported. 

By addressing inquiries, gathering feedback, and providing excellent support, you'll enhance the customer experience and earn their trust. Here's how to deliver a standing ovation-worthy performance:

• Monitor customer inquiries and provide prompt, helpful, and personalized responses to their questions and concerns.
• Implement feedback collection methods—surveys, feedback forms, reviews—to gather insights and understand customer needs.
• Address any issues or challenges with solutions, workarounds, and proactive communication.

By actively engaging with customers and providing exceptional support, you'll cultivate loyalty, enhance satisfaction, and create brand advocates who share their positive experiences with others.

Step 10) Iterate and Improve

As the curtain falls on one performance, the next one begins. In this final act, we embrace the dynamic and ever-evolving nature of your product—the process of iteration and improvement. 

It's about refining, enhancing, and expanding your product based on customer feedback, insights, and market demand. 

Embrace the possibilities, explore new horizons, and discover how to make your product even better, brighter, and more captivating to your audience.

Use Customer Feedback and Insights

The voice of your audience takes center stage, guiding you on the path to improvement. By listening to customer feedback and gathering insights, you'll uncover opportunities to elevate your product and deliver even greater value. 

Here's how to turn feedback into action:

• Analyze customer feedback to identify trends, patterns, and areas where your product excels or falls short.
• Pay attention to specific requests, suggestions, and constructive criticism, and prioritize improvements based on impact.
• Implement changes, enhancements, and updates that address customer needs and enhance the user experience.

Plan for Future Updates, Enhancements, or Expansions Based on Market Demand

The spotlight shifts to the future, where new possibilities, ideas, and opportunities await. As you plan for future updates, enhancements, or expansions, you'll ensure your product stays relevant, competitive, and aligned with market demand. 

Here's how to plan for a future that shines bright:

• Conduct ongoing market research and stay attuned to industry trends, emerging technologies, and competitors' offerings.
• Explore opportunities for expansion, such as new features, integrations, or extensions of your product line.
• Develop a product roadmap that outlines the vision, objectives, and key milestones for your product's future development.

As we take our final bow, your product launch journey continues—a never-ending performance that's driven by innovation, dedication, and a passion for delivering value. With each iteration and improvement, you'll create a product that captivates your audience, earns rave reviews, and leaves a lasting impact. So, embrace the journey, celebrate your achievements, and continue to make your product a masterpiece that inspires, delights, and stands the test of time.

Tools that help successfully launch a new product

When it comes to launching a new product, having the right tools at your disposal can streamline the process, enhance your marketing efforts, and ultimately contribute to a successful launch. Here are some tools that can help you successfully launch a new product:

• Project Management Tools: Tools such as Trello, Asana, and Jira can help you plan, organize, and manage tasks related to the product launch. These tools enable collaboration among team members, allow you to set deadlines, and provide visibility into the overall progress of the launch.
• Market Research Tools: Survey platforms like SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics allow you to gather valuable insights from your target audience. By conducting surveys, you can understand customer preferences, pain points, and expectations, helping you tailor your product and messaging.
• Social Media Management Tools: Platforms like Hootsuite, Buffer, and Sprout Social help you schedule, manage, and analyze social media posts across multiple platforms. These tools are essential for promoting your product, engaging with your audience, and tracking the performance of your social media campaigns.
• Email Marketing Tools: Tools such as Mailchimp, Constant Contact, and Sendinblue help you create, send, and track email campaigns. Email marketing is a powerful way to keep subscribers informed about the product launch, share updates, and drive interest.
• Landing Page Builders: Platforms like Unbounce, Instapage, and Leadpages enable you to create and optimize landing pages for your product launch. A well-designed landing page can generate leads, capture email sign-ups, and provide important information about your product.
• Analytics and Data Visualization Tools: Tools like Google Analytics, Tableau, and Looker allow you to monitor key performance metrics, analyze website traffic, and visualize data. These insights are invaluable for understanding customer behavior, measuring campaign success, and making data-driven decisions.
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tools: CRM platforms like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zoho CRM help you manage and nurture customer relationships. These tools can track customer interactions, support sales efforts, and provide personalized experiences to prospects and customers.
• Beta Testing Tools: Successfully conducting beta testing requires tools that allow you to manage testers, collect feedback, and analyze results. As a comprehensive beta testing platform, Centercode offers a suite of tools for managing beta testing programs, recruiting and communicating with testers, collecting feedback, and analyzing results. Its collaborative features make it easy to identify and address issues before the product launch. TestFlight and Google Play Console are helpful tools for distributing your apps to iOS and Android users.
• Media Outreach Tools: Platforms like Cision, Muck Rack, and HARO can help you connect with journalists, influencers, and media outlets. Securing media coverage and influencer partnerships can amplify your product launch and reach a wider audience.
• Event Management Tools: If you're hosting a launch event, tools like Eventbrite, Hopin, and Bizzabo can help you plan, promote, and manage virtual or in-person events. These tools can streamline event registration, ticketing, and attendee engagement.

10 ways to launch your new product

The moment has arrived to unveil your product to the world, and choosing the right platforms and channels to announce your launch is critical to its success. Each platform offers unique opportunities to connect with your audience, generate buzz, and showcase the value of your product. 

Social Media Platforms

In the digital age, social media is a powerful platform for announcing your product launch and engaging with your audience. Utilize popular platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest to share captivating content, visuals, and updates about your product. To extend your reach and generate interest, consider running paid social media ads that target specific demographics within your audience.

Email Marketing

Email marketing offers a direct and personalized way to connect with your subscribers. Send a compelling product launch announcement to your email list, highlighting the key features and benefits of the product. To incentivize engagement and drive early sales, consider offering special promotions or exclusive discounts to your email subscribers as part of the launch campaign.

Company Website and Blog

Your company website and blog serve as central hubs for information about your product launch. Create a dedicated product launch page on your website that provides detailed information about the product, pricing, and availability. In addition, publish informative and engaging blog posts that discuss the product's features, use cases, and advantages. This valuable content will educate your audience and build anticipation for the launch.

Press Releases and Media Outreach

Garnering media attention can amplify your product launch and reach a wider audience. Write and distribute a press release that announces the product launch to relevant media outlets, industry publications, and journalists. Additionally, proactively reach out to journalists, bloggers, and influencers in your industry to secure media coverage, product reviews, and features that generate buzz.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing allows you to leverage the power of influential voices in your target market. Collaborate with influencers who have a strong following and align with your brand values to promote the product launch. Provide influencers with early access to the product for review or demonstration, and encourage them to share their authentic experiences with their audience.

Online Communities and Forums

Online communities, forums, and discussion boards are valuable spaces where your target audience is actively engaged. Share the product launch announcement in relevant communities and participate in discussions about the product. Engaging with community members by answering questions and providing additional information will build credibility and excitement for the product.

Product Launch Event

A product launch event, whether physical or virtual, provides an opportunity to unveil the product and engage with customers, media, and stakeholders in real-time. Plan and host a memorable launch event that showcases the product and includes interactive elements. Promote the event through various channels to attract attendees and create a sense of anticipation.

Webinars and Live Streams

Webinars and live streams offer a dynamic way to showcase your product, provide live demonstrations, and answer questions from the audience. Host a webinar or live stream on platforms like Zoom, YouTube Live, or Facebook Live to engage with your audience in an interactive format. These live events foster a sense of connection and allow you to address inquiries and feedback in real-time.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a strategic approach to creating and sharing valuable content that educates and resonates with your audience. Develop a range of content related to the product, such as articles, videos, infographics, and case studies. Leverage content sharing platforms like YouTube, Medium, and SlideShare to distribute your content and reach a broader audience.

Industry Trade Shows and Conferences

Industry trade shows, conferences, and exhibitions provide opportunities to showcase your product to a relevant audience in a professional setting. Participate in these events to connect with potential customers, partners, and industry experts. Leverage networking opportunities and use the event as a platform to demonstrate your product's value and features.

Product launch best practices

Launching a product is a significant milestone that requires thoughtful planning, execution, and continuous improvement. To ensure a successful product launch that resonates with your target audience and achieves its full potential, consider the following tips:

• Conduct thorough market research to understand your target audience's needs and preferences.
• Test and refine your product using feedback from beta testers and early adopters.
• Develop a clear and unique value proposition to highlight your product's benefits.
• Create a comprehensive marketing plan that leverages multiple channels for promotion.
• Execute a coordinated launch campaign for maximum visibility and reach.
• Monitor key performance metrics, sales data, and customer feedback post-launch.
• Provide excellent customer support to address inquiries and resolve issues.
• Continuously engage with customers and adapt your product based on feedback and insights.

Closing thoughts

As we bring this guide to a close, let's take a moment to recap the key stages of a successful product launch. Each stage plays a vital role in ensuring that your product makes a grand entrance, captivates your audience, and achieves lasting success.

Embarking on a product launch is an exciting journey—one that requires careful planning, precise execution, and continuous improvement. By following the stages outlined in this guide, you'll be well-equipped to navigate the complexities of launching your product and making a lasting impact in the market.

Thank you for joining us on this journey, and we wish you the best of luck with your product launch. Lights up, the stage is yours—let the performance begin!

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Product Launch Checklist: How to Launch a Product, According to HubSpot's Experts

Published: November 02, 2023

Like a tree falling in the woods, if you plan a product launch without spreading the word — will anyone use it? Will anyone even want it?

Probably not. Whether you‘re launching something huge, something small, or you’re updating a current offering, you'll want to start your preparation well in advance of the launch date with a product launch checklist.

Because there are so many moving parts in this process, bringing your product to market can be intimidating and tricky. To help you, we've come up with a step-by-step checklist for a successful product launch and gathered the best product launch tips from a HubSpot Product Marketer.

What is a product launch?

A product launch is the process of introducing a brand new product or service to the world. It involves various marketing and promotional activities aimed at creating buzz and demand around your new offering. The ultimate goal is to get customers excited and eager to buy the new product.

Product launches require a lot of planning. You can’t just drop a new product out of the blue and expect everyone to buy in — well, unless you’re Beyoncé . Luckily, our product launch checklist can help ensure that all your t’s are crossed and i’s are dotted before your official launch date.

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Product Launch Checklist

• Learn about your customer.
• Write a positioning statement.
• Pitch your positioning to stakeholders.
• Develop product branding.
• Plan your go-to-market strategy.
• Set a goal for the launch.
• Create promotional content.
• Test and gather feedback.
• Set up distribution channels.
• Prepare your team.
• Launch the product.
• See how well you did in achieving your goals.

1. Learn about your customer.

Whether you call it “market research,” or “customer development” it's key to learn about what drives your customer. Identifying their goals, motivations, and pain points could lead you to developing and marketing a valuable solution.

You don't need to perform years of intense research to learn about your customer. In fact, we suggest just talking to 12 to 15 current or prospective customers.

When speaking to them, pay extra attention when they start sentences with “I wish a product did this function…” or “Why can‘t products do this?” When they give these statements, respond with questions that go deeper, like “Can you get more specific about that?" If they don’t bring up any pain points, ask them a few specific questions that will encourage them to give deeper answers.

These conversations will give you a solid idea of what their biggest pain points are and how you can market a solution to them. Once you learn these key details about your customers, you can develop a buyer persona that your team can focus on serving.

2. Write a positioning statement.

When launching a new product, you must be able to clearly explain how it fills a need in the market. That’s where a positioning statement comes in. It helps you communicate the unique value proposition and key benefits that differentiate your product from others.

Write out a statement that can clearly and concisely answer these three questions:

• Who is the product for?
• What does the product do?
• Why is it different from other products out there?

If you'd like to go even deeper, create a statement that answers the following questions:

• What is your target audience?
• What segment of the target audience is most likely to buy the product?
• What brand name will you give your product or service?
• What product or service category does your product lie in?
• How is it different from competitors in the same category?
• What evidence or proof do you have to prove that your product is different?

Still need more guidance on how to write a positioning statement? Check out this template.

3. Pitch your positioning to stakeholders.

Once you've established your positioning statement, present it to stakeholders in your company so they are all on the same page.

When doing this, you’ll want to emphasize how your new product aligns with your overall business strategy, customer needs, market trends, and revenue potential. Use concrete examples, stories, or data to make your pitch more persuasive.

You’ll also want to think proactively about potential questions or objections they might have. Prepare thoughtful responses to address concerns around market viability, competition, target audience, or feasibility.

If your employees have a hard time buying into the product, your customers might as well. If your team loves it, that might be a great sign that the product launch will go well.

4. Develop product branding.

Take the information you gathered while conducting your market research and writing your positioning statement and let it inspire you as you craft your product brand identity .

During this step, you’ll develop all the elements needed to create a consistent and memorable brand, including:

• Product name, logo, and tagline
• Color palette, typography, and imagery
• Key brand, communications, and marketing guidelines

Product branding is a little different than company branding because it focuses on creating a distinct identity for a specific product, rather than an entire organization. However, they are both still interconnected and should be aligned.

5. Plan your go-to-market strategy.

This is the strategy that you will use to launch and promote your product. While some businesses prefer to build a funnel strategy, others prefer the flywheel approach.

Regardless of which method you choose, this process contains many moving parts. To create an organized strategy for launching your product, it can be helpful to use a template, like this one.

As you create the strategy, also start considering which type of content you‘ll use to attract a prospective customer’s attention during the awareness, consideration, and purchase decision stage . You'll need to produce this content in the next step.

6. Set a goal for the launch.

Before you get started on implementing your strategy, make sure you write down your goals for the launch.

Alex Girard, a Product Marketing Manager at HubSpot, says, “Create specific goals for the launch's success. Keeping these goals in mind will help you focus your efforts on launch tactics that will help you achieve those goals.”

For example, the goals of your product launch could be to effectively establish a new product name, build awareness, or create sales opportunities.

One of the best ways to set goals for your launch team is to write them out like SMART goals . A SMART goal is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Once you have your goals in mind, you can start thinking about what KPIs you want to track, such as:

• Sales revenue
• Customer acquisition
• Conversion rate
• Website traffic and engagement
• Social media engagement

Identifying these metrics ahead of time will make it easier to assess whether or not you met your goals after the product is launched.

7. Create promotional content.

After planning out your go-to-market strategy and writing your SMART goals, start producing content that will support and align with those promotional efforts.

This can include:

• Blog posts related to your product or industry
• Demos and tutorials
• Email campaigns
• Social media posts
• Landing pages

Our go-to-market template will also help you determine which content you should create for each phase of your prospective customer‘s buyer’s journey.

8. Test and gather feedback.

Before you officially launch your new product, it’s important to test it out to ensure your final product is the best it can be.

By testing the product in different scenarios with real users, potential bugs, usability problems, or functional issues can be discovered and resolved early on. Fixing these problems before launching your product ensures a smoother user experience and helps maintain customer satisfaction.

Gathering feedback from users also allows for product improvement. By listening to the opinions, suggestions, and criticisms of users, you can gain insight into what features are working well and which ones need improvement. This feedback-driven approach can help you make informed decisions on enhancing the product's functionality, usability, and performance.

9. Set up distribution channels.

Before you officially launch, you’ll need to set up your distribution channels. This step is important because it determines how and where customers can purchase your product, be it online platforms, brick-and-mortar stores, or other distribution partners.

Well-planned distribution channels help accelerate the product's time to market. By proactively setting up channels ahead of the launch, you can quickly distribute the product once it becomes available, minimizing delays and maximizing opportunities to capture early adopters and gain market share.

If you can successfully position your product in prominent retail locations or online marketplaces, it increases visibility and boosts your chances of capturing customer attention and outperforming competitors.

It also provides a foundation for future growth and scalability. As your business expands and introduces new products, you can leverage existing channel relationships and infrastructure to efficiently launch and distribute new offerings.

10. Prepare your team.

Be sure that your company and key stakeholders are ready for you to launch and begin marketing the product.

Before the big launch day, consider doing the following:

• Offer your team early access to the product so they can familiarize themselves with it firsthand.
• Provide training sessions to help your team understand the product inside out.
• Develop sales enablement materials such as presentations, product sheets, FAQs, and objection handling guides.
• Conduct role-playing exercises to simulate real customer scenarios with the product.

During this process, it’s essential that all stakeholders are on the same page. Communicate with the company through internal presentations, Slack, or email to keep your company updated on your launch plan.

11. Launch the product.

Once you've completed all the above steps, you can launch the product. Here are some last-minute things to check over on launch day:

• Double-check all the necessary details, materials, and arrangements to ensure that everything is ready and working correctly.
• Conduct a brief team meeting to align everyone and address any last-minute questions or concerns.
• Keep an eye on social media channels to gauge customer reactions, respond to inquiries, and engage with potential customers.
• Ensure that your website and any systems related to the product launch, such as landing pages or checkout processes, are functioning smoothly.

Most importantly, you should take the time to celebrate the launch and the efforts of your team. This can be in the form of a team lunch, virtual celebration, or any other creative way to acknowledge everyone’s hard work.

12. See how well you did in achieving your goals.

After you launch your product, track how the go-to-market strategy is performing. Be prepared to pivot or adjust aspects of your plan if they aren't going smoothly.

Additionally, don't forget about the goals you set before the launch. Take the time to review the KPI targets you set ahead of the launch and assess how well you did in achieving those goals.

For instance, did you exceed your sales projections, or did you fall short? If the launch didn't meet expectations, you can rethink your go-to-market strategy and adjust from there.

How much money do you need to launch a new product?

Launching a product can cost anywhere from $10,000 to over $10 million — but for most cases, the range is somewhere between $20,000 to $500,000. However, the cost of launching a new product varies significantly depending on the type of product, industry, competition, and the goals you're hoping to achieve.

The cost of launching a new product varies significantly. For instance, an entrepreneur will see vastly different costs for launching a product on Amazon than an enterprise company might see for launching a product in a million-dollar market.

Let's consider two examples to explore this more closely.

Entrepreneur Product Launch Example

In the first example, let‘s say you’re an entrepreneur who has invented a design app you're hoping to sell online. You might conduct market research to determine which marketing strategies work best for your goals, which messaging resonates best with your audience, and which design elements appeal to your desired prospects. If you use a few focus groups to determine these answers, you might expect to spend roughly $5,000.

When you‘re bringing a new app to the market, you’ll need to choose the best go-to marketing strategy for your needs. Regardless of the strategy you choose, they all cost money. For instance, product branding could cost roughly $1,000 if you‘re paying a designer to help you out, and website design could cost anywhere from $500-$3,000 if you’re paying a web designer a one-off fee.

These fees don‘t include the cost you need to pay yourself and any employees if this is a full-time job. It also doesn’t include the costs of hiring an engineer to update the app's features and ensure the app is running smoothly.

With this simplified example, you're looking at roughly $8,000. Of course, you can cut some costs if you choose to do any of these tasks yourself, but you might risk creating a subpar customer experience.

Enterprise Product Launch Example

On the other end of the spectrum, let‘s consider a large enterprise company that is launching a new product. Here, you’ll likely pay upwards of $30,000 - $50,000 for market research.

Perhaps you'll spend $15,000 on brand positioning and the marketing materials necessary to differentiate yourself against competitors, and you might pay upwards of $30,000 for all the product design and brand packaging. Finally, your marketing team could need a budget of roughly $20,000 for SEO, paid advertising, social, content creation, etc.

All said and done, launching a product against other enterprise competitors‘ could cost roughly $125,000. Again, that doesn’t include the costs you'll pay your marketing, product development, and engineering teams.

How to Launch a Product Online

To launch your product online, you‘ll want to ensure you’ve followed the steps above. However, there are a few additional steps you'll want to follow to gain traction primarily online.

1. Figure out the story you want to tell regarding your product's bigger purpose.

What story do you want to tell across social platforms, landing pages, and email? This is similar to your positioning statement but needs to be geared entirely toward your target audience. Ask questions like, Why should they purchase your product? And How will your product or service make their lives better?

Communicating cross-functionally ensures the communication materials you use across various online channels align — which is key when it comes to establishing a new product in the marketplace.

Consider, for instance, how Living Proof announced its new product, Advanced Clean Dry Shampoo, on its Instagram page. The story revolves around a simple nuisance common with most other dry shampoos — How consumers still want that just-washed feeling, even when using a dry shampoo.

Originating in 2011 as a website called donothingfor2minutes.com, Calm is a mobile app that provides various resources and tools for meditation, sleep, relaxation, and mindfulness. Although Headspace was the leading meditation app at the time of its launch, it didn’t take long for Calm to dominate the market.

Calm found success largely because of its content marketing and SEO strategy. According to Foundation’s research , Calm has attracted over 8 million backlinks and uses blog content and YouTube content to organically attract and engage prospects.

The company also partners with celebrities to create unique content and engaging ad campaigns. Some of Calm’s most famous collaborators include Lebron James, Harry Styles, Matthew McConaughey, and Camila Cabello.

Calm’s celebrity partnerships have given them a leg up compared to their competitors. Not only their celebrity-read Sleep Stories garner millions of views, but they also boost the brand’s visibility and authority.

Poppi is a “prebiotic soda,” which is a beverage that combines the fizziness and taste of a traditional soda with fruit juice, prebiotics, and apple cider vinegar. It comes in flavors such as Classic Cola, Root Beer, Orange, and Cherry Limeade.

Originally called “Mother Beverage,” Poppi was originally created when co-founder Allison Ellsworth wanted to create a drink that was both healthy and tasted good. Not only does Poppi stand out from other beverages because of its health benefits, it also has a unique and colorful brand personality that attracts customers.

According to Allison, “We had this really fun and vibrant brand and a product that people could relate to. People love it and it was created with ingredients that people knew to be effective and beneficial to their body.”

Poppi was originally slated for a retail launch in March of 2020. However, those plans changed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Fortunately, they were able to pivot to launch as a DTC product, selling on Amazon and other e-commerce platforms. Additionally, they used this opportunity to invest in social media marketing on Instagram and TikTok , where they gained popularity amongst Gen Z consumers.

3. HubSpot Operations Hub

In 2021, HubSpot launched Operations Hub as part of its CRM platform. The product is designed to help businesses streamline their operational processes, improve data quality and accuracy, and enable cross-team collaboration. This allows businesses to run more smoothly and scale more effectively.

One of the reasons why this launch was successful was because it solved a problem that many customers faced.

According to HubSpot’s research , “over 60% of operations professionals have to do duplicative work because of a lack of alignment between teams.” This happens because operations professionals get hired into separate departments and get siloed and overwhelmed with tasks as their companies scale.

In response, HubSpot introduced Operations Hub so operations employees could work together out of a shared system and remove friction from their day-to-day workflows.

Goodles is a noodle brand that takes boxed mac-and-cheese to the next level. This product differentiates itself by providing more nutritional value than the standard dry noodles, with 10g of protein and 7g of fiber with prebiotics in every serving.

“The pasta aisle is overflowing with golden, al dente pasta options that provide very little nutrition. There's also an 'alt-pasta' section with green, brown, orange, mushy, foamy noodles that offer more nutrition but little 'yum',” co-founder and CEO Jen Zeszut said in a press release . “Why should you have to choose between taste and nutrition?”

Aside from its positioning as a delicious and nutritious alternative to boxed mac-and-cheese, Goodles also stands out with its vibrant and fun branding. While other noodle brands have neutral-colored packaging, Goodles uses a bold color palette, a nostalgic typeface, and cheeky product names, like Shella Good and Here Comes Truffle, to attract consumers in the grocery aisle.

Product Launch Tips

To learn the best practices for a successful product launch, I talked to Alex Girard again.

The HubSpot Product Marketing Manager said he had three main tips for a successful product launch:

• Your product positioning should reflect a shift you're seeing in the world, and how your product helps your customers take advantage of that shift.
• Create a recurring schedule for you and the core stakeholders for the launch to check in and ensure you're all on the same page.
• Make sure you keep the product team in the loop on your marketing plans. The product team could have insights that inform your overall marketing campaign.

However, sometimes, external factors might impact your ability to launch a product. When that happens, you might need to delay your launch.

How to Know When to Delay a Product Launch

To understand when, and why, you might hold off on a product launch, Girard told me there are three key reasons why you might want to delay a product launch, including:

• When your product itself isn't ready and you need to change your timeline to create the best customer experience possible.
• If a situation occurs where your current customers are having a less-than-optimal experience with one of your current products. Before launching and promoting a new product, you should make sure your current customers are satisfied with your existing product offering.
• If something occurs on an international, national, state, or local level that requires your audience to readjust their priorities and shift focus away from your company and its product launch. Make sure that when the time comes to launch, your target audience is ready to learn about your new product.

If you‘re looking for templates to coordinate your team efforts and align your company around your new product’s messaging, download our free product marketing kit below.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in November 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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New Product Launch Checklist: How to Plan a Successful Launch

13 min read

Every new product launch is equal parts intimidating and exciting. As the market becomes increasingly saturated with similar SaaS products, your product launch can easily get lost in the noise.

Therefore, you need a solid product launch plan to ensure your product isn’t among the 95% of new products that fail each year.

In this article, we take a deep dive into the technicalities of a product launch. We provide a product launch checklist to ensure you launch successfully and consider examples of successful SaaS product launches.

• A product launch refers to all of a company’s coordinated marketing efforts to bring a new product to the market.
• A new product launch should be planned well in advance of the launch day. A typical launch plan includes everything from the ideation phase to the conceptualization and testing of your ideas.

An effective product launch checklist includes the following:

• Define your target audience and build out your user personas.
• Conduct market research to identify competitors and determine avenues for product differentiation.
• Craft your product positioning statement.
• Create and release your MVP with only core product features.
• Create a targeted go-to-market strategy for your launch plan.
• Choose the appropriate marketing channels to reach your target markets.
• Launch coordinated product marketing campaigns to reach your audience.
• Ensure your teams are aware of your goals and their roles in them.
• Launch your product.
• Measure the success of your launch by tracking relevant product metrics.
• Collect user feedback and see how well your product was received.
• For your launch to be successful, you must carefully identify the best time to launch, build hype around the launch event, leverage social proof to drive marketing, and work with a detailed checklist.
• Userpilot empowers SaaS your product team to run in-app marketing campaigns, collect customer feedback, and analyze users’ interactions with your product. Book a demo to learn how it works.

What is a product launch?

A product launch is a company’s coordinated attempt to bring a new product to the market.

It includes every action and event designed to build awareness and excitement around a new product and ensure it achieves early success.

When should you start working on your product launch plan?

A successful product launch is planned ahead of time, in coordination with the product, marketing, and sales teams. In fact, we can divide every product launch into three stages: pre-launch, launch , and post-launch.

Pre-launch activities precede the actual launch date, often including product ideation , proof of concepts, and testing. It may also include a soft launch designed to seek early feedback from pilot users.

Apple’s product launches, for instance, often include publicized leaks of the product specs and a well-advertized launch event that attracts attendances in the millions.

How to plan a successful product launch strategy?

Every product launch comes with its own unique set of challenges. However, following the right product launch checklist can provide the structure and direction needed for success:

Define your target audience

To successfully market your product, you must know your target audience. You need to know your audience’s preferences, who they are, how they think, and why they need your product.

Thankfully, you can get all the data you need by speaking to your existing customers or those of your competition.

Then, use the data you acquire to create your ideal user persona . These personas should capture the customer’s demographics, pain points , and how your product aims to help them.

Conduct market research

Now that you know your customers, it’s time to research your competitors. First, you need to identify all the companies (or, at least, the major ones) whose products solve the same problem as your product.

Next, analyze their product, brand, and marketing strategy. A thorough market research should reveal:

• The overall competitor landscape.
• What each company offers and their different prices/pricing plans.
• The mistakes and successes of each company’s business strategy.
• How you can differentiate your product from the competition.
• Your unique value proposition.

Put simply, your goal at this step is to understand what your competitors sell, how they sell it, and how you can outmaneuver them in the market.

Decide on your product positioning statement

Armed with the information from your market research, you’re now ready to craft your positioning statement.

Your statement should identify who needs your product, what it does, and what differentiates it from other products in the market.

Good product positioning helps the customer understand your product and how it satisfies their needs. It creates the right setting for your product, delivering crucial information about the product to attract the ideal customer.

Create your MVP

Before launching your product, it’s important that you first get some responses to gauge how it will be received in the market. This is where your minimum viable product (MVP) comes in.

An MVP is essentially a prototype of your product, with a minimum subset of the features required to demonstrate your product’s primary use case.

Because it is a lightweight version of the final product, MVPs allow you to test and validate your product ideas before committing precious time and resources.

This testing will help you discover defects/strengths in your idea and build on them. It can also reveal whether you’ve chosen the right target audience for your product and how best to align your marketing efforts with their needs.

Create your go-to-market strategy

A go-to-market strategy is a comprehensive roadmap for bringing your product to prospective customers. It details all that you’ll do to lay the groundwork for a successful business well beyond launch day.

Your go-to-market (GTM) strategy will combine all of the information you’ve learned in the previous steps into a robust market entry roadmap. This roadmap should generate demand for your product and mitigate any product launch risks.

A good GTM plan spells out your chosen product launch strategy, value proposition, and when/how you intend to bring the product to the customer.

It should propose an overall timeline for your launch, up to the launch date, and highlight what “success” means for you and how you will measure it.

Choose your marketing channels

The success of any new product launch lies in how much buzz you can generate pre-launch. Thus, the final piece of your GTM strategy is the selection of the most effective channels for promoting your product.

Use everything you’ve learned about your customer in the steps above to determine where they are located and how you can reach them effectively. Also, ensure you diversify your marketing efforts to reach different customer segments.

Promote your product with marketing campaigns

It’s now time to set your product launch marketing plan in motion. This is the time for your marketing teams to step in and produce content that will support and align your pre-defined marketing strategy.

Of course, there are many different things you can do at this stage to generate the required buzz. This includes:

• Social media posts: Use your social media platforms to tease your new product and its features. You can also reach out to influencers, journalists, and others in the industry with large followers to spread the word.
• Press releases: Create and share an embargoed press release with as many media outlets as possible so that they’re all talking about your new release on launch day.
• Email campaigns : Use captivating emails with compelling CTAs to nudge your email list to check out the new product. Good email campaigns use a combination of a catchy subject, visually appealing body content, and compelling call-to-action to get users to sign up for the new product.

• Ad campaign: Ads are expensive, but they can also be very rewarding. If your budget allows it, create ads for the key channels you identified while crafting your GTM strategy.

Make sure your teams are aligned with your goals

Successful product launches are the result of coordinated teamwork. For that to happen, your goal must be clearly spelled out, with everyone’s role at each stage of the launch properly defined.

For example, your marketing team needs to know when to release the different promotional materials they’ve created. Likewise, your customer service team should work with your product team to understand the product’s features and how it works.

Use memos, presentations, and emails to keep different internal teams up-to-date on their role in the launch process.

Launch your product

Finally, it’s launch day! It’s time to generate as much excitement as possible and gather as much attention as possible for your product. This is the time for your press releases and promotional content to fly.

To be successful on launch day, you must equip your sales and marketing teams to spread the word about the product. They should understand the value the product brings and be prepared to share that message with their audience.

The customer service team must also be on high alert. They should understand how the product works and be equipped with the resources to answer any questions customers throw their way.

Measure the success of your product launch

Your work doesn’t end after launch day. With the day behind you, it’s time to take stock and track your performance. Your goal here is to understand whether your marketing efforts were successful or not.

So, look back at your goals and see how well you did. How many people…

• Saw your promotional posts and messaging?
• Signed up for a free trial ?
• Reached out to your sales team?

If the launch didn’t meet your expectations, try to track down what went wrong and adjust your go-to-market strategy accordingly. The data you gather will also be helpful in future product launches.

Collect customer feedback post-launch date to improve your product

The final part of your post-launch strategy should be to hear what users think of the product itself. Customer feedback is an invaluable ingredient for continued long-term growth.

Collect customer feedback from users with email and in-app surveys , using their responses to improve your product.

The feedback you receive from users will tell you what features they need, the challenges they face with the product, and how you can improve the product to match their expectations.

You may also find that there are other market segments where your product may enjoy even greater success, or learn of better ways to position your product.

Best practices when launching a new product

Now that you know what your launch process should look like, you can ensure it’s effective by keeping to the following best practices:

Listen to the market to identify the best time to launch your product

There is a science to determining your new product launch date. To have a successful launch, you must pay attention to every possible market factor.

For example, you don’t want to launch your product on the same day a well-known competitor is launching a product. Instead, you need to either launch before them or wait for the buzz around their launch to die down.

Despite its mega success over the years, Google learned the importance of paying attention to market factors the hard way when releasing Google Glass. With privacy as a major concern at the time, spectacles with cameras didn’t feel right. At $1,500, it was also too pricey for most.

The result? Google Glass was very poorly received. Despite its many futuristic features, the product failed spectacularly and was finally killed for good earlier this year.

Display social proof to frame your new product positively

Consumers love to see that others have succeeded after taking the risk to purchase your product. Thus, the use of social proof on your landing page is a necessity as it gives others the confidence to trust you.

Thankfully, getting social proof isn’t a complex process. As part of your pre-launch phase, beta-test your product with existing customers or others who have shown interest.

Have them use the product for a while and share their insights with you. As they do, collect their positive feedback and showcase them in your product launch marketing campaign.

Build hype pre-launch date

Build up anticipation within your target audience by creating an air of suspense and mystery around your product. You can do this by teasing about the product early without going into detail.

This is what makes every Apple new product launch so exciting. They keep key details about the product secret, sending users into an overdrive of speculation long before the product is even announced.

Apple is also great at using little “leaks” to keep anticipation for new products high before launch. In addition to teasing your product’s core features, you can also use influencers to test out the product and build up the hype around it.

However, always ensure that the hype doesn’t become bigger than the product, or your brand may never recover from the resultant negative market perception.

Have a checklist to monitor the product launch process

Finally, always work with a checklist to ensure you don’t miss anything. For instance, your pre-launch checklist may look like this:

• Are all team members meeting their milestones and deadlines?
• Have you tested the product with target customers in a controlled setting?
• Have you acted on the feedback from your tests?
• What product launch event type will you use?
• Is everyone aware of the launch date?
• Have you trained internal teams on the new product?
• Are all marketing materials ready and distributed to the teams that need them?
• What metrics will you use to measure success?
• When will you begin analyzing product metrics results and who will be in charge of it?
• How will information flow to the right people and departments through the launch?
• Have you gone over the final launch itinerary and timelines with the team?

Examples of successful product launches from various industries

Thankfully, there are several product launch examples you can look to for ideas. Consider a few:

OpenAI released a demo of ChatGPT on November 20, 2022. Although this was the third iteration of the GPT (GPT-1 was released in June 2018), it was only with this release that GPT went truly viral.

ChatGPT enabled users to interact with the AI and test out its capabilities for themselves. Users quickly began sharing what it could do – article writing, poems, coding, etc. on social media. In just five days, ChatGPT had attracted over a million users.

The secret? A masterful launch strategy that got influencers to try out the product, speak about it, and get others to try it out, too. It also helped that the chatbot was very impressive.

On February 22, 2023, digital workspace provider, Notion, announced the release of the highly anticipated Notion AI. At the time of its release, nearly two million people had already signed up for the alpha waitlist ten weeks prior.

How did Notion achieve such success? Like OpenAI, it created a buzz ahead of time. Notion leveraged social media channels to build anticipation around the integrated generative AI.

But it didn’t stop there. Notion leveraged in-app modals and email campaigns to introduce the feature to its already large user base. With anticipation at an all-time high, the product was released with great success.

Userpilot’s AI writing assistant

On May 2, 2023, Userpilot email subscribers received a mail announcing the launch of a new feature – Userpilot AI Writing Assistant. But users were already in anticipation of it.

The feature was first introduced in-app and released to beta testers to provide market feedback and insights. Once it was ready, the product was teased on social media before it was released on Product Hunt.

Social media posts directed users to the Product Hunt announcement where they caught a glimpse of the product and could leave upvotes. The writing assistant is also featured in Userpilot’s onboarding, ensuring new users know how to get the most out of it.

The commission-free stock trading platform, RobinHood, acquired almost a million users before it launched.

The secret? A masterclass in product launches and referral marketing. First, the app landing page clinically displayed its unique selling point – $0 commission trading!

Next, RobinHood ensured the signup process was seamless – gain early access by providing your email address. Finally, those who signed up were incentivized with a shorter wait time to refer others.

How Userpilot can help you with your new product launch strategy

With Userpilot, creating your new product launch doesn’t have to be tedious. Userpilot helps you to:

Build product marketing campaigns with different UI patterns

Userpilot enables you to build and launch complete in-app product marketing campaigns without writing code.

You can create a slideout, modal, banner , or tooltip to inform users about new features or key changes to existing features. In addition to text content, you can embed videos and images to demo the feature.

Collect customer feedback in-app

Learn what users think of your new features with automatically triggered in-app surveys .

From user experience surveys to product research and customer satisfaction surveys, Userpilot provides a variety of templates to help you feel your users’ pulse. Or, you can design one from scratch, code-free.

You can choose when and where each survey appears and customize everything, including its appearance and content.

Analyze customer interactions and identify friction points

Go beyond what users say and watch how they interact with the new feature. Are they using it often? Does it work as it should?

Analyzing users’ in-app interactions can reveal a lot about how the feature is received. It can also help you identify and fix any friction points early.

Every product or new feature launch is a big deal that only happens once. This is your one chance to ensure your product hits the ground running, and with the right launch strategy, you can do just that.

If you would like to learn more about how Userpilot can simplify this process for you, book a demo today !

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Home Blog 8 Stages of Launching a New Product to Market

8 Stages of Launching a New Product to Market

May 18, 2022 Edwin Kooistra

When you talk about launching a new product in a new market, especially as a business owner, the idea might seem exciting at first, but it is not an easy task and requires a lot of preplanning and critical thinking.

Even when you’re launching a new product for your current market segment (the one you are operating in), it requires much effort at once and a strategic map. Still, even then, sometimes, if you lose out and the launch backfires. Then imagine launching a new product for a new market segment that you do not have prior experience with. 

This means that you will not only be required to put in many markets research-based tactics but also need to divert a lot of resources, both human and fiscal, towards the launch. This is because this opportunity to launch a new product in a new market, especially if you talk about the B2B industry or the tech sector, is a make-or-break opportunity.

A successful launch for a new market segment does not only help your company grow strategically but also sends out a message in the market and the industry about how well organized and strengthened your internal mechanisms are. 

That said, a new market presents opportunities for growth and expansion that may not exist in your current market. So, how do you identify potential new markets for your products? And once you’ve identified them, what’s the best way to enter them? This blog post will answer those questions and provide steps on how to launch a new product in new market.

What is a New Product Launch?

When we talk about a new product launch, we refer to all the efforts, actions, and tactics that a business or organization deploys to bring a brand new or improved product offering or service to the market. We have a separate guide on what is a product launch if you want more in-depth detail. 

Anyway, we mentioned “market” earlier. We were referring to a particular industry. In further refined forms, we mean the target market segment towards which the product or service is directed to address a specific pain point or need.

When we talk about a new product launch, we refer to a new product in a new market along with all the essential steps starting from market research to final execution that an organization has taken while keeping all the relevant stakeholders in view.

Despite the basic framework being common in launching a new or improved product for an already known segment versus for a new market, these are two different scenarios that need to be approached by a business owner or any organization with different mindsets and different sets of capabilities.

How to Launch an Existing Product Into the New Market?

As we have developed an understanding of the launch of a new product and its critical issue, we shall also reflect on how you can launch an existing product for a new market segment. We shall look at it in a step-by-step approach under the following stages.

• Develop Customer Personas

Know How to Reach Your Segment

Be Aware of the Pain Point

Understand the Journey

Know your competitors, develop a strategic plan.

• Execute and Launch

KPIs, Revisions, and Improvements

Let’s look at these different steps with extended detail to understand further how we can launch an existing product into the new market.

1. Develop Customer Personas

First and foremost, launching an existing product or a new market segment requires conducting extensive market research. You must conduct different surveys. Another activity is to gather information regarding the market segments’ demographics and psychographics.

After which, you need to utilize all the gathered information to create customer personas . These customer profiles should describe and outline your target customer within this segment in the utmost detail, starting from their age, profession right up to their likes and dislikes.

The more detailed and well-executed this step of the process is, the easier it is for you to adapt the rest of the strategic plan in case of any required changes and adjustments.

Now that you have developed your customer personas and have extensive knowledge about your target segment, you need to build a strategic plan for reaching out to this new segment.

Unlike the segment you’re already operating in, the part does not necessarily need to require the same communication or content-based marketing strategies that you have deployed earlier. Therefore, based on your customer, you might want to dive into position-based segmentation and marketing messages to help you reach your new market segment more effectively.

Always remember that if you’re not able to reach out to your targeted segment efficiently, then all your efforts that you have made in launching a product or service for them lose their efficacy.

Now, you need to ensure that you are aware of the issue or problem you are targeting to solve for this new market segment. Remember that the target customer prefers a solution over a product; therefore, you need to be aware of their pain points.

Imagine yourself in the shoes of this newer segment and how and why you would want your issue to be solved. Once you’re able to visualize all this, you will be able to develop an understanding of their issues and thus mold the product launch accordingly.

Remember that the key to attracting new customers and retaining those you already have lies in the success of the customer sales journey or the sales funnel. Therefore, develop a thorough understanding of how the customer will pass through the sales journey under different steps and phases.

Once you have developed this understanding, you will be able to tailor your marketing and customer attraction and retention efforts according to the different stages of the journey. This ensures efficiency and drives tangible results for all the steps you would put in.

One of the essential steps involved in launching a product for a new market is having a thorough understanding and knowledge of your direct and indirect competitors . Your list of competitors will most definitely evolve when you target a new market despite having the same existing product.

This is an essential factor to understand. Once you can grab onto this understanding, you need to reevaluate your competitive sphere using different tools and techniques based on solid market research and information.

Now that you have developed a thorough understanding of your competitors, their product offerings, and how they address the different pain points of this new market segment, you can advance your launch approach accordingly to gain an edge over your competitors.

With all the market research and theoretical support material in place, you can now develop your strategic direction for launching the product for this new market segment.

In this step, you will start working on your strategic marketing plan, including different facets such as your product-market fit, go-to-market strategy, content-focused marketing plan, and other essential components of your product launch.

Execute and Review

With the plan in place, you can now execute it to launch your product for a new market segment. You need to ensure that it is rolled in a step-by-step and methodological manner to ensure a smooth operation.

Once you have executed the plan, you will also develop a mechanism to ensure a timely review to avoid any kinks and hurdles along the way. Always remember to create relevant performance indicators at this stage.

In the last phase of your product launch for the new market, you shall look at all the key performance indicators that you had put in place under your strategic plan. You will closely monitor all these KPIs and make revisions and improvements as required to the strategic plan and these performance indicators.

With their regular monitoring and an open mind to improvements and possible revisions, you will be able to adapt this strategic approach to newer markets and make it more efficient for the current market that you have just entered.

How to Launch a New Product in a New Market?

Earlier, we discussed how we could launch an existing product for a newer market segment following a step-by-step logic-based approach. But what about the time when we want to launch a new product for a new market segment altogether?

As discussed earlier, the basic framework remains the same for this launch, but a few factors and additional stages need to come into play when you are launching a new product or service for a new target market segment.

We shall discuss these additional factors apart from those already mentioned above in the following text.

Making a Prototype and Testing It

When you’re launching a new product service for a new market segment that you have not explored earlier, making a prototype or a minimum viable product (MVP) of your product offering and testing it for the market is always recommended.

This helps you receive essential feedback that you can incorporate into the product and change it accordingly. This also gives the market a little taste of what is about to come and when and how it will be able to cater to their needs and pain points with its value proposition.

Configuring Numbers

No matter how much marketers focus on the value addition of a product, when you are trying to grow and enter a new market with a new product, it all comes down to the bottom line.

Therefore, number crunching is very important when introducing a new product in a new market. It would help if you used research-supported numbers and projections as close to reality as possible regarding profit, revenue, and costs.

Investors focus on these numbers while making decisions. The success of the launch of a new product in a relatively new segment is also measured by numbers, whether by the number of units sold or the percentage of profit margin.

Creating Hype

For an existing product that you’re introducing into a newer segment, creating pre-hype using different marketing tools and tactics does not usually yield extremely tangible results as market awareness of the product is usually already there.

But with a new product targeted toward a new segment creating hype using different product marketing strategies and tools is critical. Your market needs to be excited about the product that you’re about to launch, and not only that, and it also needs to have general know-how of what the product is going to be about.

These pre-hype and early marketing campaigns focused on creating product and brand awareness will help you in the long run and add to your brand value and persona.

Benefits of Entering New Markets for Product Launch

Let us now look at some of the advantages that we can enjoy when we decide to enter and explore new and different market segments for product launches.

• You can increase your market share and grow in terms of profitability.
• Due to the economies of scale, you can increase your profit margin, which positively translates to business operations.
• You can strengthen your company reputation and build more on your brand persona by including more people under your brand umbrella.
• By entering newer markets, you can develop more unique business relationships and explore a new dimension of stakeholders, which you can leverage in the future for growth purposes.
• If the older segment becomes saturated or redundant, you can have an alternate market for your products and services.
• When you enter a new market, you’re diversifying your portfolio, thus reducing risk in the short and long run. This, of course, is very well received by your investors.

Example of a Product Launch in a New Market

We shall now look at an example of a product launch that used an existing product/service and launched it in a new market. This will help us further understand the launch process of products and how they enter more unique market segments.

Google Maps

Google Maps is widely regarded as one of the most groundbreaking technologies ever created, and it is often recognized for transforming the way we look around at geographical space. Google Maps combines detailed charts and directions, satellite imagery, traffic statistics, and google street view into a single program.

Every month, nearly one billion individuals throughout the world utilize the software. Google has spanned almost the whole globe and has regularly launched revolutionary features such as real-time traffic, sustainable and environment-friendly routes, collecting data from its one billion or more users to improve accuracy, indoor maps, etc.

Initially just targeted at individuals who were on the road, whether on foot or in vehicles, Google Maps was able to add all these features and gain immense popularity after it targeted a new market segment in the form of local travel enthusiasts. 

This segment which Google Maps labels as local guides contributes to the Google Maps database by rating and ranking places such as eateries, restaurants, and even hospitals.

This launch of an existing product towards a newer market segment is not only exemplary in terms of how smoothly it was executed but also in the terms that the project itself has evolved further, and Google Maps was able to enter further newer segments using the experience of how it entered this segment in the first place.

While launching an existing product for a new market might not seem taunting, introducing a new product in new market segment is a more significant task at hand. Both types of launches require extensive planning and actions based on thorough market research.

But what sets them apart is how the launch of a new product for a new market segment creates revenues for both tangible and intangible growth in the form of increased profits and new beneficial relationships.

Depending on where your company or business is standing in its lifecycle, using both these launches in combination or isolation can help you prolong your growth stage and even avoid decline. Therefore, both these strategies should be understood and studied with utmost importance and be evaluated regularly as a part of your business strategy.

Edwin Kooistra - Product Marketer & Founder

Technology can be a huge differentiator but leveraging emerging technologies can be challenging. After my degree in Business Information Technology I decided to work on the provider side of Technology, because I believe Technology providers play an important role in guiding enterprises on their digital journey. Besides helping tech businesses to optimize their growth and go-to-market strategies, I also like to write about the topic. I hope you find it useful!

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Market research examines consumer behavior and trends in the economy to help a business develop and fine-tune its business idea and strategy. It helps a business understand its target market by gathering and analyzing data.

Market research is the process of evaluating the viability of a new service or product through research conducted directly with potential customers. It allows a company to define its target market and get opinions and other feedback from consumers about their interest in a product or service.

Research may be conducted in-house or by a third party that specializes in market research. It can be done through surveys and focus groups, among other ways. Test subjects are usually compensated with product samples or a small stipend for their time.

Key Takeaways

• Companies conduct market research before introducing new products to determine their appeal to potential customers.
• Tools include focus groups, telephone interviews, and questionnaires.
• The results of market research inform the final design of the product and determine how it will be positioned in the marketplace.
• Market research usually combines primary information, gathered directly from consumers, and secondary information, which is data available from external sources.

Market Research

How market research works.

Market research is used to determine the viability of a new product or service. The results may be used to revise the product design and fine-tune the strategy for introducing it to the public. This can include information gathered for the purpose of determining market segmentation . It also informs product differentiation , which is used to tailor advertising.

A business engages in various tasks to complete the market research process. It gathers information based on the market sector being targeted by the product. This information is then analyzed and relevant data points are interpreted to draw conclusions about how the product may be optimally designed and marketed to the market segment for which it is intended.

It is a critical component in the research and development (R&D) phase of a new product or service introduction. Market research can be conducted in many different ways, including surveys, product testing, interviews, and focus groups.

Market research is a critical tool that companies use to understand what consumers want, develop products that those consumers will use, and maintain a competitive advantage over other companies in their industry.

Primary Market Research vs. Secondary Market Research

Market research usually consists of a combination of:

• Primary research, gathered by the company or by an outside company that it hires
• Secondary research, which draws on external sources of data

Primary Market Research

Primary research generally falls into two categories: exploratory and specific research.

• Exploratory research is less structured and functions via open-ended questions. The questions may be posed in a focus group setting, telephone interviews, or questionnaires. It results in questions or issues that the company needs to address about a product that it has under development.
• Specific research delves more deeply into the problems or issues identified in exploratory research.

Secondary Market Research

All market research is informed by the findings of other researchers about the needs and wants of consumers. Today, much of this research can be found online.

Secondary research can include population information from government census data , trade association research reports , polling results, and research from other businesses operating in the same market sector.

History of Market Research

Formal market research began in Germany during the 1920s. In the United States, it soon took off with the advent of the Golden Age of Radio.

Companies that created advertisements for this new entertainment medium began to look at the demographics of the audiences who listened to each of the radio plays, music programs, and comedy skits that were presented.

They had once tried to reach the widest possible audience by placing their messages on billboards or in the most popular magazines. With radio programming, they had the chance to target rural or urban consumers, teenagers or families, and judge the results by the sales numbers that followed.

Types of Market Research

Face-to-face interviews.

From their earliest days, market research companies would interview people on the street about the newspapers and magazines that they read regularly and ask whether they recalled any of the ads or brands that were published in them. Data collected from these interviews were compared to the circulation of the publication to determine the effectiveness of those ads.

Market research and surveys were adapted from these early techniques.

To get a strong understanding of your market, it’s essential to understand demand, market size, economic indicators, location, market saturation, and pricing.

Focus Groups

A focus group is a small number of representative consumers chosen to try a product or watch an advertisement.

Afterward, the group is asked for feedback on their perceptions of the product, the company’s brand, or competing products. The company then takes that information and makes decisions about what to do with the product or service, whether that's releasing it, making changes, or abandoning it altogether.

Phone Research

The man-on-the-street interview technique soon gave way to the telephone interview. A telephone interviewer could collect information in a more efficient and cost-effective fashion.

Telephone research was a preferred tactic of market researchers for many years. It has become much more difficult in recent years as landline phone service dwindles and is replaced by less accessible mobile phones.

Survey Research

As an alternative to focus groups, surveys represent a cost-effective way to determine consumer attitudes without having to interview anyone in person. Consumers are sent surveys in the mail, usually with a coupon or voucher to incentivize participation. These surveys help determine how consumers feel about the product, brand, and price point.

Online Market Research

With people spending more time online, market research activities have shifted online as well. Data collection still uses a survey-style form. But instead of companies actively seeking participants by finding them on the street or cold calling them on the phone, people can choose to sign up, take surveys, and offer opinions when they have time.

This makes the process far less intrusive and less rushed, since people can participate on their own time and of their own volition.

How to Conduct Market Research

The first step to effective market research is to determine the goals of the study. Each study should seek to answer a clear, well-defined problem. For example, a company might seek to identify consumer preferences, brand recognition, or the comparative effectiveness of different types of ad campaigns.

After that, the next step is to determine who will be included in the research. Market research is an expensive process, and a company cannot waste resources collecting unnecessary data. The firm should decide in advance which types of consumers will be included in the research, and how the data will be collected. They should also account for the probability of statistical errors or sampling bias .

The next step is to collect the data and analyze the results. If the two previous steps have been completed accurately, this should be straightforward. The researchers will collect the results of their study, keeping track of the ages, gender, and other relevant data of each respondent. This is then analyzed in a marketing report that explains the results of their research.

The last step is for company executives to use their market research to make business decisions. Depending on the results of their research, they may choose to target a different group of consumers, or they may change their price point or some product features.

The results of these changes may eventually be measured in further market research, and the process will begin all over again.

Benefits of Market Research

Market research is essential for developing brand loyalty and customer satisfaction. Since it is unlikely for a product to appeal equally to every consumer, a strong market research program can help identify the key demographics and market segments that are most likely to use a given product.

Market research is also important for developing a company’s advertising efforts. For example, if a company’s market research determines that its consumers are more likely to use Facebook than X (formerly Twitter), it can then target its advertisements to one platform instead of another. Or, if they determine that their target market is value-sensitive rather than price-sensitive, they can work on improving the product rather than reducing their prices.

Market research only works when subjects are honest and open to participating.

Example of Market Research

Many companies use market research to test new products or get information from consumers about what kinds of products or services they need and don’t currently have.

For example, a company that’s considering starting a business might conduct market research to test the viability of its product or service. If the market research confirms consumer interest, the business can proceed confidently with its business plan . If not, the company can use the results of the market research to make adjustments to the product to bring it in line with customer desires.

What Are the Main Types of Market Research?

The main types of market research are primary research and secondary research. Primary research includes focus groups, polls, and surveys. Secondary research includes academic articles, infographics, and white papers.

Qualitative research gives insights into how customers feel and think. Quantitative research uses data and statistics such as website views, social media engagement, and subscriber numbers.

What Is Online Market Research?

Online market research uses the same strategies and techniques as traditional primary and secondary market research, but it is conducted on the Internet. Potential customers may be asked to participate in a survey or give feedback on a product. The responses may help the researchers create a profile of the likely customer for a new product.

What Are Paid Market Research Surveys?

Paid market research involves rewarding individuals who agree to participate in a study. They may be offered a small payment for their time or a discount coupon in return for filling out a questionnaire or participating in a focus group.

What Is a Market Study?

A market study is an analysis of consumer demand for a product or service. It looks at all of the factors that influence demand for a product or service. These include the product’s price, location, competition, and substitutes as well as general economic factors that could influence the new product’s adoption, for better or worse.

Market research is a key component of a company’s research and development (R&D) stage. It helps companies understand in advance the viability of a new product that they have in development and to see how it might perform in the real world.

Britannica Money. “ Market Research .”

U.S. Small Business Administration. “ Market Research and Competitive Analysis .”

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Mastering Market Research: Steps for Launching a Successful Product or Service

In today's business landscape, innovation is your ticket to staying relevant. However, even the most groundbreaking ideas require careful planning and validation. That's where market research comes in, offering invaluable insights into consumer behavior and market trends. In this guide, we delve into the top strategies for conducting efficient market research before launching your new product or service. Following these guidelines will set you on a path toward a launch that resonates with your target audience.

Pinpoint Your Ideal Customer

Knowing your audience is the first step toward creating a product or service they'll love. The idea is not just to gather statistical data but to comprehend the life experiences, frustrations, and needs of your prospective customers. Without a clear understanding of who you're serving, even the best ideas can miss the mark.

Use AI to Review Extensive Market Research PDFs

Business owners can simplify the process of reviewing market research by using an AI tool that analyzes extensive PDF documents and allows them to ask specific questions about the information these PDFs contain. This capability is particularly helpful before launching a new product or service, as it enables business owners to quickly access and understand critical market insights without the need to manually sift through vast amounts of data. The AI tool can identify and extract relevant information, trends, and statistics, providing a comprehensive yet concise overview of the market landscape. This streamlined approach ensures that decision-makers are well-informed and can make strategic choices based on accurate, up-to-date information. By employing an assistant to ask your PDF what you need to know, you can effortlessly navigate through complex reports and focus on key details that are crucial for your business strategy. This tool reduces the time spent on manually reviewing market research reports by pulling the key information you ask it for from comprehensive documents, so you can quickly see critical data and details without having to read through hundreds of pages.

Uncover Your Potential Customer's Desires

Different from merely identifying a target audience, this stage dives into what that audience is really after. The essence of market research lies in understanding consumer desires to the core. Tools like customer surveys , one-on-one interviews, and online feedback mechanisms can offer you a more transparent view of consumer expectations.

Analyze Your Competitors

Your competitors are a treasure trove of insights if you know where to look. By dissecting their operations, you can find out what they're doing right and where they're lacking. This intelligence is critical for making informed decisions about how to position your product or service in the market for maximum impact and profitability.

Stay One Step Ahead with Trend Forecasting

In a fast-changing market, understanding current trends is good , but foreseeing future trends is even better. Keeping an eye on emerging market shifts, technological advances, and changes in consumer behavior can offer you a crucial advantage. Being able to adapt to new trends before they go mainstream will set you apart from the competition.

Create Data-Driven Surveys

It’s not enough to just ask questions; you have to ask the right questions. Design your surveys to yield the most actionable insights. These can range from preferences in features to willingness to pay for additional services. Ensure you're reaching the correct demographic by distributing your survey through channels frequented by your target audience.

Find Opportunities to Network

You can never know too much about your industry. Staying updated through industry-specific publications and joining trade groups can keep you in the loop about recent developments. These resources can also offer networking opportunities that could be beneficial in multiple ways, from partnerships to expert advice.

Set Up In-Depth Focus Groups

Sometimes, you need to go beyond numbers and percentages to get the real story. Organizing focus groups allows you to engage with potential consumers on a deeper level. By encouraging open dialogue, you can uncover valuable perspectives, hidden needs, or even concerns that can be pivotal in refining your product.

Mastering market research is more than a business operation; it's the groundwork for your company’s success. By taking steps like using AI to review the important details of your market research, analyzing your competitors, and determining your target market, you can launch a product or service that not only meets but exceeds consumer expectations.

• June 03, 2024

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New Product Development - The 7-Step Process Explained

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Delivering innovative products can help you gain a competitive advantage, but maintaining that advantage requires continuously delivering new products that keep pace with your customers' evolving needs. New product development is the key to building and keeping market share and customer loyalty.

What is new product development?

New product development is the end-to-end process of creating a product that has never been brought to market—from idea to concept, prototyping, developing, testing, and launch. It involves building a product strategy and roadmap to successfully guide cross-functional teams and stakeholders through the entire process.

Unlike product enhancements and upgrades that modify and improve existing products, new product development addresses the unique challenges of designing and delivering brand-new products. This article discusses the seven stages of new product development, some challenges Agile teams face along the way, and how you can succeed.

The 7 stages of new product development

Successful Agile software development takes careful planning and good project management practices . The seven stages of new product development guide you through the process by breaking the work into stages or steps.

1. Generating ideas

Every new product begins with a problem and ideas to solve it. Ideas may come from within the company, such as the customer service team, or from outside via customer and market research. In this phase, it's important to gather all ideas without discrimination. The more ideas you can brainstorm, the better.

Products such as Jira Product Discovery help product teams structure the chaos of prolific ideas. Ideas can be supported by data, customer feedback, sales input, support tickets, and more to help shape what the product team should focus on, creating ongoing feedback loops. Idea generation is most effective as a team activity with the outcome of developing the essential elements for a new product. 

To help you prioritize ideas, methods such as a SWOT or Competitive analysis take the guess-work out of the process. When generating ideas, having a clear understanding of where opportunities exist and knowing how the competition stacks up can lead to brainstorming disruptive and game-changing ideas.

2. Screening ideas

Agile teams can use Jira Product Discovery matrixes to view a large number of ideas, using criteria such as impact, effort, and confidence level before scoring and selecting which ideas to move into the next phase. Gathering and organizing product ideas in a centralized tool makes it easier for product teams to prioritize which ideas or features will drive the most impact.

Scoring ideas by product development effort versus the overall impact of the solution is an excellent way to focus on those with the most impact. The SWOT and competitive analysis templates from step 1 can provide the foundation for where to place priorities. 

You can also identify good ideas that are simply not right for this new product but may be suitable for future products and the goals of the team. Screening ideas can be difficult, but aligning each good idea to your goals and comparing its impact to other ideas will help identify the most impactful opportunities.

3. Creating a product strategy

After selecting ideas to develop into a new product, it's time to create your product strategy. This is a concise definition of the need that the new product meets. A good product strategy includes the vision, target market or user, position in the industry, features and benefits, and the value the new product brings to the business. This phase involves creating a clear definition of the requirements.

Confluence offers a strategic plan template that can help you refine your strategy messaging, remove ambiguity, and clearly communicate the goal. From here, the Confluence requirements template walks you through the process of outlining your objectives and success metrics, listing assumptions and options to address them, and adding supporting documentation. These efforts include prototyping and validating with customers, ensuring the product being built will be something that customers actually want.

4. Building a product roadmap

A product roadmap is an action plan. It outlines product functionality and release schedules and helps you manage new product development. Think of the roadmap as the core communication tool for short- and long-term efforts that align with your business goals. It's a shared source of truth for a product’s vision, direction, priorities, and progress over time. Creating a great product roadmap keeps your entire team working together and moving in the same direction (try our product roadmap template ). They also make it easy to check in on the work at any time throughout the product development life cycle.

Product teams using Jira Product Discovery can then share their product strategy using always-up-to-date, custom roadmaps to present which ideas will be built, when, and why.

5. Prototyping

Time to market is critical for new product development, and your ability to rapidly prototype and develop products ensures viable solutions. Jira Product Discovery’s integration with software development tools like Jira  makes it easy to seamlessly connect your entire software delivery lifecycle.

Defects and change requests are simply a fact of new product development, but concise tracking and issue management keep everyone on your team informed, organized, and on schedule. Testing can span both internal quality assurance (QA) teams as well as customers and end users engaged in alpha, beta, or user acceptance testing. Jira  is the leading tool that Agile teams use for testing, in part because it optimizes the QA workflow by writing and managing test scripts, tracking test cases, and managing defects. 

The product roadmap template from the previous step, along with other Confluence project planning templates , also inform testing and help ensure you miss nothing.

7. Product launch

You only get one chance to make a good first impression, and launching a new product requires careful planning and delivery. Every step in the process is a building block to a successful launch. Confluence’s product launch template helps ensure a smooth launch.

Additionally, sales and marketing, HR, and legal teams are already using your product strategy and roadmap to align messaging, identify opportunities, and ensure regulatory compliance. Using Jira , they can seamlessly connect their work with the product team’s. It provides a streamlined UI and integrations with the tools they use daily, such as Gantt charts and spreadsheets.

4 main types of product development

There are four types of product development, including:

• New product development : These are products that haven’t been released in the market before, such as software applications that solve new or novel customer problems. 
• New product categories : These products may not be new to the marketplace, but they are new to the company developing them. For example, a software company may expand their offering to include products within the category they currently develop, such as adding tax accounting to their portfolio of personal finance applications. 
• Product line extensions : These expand the products offered within the organization’s existing range of products, such as adding new industries within a category. For example, a company may develop accounting software for the construction industry and decide to extend their accounting software to the airline industry.
• Product enhancements : These are new features and capabilities within existing products. Companies generally design them to provide customers with new or added value. Enhancements respond to changes in the market, performance issues, or new competitive products. 

Example of new product development

Whether creating a new product that hasn’t been seen in the market before, or expanding an existing application to address new geographic locations, understanding the time it will take to develop is essential. 

Jira insights help teams make data-driven decisions based on their own historical progress. Insights can come from every aspect of the product development process and provide continuous improvement opportunities with each new product development project.  

3 challenges teams encounter in the new product development process

Great tools can help alleviate the challenges of new product development. Understanding these challenges and how to address them can keep your team on track for a successful launch.

1. Defining clear requirements

When speed is important, the requirements often become an ironclad set of instructions. While clear requirements are necessary, Agile teams must have a shared understanding of and empathy for the customer. Include various members of your team in requirements-gathering activities, such as customer interviews. When designers, developers, and QA share an understanding of user stories, they can produce results more quickly and accurately without maintaining rigid rules.

Confluence’s requirements template gives you the power to capture and update assumptions, use cases, UX design, and scope together.

2. Estimating the development effort

Working with realistic project timelines is essential for bringing new products to market and gaining a competitive advantage. However, product development tasks are notoriously difficult to estimate, and new product development can be even harder. Break work into smaller tasks for more accurate estimates. In addition to giving you more flexibility with resource assignments, smaller tasks minimize the impact on your overall project when something takes longer than expected.

Many Agile teams have switched from traditional estimates to story points—units that measure the effort teams require to fully implement a user story. A user story is an informed explanation of a feature from the user's perspective. With Jira, Agile teams track story points, reflect, and quickly recalibrate estimates.

3. Siloed tools

Collaboration is a critical component in your team's success and the success of their products. Development teams use a variety of specialized tools, such as visual design tools for creating mock-ups and instant messaging apps for hosting team discussions. No single tool can provide the specialized functionality for all the needs of the development team. Jira Product Discovery and Jira integrate with a wide range of specialized development tools to easily collect and incorporate important information.

How long does new product development take?

The time to develop a new product can vary widely based on the complexity of that product. For example, developing an application that securely processes credit card payments may take magnitudes longer than developing software to track exercise statistics. But a few tips can help reduce the time to market while maintaining quality. 

Expert tips from Atlassian for new product development

Understand the customer.

Begin with the customer’s needs in mind. The time you spend early, interviewing customers and gathering input, helps create a clear product strategy. The entire team should understand the problem they are solving for the customer. It will keep the team on track when they make decisions during development. 

Foster team collaboration

When the team has the tools for seamless collaboration, generating ideas, prioritizing issues, and solving problems is much easier. Today’s product development teams include a wide range of cross-functional roles. The best way to prevent silos and keep the team working together is with collaboration, respect, and genuine appreciation for each other’s contributions. Centralized tools such as Jira Product Discovery and Jira help foster this.

Define the requirements

A good product specification outlines the purpose, what the client needs the product to do, the technical and functional requirements to achieve that, design mockups, and even release plans. This foundational document takes time to create, but it helps teams refine and clarify fuzzy requirements and align on the scope of the project. 

Optimize resource allocation

Resource allocation is among the hardest aspects of new product development, so the roadmap must be well-defined before you begin. Understand the tasks included in the project, their dependencies, and the resources required. Visual workflows can help teams identify when you underutilize or overcommit resources. They can also highlight bottlenecks and roadblocks to allow teams to quickly adjust and stay on track. 

Jira makes new product development easier

Jira  provides success tools for new product development teams to collaborate on and manage work from idea to product launch. Agile teams have made Jira the leading solution for new product development.

Jira Product Discovery is a dedicated tool that aids teams in crucial stages of product development. It helps Agile teams gather and prioritize ideas and align everyone with product roadmaps. 

With Jira Product Discovery matrixes and criteria, you can easily select which ideas to move ahead with, enhancing the experience of product development.

How to Manage Scrum Remote Teams

Learn about what scrum remote teams are, as well as how to manage them. Read about benefits, challenges and helpful tools to use.

Distributed Teams: Strategies for Success

Do you work on a distributed team, maybe remote or virtual? Learn how to manage, structure and build culture with a distributed agile team.

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How to Start an Ecommerce Business: 2024 Edition

With global online retail sales expected to hit $8.15 trillion by 2026, there’s no better time to start an ecommerce business.

But if you’re new to the business world, launching an online store can be daunting. Where do you begin? Should your initial focus be on product selection, website design, or marketing strategy? These questions are common for any budding entrepreneur.

This guide covers all the steps, from the basics to the more advanced aspects of running an online store. You’ll learn how to set up, manage, and grow your business into a profitable ecommerce venture.

How to start an ecommerce business: 5 steps to launch

1. find products to sell.

Being strategic with your product selection is key. Here are some tips to help you choose:

Capitalize on regional products

Identify products unique to certain regions or cultures that might have a demand in other areas. These can be traditional crafts, local delicacies, or specific fashion styles.

Explore niche communities

Look into niche hobbies or interests and find products that cater to these specific groups. These communities often have passionate followers looking for specialized items.

Solve a pain point

Think of a problem you’ve personally encountered and consider if there’s a product that could solve it. Products that address real-life issues can resonate well with customers.

You’ll find inspiration is abundant once you start your search. Google Trends can be a useful tool to help validate your product ideas.

Additional resources:

• How To Find a Product to Sell Online: 13 Tactics for 2024
• 10 White Label Products Ideas for Ecommerce  

How to source your products

When it comes to sourcing products, dropshipping is a solid option to think about. It’s a setup where an ecommerce business sells products without dealing with inventory. A customer buys something from you, and then you order it from a dropshipping supplier who ships it directly to them.

While dropshipping is a popular choice, there are other business models like wholesaling or direct-to-consumer that might suit different business needs. However, dropshipping stands out for several reasons:

• Testing new ideas is easier: With dropshipping, trying out new products is a breeze. You don’t buy a bunch of stock upfront, so experimenting with different items to see what sticks is less risky.
• Geographic flexibility: Run your business from anywhere. As long as you have internet access, you can manage a dropshipping store, making it perfect for those who love flexibility.
• Lower entry barriers: You don’t need a big budget to start. This makes dropshipping ideal for those beginning their ecommerce journey.
• The Ultimate Shopify Dropshipping Guide (2024)
• 11 Best Dropshipping Suppliers and How To Choose the Right One

2. Analyze the competition

Research is integral to the success of your ecommerce store. Once you’ve chosen your products, look at competitors and what they’re doing. Here are a few things to pay attention to when doing a competitor analysis: 

• What is their business model?
• Are they selling multiple items or just one product?
• What social media channels do they utilize?
• Who is their target market?
• How do they push sales? (e.g., paid social, PPC, SEO, email, etc.)

Competitor analysis can lead you to identify better products to sell and give you a good understanding of how to launch an online business. Additional resources:

• SWOT Analysis: How to Create One + Examples to Inspire You

3. Write a business plan

With your competitive research complete, it’s time to write your business plan. This plan serves as a roadmap, guiding your ecommerce journey from start to growth. It’s especially important for aligning your goals and strategies.

Tips for crafting a successful business plan:

• Define clear objectives: Start by setting specific, measurable goals for your business. This could include sales targets, customer acquisition numbers, or market penetration rates.
• Outline your business model: Describe how you will manage inventory, whether through dropshipping or holding stock.
• Detail your marketing approach: Explain how you’ll attract customers. Include tactics like SEO, social media marketing, and influencer collaborations.
• Make financial projections: Include detailed financial forecasts. Show expected revenue, expenses, and break-even point.
• Conduct a risk analysis: Identify potential challenges and how you’ll address them. This could include market changes, supply issues, or technological advancements.
• Include an action plan: Break down your strategies into actionable steps with timelines. This makes your goals more attainable and trackable.
• The 7 Best Business Plan Examples (2024)
• Business Plan Template: The Ultimate Guide for Ecommerce Businesses

4. Choose a name and logo

Choosing a business name.

Choosing the right name for your online business is a critical step. A good name sticks in people’s minds and becomes synonymous with your brand’s identity. Tools like Oberlo’s business name generator are great for sparking unique ideas and checking if a domain is up for grabs.

After picking a few names, see if they’re available on social media. Your brand needs the same name everywhere for people to recognize you easily. Thinking of selling worldwide? Make sure your name works across different cultures. You don’t want any surprises there.

Crafting a logo

Your logo is the visual heartbeat of your brand. Begin with something straightforward yet impactful using Shopify’s free logo maker . This tool is ideal for those new to logo design.

Consider how your logo will appear in different settings. It needs to shine on everything from your website to product packaging. A well-designed logo, aligned with your business name, lays the foundation for a strong brand presence in the online marketplace.

• How to Build a Brand: An 8-Step Guide
• Branding Design: What It Is and How to Do It

5. Build your online store

Once you have chosen a name and logo, the next thing to do is build your store. Choosing ecommerce hosting platforms like Shopify can make setting up your store easy. Shopify has lots of templates to start with and an easy-to-use online store builder that doesn’t need coding input. 

When your website is ready to start taking orders, remember to try a test order yourself to make sure the process is smooth for the customer. Alleviate any additional steps needed to buy something online and ask only for information that is necessary for the checkout process.

• 7 Best Free Shopify Themes For Your Online Store
• 58 Most Inspiring and Successful Shopify Stores in 2024

6. Choose your sales and marketing channels

There are various sales channels available, and selecting the right ones depends heavily on your target audience and the types of products you sell. If you specialize in unique or handcrafted items, niche marketplaces like Etsy are more suitable than broader platforms like Amazon or eBay. 

Here’s a list of marketplaces that cater to different niches:

• Bonanza : A great platform if you’re selling unique and diverse items. From fashionable clothing to rare collectibles, it attracts a wide range of buyers.
• Newegg : If your specialty is electronics and tech gadgets, Newegg is your marketplace.
• Reverb : This niche marketplace is dedicated to musical instruments and gear. It connects sellers with a targeted audience of musicians and enthusiasts.

On the marketing front, balancing cost and effectiveness is key. You want to reach the right people without breaking the bank. Here are some strategies to consider:

• Social media marketing: Engage on Instagram with live sessions, for example—a cost-effective way to connect and show your brand’s personality.
• Email marketing: Interactive emails with quizzes or polls boost engagement without significant expense, offering valuable customer insights.
• Influencer partnerships: Working with niche micro-influencers can be more affordable and effective for targeting specific customer groups.
• Search engine optimization (SEO): Focus on voice search optimization. It’s a smart, future-proof strategy that can reduce long-term marketing costs.

Additional resources

• 10 Best Marketing Channels for Ecommerce Stores
• 9 Marketing Strategies That’ll Level Up Your Ecommerce Store

7. Launch your business 

Now, you’re ready to launch your online business. It’s a big step, and there’s plenty to keep an eye on as you start. First up, watch your key performance indicators (KPIs) closely. They tell you how well your store is doing and what you might need to tweak.

Next, make sure your shipping runs smoothly. Happy customers often come back, so getting orders to them without a hitch is crucial. If something goes off track, be ready with a backup plan.

Finally, keep learning and adjusting based on what your customers say and what your data shows. This way, your business keeps growing and improving.

How much does it cost to start an ecommerce business?

Starting an ecommerce business can be more budget-friendly than you think. Often, you might need only about $100 to get going, mainly for a website subscription and a theme for your store. One of the perks of an ecommerce business is that it typically costs less than a brick-and-mortar store. You won’t have the same overheads like rent for a physical space.

If you opt for a dropshipping business model, the initial costs can be even lower. In dropshipping, you pay for products only after customers buy them, so there’s no upfront expense for stock. However, if you’re making products yourself or working with manufacturers, you’ll need to invest in materials and labor from the start.

Shopify’s research sheds some light on what to expect financially. They surveyed 150 entrepreneurs and 300 small business owners across the US. The findings suggest that new ecommerce store owners might spend up to $40,000 in their first year, covering everything from products and operations to marketing and staff wages. But these costs are usually offset by your business’s profits.

Here’s a rough breakdown of typical first-year expenses: 

• Online store setup: 9%
• Operating costs like legal fees and software: 11%
• Marketing: 10.3%
• Product-related costs: 31.6%
• Shipping: 8.7%
• Team and staff expenses: 18.8%
• Offline costs, like event fees: 10.5% 

However, the actual amount can vary based on factors like your industry, the type of ecommerce model you choose, and whether you hire employees. And you don’t need to have the entire sum upfront. Many entrepreneurs start with personal savings, while others may seek support from friends, family, or personal loans.

4 tips for creating a profitable online store

Launching an ecommerce business is just the beginning. To make it profitable, you need to think differently. Here are some actionable tips for success: 

1. Enhance customer interaction 

Revamp your customer service approach. Implement interactive features like virtual product trials or augmented reality on your site. This will give customers a new way to experience your products.

2. Gamify your shopping experience

Transform your website into an interactive playground. Add elements like scavenger hunts for discounts or fun quizzes that lead to personalized offers. These tactics can make shopping more engaging and increase sales.

3. Personalize with AI

Incorporate AI technology into your store. Use it to analyze customer behaviors and preferences. Then, tailor product recommendations and content accordingly to enhance the shopping experience.

4. Keep your inventory fresh 

Regularly update your product offerings. Use market trends and customer feedback to introduce new items. Consider limited-edition products or collaborations to create excitement and attract repeat visits.

Open your ecommerce store

Building an ecommerce business from scratch has its mix of highs and lows. You’ll be choosing products, gauging their market fit, and handling production. Next comes developing your online store and drawing in customers. It’s a bit like solving a complex puzzle, and the satisfaction of seeing it come together is immense.

Hopefully this article has helped you understand how to start an ecommerce business. You’ve got everything you need at your fingertips to make this the year your store takes off, and we’re happy to help you meet this goal.

Ecommerce business FAQ

What are the 4 ecommerce business models.

There are four primary ecommerce business models, : 

• Consumer to business (C2B): In this model, individuals offer products or services to businesses. An example is an influencer charging a fee to provide brand exposure to their audience.
• Business to business (B2B): Here, one business sells goods or services to another business. For instance, a company might sell wholesale products to another business for their use.
• Consumer to consumer (C2C): This model involves transactions between consumers. An example is selling vintage clothes on a platform like Facebook Marketplace to another individual.
• Business to consumer (B2C): In this common model, ecommerce businesses sell goods or services directly to individual consumers, like purchasing a jacket from an online retailer.

How do I start an ecommerce business without money?

To be honest, you’d need at least a few hundred dollars to start an ecommerce business. That’s because it’s a product-based business that requires you to build an online store, do marketing, and invest in the growth of your brand.

That said, you can start an ecommerce business on the cheap by choosing dropshipping as your business model, tapping into free marketing channels, and creating brand awareness via word-of-mouth strategies. You can also look into funding programs like Shopify Capital to get the money you need to start and grow your ecommerce business.

Is an ecommerce business profitable?

In a word: yes. But realizing your profits could take a while, since an ecommerce entrepreneur’s journey is a marathon rather than a sprint. It could take you 18 to 24 months to see a profit. That’s why we recommend you don’t measure the success of your ecommerce venture by your net profit in the first year.

Want to Learn More?

• How to Start a Photography Business
• 30 Amazing Startup Business Ideas
• The Ultimate Guide to Mobile Commerce
• How to Start a Business

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Chip ETFs in Focus on New Generation AI Product Launches

Big chipmakers have been racing to introduce new-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips. There have been announcements from Intel ( INTC Quick Quote INTC - Free Report ) , Advanced Micro Devices ( AMD Quick Quote AMD - Free Report ) and Nvidia ( NVDA Quick Quote NVDA - Free Report ) . Intel on Tuesday announced new Xeon 6 processors during the Computex tech conference in Taiwan.

Before this, Advanced Micro Devices introduced its latest AI processors at the Computex technology trade show in Taipei. CEO Lisa Su presented the MI325X accelerator, scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of 2024. This move is part of AMD's strategic plan to challenge industry leader NVIDIA in the competitive AI semiconductor market.

Growing Demand for AI Chips

The surge in generative AI programs has created a high demand for advanced chips used in AI data centers. California-based AMD is striving to compete with Nvidia, which currently dominates about 80% of the AI semiconductor market.

Intel is trying to catch up to NVIDIA and AMD, after having largely been unnoticed in the AI frenzy. Tech giants like Meta, Microsoft, Tesla and Google are mostly buying as many NVIDIA chips as possible.

Following NVIDIA's lead, Intel said that its Xeon 6 processor will deliver better performance and power efficiency for high-intensity data center workloads as compared with its predecessor, CEO Pat Gelsinger said during the Computex tech conference in Taiwan, as quoted on CNBC .

Meanwhile, AMD introduced the MI350 series, expected in 2025, promising a 35-fold improvement in inference performance compared to the current MI300 series. Additionally, the MI400 series, based on a new architecture called "Next," is set to launch in 2026.

Meanwhile, NVIDIA also unveiled its next generation of AI chips – Rubin — which features eight stacks of HBM4 memory. The platform, available in 2026, includes new GPUs for AI training and deployment, and a central processor named “Vera.”

The Rubin AI platform will use HBM4 memory, with Rubin Ultra featuring 12 HBM4 stacks. Notably, NVIDIA’s accelerated computing technology offers significant cost and energy savings. Investors should note that AMD has plans to release new AI chips on an annual basis. NVIDIA is also committed to releasing new AI chip models annually.

Investor Interest and Market Performance

Investors are keenly watching AMD and NVIDIA for long-term updates on AI chip developments. AMD's shares have more than doubled since early 2023, although this growth is modest compared to NVIDIA's seven-fold surge in the same period. AMD anticipates AI chip sales of about $4 billion for 2024, a $500 million increase from previous estimates.

Tap Trio With These ETFs

Investors can access both chip makers through a single investment. This includes ETFs like Strive U.S. Semiconductor ETF ( SHOC Quick Quote SHOC - Free Report ) , AXS Esoterica NextG Economy ETF ( WUGI Quick Quote WUGI - Free Report ) , Invesco PHLX Semiconductor ETF ( SOXQ Quick Quote SOXQ - Free Report ) and TrueShares Technology, AI & Deep Learning ETF ( LRNZ Quick Quote LRNZ - Free Report ) .

AMD has about 7.23% exposure to SHOC, 6.57% focus on WUGI, 6.31% focus on SOXQ, and 6.11% focus on LRNZ. In contrast, NVDA has about 31% exposure to both SHOC and WUGI, 15.27% focus on SOXQ, and 16.57% focus on LRNZ. Meanwhile, Intel has 4.16% focus on iShares Semiconductor ETF ( SOXX Quick Quote SOXX - Free Report ) and 5.2% exposure to First Trust NASDAQ Semiconductor ETF ( FTXL Quick Quote FTXL - Free Report ) .

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The state of AI in early 2024: Gen AI adoption spikes and starts to generate value

If 2023 was the year the world discovered generative AI (gen AI) , 2024 is the year organizations truly began using—and deriving business value from—this new technology. In the latest McKinsey Global Survey  on AI, 65 percent of respondents report that their organizations are regularly using gen AI, nearly double the percentage from our previous survey just ten months ago. Respondents’ expectations for gen AI’s impact remain as high as they were last year , with three-quarters predicting that gen AI will lead to significant or disruptive change in their industries in the years ahead.

About the authors

This article is a collaborative effort by Alex Singla , Alexander Sukharevsky , Lareina Yee , and Michael Chui , with Bryce Hall , representing views from QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, and McKinsey Digital.

Organizations are already seeing material benefits from gen AI use, reporting both cost decreases and revenue jumps in the business units deploying the technology. The survey also provides insights into the kinds of risks presented by gen AI—most notably, inaccuracy—as well as the emerging practices of top performers to mitigate those challenges and capture value.

AI adoption surges

Interest in generative AI has also brightened the spotlight on a broader set of AI capabilities. For the past six years, AI adoption by respondents’ organizations has hovered at about 50 percent. This year, the survey finds that adoption has jumped to 72 percent (Exhibit 1). And the interest is truly global in scope. Our 2023 survey found that AI adoption did not reach 66 percent in any region; however, this year more than two-thirds of respondents in nearly every region say their organizations are using AI. 1 Organizations based in Central and South America are the exception, with 58 percent of respondents working for organizations based in Central and South America reporting AI adoption. Looking by industry, the biggest increase in adoption can be found in professional services. 2 Includes respondents working for organizations focused on human resources, legal services, management consulting, market research, R&D, tax preparation, and training.

Also, responses suggest that companies are now using AI in more parts of the business. Half of respondents say their organizations have adopted AI in two or more business functions, up from less than a third of respondents in 2023 (Exhibit 2).

Gen AI adoption is most common in the functions where it can create the most value

Most respondents now report that their organizations—and they as individuals—are using gen AI. Sixty-five percent of respondents say their organizations are regularly using gen AI in at least one business function, up from one-third last year. The average organization using gen AI is doing so in two functions, most often in marketing and sales and in product and service development—two functions in which previous research  determined that gen AI adoption could generate the most value 3 “ The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier ,” McKinsey, June 14, 2023. —as well as in IT (Exhibit 3). The biggest increase from 2023 is found in marketing and sales, where reported adoption has more than doubled. Yet across functions, only two use cases, both within marketing and sales, are reported by 15 percent or more of respondents.

Gen AI also is weaving its way into respondents’ personal lives. Compared with 2023, respondents are much more likely to be using gen AI at work and even more likely to be using gen AI both at work and in their personal lives (Exhibit 4). The survey finds upticks in gen AI use across all regions, with the largest increases in Asia–Pacific and Greater China. Respondents at the highest seniority levels, meanwhile, show larger jumps in the use of gen Al tools for work and outside of work compared with their midlevel-management peers. Looking at specific industries, respondents working in energy and materials and in professional services report the largest increase in gen AI use.

Investments in gen AI and analytical AI are beginning to create value

The latest survey also shows how different industries are budgeting for gen AI. Responses suggest that, in many industries, organizations are about equally as likely to be investing more than 5 percent of their digital budgets in gen AI as they are in nongenerative, analytical-AI solutions (Exhibit 5). Yet in most industries, larger shares of respondents report that their organizations spend more than 20 percent on analytical AI than on gen AI. Looking ahead, most respondents—67 percent—expect their organizations to invest more in AI over the next three years.

Where are those investments paying off? For the first time, our latest survey explored the value created by gen AI use by business function. The function in which the largest share of respondents report seeing cost decreases is human resources. Respondents most commonly report meaningful revenue increases (of more than 5 percent) in supply chain and inventory management (Exhibit 6). For analytical AI, respondents most often report seeing cost benefits in service operations—in line with what we found last year —as well as meaningful revenue increases from AI use in marketing and sales.

Inaccuracy: The most recognized and experienced risk of gen AI use

As businesses begin to see the benefits of gen AI, they’re also recognizing the diverse risks associated with the technology. These can range from data management risks such as data privacy, bias, or intellectual property (IP) infringement to model management risks, which tend to focus on inaccurate output or lack of explainability. A third big risk category is security and incorrect use.

Respondents to the latest survey are more likely than they were last year to say their organizations consider inaccuracy and IP infringement to be relevant to their use of gen AI, and about half continue to view cybersecurity as a risk (Exhibit 7).

Conversely, respondents are less likely than they were last year to say their organizations consider workforce and labor displacement to be relevant risks and are not increasing efforts to mitigate them.

In fact, inaccuracy— which can affect use cases across the gen AI value chain , ranging from customer journeys and summarization to coding and creative content—is the only risk that respondents are significantly more likely than last year to say their organizations are actively working to mitigate.

Some organizations have already experienced negative consequences from the use of gen AI, with 44 percent of respondents saying their organizations have experienced at least one consequence (Exhibit 8). Respondents most often report inaccuracy as a risk that has affected their organizations, followed by cybersecurity and explainability.

Our previous research has found that there are several elements of governance that can help in scaling gen AI use responsibly, yet few respondents report having these risk-related practices in place. 4 “ Implementing generative AI with speed and safety ,” McKinsey Quarterly , March 13, 2024. For example, just 18 percent say their organizations have an enterprise-wide council or board with the authority to make decisions involving responsible AI governance, and only one-third say gen AI risk awareness and risk mitigation controls are required skill sets for technical talent.

Bringing gen AI capabilities to bear

The latest survey also sought to understand how, and how quickly, organizations are deploying these new gen AI tools. We have found three archetypes for implementing gen AI solutions : takers use off-the-shelf, publicly available solutions; shapers customize those tools with proprietary data and systems; and makers develop their own foundation models from scratch. 5 “ Technology’s generational moment with generative AI: A CIO and CTO guide ,” McKinsey, July 11, 2023. Across most industries, the survey results suggest that organizations are finding off-the-shelf offerings applicable to their business needs—though many are pursuing opportunities to customize models or even develop their own (Exhibit 9). About half of reported gen AI uses within respondents’ business functions are utilizing off-the-shelf, publicly available models or tools, with little or no customization. Respondents in energy and materials, technology, and media and telecommunications are more likely to report significant customization or tuning of publicly available models or developing their own proprietary models to address specific business needs.

Respondents most often report that their organizations required one to four months from the start of a project to put gen AI into production, though the time it takes varies by business function (Exhibit 10). It also depends upon the approach for acquiring those capabilities. Not surprisingly, reported uses of highly customized or proprietary models are 1.5 times more likely than off-the-shelf, publicly available models to take five months or more to implement.

Gen AI high performers are excelling despite facing challenges

Gen AI is a new technology, and organizations are still early in the journey of pursuing its opportunities and scaling it across functions. So it’s little surprise that only a small subset of respondents (46 out of 876) report that a meaningful share of their organizations’ EBIT can be attributed to their deployment of gen AI. Still, these gen AI leaders are worth examining closely. These, after all, are the early movers, who already attribute more than 10 percent of their organizations’ EBIT to their use of gen AI. Forty-two percent of these high performers say more than 20 percent of their EBIT is attributable to their use of nongenerative, analytical AI, and they span industries and regions—though most are at organizations with less than $1 billion in annual revenue. The AI-related practices at these organizations can offer guidance to those looking to create value from gen AI adoption at their own organizations.

To start, gen AI high performers are using gen AI in more business functions—an average of three functions, while others average two. They, like other organizations, are most likely to use gen AI in marketing and sales and product or service development, but they’re much more likely than others to use gen AI solutions in risk, legal, and compliance; in strategy and corporate finance; and in supply chain and inventory management. They’re more than three times as likely as others to be using gen AI in activities ranging from processing of accounting documents and risk assessment to R&D testing and pricing and promotions. While, overall, about half of reported gen AI applications within business functions are utilizing publicly available models or tools, gen AI high performers are less likely to use those off-the-shelf options than to either implement significantly customized versions of those tools or to develop their own proprietary foundation models.

What else are these high performers doing differently? For one thing, they are paying more attention to gen-AI-related risks. Perhaps because they are further along on their journeys, they are more likely than others to say their organizations have experienced every negative consequence from gen AI we asked about, from cybersecurity and personal privacy to explainability and IP infringement. Given that, they are more likely than others to report that their organizations consider those risks, as well as regulatory compliance, environmental impacts, and political stability, to be relevant to their gen AI use, and they say they take steps to mitigate more risks than others do.

Gen AI high performers are also much more likely to say their organizations follow a set of risk-related best practices (Exhibit 11). For example, they are nearly twice as likely as others to involve the legal function and embed risk reviews early on in the development of gen AI solutions—that is, to “ shift left .” They’re also much more likely than others to employ a wide range of other best practices, from strategy-related practices to those related to scaling.

In addition to experiencing the risks of gen AI adoption, high performers have encountered other challenges that can serve as warnings to others (Exhibit 12). Seventy percent say they have experienced difficulties with data, including defining processes for data governance, developing the ability to quickly integrate data into AI models, and an insufficient amount of training data, highlighting the essential role that data play in capturing value. High performers are also more likely than others to report experiencing challenges with their operating models, such as implementing agile ways of working and effective sprint performance management.

About the research

The online survey was in the field from February 22 to March 5, 2024, and garnered responses from 1,363 participants representing the full range of regions, industries, company sizes, functional specialties, and tenures. Of those respondents, 981 said their organizations had adopted AI in at least one business function, and 878 said their organizations were regularly using gen AI in at least one function. To adjust for differences in response rates, the data are weighted by the contribution of each respondent’s nation to global GDP.

Alex Singla and Alexander Sukharevsky  are global coleaders of QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, and senior partners in McKinsey’s Chicago and London offices, respectively; Lareina Yee  is a senior partner in the Bay Area office, where Michael Chui , a McKinsey Global Institute partner, is a partner; and Bryce Hall  is an associate partner in the Washington, DC, office.

They wish to thank Kaitlin Noe, Larry Kanter, Mallika Jhamb, and Shinjini Srivastava for their contributions to this work.

This article was edited by Heather Hanselman, a senior editor in McKinsey’s Atlanta office.

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