how to download market research reports for free

• Market Research

How to get free market research reports 

• May 29, 2023

Market research reports give you a perspective on your target customer’s mind and help you move on the right path. But most market research platforms and reports are costly. So, how to get free market research reports to get first-hand insights? 

This article will share valuable sources, and places to access free market research reports for your business. But before we begin, let us quickly refresh the basics. 

What are market research reports?

Market research reports offer insights, data, and information about a particular market, region, industry, or demography. Research firms prepare these reports by conducting market research surveys , interviews, statistical analysis, and compiling data from different resources. 

These reports contain information about market size, growth trends, consumer behavior patterns, interests, competitive landscape, target market, and more. 

A business can derive meaningful insights from a market research report to make data-driven marketing, positioning, pricing, or product development decisions. Market research reports can particularly help in the following: 

• Gaining a deep understanding of the target audience’s needs, preferences, and behaviors; 
• Make customer-centric product decisions to achieve product-market fit faster; 
• Standing out in a competitive market by beating the competition; 
• Pivot or adapt to changing customer demands and usage patterns; 
• Discover market opportunities and patterns to expand a business. 

Read More: Why market research is important

Reliable market research sources (with free access).   

Market research is traditionally seen as an expensive process. Fundamentally because there is a lot of legwork and effort involved in doing one-on-one interviews, creating focus groups, deriving data insights, and more. 

Remote work culture, artificial intelligence, and technology have made things more accessible (and affordable). However, sometimes, a business owner still lacks access (or resources) to conduct primary market research. In that case, here are four sources to access reliable market research reports for free: 

Government sources. 

The government collects data from different industries, businesses, and markets annually. Many agencies, like the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census, regularly publish data pertaining to consumer spending, economic trends, demographics, and more. You can use their official portals to access these reports, like:

• U.S. Census Bureau: https://www.census.gov/library/publications.html  
• U.S. Small Business Administration: https://www.sba.gov/
• National Bureau of Economic Research: https://www.nber.org/papers
• Bureau of Economic Analysis: https://www.bea.gov
• National Science Foundation: https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/reports.cfm
• U.S. Energy Information Administration: https://www.eia.gov/reports/
• National Agricultural Statistics Service: https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/
• National Center for Health Statistics: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/index.htm
• National Center for Education Statistics: https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/index.asp
• Federal Reserve Board: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres.htm
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: https://www.noaa.gov/science-data/reports
• U.S. International Trade Commission: https://www.usitc.gov/research_and_analysis.htm
• National Renewable Energy Laboratory: https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/publications.html

Academic institutions. 

Universities, colleges, and academic departments often conduct research as a part of their regular programs and initiatives. 

They are known to publish these research findings in the form of market research reports. Usually, these reports are free for any business owner or individual. 

You can search for business schools like Harvard to access free market research reports by the institution. Here are some more academic sources for free market research reports: 

• Harvard Business School Working Knowledge  
• Wharton Research Data Services
• Stanford Graduate School of Business
• Columbia Business School
• London School of Economics and Political Science
• University of California, Berkeley
• University of Michigan Ross School of Business
• University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business
• New York University Stern School of Business

Industry associations. 

Industry associations are one of the best free sources for market research reports. These associations have real-world industry data, including trends, purchasing behaviors, spending patterns, and more, which can be a goldmine for business owners. 

If you are a part of any industry association, there is a high possibility that you will get access to detailed market research reports as a perk. Even if you are not, almost all associations periodically publish free market research reports. You can check their websites to find a relevant report. Here are some prominent industry associations and research data links: 

• National Restaurant Association
• National Retail Federation
• National Association of Home Builders
• National Association of Convenience Stores
• National Automobile Dealers Association
• National Sporting Goods Association
• American Bankers Association
• National Coffee Association
• National Association of Realtors
• National Beer Wholesalers Association

Market research firms. 

These firms specialize in conducting market research and mostly publish paid reports/ conduct research on demand. But many firms upload insightful market research reports and trend patterns periodically as a lead-generation tactic. 

You can access these free market research reports by visiting their website. Google the names of market research firms and check their download sections for the latest reports on various industries and market segments. Some major market research firms which publish free reports include: 

• Euromonitor International
• McKinsey & Company
• Forrester Research
• Frost & Sullivan  

More sources to get free market research reports. 

Here are some final resources for finding free market research reports:

• Online Database and Platforms: Lots of online platforms and websites offer free reports that can be used for market research. Some of the most credible ones include Statista, Pew Research, ProQuest, etc. You can also use Google Trends to extract trends and insights around any topic. 
• Public Libraries: If you have access to any public library in your town or community, search for market research reports in the business sections. Libraries have active subscriptions to trade publications that regularly publish many market reports. Most libraries can access the Business and Company Resource (BCRC) database with several market research reports. 
• Trade Shows and Conferences: Trade shows, exhibitions, and conferences are a great source of real-time market research reports. Most exhibitors and publishers offer free access to reports, whitepapers, and case studies that can serve as a foundation for your market research initiatives. 

Top up market research reports with real-time insights using GapScout. 

Market research reports are a good starting point for conducting market research. However, use the data within free reports cautiously, as it can be obsolete.

Gapscout can help you vet your market research assumptions and data by scanning online reviews in real-time and offer actual consumer insights. So, why not upgrade your research game by harnessing the power of AI using GapScout ?

• How to use AI for market research?
• 5 examples of market research branding done right

Ready to Automate Your Market Research? Get exclusive access to GapScout prior to release!

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The 8 free market research tools and resources you need to know.

With over 400,000 new businesses opening in the United States each month, the need for individual companies to conduct their own market research has never been more urgent.  However, conducting market research isn’t an easy task — it presents challenges to businesses of all shapes and sizes.

With that being said, those with large budgets do enjoy certain advantages. When you have access to an endless array of top-tier tools and resources, you can uncover strategy-changing insights with relative ease.

Does that mean businesses with small (or non-existent) budgets are out of luck? Absolutely not.

Nowadays, free market research tools and resources are abundant — and you’ll be familiar with eight of our favorites by the time you’re done reading this blog post.

But first, some housekeeping:

What is market research?

Market research is the process of gathering and analyzing information about your customers — both current and prospective — with the intent of optimizing your business strategy.

Customer-related information that you may want to gather includes (but is not limited to):

• The goals they want to achieve
• The pain points they want to alleviate
• The income or budget that constrains them
• The products and/or services they use (a.k.a. your competitors)
• The strengths and weaknesses of the products and/or services they use

Why is market research important?

Market research is important because — if you’re thorough and open-minded — it dramatically improves your chances of long-term success. Only through market research can you uncover the insights you need to develop a product or service that (1) satisfies the demands of your prospects and (2) stands out from the competition.

For a complete overview of how conducting market research can benefit your business, here’s Market Research Defined and How to Get Started .

Cool? Cool. Let’s dive into the good stuff.

Top 4 Free Market Research Tools

For clarity, we will define a free market research tool as any tool that:

• Costs nothing, and
• Helps with the collection and/or analysis of customer-related information

Keep in mind that “customer-related information” encompasses everything from a pain point to a weakness of one of your competitors’ products.

1. Google Trends

If you want to get a sense of the level of interest in a particular product or service — as well as how that interest fluctuates over time and across regions — Google Trends is an excellent tool.

All you need to do is enter a search query and toggle with the filters. As an example, take a look at the level of interest in “office supplies'' in the U.S. over the past five years. Perhaps unsurprisingly, interest peaked in February 2020 — at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic:

Plus, you can explore variations in interest across the 50 states, as well as related topics and queries that are surging in popularity:

The “interest by subregion” data is powerful. In Wyoming, searches for “office supplies” account for a greater percentage of all search queries than in any other state. Your average resident of Wyoming, in other words, is more interested in searching for office supplies than is your average resident of, say, Louisiana — a valuable insight for anyone who sells office supplies online.

Equally valuable is the insight that searches for “where to buy office supplies in bulk” are on the rise — potentially indicative of an emerging pain point.

2. SurveyMonkey

As some of you already know, one of the best ways to conduct market research is to ask your customers a handful of open-ended questions. You can do this for free with SurveyMonkey .

Specifically, with a free SurveyMonkey account, you can ask up to 10 questions and field up to 40 responses with each of your surveys.

Open-ended questions you may ask your customers include (but are not limited to):

• Why did you buy our product?
• What has our product helped you accomplish?
• How does our product compare to others that you’ve used in the past?

With just three questions — well under the limit of a free survey — you can learn quite a bit about your target market. If, for example, the majority of respondents say they bought your product because they were struggling to do their jobs in a cost-effective manner, that gives you a clearer picture of your prospects’ pain points and your competitors’ weaknesses .

3. Make My Persona

As you collect and analyze customer-related information, it’s a good idea to create or tweak your buyer personas : detailed profiles of the semi-fictional people for whom your product or service is designed. In the context of market research, personas are useful because they help you synthesize and comprehend the information you’re gathering.

Thanks to our friends at HubSpot, you can use a wonderful free tool called Make My Persona .

Intuitive and fun, Make My Persona is a seven-step process that walks you through the essential components of your target customer: demographic information, firmographic information, job title, pain points, and so on. And if you want to go beyond the bare essentials, you can add as many extra sections of information as you like.

Important note: Your personas should be dynamic. As you conduct further market research and learn more about your target customers, your personas should evolve accordingly.

4. WordSift

Make My Persona is appealing, in part, because it enables you to make sense of raw data — to separate the signal from the noise. The same can be said about WordSift , the final free tool we’ll be discussing today.

Built to help teachers with the instruction of vocabulary and reading comprehension, WordSift allows you to generate word clouds: images that represent the frequency with which certain words are used in a given body of text. Look what happens when I copy the introduction to this blog post and paste it into WordSift:

Instantaneously — and unsurprisingly — I can conclude that “business,” “market,” and “research” are among the most frequently used words in the introduction to this post.

What does this have to do with market research? Well, let’s say you’ve been using SurveyMonkey to ask your customers about their reasons for buying your product. One by one, if you were to copy their responses and paste them into WordSift, you’d be able to see which words your customers use most often. That’s a market research gold mine!

Top 4 Free Market Research Resources

Again, for clarity, we will define a free market research resource as any resource that:

• Helps with the collection of customer-related information

The scope of “customer-related information" remains the same  —  encompassing everything from a pain point to a weakness of one of your competitors’ products.

5. Bureau of Labor Statistics

A government organization that “measures labor market activity, working conditions, price changes, and productivity in the U.S. economy to support public and private decision-making,” the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is a wealth of information.

Because this is a blog post about market research — not an economics class — we’ll focus on BLS’ industry- and region-specific information. If you’re on the homepage and you hover over the Data Tools drop-down menu, you’ll see a hyperlink to something titled “Industry at a Glance.” Click on that, find your industry of interest, and explore the dozens of statistics that BLS has aggregated.

If, for example, you’re interested in the apparel manufacturing industry — either because you’re in the industry or you sell into it — you can see how earnings, prices, and productivity figures are changing over time.

Head back to the homepage, hover over the Subjects drop-down menu, and you’ll see a section labeled Geographic Information:

Select your region of interest, filter by state or metropolitan area (if necessary), and take a tour of BLS’ enormous library of area-specific data.

6. U.S. Census Bureau

On a mission to “serve as the [United States’] leading provider of quality data about its people and economy,” the U.S. Census Bureau is another terrific resource that costs nothing to use.

Just as we did with the BLS, we’ll focus on industry- and region-specific information. Admittedly, using the Census website to find industry-specific information is slightly more complicated than it is when using the BLS website. If you’re on the homepage and you hover over the Explore Data drop-down menu, you’ll see a hyperlink titled “Explore Data Main.”

Click on that, and you’ll be brought to the Census’ search engine. Then, click inside the search bar and select “Advanced Search.”

Underneath “Find A Filter,” type in the name of the industry you’re interested in researching. Once the search suggestions load, simply check the appropriate box and click “Search.”

From there, you’ll be able to explore thousands of data tables, maps, and whitepapers — many of them chock-full of industry-specific information that you can use to your advantage.

Finding region-specific information is a bit more straightforward. Head back to the Advanced Search engine, select “Geography” from underneath Browse Filters, and go from there:

7. Pew Research Center

A nonprofit dedicated to “inform[ing] the public about the issues, attitudes, and trends shaping the world,” the Pew Research Center is one of the most authoritative sources of information for anyone striving to make better business decisions.

Whereas the BLS and the Census are (among other things) aggregators of economic data, the Pew Research Center is a “fact tank” — an organization focused on public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis, and other forms of social science inquiry. 

So, although you can’t necessarily use Pew to uncover hyper-specific insights related to your industry or region, you can use it to learn more about your target audience. The best way to do this is through the Topics section of the Pew website.

Clicking that hyperlink brings you to an index of dozens of topics, ranging from Online Video to Homeownership to Democracy. Selecting any of these topics will bring you to a list of relevant content — reports, fact tanks, transcripts, and other forms of media that can date back as far as the early 1980s.

As an example, let’s say you’re developing a product or service that targets new homeowners. If you were to click on the Homeownership topic, you’d land on a list of reports like this one:

If I were you, that’s not a report I’d want to overlook!

We’ll wrap up today’s guide with a free resource specifically for those of you in the software world. Designed to help buyers determine which products are best suited to their needs, G2 is the leading source of validated, unbiased software reviews.

G2 is, in other words, an excellent way to find out what your target customers are saying about your competitors’ products. Do a quick search for the type of software you’re developing and you’re in business.

If you were developing a sales compensation software product and you searched this keyword, you’d be brought to the page you see below. To learn more about Spiff — one of your top-rated industry competitors — all you’d need to do is click “Read Spiff Reviews.”

If you want to get granular, you can filter reviews in a number of different ways. As an example, let’s say you’re developing a sales compensation software product specifically for small businesses. G2 has the filter you’re looking for:

And just like that, you’ve got access to dozens of valuable insights like this one:

Start using market research tools today!

If you try to bring a product or service to market without an understanding of your target customers, your chances of success are slim. According to the most recent State of Competitive Intelligence Report , 84% of businesses say their industry has gotten more competitive in the last three years. With the range of choices at your prospects’ fingertips growing by the day, the need for a thorough market research strategy only intensifies.

We hope you find these free market research tools and resources useful. And if you decide to make the leap to a paid solution, make sure to request a demo of Crayon — the competitive intelligence platform that enables you to track, analyze, and act on everything happening outside your businesses’ four walls.

See why Gong, Mastercard, and ZoomInfo trust Crayon to help them win more competitive deals.

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The 10 Best Places for (Free!) Market Research

If you’re launching a new product, revamping your recruitment process, or planning a new ad campaign, any good agency will tell you: first, do your research.

Launching a new strategy without doing your research is like setting sail in new waters without a map–costly, lengthy, and probably pointless. You may discover some new areas along the way, but most likely you’ll end up frustrated and far from your goal. However, research can be expensive in both cost and time. How can you get the insights you need without breaking your budget? 

The information you seek is potentially out there–and it may also be free. There are lots of data and reports available, you just have to dig. Here are 10 credible, valuable sites to get you started. Many of these are free resources or offer a no-cost abridged version of more detailed reports that you have to pay for. 

The U.S. Census data is readily available, giving you demographic and economic information that can help you better understand your market. The data breakdown tools on the site are easy to use.

The U.S. Bureau Of Labor Statistics has lots of information on employment, productivity, pay, workplace injuries–really any stats the government collects on labor are available to the public, with handy data tools and reports to help you break it down.

Glassdoor is an excellent resource for competitor information, employee feedback, industry salaries, and more. They also produce reports and studies .

Statista offers reports on just about anything business for purchase, but also provides useful “highlights” for free. 

Pew Research is a nonpartisan think tank that has hundreds of topics with thorough, timely, and digestible studies and reports. 

RAND Corporation , like Pew, is a nonpartisan resource that offers thousands of reports on hundreds of topics. 

Gartner is a personal favorite. Specifically for business and economics studies, Gartner's industry and sales reports are particularly useful for planning. 

McKinsey is another great resource for industry reports. 

Gallup offers insights on workplace and education–particularly useful for higher education and recruitment studies.

Google Trends can run reports on search terms and topics to gauge interest and popularity. You’ll also find topical reports, like “Holiday Shopping Trends 2021."  

As someone who has sifted through site after site, I can tell you that the answers to many of your questions are out there–but we understand even secondary research can be time-consuming. If you are looking for someone to take the reins, LMD can help.

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Each free industry market research report includes over 100 free market research data sets, such as historical and forecasted industry sales, operating expense details, product line breakdown, financial ratios, benchmarks, wages, profitability, organizational analysis, revenue per employee, state statistics, price inflation, consolidation analysis, firm dynamics, pay ranges for different roles, firm size data, employment, and much more. While, each free global market size includes free market data on historical revenues, regional share, growth, and forecasts across 216 countries.

The free industry market research reports are based on comprehensive business and industry surveys, in-depth research, and advanced analytics, forecasting, and econometrics.

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Home Market Research

A complete guide to free market research

Wouldn’t it be nice to know what the majority of your customers are thinking exactly? And what if you get it all free? You’d know what features to add to your next product or service and how much to charge. While there’s no way to know the thoughts of every customer or potential customer, you can use free market research to help you discover what the majority are thinking. 

This guide will walk you through the market research definition, research survey setup, and how to do free market research and analyze the data.

LEARN ABOUT:  Market research industry

Read on to get the information you need for a successful research survey.  

An overview of market research

Before you can conduct a survey or collect responses from your target audience, you should understand the purpose of your research. In general, research is the process of studying a particular problem or concern using scientific methods.  

What is market research?

The market research definition goes beyond general research to specifically study problems or concerns around a brand’s market . It includes analyzing the reputation of competitors, previewing new products with customers, and learning more about the spending habits of customers.

Market exploration includes two types of data :

• Primary information: Data that you collect directly through a market research survey .
• Secondary information: This is data collected by third-parties, including trade groups and reports from government organizations.

Your primary information will either be exploratory or specific, depending on the goals of your study. Exploratory research asks open-ended questions to a small group of respondents to get a general idea of potential problems you need to address. Secondary research seeks to find solutions to individual issues that have already been identified, often from primary market research.

LEARN ABOUT:   Action Research

Why should you do market research?

Understanding the needs of your customers is the best way to increase your sales. If you can create a service or product they need, at a price they’re happy to spend, you set your brand apart from competitors.    

Market research allows you to reach out to customers and discover their needs directly from the source. Use research to help your business:

• Understand gaps in the market to help you develop new products to meet an unfulfilled need.
• Get a better idea of what features and upgrades customers want on your current product offering.
• Estimate the inventory needs of a particular demographic in your market. With accurate demand forecast methods in place, you won’t overproduce or underproduce a product.

LEARN ABOUT:  Test Market Demand

• Learn how your customers feel about your competitors – and how you can use these opinions to tweak your strategy and stay ahead of the competition.  

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Types of market research

Your business can collect primary information in a variety of ways using surveys and questionnaires. You may need to use several research methods to get all of the information you need for actionable insights into your brand’s market.

These methods could include focus groups to interview small groups of customers, one-on-one depth interviews with customers, or online surveys to question a broader audience.

No matter what particular method you use for your research, there are two types of research questions:

• Qualitative research: Qualitative research aims to get an idea of the general opinions of your audience. It seeks to understand how someone feels and why they feel that way. Most qualitative research involves open-ended questions and smaller sample sizes to get a basic understanding of customer opinion.
• Quantitative research: Quantitative research focuses on the collection of structured data. It’s more scientific than qualitative research and uses numerical or statistical facts to conclude. The data from quantitative research can be easily analyzed and developed into actions to improve your business.

LEARN ABOUT: Qualitative Research Questions and Questionnaires

A good research study uses both qualitative and quantitative research to determine the overall feel of customers and gain statistics on how those feelings shape their purchases.  

Setting up a successful research

To get the most out of your free market research study, you need to plan ahead of time. By taking the time to set up your research correctly, you’ll get higher response rates and accurate insights that allow you to take your business to the next level.  

Planning for market research  

Before you send your first free survey or gather your first focus group, you should prepare the most important aspects of your research. Known as a market research plan in simple terms, this is your overall guide to defining the purpose and steps of your research.

A good market research plan helps you and other stakeholders in your business stay focused on the goals and objectives of your current research efforts. To create your research plan, follow these steps:

• Set goals for the research. In this planning stage, the goals can be vague so that they’re flexible. For example, “increase product sales” instead of “sell 500 more units.”
• Create objectives for your research. Similar to your goals, your objectives can be vague as you plan for research. For the example above, you could use “find out who our ideal customer is” or “define the largest and smallest customer demographic groups.”
• Determine every way you can distribute your research survey , such as email surveys or sharing on social media .
• Start thinking of potential questions. In the planning phase, just brainstorm as many questions as you can that could potentially help reach your goal and objectives. You’ll narrow down to specific questions when you create your survey.
• Categorize questions by distribution channel. For example, you might have questions that make more sense for an audience on social media rather than an SMS survey .

This plan will help you be in the right mindset when you’re ready to create your first survey and start gathering information from customers.  

Things to consider before starting your research

There are a few more things to consider after you create your free market research plan, and before you start surveying customers. To get reliable, actionable data from your respondents, remember to:

• Define what you hope to gain from the individual study.
• Learn about your target audience, so you’re connecting with the right customers.
• Know who’s not part of your target audience so you can avoid targeting them.
• Take a look at the competition to see what they do right and wrong, then compare it with your business.
• Get accurate and honest feedback from customers by asking questions that encourage them to tell you if they have an issue so you can fix it.      

How to do free market research using a survey

You’ve finally got the knowledge you need to understand market research and how to create a good questionnaire. It’s time to put your new skills to work and create your first survey.

These steps will help you learn how to do free market research.  

Define your objectives and audience

Before you input a single question, you need to know what you hope to discover from this free survey. Set your marketing research goal by defining a problem faced by you or your customers. The easiest way to determine your research objective is to ask, “Why are we doing this research?” “Who is our target market?”, etc

This question also helps you define the audience for your survey. If you’re hoping to learn about the movie-going habits of young adults, you shouldn’t survey the elderly.  

Determine sample size

The sample size of your survey allows you to get a more or less accurate idea of the opinions of your audience. The larger sample size is usually better for accuracy, so long as you’re surveying the right people. Asking 10,000 doctors questions about being lawyers probably won’t help you much.

On the other hand, you can still get accurate results with a smaller sample by narrowing down your audience to accurately reflect the population. For example, you might want to know more about the energy drinks your customers consume regularly but can only survey 100 people. Make sure each person on your list fits into your desired demographic to help get the most accurate results.  

Create your free survey

Use the skills you learned in designing an effective survey to create yours. You can use a powerful survey creation platform to help you conduct free market research. If you’re having a difficult time creating your questionnaire from scratch, consider using a market research survey template to get started.  

Distribute your survey

Go back to your market research plan and decide which channels make the most sense for your research. For example, assume you’re surveying people about their use of mobile phones. An SMS survey or offline survey using a mobile app might be the best channel.

You can use multiple distribution channels to reach more of your audience. It’s common for people to respond better to different options to take a survey. Even within a targeted audience, you might have someone who prefers an email survey or one who enjoys social media surveys.  

Increasing response rates

Consider offering incentives to increase your survey participation. You could offer an entry into a prize drawing or a discount coupon for those who complete the survey.

If you’re on a budget crunch, survey incentives can even include the results of the completed survey. You might be surprised to see how many people are genuinely curious about how their preferences stack up against those of their peers.

In addition to incentives, many people are more willing to answer a survey if they feel special. Make sure to let your respondents know how you will use the data to help them ultimately. If you’re surveying to improve your software offering, tell respondents you want to design the new products to meet their needs.  

Analyze your data

When you use a survey software platform, your market research results are sent directly to your dashboard. While it’s tempting to get started as soon as the first result of free research comes in, it’s best to wait to analyze the data until all responses are received.

Once you close the survey, you can take advantage of analytical reports on your data. Use your data analysis tools to get a better understanding of your responses. Many online survey platforms give you the tools you need to put together a robust report so you can make decisions based on your data.

Use the market research tools available to create reports with visual elements like graphs and charts. They make the data easier to read. Suppose you have a real estate company, then you are able to analyze your real estate market analysis through this process.  You should be able to export your report to share it with decision-makers and stakeholders in the company.

LEARN ABOUT: Real Estate Surveys

Take action to improve your business

The purpose of market research is to understand your customers’ needs so you can make changes to meet those needs. The final step to conduct free market research is to use your data and unit of analysis to create a plan of action to improve your business, products, and meet customer demands.  

Using surveys for free market research

Online surveys offer one of the most powerful and flexible options to conduct your market research. They’re readily available and cost-effective. Also, the online survey software allows you to reach your audience almost anywhere via text, email, websites, or social media.

In this section, we’ll take a look at how to create an effective survey using customized design and questions that encourage responses.  

Use effective survey design

Your survey needs to be easy to follow and complete. If the questionnaire is hard to read, too long, or confusing, your response rate will decrease. A good survey layout and design should include:

• Consistency and flow: Help guide your respondents through your survey naturally by using a consistent design and a question order that flows. Think of your survey as a conversation, with general questions at the beginning and diving deeper as you go on. The exception to this is personal demographic questions, such as household income, which can be off-putting at the beginning of a survey.
• Define terms: You should always try to avoid industry jargon in your questionnaire. If you do have to use an industry term, be sure to define it clearly at the beginning of the survey to make respondents feel more comfortable. Even without jargon, it’s often a good idea to explain what any terms mean. For example, you could say, “For this survey, the term ‘phone’ refers to any mobile or cellular telephone.”
• Start with industry before narrowing to brand: Ask questions about your industry in general before asking about your brand or how you compare to other brands.
• Consider avoiding branding: A customized survey is a great way to promote brand awareness when surveying customers. However, custom branded surveys don’t always make sense in market research. You want the honest, unbiased opinions of your potential customers, so it’s often better to avoid branding the survey.
• Keep it short: Or rather, keep it as short as possible. It’s easy to make free market research surveys too long. It’s tempting to ask a lot of questions when you have direct access to the thoughts of your customers. A questionnaire that’s too long, however, leaves respondents feeling drained and can lower your response rate as people drop out.  

Tips for writing effective questions

Your survey design is only one part of an effective survey. The questions are the most important aspect of your survey. If respondents have to spend too much time understanding them, they will quit your survey. Thus, all efforts will go in vain if they aren’t simple enough and easy to understand.

Increase your response rates by writing effective questions with these tips:

• Include everyone: Make sure your questions have options for people who don’t fit the specified range. For example, if you have a question about brands of coffee, include an option for those who don’t drink it.
• Randomize answers: The order of your answer options can influence responses. Randomize the display of answers to avoid order bias.
• Keep questions simple: Avoid compounded questions that ask multiple questions in one. Stick to one topic per question, and consider splitting more complex text into various parts.

Balance your range: Market research studies almost always feature questions with answers ranging from positive to negative. Make sure these questions have equal amounts of positive and negative options. For example, you ask the question, “How satisfied are you with the product?” Your answers should include very positive, positive, neutral, negative, and very negative response options.  

QuestionPro – The ideal choice for free market research

QuestionPro offers 88+ essential survey features for free – much more than any other survey software. Some of our exclusive free features are:

Free forever – no credit card required:

You do not need a credit card to use essential functionalities. Also, the basic features are free for a lifetime. Market researchers can use them to collect new ideas, test new concepts, and learn more about consumer choices. Students and academic institutions can use this wide range of features for free market research.

25+ question types:

QuestionPro offers more than 50 basic and advanced question types designed to meet the requirements of market researchers. They can be used to conduct all surveys aimed at collecting feedback, opinions, and experiences. Out of these, 25 question types are absolutely free, more than any other online survey software.

Google sheets integration:

This is the only survey platform to offer an integration with Google sheets for free. We know many students and professionals widely use Google sheets. QuestionPro assists such users with smooth integration of our survey software with Google sheets. It helps them to analyze the results of free market research across many other applications.

LEARN ABOUT: Market research vs marketing research

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If you need any help with surveys and free market research, get in touch with us. We’d be happy to help you.

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The Ultimate Guide to Market Research [+Free Templates]

A comprehensive guide on Market Research with tools, examples of brands winning with research, and templates for surveys, focus groups + presentation template.

Rakefet is the CMO at Mayple. She manages all things marketing and leads our community of experts through live events, workshops, and expert interviews. MBA, 1 dog + 2 cats, and has an extensive collection of Chinese teas.

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Natalie is a content writer and manager who is passionate about using her craft to empower others. She thrives on team dynamic, great coffee, and excellent content. One of these days, she might even get to her own content ideas.

Updated February 26, 2024.

Before you do anything in business you have to have a good grasp of the market. What’s the market like? Who are your competitors? And what are the pain points and challenges of your ideal customer? And how can you solve them? Once you have the answers to those questions then you are ready to move forward with a marketing plan and/or hire a digital marketing agency to execute it.

In this guide we break down what market research is, the different types of market research, and provide you with some of the best templates, tools, and examples, to help you execute it on your own.

Excited to learn?

Let’s dive in.

What is market research?

Market research is the process of gathering information about your target market and customers to determine the success of your product or service, make changes to your existing product, or understand the perception of your brand in the market.

“Research is formalized curiosity, it is poking and prying with a purpose.” - Zora Neale Hurston

We hear the phrase "product-market fit" all the time and that just means that a product solves a customer's need in the market. And it's very hard to get there without proper market research. Now, I know what you're going to say. Why not get actionable insights from your existing customers? Why not do some customer research?

The problem with customer research is two-fold:

• You have a very limited amount of data as your current customers don't represent the entire market.
• Customer research can introduce a lot of bias into the process.

So the real way to solve these issues is by going broader and conducting some market research.

Why do market research?

There are many benefits of doing market research for your company. Here are a few of them:

• Understand how much demand exists in the market, the market size
• Discover who your competitors are and where they are falling short.
• Better understand the needs of your target customers and the problems and pain points your product solves.
• Learn what your potential customers feel about your brand.
• Identify potential partners and new markets and opportunities.
• Determine which product features you should develop next.
• Find out what your ideal customer is thinking and feeling.
• Use these findings to improve your brand strategy and marketing campaigns.

“The goal is to transform data into information, and information into insight.” - Carly Fiorina

Market research allows you to make better business decisions at every stage of your business and helps you launch better products and services for your customers.

Primary vs secondary research

There are two main types of market research - primary and secondary research.

Primary research

Primary market research is when researchers collect information directly, instead of relying on outside sources of information. It could be done through interviews, online surveys, or focus groups and the advantage here is that the company owns that information. The disadvantage of using primary sources of information is that it's usually more expensive and time-consuming than secondary market research.

Secondary research

Secondary market research involves using existing data that is summarized and collected by third parties. Secondary sources could be commercial sources or public sources like libraries, other websites, blogs , government agencies, and existing surveys. It's data that's more readily available and it's usually much cheaper than conducting primary research.

Qualitative vs quantitative research

Qualitative research is about gathering qualitative data like the market sentiment about the products currently available on the market (read: words and meanings). Quantitative research deals with numbers and statistics. It's data that is numbers-based, countable, and measurable.

Types of market research

1. competitive analysis.

Every business needs to know its own strengths and weaknesses and how they compare with its largest competitors in the market. It helps brands identify gaps in the market, develop new products and services, uncover market trends, improve brand positioning , and increase their market share. A SWOT analysis is a good framework to use for this type of research.

2. Consumer insights

It's also equally important to know what consumers are thinking, what the most common problems are and what products they are purchasing. Consumer research can be done through social listening which involves tracking consumer conversations on social media. It could also include analyzing audiences of brands , online communities, and influencers, and analyzing trends in the market.

3. Brand awareness research

Brand awareness is a super important metric for understanding how well your target audience knows your brand. It's used to assess brand performance and the marketing effectiveness of a brand. It tells you about the associations consumers make when they think of your brand and what they believe you're all about.

4. Customer satisfaction research

 Customer satisfaction and loyalty are two really important levers for any business and you don't have to conduct in-depth interviews to get that information. There is a wide range of automated methods to get that kind of data including customer surveys such as NPS surveys, customer effort score (CES) surveys, and regularly asking your customers about their experience with your brand.

5. Customer segmentation research

 Customer segmentation research involves figuring out what buckets consumers fall into based on common characteristics such as - demographics, interests, purchasing behavior, and more. Market segmentation is super helpful for advertising campaigns, product launches, and customer journey mapping.

6. Interviews

Customer interviews are one of the most effective market research methods out there. It's a great way for business owners to get first-party data from their customers and get insights into how they are doing in real time.

7. Focus groups

Focus groups are a great way to get data on a specific demographic. It's one of the most well-known data collection methods and it involves taking a sample size of people and asking them some open-ended questions. It's a great way to get actionable insights from your target market.

8. Pricing research

 Pricing strategy has a huge influence on business growth and it's critical for any business to know how they compare with the leading brands in their niche. It can help you understand what your target customer is willing to pay for your product and at what price you should be selling it.

To start, get automated software to track your competitors' pricing . Then, summarize your research into a report and group the results based on product attributes and other factors. You can use quadrants to make it easier to read visually.

9. Campaign research

It's also important for a brand to research its past marketing campaigns to determine the results and analyze their success. It takes a lot of experimentation to nail the various aspects of a campaign and it's crucial for business leaders to continuously analyze and iterate.

10. Product/service use research

Product or user research gives you an idea of why and how an audience uses a product and gives you data about specific features. Studies show that usability testing is ranked among the most useful ways to discover user insights (8.7 out of 10), above digital analytics and user surveys. So it's a very effective way to measure the usability of a product.

Now that you know the different types of market research let's go through a step-by-step process of setting up your study.

How to conduct a market research study

Looking for your next business idea? Want to check which niche markets are going to be best for it? if it's going to Here's a pretty simple process for conducting

1. Define your buyer persona

The first step in market research is to understand who your buyers are. For that, you need a buyer persona (sometimes called a marketing persona) which is a fictional generalized description of your target customer. You could (and should) have several buyer personas to work with.

Key characteristics to include in your buyer personas are:

• Job title(s)
• Family size
• Major challenges

Now that you've got your customer personas it's time to decide who to work with for your research.

2. Identify the right people to engage with

It's critical that you pick the right group of people to research. This could make or break your market research study. It's important to pick a representative sample that most closely resembles your target customer. That way you'll be able to identify their actual characteristics, challenges, pain points, and buying behavior.

Here are a few strategies that will help you pick the right people:

• Select people who have recently interacted with you
• Pull a list of participants who made a recent purchase
• Call for participants on social media
• Leverage your own network
• Gather a mix of participants
• Offer an incentive (gift card, product access, content upgrades)

3. Pick your data collection method(s)

Here's a quick breakdown of all the different ways you could collect data for your market research study.

Surveys are by far the fastest method of gathering data. You could launch them on your site or send them in an email and automate the whole process. Regular surveys can also help brands improve their customer service so they help kill two birds with one stone.

Interviews take a little longer and require a detailed set of interview questions. Never go into an interview without a clear idea of what you're going to be asking. It's also a little more difficult to schedule time and to get your potential or current customers on the phone or on Zoom.

Focus group

Focus groups are controlled interviews with groups of people led by facilitators. Participants in focus groups are selected based on a set of predetermined criteria such as location, age, social status, income, and more.

Online tracking

Online tracking is done through digital analytics tools like HotJar or Google Analytics. Tracking user behavior on your site gets you an accurate analysis of who your demographic is and what are the types of products or content that they engage with.

The problem here is that you never get to find out the 'why' - the reason behind their behavior - and that's why you need to combine digital analytics with other data collection methods like surveys and usability/product testing.

Marketing analysis

Another great way to collect data is to analyze your marketing campaigns which gives you a great idea of who clicked on your ads, how often, and which device they used. It's a more focused way of using tracking to zero in on a specific marketing campaign.

Social media monitoring

We've talked about this one before. Social monitoring or listening is when you track online conversations on social media platforms. You can use a simple social listening tool to get all the data you need by searching for specific keywords, hashtags, or topics.

Subscription and registration data

Another great way to collect data is to look at your existing audience. That might include your email list, rewards program, or existing customers. Depending on the size of your list, it could give you some broad insights into the type of customers/users you have and what they are most interested in.

Monitoring in-store traffic

Conduct a customer observation session to monitor your actual customers and how they behave in your store (physically or online). Observation is a market research technique where highly-trained market researchers observe how people or consumers interact with products/services in a natural setting.

4. Prepare your research questions

Write down your research questions before you conduct the research. Make sure you cover all the topics that you are trying to gain clarity on and include open-ended questions. The type of questions you use will vary depending on your data collection approach from the last step.

If you're doing a survey or an in-person interview then here are some of the best questions to ask.

The awareness stage

• How did you know that something in this product category could help you?
• Think back to the time you first realized you needed [product category]. What was your challenge?
• How familiar were you with different options on the market?

The consideration stage

• Where did you go to find out the information?
• What was the first thing you did to research potential solutions?
• Did you search on Google? What specifically did you search for? Which keywords did you use?
• Which vendor sites did you visit?
• What did you find helpful? What turned you off?

The decision stage

• Which criteria did you use to compare different vendors?
• What vendors made it to the shortlist and what were the pros/cons of each?
• Who else was involved in the final decision?
• Allow time for further questions on their end.
• Don't forget to thank them for their time and confirm their email/address to receive the incentive you offered

If you noticed, the progression of these questions follows the stages of the buyer's journey which helps you to gain actionable insights into the entire customer experience.

5. List your primary competitors

There are two kinds of competitors - industry competitors and content competitors. Industry competitors compete with you on the actual product or service they sell. Content competitors compete with you in terms of the content they publish - whether that's on specific keywords or they rank higher on topics that you want to be ranked for.

It's important to write a list of all of your competitors and compare their strengths, weaknesses, competitive advantages, and the type of content they publish.

There are different ways to find your competitors. You can look on sites like G2 Crowd and check their industry quadrants.

You could also download a market report from Forrester or Gartner . And you could also search on social media or market research tools like SimilarWeb .

6. Summarize your findings

Now that you've done your research it's time to summarize your findings. Look for common themes in your research and try to present them in the simplest way possible. Use your favorite presentation software to document it and add it to your company database.

Here's a quick research outline you could use:

Background - your goals and why you conducted this study

Participants - who you've talked to. Break down the type of personas and/or customers you've spoken with.

Executive summary - what was the most interesting stuff you've learned? What do you plan to do about it?

Customer journey map - map out the specific motivations and behavioral insights you've gained from each stage of the customer journey (awareness, consideration, and decision).

Action plan - describe what action steps you're going to take to address the issues you've uncovered in your research and how you are going to promote your product/service to your target audience more effectively.

Market research template

Not sure where to begin? Need some templates to help you get started? We got them for you.

1. Market survey template

First and foremost, you need a template to run your market survey. In this template, you will find all the types of questions you should be asking - demographic, product, pricing, and brand questions. They can be used for market surveys, individual interviews, and focus groups.

We also present a variety of question formats for you to use:

• true/false questions
• multiple choice questions
• open response questions

2. SWOT analysis template

A strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis is one of the best ways to do competitor research. It's a really simple analysis. There are four squares and you write down all four of these attributes for each of your competitors.

3. Focus group template

Not sure how to conduct focus groups? Here is a comprehensive template that will help you to take better notes and record your findings during the focus group meeting.

4. Marketing strategy template

The plan of action from your market research should become a vital part of your marketing strategy. We've actually created a marketing strategy template that you could download and use to update your marketing personas, your SWOT analysis, and your marketing channel strategies.

Market research examples

Here are some examples of the good, the bad, and the ugly in market research. Some brands thrive on research and some ignore it completely. Take a look.

McDonald's

McDonald’s sells its food in 97 countries around the world. Their secret? They do a lot of market research before they launch anything. The company uses four key questions in their research process:

• Which products are performing well?
• What prices are most affordable to customers?
• What are consumers reading and watching?
• What content do they consume?
• Which restaurants are most attended, and why?

They also extensively use customer feedback to improve their products. They even put some products up for a vote to see which ones are most loved by their customers.

The iconic coffee brand is valued at almost $30 billion and has over 30,000 coffee shops around the world and part of that success comes from their obsession with customer service. They launched a brilliant idea called “My Starbucks Idea” to try and make the customer feel a part of the journey.

It was an open innovation platform where customers could post their idea for a new coffee drink or food item and if it was good a company representative would actually reach out to them. It had a leaderboard and every year the company would develop some of these ideas.

In 2012, Starbucks launched 73 coffee products from ideas they received from customers. Cake pops and pumpkin spice lattes were born out of this platform, all thanks to market research. Can you imagine a world without pumpkin spice lattes?

For all its innovation Facebook had an epic market research failure. In 2013, Facebook partnered with HTC to launch a smartphone called First. It had Facebook’s interface on its home screen and that was a really jarring change for most people. Instead of taking you to a home screen with your favorite apps, Facebook really took center stage.

To be fair, you could turn it off and get a regular Android home window but that would be missing the entire reason you bought the phone in the first place. So it was a complete mismatch to consumers’ wants and the phone flopped.

Turns out, that nobody wanted to see Facebook when they first opened their phone 😅.

Bloom & Wild

Bloom & Wild is a UK flower delivery brand that was looking for their next campaign. They did some research and found out that people think red roses are cliche and prefer to buy something else as a gift on Valentine’s Day. So the brand chose not to sell roses for Valentine’s Day 2021 and made it into a “No Roses Campaign”.

The results - they saw a 51% increase in press coverage year after year.

Top tools used for market research

Here are some of the top market research and digital analytics tools you should try out for your next research project.

Answer the Public

Answer the public is a free market research tool that helps marketers figure out what questions people ask online. It's really easy to use. You put in a keyword or topic and it spits out a whole variety of questions and subtopics.

Spyfu is a search engine analytics platform that gives you data on where your competitors get their traffic from. It provides info on the kind of both organic traffic and PPC channels down to the specific keywords people used to find each site. It's a great tool to use to map the competitive landscape.

Think with Google

This is an online publication from Google's team where they publish consumer insights from real-time data and their own insights. It uses Google Analytics but presents it to you as a library of information. You can find industry data on a whole array of businesses from educational institutions to counseling services.

Want to do the most extensive market research possible? Use SimilarWeb. It's a competitive analysis and data tool that provides you with literally everything you need.

It has data on:

• Digital marketing data - SEO, traffic, advertising
• Economic trends - economic indicators like annual growth rate, audience, benchmarking
• eCommerce, investing, and even sales data

BuzzSumo is a great tool to use to get actionable insights from social media and content marketing. It aggregates data from various social media channels and shows you the type of content that users engage with and share on their pages.

Typeform is a survey tool that can help you make surveys and fun interactive forms. It's a great tool to use to make your forms more engaging for your audience. The tool has a bunch of easy templates and a ton of integrations to help you visualize that data and share it with your team.

Latana is a brand research tool that helps you understand consumer perception of your brand over time. It helps you answer some key questions about the type of values your customers have, and the type of audiences your competitors are targeting and helps you to focus your campaigns on the right audience for your business.

Statista is one of the most popular consumer data platforms around. It has a wealth of information about consumer markets, business conditions, and industry trends around the world. It's easier to use than most business publications because it aggregates all the data you need in one place. The downside is that it's a little pricy but perfect for teams that have the budget for it.

Dimensions.ai

Dimensions is a search engine for academic publications. It is a great resource if you're looking for deeper insights into things like psychology, micro and macroeconomics, and business trends. A lot of the articles are free to view just make sure you select the " All OA " option which stands for Open Access research.

Otter is an AI-powered transcription software for interviews and meetings. It sits in the background and transcribes your meeting for you and then provides you with a digitized conversation that can be stored, search for specific keywords, and analyzed. It's a great tool to use for doing interviews.

Yelp is a search engine for reviews of local businesses. It's one of the best sources of opinions about a whole variety of products and services. It's a great place to get ideas about the kind of interview questions you want to ask, to find out the pain points of your ideal customer, and to find deeper insights into your target audience.

You have to conduct your market research regularly if you want to see significant results. Try the different methods that we’ve outlined, see what works for you, and remember to keep your team’s focus on the customer. The more knowledgeable they are of your target customer’s needs and wants the better your targeting and marketing strategy will be.

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Complete List of Free Market Research Tools & Resources

Looking for a comprehensive list of free market research tools and resources? You’ve come to the right place! To help you improve your market research process, we've provided a handy list featuring some of the free public sites that our  smart technology  uses to curate gold nuggets of intelligence on your market and competitors.

Don't have time to scour all of these resources daily to uncover key competitor insights? Click here  to learn more about how we use these and thousands of other online sources to curate actionable intelligence briefings for companies just like yours every single day. 

American FactFinder

Cori Contract Library

CORI is a digital library of contract information that contains over 690,000 contract items. Their results contain both executed contracts and contract forms for specific industries. Registration is required, but the service is free.

Free Patents Online (FPO)

Google Trends

Compare search volume patterns for various keywords and filter results by date, categories, and regions to view trending data. Google Trends also displays key headlines as points of reference on the trending graph.

Nielsen - MyBestSegments

Pew Research Center

The Pew Research Center has several free resources with advanced search filters that market researchers can use to better understand target markets. They provide invaluable consumer insights on everything from political sentiments and economics, to social media trends and more. 

A question and answer website where market researchers can go to gather real-time data on general consumer needs, market trends, target audience insights and competitors. 

SEC Public Filings

Seeking Alpha

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A statistics website that offers free and paid access to more than 60k topics from 21 market segments. Statista provides insights on business, media, financials, consumer behavior and more. 

Think with Google

In addition to monitoring search trends, Google also provides a free marketing resource with consumer insight reports, marketing trend data, emerging technology, advertising campaigns and more. 

Database of industrial manufacturers, distributors, and service providers. View product catalogs, related white papers, and recent web results for product/service categories. ThomasNet also provides free RFP and Contract Manager tools.

Trendwatching

Trend reports on emerging consumer trends occurring around the globe. Releases monthly briefings based on data collected by a global network of hundreds of individual spotters for accurate trend forecasting. Paid subscriptions available.

US Copyright Catalog

Search copyright documents pertaining to books, music, art, periodicals, and any other works published since 1978. Tools are available to determine the copyright status of existing works and obtain copies of copyright documents. Copyright data regarding works published prior to 1978 are also available through this office, but not online.

Wayback Machine

WayBack Machine allows you to view the changes made to a website over time. Its archive contains 150 billion webpages that date back to 1996. Helps identify trends and patterns evidenced by the evolution of your competitor's websites.

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9 Excellent Free Market Research Tools

15 January 2015, Jonathan Saipe

There are now a plethora of online market research tools, many of which are free, or offer free and paid-for access. Whilst this isn’t an exhaustive list, we’ve suggested 9 great tools that publish market data, insight and intelligence – ideal if you’re a researcher, planner or marketer.

Whilst access to some of the data available on Statista.com is free, given the exclusivity and specificity of many statistics, a premium account is required to access much of the platform.

StatCounter Global Stats is provided by StatCounter – the free, online visitor stats tool. It publishes technical data, such as browser and operating system usage, and screen resolutions, for desktops, mobiles, tablets and consoles, across all countries.

Stats provided are based on aggregate data collected via more than 15 billion page views per month across the StatCounter network of more than 3 million websites.

Google’s Public Data explorer publishes animated charts and maps of public datasets including economic, social, health and population data. After a little getting used to, you will find data easy to explore and visualise. And as the charts animate over time, changes in world behaviour become easier to understand.

When setting up an ad campaign, you can segment your audience, at which point Facebook will publish the potential audience size, allowing you to evaluate marketing potential. This part of the process is free and you are not obliged to make your campaign(s) live.

LinkedIn’s ad programme allows marketers and researchers to access LinkedIn’s user data free of charge. With its focus on professionals, you will have access to a range of information including company categories, sizes or specific names, job titles or job categories by country or city. LinkedIn will publish your potential reach when you go through the process of setting up an ad campaign. As with Facebook, you are not obliged to make the ad campaign live at this point.

Worldometers is run by an international team of developers and researchers, publishing world statistics. It was voted as one of the best free reference websites by the American Library Association (ALA), and was chosen as content provider at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), BBC News, and the National Media Museum (UK) among others.

Whilst it doesn’t allow segmentation of data, its country specific data is a valuable resource. And the real-time data found of its home page is both fascinating and shocking! Go take a look.

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Market Research Kit

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What's Inside Your Market Research Kit?

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Need help planning your next round of market research?

There are more than 24 million businesses in the United States alone, meaning that no matter what industry you do business in, there's likely a lot of competition. What's a company like yours to do in order to stand out?

The most effective ways to learn more about your customers, industry, and competition is to do thorough market research – diligent research to help you develop pricing strategies, understand your target market, and strengthen a business. 

In this kit, we'll equip you with the necessary templates to conduct market research at every turn – from competitive analysis to understanding your prospective buyers. Whether you're an emerging business or an existing one, this kit is for you. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is a market research analysis.

Market research analysis is the process of collecting and examining the data to decide whether there is a viable business opportunity with a certain product or service. To get started on market research analysis, download HubSpot's Free Market Research Kit.

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How do you write a market research document?

A market research report often includes a SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threats) analysis and Porter's Five Forces Industry Analysis. By using HubSpot's Five Forces Industry Analysis Template you can describe your buyers, suppliers, competitors, future competitors, and industry substitutes in your market research report. The SWOT analysis highlights how your business can compete in the market.

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Just sharing some free knowledge that we hope you’ll find useful. Keep us in mind next time you have marketing questions!

What should be included in market research?

Market research should at a minimum address several factors:

• Industry & Market Factors. Find out the market size and trends, the regulations, gaps in the market, market demographics, etc.
• Buyer Profile. This will include age, gender, race, income level, lifestyle trends, needs, and attitudes.
• Competitor Research. Look at pricing structures, market share, marketing & branding. HubSpot's Free Market Research Kit includes an Industry Analysis template to kickstart your market research.

What are the 4 types of market research?

• Surveys. These may be brand awareness surveys, customer satisfaction surveys, product market research surveys, or competition research surveys
• Focus groups. Great for uncovering qualitative market research data.
• Polls. Polls are great for sentiment and engagement, but may lack scientific rigor.
• Interviews add a lot of depth to your market research.

What are the 7 steps in marketing research?

• Define the problem
• State your goals
• Plan the research
• Collect the data (using HubSpot's Market Research Kit)
• Analyze the data
• Formulate the results
• Prepare and format the report

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Market Research: A How-To Guide and Template

Discover the different types of market research, how to conduct your own market research, and use a free template to help you along the way.

MARKET RESEARCH KIT

5 Research and Planning Templates + a Free Guide on How to Use Them in Your Market Research

Updated: 02/21/24

Published: 02/21/24

Today's consumers have a lot of power. As a business, you must have a deep understanding of who your buyers are and what influences their purchase decisions.

Enter: Market Research.

Whether you're new to market research or not, I created this guide to help you conduct a thorough study of your market, target audience, competition, and more. Let’s dive in.

Table of Contents

What is market research?

Primary vs. secondary research, types of market research, how to do market research, market research report template, market research examples.

Market research is the process of gathering information about your target market and customers to verify the success of a new product, help your team iterate on an existing product, or understand brand perception to ensure your team is effectively communicating your company's value effectively.

Market research can answer various questions about the state of an industry. But if you ask me, it's hardly a crystal ball that marketers can rely on for insights on their customers.

Market researchers investigate several areas of the market, and it can take weeks or even months to paint an accurate picture of the business landscape.

However, researching just one of those areas can make you more intuitive to who your buyers are and how to deliver value that no other business is offering them right now.

How? Consider these two things:

• Your competitors also have experienced individuals in the industry and a customer base. It‘s very possible that your immediate resources are, in many ways, equal to those of your competition’s immediate resources. Seeking a larger sample size for answers can provide a better edge.
• Your customers don't represent the attitudes of an entire market. They represent the attitudes of the part of the market that is already drawn to your brand.

The market research services market is growing rapidly, which signifies a strong interest in market research as we enter 2024. The market is expected to grow from roughly $75 billion in 2021 to $90.79 billion in 2025 .

Free Market Research Kit

• SWOT Analysis Template
• Survey Template
• Focus Group Template

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Why do market research?

Market research allows you to meet your buyer where they are.

As our world becomes louder and demands more of our attention, this proves invaluable.

By understanding your buyer's problems, pain points, and desired solutions, you can aptly craft your product or service to naturally appeal to them.

Market research also provides insight into the following:

• Where your target audience and current customers conduct their product or service research
• Which of your competitors your target audience looks to for information, options, or purchases
• What's trending in your industry and in the eyes of your buyer
• Who makes up your market and what their challenges are
• What influences purchases and conversions among your target audience
• Consumer attitudes about a particular topic, pain, product, or brand
• Whether there‘s demand for the business initiatives you’re investing in
• Unaddressed or underserved customer needs that can be flipped into selling opportunity
• Attitudes about pricing for a particular product or service

Ultimately, market research allows you to get information from a larger sample size of your target audience, eliminating bias and assumptions so that you can get to the heart of consumer attitudes.

As a result, you can make better business decisions.

To give you an idea of how extensive market research can get , consider that it can either be qualitative or quantitative in nature — depending on the studies you conduct and what you're trying to learn about your industry.

Qualitative research is concerned with public opinion, and explores how the market feels about the products currently available in that market.

Quantitative research is concerned with data, and looks for relevant trends in the information that's gathered from public records.

That said, there are two main types of market research that your business can conduct to collect actionable information on your products: primary research and secondary research.

Primary Research

Primary research is the pursuit of first-hand information about your market and the customers within your market.

It's useful when segmenting your market and establishing your buyer personas.

Primary market research tends to fall into one of two buckets:

• Exploratory Primary Research: This kind of primary market research normally takes place as a first step — before any specific research has been performed — and may involve open-ended interviews or surveys with small numbers of people.
• Specific Primary Research: This type of research often follows exploratory research. In specific research, you take a smaller or more precise segment of your audience and ask questions aimed at solving a suspected problem.

Secondary Research

Secondary research is all the data and public records you have at your disposal to draw conclusions from (e.g. trend reports, market statistics, industry content, and sales data you already have on your business).

Secondary research is particularly useful for analyzing your competitors . The main buckets your secondary market research will fall into include:

• Public Sources: These sources are your first and most-accessible layer of material when conducting secondary market research. They're often free to find and review — like government statistics (e.g., from the U.S. Census Bureau ).
• Commercial Sources: These sources often come in the form of pay-to-access market reports, consisting of industry insight compiled by a research agency like Pew , Gartner , or Forrester .
• Internal Sources: This is the market data your organization already has like average revenue per sale, customer retention rates, and other historical data that can help you draw conclusions on buyer needs.
• Focus Groups
• Product/ Service Use Research
• Observation-Based Research
• Buyer Persona Research
• Market Segmentation Research
• Pricing Research
• Competitive Analysis Research
• Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Research
• Brand Awareness Research
• Campaign Research

1. Interviews

Interviews allow for face-to-face discussions so you can allow for a natural flow of conversation. Your interviewees can answer questions about themselves to help you design your buyer personas and shape your entire marketing strategy.

2. Focus Groups

Focus groups provide you with a handful of carefully-selected people that can test out your product and provide feedback. This type of market research can give you ideas for product differentiation.

3. Product/Service Use Research

Product or service use research offers insight into how and why your audience uses your product or service. This type of market research also gives you an idea of the product or service's usability for your target audience.

4. Observation-Based Research

Observation-based research allows you to sit back and watch the ways in which your target audience members go about using your product or service, what works well in terms of UX , and which aspects of it could be improved.

5. Buyer Persona Research

Buyer persona research gives you a realistic look at who makes up your target audience, what their challenges are, why they want your product or service, and what they need from your business or brand.

6. Market Segmentation Research

Market segmentation research allows you to categorize your target audience into different groups (or segments) based on specific and defining characteristics. This way, you can determine effective ways to meet their needs.

7. Pricing Research

Pricing research helps you define your pricing strategy . It gives you an idea of what similar products or services in your market sell for and what your target audience is willing to pay.

8. Competitive Analysis

Competitive analyses give you a deep understanding of the competition in your market and industry. You can learn about what's doing well in your industry and how you can separate yourself from the competition .

9. Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Research

Customer satisfaction and loyalty research gives you a look into how you can get current customers to return for more business and what will motivate them to do so (e.g., loyalty programs , rewards, remarkable customer service).

10. Brand Awareness Research

Brand awareness research tells you what your target audience knows about and recognizes from your brand. It tells you about the associations people make when they think about your business.

11. Campaign Research

Campaign research entails looking into your past campaigns and analyzing their success among your target audience and current customers. The goal is to use these learnings to inform future campaigns.

• Define your buyer persona.
• Identify a persona group to engage.
• Prepare research questions for your market research participants.
• List your primary competitors.
• Summarize your findings.

1. Define your buyer persona.

You have to understand who your customers are and how customers in your industry make buying decisions.

This is where your buyer personas come in handy. Buyer personas — sometimes referred to as marketing personas — are fictional, generalized representations of your ideal customers.

Use a free tool to create a buyer persona that your entire company can use to market, sell, and serve better.

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6 Free Market Research Templates to Help Win Your Market

Market research templates save time and give clarity about what should and shouldn’t be included in any type of market research .

These days, doing regular market research is key. Particularly given how quickly consumer behaviors shift and companies change tactics to keep up with the ever-growing number of competitors in their industry.

In this post, I’m sharing six market research report templates to give you a head start and help steer your analysis in the right direction from the onset.

What is a market research template?

Market research templates provide questions and specific fields to fill out – relevant to specified market research objectives. You can add or remove fields according to what’s relevant to your market and research goal. It provides a framework to develop your own research methodology if you don’t want to go full-scale with a research firm.

What are the advantages of using market research templates?

There are many ways market research templates benefit organizations of any size.

• It costs less than hiring an external market research firm.
• Completion is often quicker because pre-set fields guide your research.
• Little to no professional training is required to complete a template.
• Templates can be easily shared with other business units.
• Files can be easily updated internally in the future.
• Research Intelligence tools like Similarweb make it much easier to access market research data than ever before.
• Using a template enables you to stay focused and organized.

Doing market research with a template can help you generate results faster than any agency can deliver. You set your priorities and start collecting information without untimely back-and-forth correspondence. This is particularly valuable for online companies in markets that develop and change quickly. You need real-time data to improve your results, so time is always of the essence.

In addition to time, you also save costs. Comprehensive market research usually demands additional financial resources. By using shareable templates, you can involve relevant internal business units at minimal extra cost.

This presents another advantage: You own your information. You can come back to the files, reuse, update, and compare whenever it’s relevant. This is particularly useful in the dynamic world of online business because you’ll want to research the market repeatedly to detect and adapt to changes.

What are market research templates used for?

Most types of market research templates provide a robust framework that steers market research efforts in the right direction. When we consider the “journeys” a market research report template can help with – most use cases aren’t merely one-time research projects but should include periodic monitoring and analysis.

• Assess your brand’s strength and influential power. Evaluate your market share , and measure which percentage of the market you reach and sell to.
• Launch a new product or enter a new market . Get to know the territory and the key players to avoid unnecessary risks and recognize new opportunities.
• Identify and keep tabs on your top competitors. Be aware of your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses to align your strategic planning.
• Understand your target audience. If you truly want people to resonate with your product or service, you need to take the time to get to know them, their interests, pain points, likes, and dislikes.
• Innovate your business model. Before applying changes to products or business strategies, understand user demand and need shifts.
• Drive more sales. Optimize product placement by identifying your product’s uniqueness and the specific value to boost your marketing campaigns.
• Fine-tune your digital advertising and analytics. Find and optimize the marketing channels and keywords with the highest potential and lowest competition .
• Find and follow emerging trends. Detect changes in the market development early and use them to your advantage.

Five things to do before using a market research analysis template

As you’ll soon discover, there are lots of tools and resources at your disposal – and you won’t need all of them to reach your goal. Your choices should depend on the goal of your research, something you’ll need to clarify before you start to use any type of market research report template.

Take a little time to do the following pre-planning steps 1-3 before you use any template in your research.

• Define the reason for your research and its goals.
• Identify the most suitable research types and methods.
• Prepare the materials you need to conduct the research, i.e., templates, tools, and market research questions ; then delegate responsibilities if applicable.
• Identify your market’s characteristics.
• Define your target audience and segments.
• Consider both qualitative and quantitative data points.
• Decide whether to use primary research, secondary research , or a mixture of both.
• Google Analytics vs. Similarweb
• Free online sources and tools
• Advanced competitor analysis
• Summarize your findings in a template and start to analyze.

Get a step-by-step roadmap for easy and comprehensive market research in our guide – Market Research: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How To Get It Right .

Types of market research templates

In this next section, I’m sharing the most important types of market research templates you need to fulfil your research goals. I’ll cover what each is and how a template can help with the research. In the final section of this post, I’ll share the quickest way to find the data you need to complete your template.

SWOT analysis template

Many of you will have heard of or used a SWOT analysis framework before. It’s a tried and trusted tool that helps organizations and individuals uncover the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of their business and the competition. A template gives you pre-set fields to consider and complete, helping you know the essential metrics. Once complete, it shows a range of factors relevant to your business and market that can help you adapt for growth.

Use this type of market research analysis template to review your business, along with each of your competitors – analysis of the top four rivals is enough, but you might want to extend this up to eight. This market analysis template provides key questions to answer in each section to help guide your responses.

Market sizing template

Using a market analysis template shows you exactly how to do market sizing correctly. What’s more, it can ensure others within your organization are clear about how the figures have been calculated and provide a consistent and transparent framework for repeating the process in the future.

Use this simple market research template to get the formulas for the total addressable market (TAM), serviceable addressable market (SAM), and serviceable obtainable market (SOM).

Competitive analysis framework template

Pick between 2-4 direct and indirect competitors , then compile the same data and information about each. Start with company research, then customer research, and add information about products and marketing strategies to build the ultimate competitive framework. Collecting the same data points gives you a straightforward comparison and clear picture of the competitive landscape .

This market analysis template covers both B2C and B2B markets. It gives you a detailed framework that helps you map company, customer, product, go-to-market, and marketing channels for your business, and that of your rivals.

Further reading: this post covers seven different types of Competitive Analysis Frameworks that can be used for this form of market research.

Use this market research template for a business plan or as a base document to do regular checks on the state of the competitive landscape.

Trend analysis template

Completing regular market trend analysis is vital – particularly given how fast consumer behavior and markets change. Sure, you can set up news alerts and keep an ear close to the ground, but this is not necessarily the most effective way to future-proof a business and stay ahead of the curve. Rather, it’s a slow and unreliable way to access the intel you need, not just to survive but to flourish.

Early detection of fluctuations, shifts, and changes is key; and a trend analysis template, when done periodically, can help you quickly identify and prepare your business to react.

This market trend analysis template is designed specifically for those operating in the B2B space. It clearly guides you through industry research, historical competitive data, desktop vs. mobile trends , and seasonal keyword research ; each of which can help you discover market-specific trends effectively.

Further reading: Trendspotting: Why All the Market Leaders Are Doing It

Buyer persona template

Define the customer who would benefit most from your product or service. Based on what you’ve learned about consumers and your target market , characterize your ideal customer. Who are they, what are their pain points, and how can you help them?

This template shows you exactly what kind of data to include when you build a new buyer person. We’ve completed an example for you as a guide; but also given you empty slides you can fill-in yourself for your own business and market.

Further reading: How to Create Buyer Personas That Boost Conversions

Audience analysis template

An Audience analysis looks at a group of people in much the same way you examine your current customers. It can help you discover how to turn more of your audience into paying customers by segmenting visitor and behavioral characteristics.

This market analysis template will guide you through the different types of data you should collect from both your own and your rival’s channels. It takes into account various characteristics of company, product, purchase, consumers, interests, and more to help you form a clear and comprehensive view of your target audience.

It’s split into three tabs, each covering B2B, transactional, and informative businesses separately.

Further reading: If this is your first time doing audience analysis, read this guide to understand what a target audience is and how to analyze it .

Get started with all the free market research templates you need to succeed!

How to use Similarweb to help with market research templates

Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence can help you complete almost any market research project quickly and effectively. One of the most-cited reasons people choose tools like Similarweb is due to the accuracy and timeliness of data. Unlike other forms of market research, like secondary research; Similarweb’s information is always the most up-to-date there is.

• Benchmarking tool : Accelerate your new digital strategy and learn how you stack up against the competition and market leaders.
• Market research tool : Analyze market trends in near-real time so that you can take action when it matters most, not a quarter later.
• Company research : Take a closer look at any company’s digital performance and expose your competitor’s digital strategies.
• Audience analysis tool : Engage more deeply with your audience, explore new audience segments and expand your reach.
• Customer journey analytics : Understand your customers and explore bottom-of-the-funnel metrics to discover what makes them convert.
• Mobile app intelligence : See the impact of mobile apps in your market: spot trends and emerging players.

Wrapping up…..

Good market research shouldn’t have to take an age; but as a task that requires careful planning, meticulous attention, and focus – even with the best tools, you’ve got to know the right questions to ask, and the best places to uncover the best intel.

Using market research templates will save significant time in the market research process while providing a clear and comprehensive set of guidelines that can be easily replicated or revisited in the future.

Market analysis templates allow for consistency and provide a clear framework that allows the inexperienced market researcher to do the task with ease.

Use these templates to jumpstart your research efforts and make strategic decisions more effectively, and in a more informed way.

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What is the importance of market research?

Market research is important because you can’t succeed if you’re not aware of market conditions, potential obstacles, purported budget, and how to market your products effectively.

How do you write a market research document?

The simplest way to write a market research document is to obtain a free market research template to guide your content. It can prompt you with the right questions to ask, and shape research efforts and outcomes effectively.

Which type of market research should I use?

To employ a highly effective market research strategy, you should combine the two methods. We advise you to use secondary research as a preparation for your primary research.

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Researching your industry and market is integral to successful business plan research. Industry & market research reports found on commercial databases give insight into:

To learn more, check out the  Getting To Know Your Industry  video tutorial on the  Small Business Accelerator.  The purpose of the tutorial is to interactively help you become familiar with market research basics and guide you to find credible sources to inform your industry analysis.

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• Financial Performance Data Financial Performance Data provides access to more than 1000 industries across Canada, including more than 30 performance benchmarks to help small businesses determine how they measure up to their competitors.
• RBC Economics Research Economic indicators, current analysis reports.

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• Bureau of Labor Statistics on Employment Provides statistics on subjects such as occupational employment and wages, labor demand and turnover, and the dynamic state of the labor market.
• Consumer Price Index Measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by U.S. urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services
• County Business Patterns Annual series that provides subnational economic data by industry. This series includes the number of establishments, employment during the week of March 12, first quarter payroll, and annual payroll. This data is useful for studying the economic activity of small areas; analyzing economic changes over time; and as a benchmark for other statistical series, surveys, and databases between economic censuses.
• Millie A structured series of industry-specific dashboards, making it easy to find useful information in a self-service environment. Industries covered by Millie include information technology, life sciences, healthcare, financial services, energy, agribusiness, chemical, and food and beverage.
• North American Industry Classification System Access to the latest manual which explains the standard used by Federal statistical agencies in classifying business establishments for the purpose of collecting, analyzing, and publishing statistical data related to the U.S. business economy.
• SBA Office of Entrepreneurship Education Resources Contains a variety of market research analysis tools, resources, and reports that provide information useful for learning about customer statistics, product production, economic factors, and data.
• U.S. Census Data Tools Tools and free industry research reports that help you gain insight into demographics and geographic locations of populations of your target market
• USA Trade® Online Dynamic data tool that gives users access to current and cumulative U.S. export and import data. Manufacturers and other businesses wishing to expand their business globally can utilize USA Trade® Online to identify new markets, evaluate existing markets, and perform other market research tasks. Requires signing up for a free account.
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Salience market reports are free downloadable PDFs packed with market research, industry analysis and digital trends across over 50 different market verticals, mostly within retail and finance.

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Market research templates: what they are and how to use them.

18 min read Interested in market research but need some templates to start with? In this guide, we unpack market research, survey planning best practice and share some of our best templates for brand, customer, product and employee research.

What is a market research template?

While you’re no doubt familiar with the concept of market research and how it can help you to reach your target audiences and improve your product or service , the real challenge is designing a market research plan that is conducive to excellent results.

All of this starts with the right market research template(s) to help you analyze specific target audiences, collect the right data and uncover insights that can drive actionable change.

In this article, we’re going to:

• talk about market research and its use cases,
• provide you with a standard template that allows you to plan your research,
• and share several other templates to help you with specific types of market research

You can also check out our free template library.

But first, let’s revisit market research.

What is market research?

Market research is the process of determining the viability of a new service or product through surveys and questionnaires with prospects and/or customers. It involves gathering information about market needs and prospect/customer preferences .

Through market research, you can discover and/or refine your target market, get opinions and feedback on what you provide to them and uncover further prospect/customer pain points and expectations of your service or product .

Market research can be conducted in-house, either by you and your research team, or through a third-party company that specializes in it (they will typically have their own research panels or be capable of creating a research panel to suit your requirements).

The four common types of market research

There are lots of different ways to conduct market research to collect customer data and feedback , test product concepts , and do brand research, but the four most common are:

The most commonly used form of market research, surveys are a form of qualitative research that asks respondents a series of open or closed-ended questions , delivered either as an on-screen questionnaire or email.

Surveys are incredibly popular because they’re cheap, easy to produce, and can capture data very quickly, leading to faster insights.

2) Focus groups

Why not bring together a carefully selected group of people in your target market using focus groups? Though more expensive and complex than surveys and interviews, focus groups can offer deeper insight into prospect and customer behavior – from how users experience your products and services to what marketing messages really resonate with them.

Of course, as a market research method that’s reliant on a moderator to steer conversation, it can be subject to bias (as different moderators might have preferred questions or be more forceful) and if you cut corners (not asking all the necessary questions or making assumptions based on responses), the data could get skewed.

3) Observation

As if you were a fly-on-the-wall, the observation market research method can be incredibly powerful. Rather than interviewing or surveying users, you simply take notes while someone from your target market/target audience engages with your product . How are they using it? What are they struggling with? Do they look as though they have concerns?

Observing your target audience/target market in this fashion is a great alternative to the other more traditional methods on this list. It’s less expensive and far more natural as it isn’t guided by a moderator or a predefined set of questions. The only issue is that you can’t get feedback directly from the mouth of the user, so it’s worth combining this type of research with interviews, surveys, and/or focus groups.

4) Interviews

Interviews allow for face-to-face discussions (both in-person and virtually), allowing for more natural conversations with participants.

For gleaning deeper insights (especially with non-verbal cues giving greater weight to opinions), there’s nothing better than face-to-face interviews. Any kind of interview will provide excellent information, helping you to better understand your prospects and target audience/target market.

Use cases for market research

When you want to understand your prospects and/or customers, but have no existing data to set a benchmark – or want to improve your products and services quickly – market research is often the go-to.

Market research (as mentioned above), helps you to discover how prospects and customers feel about your products and services, as well as what they would like to see .

But there are more use cases and benefits to market research than the above.

Reduce risk of product and business failure

With any new venture, there’s no guarantee that the new idea will be successful. As such, it’s up to you to establish the market’s appetite for your product or service. The easiest way to do this is through market research – you can understand the challenges prospects face and quickly identify where you can help. With the data from your market survey, you can then create a solution that addresses the needs and expectations of would-be customers.

Forecast future trends

Market research doesn’t just help you to understand the current market – it also helps you to forecast future needs. As you conduct your research and analyze the findings, you can identify trends – for example, how brands and businesses are adopting new technology to improve customer experiences or how sustainability is becoming a core focus for packaging. Whatever it is you’re looking to understand about the future of business in your market, comprehensive market research can help you to identify it.

Stay ahead of the competition

Understanding your market and what prospects and customers want from you will help to keep you ahead of the competition . The fact is that the top businesses frequently invest in market research to get an edge, and those that don’t tap into the insights of their audience are missing low-hanging fruit.

As well as helping you to stay in front, you can also use market research to identify gaps in the market, e.g. your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses . Just have participants answer questions about competitor products/services – or even use the products/services – and work out how you can refine your offerings to address these issues.

Plan more strategically

What’s the foundation of your business strategy? If it’s based on evidence, e.g. what people expect of your products and services, it’ll be much easier to deliver something that works. Rather than making assumptions about what you should do, market research gives you a clear, concrete understanding of what people want to see.

Check out our guide to market research for a more comprehensive breakdown.

How do you write a market research plan/template?

A market research plan is very similar to a brief in that it documents the most vital information and steps about your project. Consider it a blueprint that outlines your main objective (summary), key questions and outcomes, target audience and size, your timeline, budget, and other key variables.

Let’s talk about them in more detail.

Elements of a great market research plan

1) overview or summary.

Use the first section of your market research plan to outline the background to the problem that you are attempting to solve (this is usually your problem statement or problem question). Include background information on the study’s purpose and the business to provide context to those who would read the report, as well as the need for the research. Keep the overview simple and concise; focus on the most salient elements.

2) Objectives

What is it that you hope to achieve with this survey? Your objectives are the most important part of the survey. Make sure to list 3-5 of the decisions or initiatives that the research will influence.

For example:

Understand the most-used channels for customer engagement and purchasing to decide where to prioritize marketing and sales budget in Q1 2022. Determine what’s causing customer churn at the later stages of the buyer journey and implement a new retention and sales strategy to address it.

Your objectives should be smart, that is: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.

3) Deliverables (or outcomes)

This section should focus on what you expect to have at the end of the project. How many responses are you looking for? How will the data be presented? Who will the data be shared with? (Stakeholders, executives) What are your next steps? Make sure you state how you will collect and analyze the data once it’s available.

Products such as Qualtrics CoreXM make this process fast and incredibly easy to do, drastically reducing the time to insights so you can make more meaningful changes, faster.

4) Target audience

Not to be confused with your market research sample, your target audience represents who you want to research. Of course, your sample may include ideal buyers from your target audience. Here you want to define the main variables or factors of your audience: demographic , age, location , product interaction, experience, and so on. It’s worth building out your buyer personas (if you haven’t already) and including a quick breakdown of them here.

5) Sample plan

How many participants do you want to research and what kind of groups do you want to reach? Depending on these two variables, you may have to use qualitative, quantitative , or multi-method approaches.

6) Research methods

What methods will you use in your market research project? The insights (and the granularity of those insights) will depend on the methods and tools you choose. For example, and as mentioned earlier, surveys are often the go-to for many organizations as they’re affordable and straightforward, but if you want to get more personal views from your respondents, one-to-one interviews might be more applicable. You might even want to take a hands-off approach and simply observe participants as they use your products, or try a combination of research methods. Make sure to outline what methods you will use as part of your research plan.

7) Timeline

How long will your research project run? It’s worth putting together a Gantt chart to highlight key milestones in the project, along with dependencies, and to break down tasks as much as possible. Schedule in contingency time in case some tasks or research runs over – or you need more responses.

Set a budget for the overall program and list it in your plan. Though this might be the most difficult aspect of any research plan, it helps you to be more strategic about tasks and hold people accountable at each stage of the process. If costs go over, that’s good to know for future market research. If costs are lower than anticipated, you then have the opportunity to do further research or prop up other areas of the study.

9) Ethical concerns or conflicts of interest

One of the most important parts of your market research plan, you should highlight any ethical concerns. To begin with, it’s your duty to state whether or not responses will be kept confidential and anonymous as part of the study. It’s also important to allow participants to remain anonymous and ensure you protect their privacy at all times.

Another issue to consider is stereotyping. Any analysis of real populations needs to make approximations and place individuals into groups, but if conducted irresponsibly, stereotyping can lead to undesirable results.

Lastly, conflicts of interest – it may be that researchers have interests in the outcome of the project that lead to a personal advantage that might compromise the integrity of your market research project. You should clearly state in your market research report that any potential conflicts of interest are highlighted and addressed before continuing.

But I want a faster solution!

Well, there’s a quicker and far easier way to do all of the above and get the data you need – just use a market research survey template. In our next section, we’re going to share a whole list of templates that you can use.

Free market research survey templates

No matter what kind of research you want to conduct, we have templates that will remove the complexity of the task and empower you to get more from your data. Below we’ve compiled a list of templates for four key experience areas: Brand , Customer , Employee , and Product .

All of our research templates are free. All you need to do is sign up for a free Qualtrics account to access them.

Brand experience market research templates:

• Logo testing : Collect feedback to help you evaluate and iterate on your logo designs and concepts
• Brand awareness : Track the level of brand awareness in your target market, including current and potential future customers
• Ad testing : Evaluate your consumers’ reaction to an advertisement so you know which campaigns to deploy before you invest
• A/B testing : Quickly and easily compare to versions or options in a study, whether it’s a design, headline, color palette or a mock-up of your latest ad campaign

Customer experience market research templates

• Student satisfaction : Gather feedback on how your institution is delivering on the student experience
• Net promoter score (NPS) : Measure customer loyalty and understand how they feel about your product or service using one of the world’s best-recognized metrics
• Customer satisfaction : Evaluate how satisfied your customers are with your company, including the products and services you provide, and how they are treated when they buy from you
• Customer service : Gain insights into the contact center experience, so you can achieve and maintain optimum levels of customer experience (CX) performance
• Event feedback : Measure the effectiveness of your events and how well they meet attendee expectations so that you can continuously improve your offering
• IT help desk : Understand how satisfied your employees and customers are with your IT help desk experience
• Website suggestion box : Collect visitor feedback on how your website can be improved
• Website satisfaction : Find out how satisfied visitors are with your website’s design, usability, and performance
• Store purchase feedback : Capture customer experience data at the point of purchase to help you improve the in-store experience
• Online purchase feedback : Find out how well your online shopping experience performs against customer needs and expectations

Employee experience market research templates

• Employee satisfaction : Get an overview of your current employee experience
• Manager feedback : Improve your skills as a leader with valuable feedback from your team
• Employee engagement : Find out how employees find the current experience at your workplace with this entry-level engagement survey
• Employee exit interview : Understand why your employees are leaving and how they’ll speak about your company once they’re gone with this survey template
• Employee onboarding : Improve your onboarding program by understanding what’s working and what’s not
• Team event planning : Collect inputs from employees to plan a team event that works for everyone
• Meeting feedback : Check-in with team members after a meeting to see how well your company is running and what improvements can be made
• Interview feedback : Improve your candidate experience by gathering actionable insights about the interview process
• Employee suggestion box : Gather anonymous data to help address concerns and improve the employee experience in your organization
• Candidate experience : Improve your candidate experience to increase brand perception, offer acceptance rates, and hiring process efficiency with this single-touchpoint survey template
• Employee suggestion action : Take employee feedback a step further by working with your staff to quantify solutions based on their experience data

Product experience market research templates

• Product research : Evaluate your consumers’ reaction to a new product or product feature across every stage of the product development journey
• Pricing : Understand how to set the exact price point for your product or service, according to your target consumers
• Feature prioritization : Compare and contrast product features using conjoint analysis to find the optimal mix for your customers
• Product package testing : Collect feedback on your product packaging to see how well it meets the needs and expectations of your customers

Armed with the right market research templates, getting the information you need across brand, product, customer and employee disciplines — as well as beyond — is significantly easier.

But if you want help putting together complex market research and scaling your in-house research team to get agile insights, check out our guide to building an agile research function.

Insights are more important than ever, especially during times of change, but building a great team takes a lot of time and money.

In our eBook, we’ll explain how you can:

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• Ensure you have the right technology for market research and data analysis

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How to Find Stock Research Reports of Indian Companies? [For FREE]

by Kritesh Abhishek | Mar 29, 2023 | Investment Basics | 0 comments

Are you looking for the best sites for the stock research reports of Indian companies to analyze? Then you’ve landed in the right place.

In this post, we are going to discuss how and where to find the stock research reports of Indian publically listed companies for FREE. But before we learn where to find the stock research reports, let’s first understand the advantages and disadvantages of reading research reports.

Pros and cons of reading stock research report:

Frequent reading of the research reports of public companies has both advantages and disadvantages. Here are a few common ones–

Pros of reading research reports:

• You can develop analytical skills:  If you continuously read the stock research reports, you can learn the approach that the analyst used to analyze the stock and his/her stock data interpretation techniques. 
• Saves time to collect data: If you are new to the stock market and do not know where to obtain the company data for research, then stock research reports can help you a lot. These reports contain many essential stock data in a customized format.
• You can get an extra opinion: By reading the research report of a company by different analysts, you can get an additional opinion- which can help you avoid confirmation bias .

Cons of reading research reports

• You might get influenced by the opinion of the analyst: It is very common to get influenced by the buy/sell opinion of the analyst after reading the report. And this might not always be profitable for the investors.
• Paralysis by Analysis : Sometimes reading multiple research reports might make your investment decision ‘complex’ and ‘indecisive’. If three analysts are giving a buy call and the other three are arguing to sell, then it might be a little tricky to decide which step to take.

How to make the best use of stock research reports?

The best way to effectively use stock research reports is to read the analysis and ignore the section where the analyst makes his/her recommendation (buy/sell call). Take your own independent intelligent decision after reading the report.

Moreover, it’s not difficult to make your investment decision- once you get used to reading and understanding the research reports. I f you start reading even 2-3 research reports per week, you can develop good analytical skills within a few months. 

Note: If you are new to the stock market and want to start your investing journey, here’s an amazing online course– ‘ HOW TO PICK WINNING STOCKS?’ . Enroll now to enter in the exciting world of stock investing.

Best websites to find stock research reports of Indian companies for free:

There are two easy approaches to finding the stock research reports of Indian companies. First, simply google the company whose report you want to study. You will get many useful links to research reports. However, this approach might be a little inefficient for beginners.

The second method is to get the research reports from a few financial websites that collect this information. Th ere are the two best websites where you can easily find the stock research reports of Indian public companies.

1. Trendlyne

Website:  https://trendlyne.com/research-reports/all/

Here are the steps to find the research report on the Trendlyne website:

• Go to trendlyne.
• Select ‘REPORTS’ on the top menu bar.
• Search the stock name whose report you want to read.
• You’ll get a complete list of the research reports by different brokers/analysts.

2. Marketmojo

Website:  https://www.marketsmojo.com/

Here are the steps to find the stock research reports of Indian companies on Market Mojo–

• Go to market mojo and create an account/log in using your email id.
• Select ‘RECOS’ on the top menu bar.
• You will the complete list of research reports and recommendations. 
• Further, for finding a specific stock report, use the search bar on the header.

Also read:  7 Must Know Websites for Indian Stock Market Investors.

One of the most significant skills required to succeed in the stock market is to analyze stocks and make informed decisions. Although, it’s not easy to read a ten-twenty-page stock research report, however, with practice and experience you can improve your analytical skills. Nonetheless, reading the stock research reports of companies can help you a lot to understand the different analysis approaches.

By utilizing the stock screener , stock heatmap , portfolio backtesting , and stock compare tool on the Trade Brains portal, investors gain access to comprehensive tools that enable them to identify the best stocks and also get the latest information about stock market news to make well-informed investment decisions.

Kritesh ( Tweet here ) is the Founder & CEO of Trade Brains & FinGrad . He is an NSE Certified Equity Fundamental Analyst with +7 Years of Experience in Share Market Investing. Kritesh frequently writes about Share Market Investing and IPOs and publishes his personal insights on the market.

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Chipping Away: Assessing and Addressing the Labor Market Gap Facing the U.S. Semiconductor Industry

Semiconductors are at the heart of America’s strength, enabling the essential technologies that drive economic growth and national security. With demand for semiconductors projected to increase significantly by 2030 and beyond, semiconductor companies are ramping up production and innovation to keep pace.

Fortunately, thanks in large part to enactment of the landmark CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, a significant share of new chip manufacturing capacity and R&D is expected to be located in the U.S. But as America’s semiconductor ecosystem expands in the years ahead, so too will its demand for semiconductor workers with the skills, training, and education needed in the highly innovative semiconductor industry.

We project the semiconductor industry’s workforce will grow by nearly 115,000 jobs by 2030, from approximately 345,000 jobs today to approximately 460,000 jobs by the end of the decade, representing 33% growth. Of these new jobs, we estimate roughly 67,000 — or 58% of projected new jobs (and 80% of projected new technical jobs) — risk going unfilled at current degree completion rates. Of the unfilled jobs, 39% will be technicians, most of whom will have certificates or two-year degrees; 35% will be engineers with four-year degrees or computer scientists; and 26% will be engineers at the master’s or PhD level.

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The challenge facing the semiconductor industry in closing this labor market gap also confronts the U.S. economy as a whole. Other high-growth technology industries of strategic importance to the future of the U.S. and the world are facing a similar talent gap and are competing for the same pool of trained workers. These industries and technologies include clean energy, medical technology, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, cybersecurity, next-generation communications, aerospace, automotive, and advanced manufacturing, among others. Accordingly, the shortage of skilled workers poses a substantial challenge for both the semiconductor industry and the broader U.S. economy.

The numbers are striking. For the economy as a whole, by the end of 2030, an estimated 3.85 million additional jobs requiring proficiency in technical fields will be created in the U.S. Of those, 1.4 million jobs risk going unfilled unless we can expand the pipeline for such workers in fields such as skilled technicians, engineering, and computer science.

Closing the talent gap is of critical importance to the success of the U.S. economy and the semiconductor industry. While the technology sector, broadly, needs to work together to address these challenges, semiconductors are foundational to virtually all the critical technologies of the future. Addressing the challenge for the semiconductor industry, first and foremost, will be central to the promotion of growth and innovation throughout the economy. But the gap in technical talent facing the chip industry is only a fraction of the overall challenge facing the economy.

The U.S. semiconductor industry has, for decades, engaged in programs to recruit, train, and employ a diverse and skilled workforce. Across the nation, chip firms have longstanding and expanding partnerships with community colleges and technical schools, apprenticeship programs, universities and laboratories, and regional education networks. As the industry grows to meet demand alongside CHIPS investments, companies are growing their workforce development footprint. At the same time, the U.S. government must work with industry and academia to prioritize measures to address the skills gap facing the broader economy and the semiconductor industry. To help achieve this goal, we present three core recommendations to strengthen the U.S. technical workforce.

RECOMMENDATION 1: Strengthen support for regional partnerships and programs aimed at growing the pipeline for skilled technicians for semiconductor manufacturing and other advanced manufacturing sectors.

Expanding certification boot camps, apprenticeships, and other training programs at community and technical colleges located near new and expanding semiconductor fabs would be an effective means to help close the workforce gap for technicians. Curricula and education solutions tailored to the semiconductor industry will ensure students are prepared for future employment. The technician pipeline is robust and pulls from a wide variety of sources, such as high school graduates and returning veterans. Improving current trajectories of talent supply and demand will be an uphill battle, and companies in the semiconductor industry are already taking action. The CHIPS and Science Act also provides excellent support in closing this gap and should continue to assist industry-led efforts to bolster the technician workforce.

RECOMMENDATION 2: Grow the domestic STEM pipeline for engineers and computer scientists vital to the semiconductor industry and other sectors that are critical to the future economy.

Our analysis shows that an insufficient number of students are pursuing STEM degrees to meet the labor market demand, and many of those who graduate with STEM degrees do not enter a STEM occupation. An even smaller number of these graduates enter the semiconductor industry. Policies should be undertaken to expand this pipeline in three stages:

• Attract more students to STEM disciplines.
• Employ more STEM graduates in STEM fields.
• Attract more STEM students to job opportunities in the semiconductor industry.

The CHIPS and Science Act provides significant potential support for advancing the above three objectives by establishing the National Semiconductor Technology Center, the semiconductor-focused Manufacturing USA Institutes, the National Advanced Packaging Manufacturing Program, expanded NIST metrology research, the Department of Defense Microelectronics Commons, the National Science Foundation CHIPS Workforce and Education Fund, and other institutions. These initiatives represent an important step forward, but more must be done. Our analysis shows that enhancing the domestic pipeline for STEM talent, especially at the master’s and PhD level, is a generational challenge. The U.S. needs to act today to move forward aggressively if it is to fully meet the industry’s demand for technical talent by 2030.

RECOMMENDATION 3: Retain and attract more international advanced degree students within the U.S. economy.

The process of growing the domestic pipeline of U.S.-citizen students pursuing advanced degrees in STEM fields will take years or decades to bear fruit. In the meantime, we estimate that approximately 16,000 master’s- and PhD-level international engineers are leaving the U.S. each year. For the semiconductor industry alone, these departures contribute to a projected total gap of approximately 17,000 master’s and PhD engineers by the end of the decade. Simply put, the workforce gap for individuals with advanced engineering and computer science degrees cannot be realistically addressed for the foreseeable future solely with U.S.-citizen graduates.

At U.S. colleges and universities, over 50% of master’s engineering graduates and over 60% of PhD engineering graduates are foreign citizens. Approximately 80% of master’s and 25% of foreign PhD STEM graduates from U.S. institutions do not remain in the U.S. after graduating, either by choice or because of U.S. immigration policy.

Such high shares imply that providing easier pathways to permanent U.S. residency has the potential to provide an immediate boost to the domestic talent pool available to the semiconductor industry and other technology industries of strategic importance. Reforms to high-skilled immigration policy that lower the barriers to U.S. firms seeking to recruit and retain international students with advanced degrees can help to meet near-term skills gaps facing the semiconductor and other key technology industries.

A sustainable and predictable supply of technicians, engineers, and CS professionals across all industries is vital for U.S. national security, competitiveness, and innovation — and to guarantee the supply of the end products American consumers and businesses demand. The success of U.S. semiconductor manufacturing, design, and R&D depends on leadership from industry, government, and education to rise to the challenge and maximize the generational opportunity that lies ahead.

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A 10-Point Plan to Reduce the European Union’s Reliance on Russian Natural Gas

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Measures implemented this year could bring down gas imports from Russia by over one-third, with additional temporary options to deepen these cuts to well over half while still lowering emissions.

Europe’s reliance on imported natural gas from Russia has again been thrown into sharp relief by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February. In 2021, the European Union imported an average of over 380 million cubic metres (mcm) per day of gas by pipeline from Russia, or around 140 billion cubic metres (bcm) for the year as a whole. As well as that, around 15 bcm was delivered in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG). The total 155 bcm imported from Russia accounted for around 45% of the EU’s gas imports in 2021 and almost 40% of its total gas consumption.

Progress towards net zero ambitions in Europe will bring down gas use and imports over time, but today’s crisis raises specific questions about imports from Russia and what policy makers and consumers can do to lower them. This IEA analysis proposes a series of immediate actions that could be taken to reduce reliance on Russian gas, while enhancing the near-term resilience of the EU gas network and minimising the hardships for vulnerable consumers.

A suite of measures in our 10-Point Plan, spanning gas supplies, the electricity system and end-use sectors 1 , could result in the EU’s annual call on Russian gas imports falling by more than 50 bcm within one year – a reduction of over one-third. These figures take into account the need for additional refilling of European gas storage facilities in 2022 after low Russian supplies helped drive these storage levels to unusually low levels. The 10-Point Plan is consistent with the EU’s climate ambitions and the European Green Deal and also points towards the outcomes achieved in the IEA Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Roadmap, in which the EU totally eliminates the need for Russian gas imports before 2030.

We also consider possibilities for Europe to go even further and faster to limit near-term reliance on Russian gas, although these would mean a slower near-term pace of EU emissions reductions. If Europe were to take these additional steps, then near-term Russian gas imports could be reduced by more than 80 bcm, or well over half.

The analysis highlights some trade-offs. Accelerating investment in clean and efficient technologies is at the heart of the solution, but even very rapid deployment will take time to make a major dent in demand for imported gas. The faster EU policy makers seek to move away from Russian gas supplies, the greater the potential implications in terms of economic costs and/or near-term emissions. Circumstances also vary widely across the EU, depending on geography and supply arrangements.

Reducing reliance on Russian gas will not be simple, requiring a concerted and sustained policy effort across multiple sectors, alongside strong international dialogue on energy markets and security. There are multiple links between Europe’s policy choices and broader global market balances. Strengthened international cooperation with alternative pipeline and LNG exporters – and with other major gas importers and consumers – will be critical. Clear communication between governments, industry and consumers is also an essential element for successful implementation.

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1. No new gas supply contracts with Russia

• Gas import contracts with Gazprom covering more than 15 bcm per year are set to expire by the end of 2022, equating to around 12% of the company’s gas supplies to the EU in 2021. Overall, contracts with Gazprom covering close to 40 bcm per year are due to expire by the end of this decade.
• This provides the EU with a clear near-term window of opportunity to significantly diversify its gas supplies and contracts towards other sources, leveraging the options for imports provided by its large LNG and pipeline infrastructure. 

Impact: Taking advantage of expiring long-term contracts with Russia will reduce the contractual minimum take-or-pay levels for Russian imports and enable greater diversity of supply.

2. Replace Russian supplies with gas from alternative sources

• Complementing the point above, our analysis indicates that production inside the EU and non-Russian pipeline imports (including from Azerbaijan and Norway) could increase over the next year by up to 10 bcm from 2021. This is based on the assumptions of a higher utilisation of import capacity, a less heavy summer maintenance schedule, and production quotas/caps being revised upwards.
• The EU has greater near-term potential to ramp up its LNG imports, considering its ample access to spare regasification capacity. 2 LNG trade is inherently flexible, so the crucial variables for the near-term are the availability of additional cargoes, especially those that have some contractual leeway over the destination, and competition for this supply with other importers, notably in Asia.
• The EU could theoretically increase near-term LNG inflows by some 60 bcm, compared with the average levels in 2021. However, all importers are fishing in the same pool for supply, so (in the absence of weather-related or other factors that limit import demand in other regions) this would mean exceptionally tight LNG markets and very high prices.
• Considering current forward prices and the LNG supply-demand balance, we have factored into our 10-Point Plan a 20 bcm increase in the EU’s LNG imports over the next year. The timely procurement of LNG can be facilitated by enhanced dialogue with LNG exporters and other importers, increased transparency, and efficient use of capacities at LNG regasification terminals.
• The increases in non-Russian pipeline and LNG deliveries assume a concerted effort to tackle methane leaks, both across Europe, where leaks are estimated at 2.5 bcm a year from oil and gas operations, and among other non-European suppliers - especially those that flare significant quantities of gas today.
• There is limited potential to scale up biogas and biomethane supply in the short term because of the lead times for new projects. But this promising low-carbon sector offers important medium-term upside for the EU’s domestic gas output. The same consideration applies to production of low-carbon hydrogen via electrolysis, which is contingent on new electrolyser projects and new low-carbon generation coming online. Increased output of low-carbon gases is vital to meet the EU’s 2030 and 2050 emissions reduction targets.

Impact: Around 30 bcm in additional gas supply from non-Russian sources.

3. Introduce minimum gas storage obligations to enhance market resilience

• Gas storage plays a key role in meeting seasonal demand swings and providing insurance against unexpected events, such as surges in demand or shortfalls in supply, that cause price spikes. The value of the security provided by gas storage is even greater at a time of geopolitical tensions.
• The current tight seasonal price spreads in European gas markets do not provide sufficient incentive for storage injections ahead of the 2022-23 heating season, as demonstrated by the results of the recent gas storage capacity auctions in the EU. A harmonised approach to minimum storage obligations for commercial operators in the EU’s single gas market, together with robust market-based capacity allocation mechanisms, would ensure the optimal use of all available storage capacity in the EU.
• Our analysis, based on the experience of recent years, suggests that fill levels of at least 90% of working storage capacity by 1 October are necessary to provide an adequate buffer for the European gas market through the heating season. Given the depleted levels of storage today, gas injection in 2022 needs to be around 18 bcm higher than in 2021.
• Regional coordination of gas storage levels and access can provide an important element of solidarity among EU member states and reinforce their gas supply security ahead of the next winter season.

Impact: Enhances the resilience of the gas system, although higher injection requirements to refill storage in 2022 will add to gas demand and prop up gas prices.

Power sector

4. accelerate the deployment of new wind and solar projects.

• In 2022, record additions of solar PV and wind power capacity and a return to average weather conditions are already expected to increase the EU’s output from these renewable sources by over 100 terawatt-hours (TWh), a rise of more than 15% compared with 2021.
• A concerted policy effort to fast-track further renewable capacity additions could deliver another 20 TWh over the next year. Most of this would be utility-scale wind and solar PV projects for which completion dates could be brought forward by tackling delays with permitting. This includes clarifying and simplifying responsibilities among various permitting bodies, building up administrative capacity, setting clear deadlines for the permitting process, and digitalising applications.
• Faster deployment of rooftop solar PV systems can reduce consumer bills. A short-term grant programme covering 20% of installation costs could double the pace of investment (compared with the IEA’s base case forecast) at a cost of around EUR 3 billion. This would increase annual output from rooftop solar PV systems by up to 15 TWh.

Impact: An additional 35 TWh of generation from new renewable projects over the next year, over and above the already anticipated growth from these sources, bringing down gas use by 6 bcm.

5. Maximise generation from existing dispatchable low-emissions sources: bioenergy and nuclear

• Nuclear power is the largest source of low emissions electricity in the EU, but several reactors were taken offline for maintenance and safety checks in 2021. Returning these reactors to safe operations in 2022, alongside the start of commercial operations for the completed reactor in Finland, can lead to EU nuclear power generation increasing by up to 20 TWh in 2022.
• A new round of reactor closures, however, would dent this recovery in output: four nuclear reactors are scheduled to shut down by the end of 2022, and another one in 2023. A temporary delay of these closures, conducted in a way that assures the plants’ safe operation, could cut EU gas demand by almost 1 bcm per month.
• The large fleet of bioenergy power plants in the EU operated at about 50% of its total capacity in 2021. These plants could generate up to 50 TWh more electricity in 2022 if appropriate incentives and sustainable supplies of bioenergy are put in place.

Impact: An additional 70 TWh of power generation from existing dispatchable low emissions sources, reducing gas use for electricity by 13 bcm.

6. Enact short-term measures to shelter vulnerable electricity consumers from high prices

• With today’s market design, high gas prices in the EU feed through into high wholesale electricity prices in ways that can lead to windfall profits for companies. This has significant implications for the affordability of electricity, as well as for the economic incentives for the broader electrification of end-uses, which is a key element of clean energy transitions.
• We estimate that spending by EU member states to cushion the impact of the energy price crisis on vulnerable consumers already amounts to a commitment of around EUR 55 billion.
• Increases in electricity costs are unavoidable to a certain extent when gas (and CO 2 ) prices are high. But current wholesale markets create the potential for profits for many electricity generators and their parent companies that are well in excess of the costs related to operations or capital recovery. Current market conditions could lead to excess profits of up to EUR 200 billion in the EU for gas, coal, nuclear, hydropower and other renewables in 2022. 3
• Temporary tax measures to raise rates on electricity companies’ windfall profits could be considered. These tax receipts should then be redistributed to electricity consumers to partially offset higher energy bills. Measures to tax windfall profits have already been adopted in Italy and Romania in 2022.

Impact: Brings down energy bills for consumers even when natural gas prices remain high, making available up to EUR 200 billion to cushion impacts on vulnerable groups. 4

End-use sectors

7. speed up the replacement of gas boilers with heat pumps.

• Heat pumps offer a very efficient and cost-effective way to heat homes, replacing boilers that use gas or other fossil fuels. Speeding up anticipated deployment by doubling current EU installation rates of heat pumps would save an additional 2 bcm of gas use within the first year, requiring a total additional investment of EUR 15 billion.
• Alongside existing policy frameworks, targeted support for investment can drive the scaling up of heat pump installations. Ideally, this is best combined with upgrades of the homes themselves to maximise energy efficiency gains and reduce overall costs.
• Replacing gas boilers or furnaces with heat pumps is also an attractive option for industry, although deployment may take longer to scale up.
• A shift from gas to electricity for heating buildings could have the corresponding effect of pushing up gas demand for power generation, depending on the situation. However, any increase would be much lower than the overall amount of gas saved. Such a shift would also transfer seasonal swings in demand from the gas market to the power market.

Impact: Reduces gas use for heating by an additional 2 bcm in one year.

8. Accelerate energy efficiency improvements in buildings and industry

• Energy efficiency is a powerful instrument for secure clean energy transitions, but it often takes time to deliver major results. In this plan, we consider how to pick up the rate of progress, focusing on measures that can make a difference quickly.
• At present, only about 1% of the EU’s building stock is renovated each year. A rapid extension to an additional 0.7%, targeting the least efficient homes and non-residential buildings, would be possible through standardised upgrades, mainly via improved insulation. This would save more than 1 bcm of gas use in the space of a year and would also bring benefits for employment, though it would require parallel efforts to improve supply chains for materials and workforce development.
• This boost to the near-term rate of building retrofits and heat pump deployment accelerates changes that are part of EU policy frameworks. By 2030, the European Union’s Energy Efficiency Directive and Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, within the Fit for 55 framework, are projected to reduce gas demand in buildings by 45 bcm per year compared with today.
• Many households are installing smart heating controls (smart thermostats) to reduce energy bills and improve home comfort, and this is a simple process that can be scaled up quickly. Tripling the current installation rate of about one million homes per year would reduce gas demand for heating homes by an extra 200 mcm a year at a total cost of EUR 1 billion. These devices can be incentivised through existing programmes such as subsidies to households or utility obligation schemes.
• Annual maintenance checks of gas boilers can be used to ensure hot water boilers in homes are set at a temperature that optimises efficiency, no higher than 60 °C.
• Helping small businesses (SMEs) become more efficient will save energy and also help protect those businesses from price volatility. Many EU states have effective programmes to offer energy efficiency audits and advice to SMEs that can save energy quickly and effectively. Scaling these up to offer them to 5% of SMEs would deliver immediate annual energy savings of 250 mcm.

Impact: Reduces gas consumption for heat by close to an additional 2 bcm within a year, lowering energy bills, enhancing comfort and boosting industrial competitiveness.

9. Encourage a temporary thermostat adjustment by consumers

• Many European citizens have already responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in various ways, via donations or in some cases by directly assisting refugees from Ukraine. Adjusting heating controls in Europe’s gas-heated buildings would be another avenue for temporary action, saving considerable amounts of energy.
• The average temperature for buildings’ heating across the EU at present is above 22°C. Adjusting the thermostat for buildings heating would deliver immediate annual energy savings of around 10 bcm for each degree of reduction while also bringing down energy bills.
• Public awareness campaigns, and other measures such as consumption feedback or corporate targets, could encourage such changes in homes and commercial buildings. Regulations covering heating temperatures in offices could also prove to be an efficient policy tool. 

Impact: Turning down the thermostat for buildings’ heating by just 1°C would reduce gas demand by some 10 bcm a year.

Cross-cutting

10. step up efforts to diversify and decarbonise sources of power system flexibility.

• A key policy challenge for the EU in the coming years is to scale up alternative forms of flexibility for the power system, notably seasonal flexibility but also demand shifting and peak shaving. For the moment, gas is the main source of such flexibility and, as such, the links between gas and electricity security are set to deepen in the coming years, even as overall EU gas demand declines.
• Governments therefore need to step up efforts to develop and deploy workable, sustainable and cost-effective ways to manage the flexibility needs of EU power systems. A portfolio of options will be required, including enhanced grids, energy efficiency, increased electrification and demand-side response, dispatchable low emissions generation, and various large-scale and long-term energy storage technologies alongside short-term sources of flexibility such as batteries. EU member states need to ensure that there are adequate market price signals to support the business case for these investments.
• Flexibility measures to reduce industrial electricity and gas demand in peak hours are particularly important to alleviate the pressure on gas demand for electricity generation.
• Domestically sourced low-carbon gases – including biomethane, low-carbon hydrogen and synthetic methane – could be an important part of the solution, but a much greater demonstration and deployment effort will be required. 

Impact: A major near-term push on innovation can, over time, loosen the strong links between natural gas supply and Europe’s electricity security. Real-time electricity price signals can unlock more flexible demand, in turn reducing expensive and gas-intensive peak supply needs.

Additional fuel switching options

Going faster and further – additional fuel switching options in the power sector.

Other avenues are available to the EU if it wishes or needs to reduce reliance on Russian gas even more quickly – but with notable trade-offs. 5 The main near-term option would involve switching away from gas use in the power sector via an increased call on Europe’s coal-fired fleet or by using alternative fuels – primarily liquid fuels – within existing gas-fired power plants.

Given that these alternatives to gas use would raise the EU’s emissions, they are not included in the 10-Point Plan described above. However, they could displace large volumes of gas relatively quickly. We estimate that a temporary shift from gas to coal- or oil-fired generation could reduce gas demand for power by some 28 bcm before there was an overall increase in the EU’s energy-related emissions.

The larger share of this potential decrease in gas demand would be possible through gas-to-coal switching: an additional 120 TWh in coal-fired generation could cut gas demand by 22 bcm in one year. In addition to opportunities to run on biomethane, nearly a quarter of the EU’s fleet of gas-fired power plants is capable of using alternative fuels – nearly all in the form of liquid fuels. Taking advantage of this capability could displace another 6 bcm of natural gas demand a year, depending on sufficient financial incentives to switch fuels and the availability of those fuels.

If this fuel-switching option were to be fully exercised in addition to the complete implementation of the 10-Point Plan described above, it would result in a total annual reduction in EU imports of gas from Russia of more than 80 bcm, or well over half, while still resulting in a modest decline in overall emissions.

We have not included additional near-term measures to curb industrial demand, because of the risk of wider knock-on effects on the European economy.

The EU has access to more than 200 bcm per year of regasification capacity, including the possibility to bring in gas via UK LNG terminals. However, there is limited interconnection capacity in some areas, notably from Spain to France, which constrains the use of Spanish regasification capacity for imports to other European countries.

Assuming gas prices of EUR 22/MMbtu and CO 2 prices of EUR 90/tonne.

The amounts would depend on how the measures are designed, as well as on other factors affecting the overall profitability of the electricity companies.

We also examined the possibilities to bring down industrial use, especially for feedstocks. On the latter, there is limited scope to improve conversion yields, so a reduction in feedstock gas demand would in practice mean reduced chemical production, with important potential knock-on effects along value chains (e.g. in 2021, the food industry in some countries was disrupted because the supply of CO 2 to food-packing companies was sourced from ammonia plants, which stopped production because of high natural gas prices).

Reference 1

Reference 2, reference 3, reference 4, reference 5, cite report.

IEA (2022), A 10-Point Plan to Reduce the European Union’s Reliance on Russian Natural Gas , IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/reports/a-10-point-plan-to-reduce-the-european-unions-reliance-on-russian-natural-gas, Licence: CC BY 4.0

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