The Best Market Research Tools of 2023: Harnessing the Power of Data for Informed Decision-Making

In today’s fast-paced business world, building a successful enterprise is no small feat. With consumers having more options and distractions than ever before, understanding their behavior and preferences has become crucial. This is where market research comes into play. Market research provides valuable insights into target consumers, emerging trends, and important data that can guide informed business decisions. In this article, we will explore the 19 best market research tools of 2023 that can help businesses gain a competitive edge and thrive in their respective industries.

1. SurveyMonkey: Collecting Actionable Insights

SurveyMonkey is a well-known survey tool that offers a plethora of features and capabilities for creating audience surveys. Whether you want to design your own survey or choose from a library of 250+ expert-created templates, SurveyMonkey provides a user-friendly interface that allows for customization. With AI-powered knowledge to help craft the right questions and built-in reporting and analytics, SurveyMonkey is a comprehensive tool for collecting actionable insights.

Pricing:

• Basic Tier (Free): Unlimited surveys with up to 10 questions and 25 responses per survey.
• Individual Plans: Starting at $39/month, unlimited surveys and questions, up to 15,000 responses per year.
• Team Plans: Starting at $25/user/month for three users, unlimited surveys and questions, 50,000 responses per year.

2. Typeform: Creating Engaging Forms and Surveys

Typeform is an intuitive tool that focuses on helping users create beautiful and interactive forms, surveys, quizzes, and polls. With its conversational approach, Typeform enables the creation of surveys with customizable elements like images and videos, encouraging audience engagement. The tool offers features such as conditional logic, real-time data analytics, and integration with popular tools like Slack and Google Analytics. Additionally, Typeform’s standalone video tool, VideoAsk, allows users to create “video forms” for more personalized responses.

Pricing:

• Free Plan: Unlimited typeforms and 10 responses per month.
• Paid Plans: Starting at $25/month billed annually for Basic, $50/month billed annually for Plus, and $83/month billed annually for Business.

3. BuzzSumo: Uncovering Content Insights

BuzzSumo is a powerful content research and analysis tool that provides valuable market insights. It allows businesses to understand the content landscape within their industry, identify trending topics, discover influential figures, and track content performance compared to competitors. With access to over 5 billion articles and social media posts, BuzzSumo helps businesses generate content ideas tailored to their target audience.

Pricing:

• Free 30-Day Trial: No credit card required.
• Membership Tiers: Starting at $159/month billed yearly for Content Creation, $239/month billed yearly for PR & Comms, $399/month billed yearly for the Suite, and $999/month billed yearly for the Enterprise.

4. Qualaroo: Capturing User Feedback

Qualaroo is a customer and user feedback tool that goes beyond traditional email surveys. With Qualaroo, businesses can integrate surveys into their website or product, utilizing behavioral triggering to target specific users with relevant questions. The tool offers visual customization, automatic language translation, a library of survey templates, audience targeting, and IBM Watson Sentiment Analysis to help organize results.

Pricing:

• 15-Day Free Trial: No credit card required.
• Plans: Starting at $69/month billed annually for Essentials, $149/month billed annually for Premium, and $299+/month billed annually for Business.

5. SpyFu: Gaining Competitive Insights

SpyFu is an excellent choice for conducting competitive analysis as part of market research efforts. It allows businesses to “spy” on competitors by uncovering their marketing strategies, advertising history, and the keywords they’ve purchased on Google Ads. By leveraging SpyFu, businesses can identify market gaps, optimize their own approach, and gain a competitive advantage. The tool provides insights into organic keywords, top pages, backlink analysis, total traffic, competition, and more.

Pricing:

• Plans: Starting at $16/month for Basic, $36/month for Professional, and $149/month for Team (billed annually).

6. Ahrefs: Unveiling SEO Opportunities

Ahrefs is a popular tool for SEO and competitive analysis. It empowers businesses to understand the search landscape within their market, discover customer search behavior, track competitors, and analyze industry content. Through keyword and content analysis, Ahrefs helps identify gaps and opportunities in the market, enabling businesses to enhance their content, website, and search visibility.

Pricing:

• Ahrefs Webmaster Tools: Free limited access to Site Explorer and Site Audit tools.
• Paid Plans: Starting at $83/month for Lite, $166/month for Standard, $333/month for Advanced, and $833/month for Enterprise (billed annually).

7. Delve AI: Building User Personas

User personas play a vital role in effective marketing strategies, and Delve AI simplifies the process of creating them. This tool offers a suite of persona-building capabilities based on available data. Whether businesses want to generate competitor personas, social personas, customer personas, or live personas based on Google Analytics data, Delve AI provides multi-channel capabilities, behavioral insights, real-time updates, and AI algorithms for accuracy.

Pricing:

• Free Lite Plan.
• Business Plans: Starting at $71/month for Standard, $159/month for Growth, and $439/month for Pro (billed annually).
• Agency Plans: Starting at $167/month for Standard, $343/month for Growth, and $687/month for Pro (billed annually).

8. Sprout Social: Leveraging Social Media for Market Research

Social media is a powerful platform for connecting with audiences and gathering market research insights. Sprout Social offers a comprehensive suite of social media management features, including social listening, competitor analysis, audience demographic insights, and behavior tracking. These insights can inform businesses’ marketing approach and help them stay ahead of trends.

Pricing:

• Free 30-Day Trial.
• Plans: Starting at $249/month for Standard, $399/month for Professional, and $499/month for Advanced.
• Enterprise Tier Plan available.

9. Google Trends: Uncovering Consumer Insights

Google Trends is a valuable tool for supercharging market research efforts. It provides access to real-time and historical search data, enabling businesses to discover market trends and understand consumer interests. By analyzing how people search on Google, businesses can spot emerging interests, identify opportunity areas, and stay informed about what consumers are most interested in. The tool also offers location filtering for market-specific insights.

Pricing:

• Free.

10. Statista: Accessing Comprehensive Business Data

Statista is a business intelligence platform that offers statistics, reports, and insights on a wide range of topics and industries. With access to over 80,000 topics from 22,500 sources, businesses can find specific market research insights tailored to their needs. From in-depth reports to data visualizations and industry forecasts, Statista provides reliable insights into global markets, consumer trends, and more.

Pricing:

• Free Basic Account available.
• Paid Accounts: Starting at $149/month for Starter, $490/month for Personal (billed annually).

These are just some of the best market research tools available in 2023. Each tool offers unique features and capabilities to help businesses gain a competitive advantage, understand their target audience, and make informed decisions. By harnessing the power of data, businesses can stay ahead of the curve and thrive in today’s dynamic market landscape.