It’s safe to assume that all businesses want to thrive, right? Right.
But how you go about thriving is the next step.
Put simply, market profiling and industry monitoring are both fantastic opportunities to either keep your business on top or get it to the top.
As both forms of competitive assessment, these useful research tools can give you insight not only into your target market but into your key consumer profiles.
With this information, you'll be able to create highly profitable opportunities while adjusting what’s not working.
In this blog post, our market research company covers the basics of what these two must-have methodologies are for businesses everywhere.
Recommended Reading The Ultimate Guide to Conducting a Competitor Analysis
What is Market Profiling and Industry Monitoring?
Market profiling and industry monitoring are broad topics in the…you guessed it, industry!
This could be trying to size your specific market, or understanding market opportunities and gaps.
Research studies that focus on these objectives could be more science-oriented, but it really depends on what you’re trying to learn and the calculations that you'd make.
Overall, though, both industry monitoring tools and market profiling efforts are rooted in competitive analysis. It boils down to the makeup of the competition and the makeup of the customer.
Who’s your customer?
If you're doing a study on a specific market and its consumers, then you're really going after buyer research.
When we reference “consumers” or “customers,” this can mean both household consumers or the general makeup of the customer.
In this case, running customer satisfaction surveys can provide tremendous insight here.
These surveys evaluate topics like customer service, purchasing behaviors, demographic breakdowns, and other buyer-centric topics which allow for useful feedback to be generated.
For more insight here read our Ultimate Guide to Customer Satisfaction Surveys.
Who’s your competition?
The other aspect of these market research methods is the competition, with respect to who the known rivals in the market that you're going up against are.
You can also discover new competitors, and who doesn’t want that?
Consider things like how your organization operates, or how you serve customers. Think about how those compare to your rivals, and how they can improve.
💡 The Key Takeaway: Profiling and monitoring allow you to gain information from both the competitive and consumer market. Insights gathered from this type of analysis can help your brand make more educated and data-driven decisions for sales, marketing, and overall operations.
How Often Should I Conduct Market Profiling and Industry Monitoring?
Tracking also plays a key role in this type of market research.
With an industry monitoring system, businesses will often do that on an ongoing basis as a brand tracking survey.
For instance, with B2B brands, this can be done every three or six months, or yearly. You always want to have a measurement for your industry, as this allows you to observe important trends.
Whereas, market profiling can be conducted at a singular point in time–this can be a research measurement for a market you’re less familiar with. As always, both competitors and customers would be taken into account.
For more insight on conducting ongoing market research, watch our brief video on brand tracking.
💡 The Key Takeaway: Monitoring is typically done every three to six months or yearly, while profiling is often periodcally conducted at a singular time. Both options allow businesses to track the market successfully.
Understanding the Process of Market Monitoring Research
When you partner with a third-party market research company, like Drive Research, the first step is goal-setting.
Do you want to understand the market in terms of the competition, or do you want to understand the market in terms of customer profiles?
Having a couple of ideas related to these subjects will make the process far simpler.
That’s where measuring comes in.
This is something to be done once you have a basic knowledge of your market. Measurements can be run, or you can monitor your rivals to keep a pulse on the competition.
Let's say you're just getting started with market profiling and industry monitoring.
As with any research, it’s ideal to take an inventory of either research you've already done, or research you’ve already obtained. There are many syndicated sources that exist, providing basic statistics and facts.
Basic inventory can include:
- Key players
- Revenue
- KPIs
A market research team can then come in and measure your company’s attributes–an audit, of sorts.
Audits can also include who your top rivals are if you’re conducting a market profile.
This data is easily obtained through survey research. You’ll be able to see helpful information on customer profiles to better understand the competitor.
When auditing a competitor, you’ll be able to see:
- How they communicate
- Products and services offered
- Marketing and advertising tactics
Depending on your brand’s specific needs, you can run market profiling and industry monitoring monthly, quarterly, or yearly. Industry monitoring is often continuous, while market profiling is periodic.
💡 The Key Takeaway: Let goal-setting be number one on your agenda. From there, you can take inventory of existing research that may be useful to you. Additionally, audits can be helpful when eyeing your competition.
Recommended Reading: 5 Factors to Examine When Conducting a Brand Competitive Audit
Benefits of Monitoring Industry-Related Market Information
There are many benefits to conducting competitor research.
First and foremost, you understand who your competitors are.
These methods are a holistic way to know your position in the market. If you can understand the opportunity in the market, you understand the customer types of the market–which also means you can properly evaluate competing brands.
For example, you might have a marketing strategy that's targeting a certain audience.
But through market profile analysis, you may discover you’re targeting the incorrect audience. These tools allow you to see gaps or opportunities in the market, giving you better insight into consumers.
If something in the industry changes, you can understand that and adjust your business strategy as needed.
Market profiling and industry monitoring also allow you to keep tabs on the underdogs.
If you’re carefully watching an industry with these tools, you stay aware of up-and-coming rivals. With this continuous data, you can catch that shift in the market.
💡 The Key Takeaway: Monitoring and profiling let you keep track of big rivals and underdogs. Their continuous design make this type of tracking a breeze.
What Type of Brands Should Conduct Competitor Research?
Everyone, basically.
If you’re one of the big market or industry leaders, using industry monitoring tools can help protect your position. Again, don’t focus on just monitoring rivals. Keep tabs on your customers, too–so they don’t jump ship.
Odds are, the customers of your organization are also customers of other organizations in the market, especially if it's a consumer product.
For small organizations, it's more about finding opportunities–less about protecting what you have in terms of equity in the market. These organizations will be able to see where gaps exist, or, just as importantly, what the “big guys” are lacking.
If you're doing profiling and/or monitoring for a small business, you can identify specific opportunities to carve out an offering in the market that nobody else offers.
Through growing their space this way, small brands might be able to find opportunities in a different kind of industry and pivot their business that way.
💡 The Key Takeaway: These two tools are equally useful for both large and small-scale businesses. Larger businesses can ensure they stay on top, while smaller businesses can strategically learn what their competitors are up to.
Need Help With Market Monitoring Research? Contact Us.
Want to understand how you can best use these two tools? We’re here to show you.
Drive Research is a market research company located in New York. Our team of research pros will work with you to craft the best profiling and monitoring study for your brand.
Interested in learning more about our market research services? Reach out to us through any of the options below.
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040
Zach Adams
Zach is the Vice President of Strategy at Drive Research. He leverages his background to advise clients on topics including customer insight, competitive intelligence, branding, positioning, messaging, creative strategy, and organizational leadership.
Learn more about Zach, here.
