7 Free Tools You Can Use to Research Your Target Market

There are numerous steps in the marketing research process, and it’s beneficial for you to have dedicated tools to keep your project workflow optimized and help you deal with raw data that can be difficult to transform into actionable insights. We've compiled a list of 7 invaluable marketing research tools and organized them into three categories to help you know your target market better.

1. 1. SEO

The language and messaging used to market and sell products are heavily influenced by demographic data and user preferences, and it answers basic questions like evaluating whether there is a market for the product, who is likely to buy it, and the best techniques for reaching the correct audience. For any product, there are target keywords that can be surmised to help researchers evaluate and answer these basic questions. But the problem lies in determining these target keywords that are often indicative of the likelihood of success of your research. Thankfully, search engine optimization tools are available out there to help you determine these keywords and guarantee their relevancy to your brand.

If you’re looking for reliable search engine optimization tools, look no further than Google Keywords and GrowthBar. Researchers can utilize GoogleKeywords for free while GrowthBar is available on a free trial basis. 

As its name suggests, Google Keywords is a tool dedicated to aiding you in keyword research. It can be used to gauge the volume of keyword searches, how competitive those keywords are, and how specific keywords are related to each other. It also has robust filtering options such as:

• Limiting your keyword searches to a specific language or geographic region
• Limiting results to show only the keyword searches done on mobile devices
• Filtering the results based on your preferences

Growthbar, on the other hand, is a tool dedicated to helping you unlock the critical data points about your competitors and their websites. It will reveal which growth channels and keywords are working for the competition which can then be used as inspiration to grow your business. It also speeds up your content creation process by using Open AI technology to draft an SEO-optimized content outline based on a keyword that you submitted. All in all, the tool allows you to see the following data:

• Domain Authority
• Organic Traffic
• Top Organic Keywords
• Top Paid Keywords
• Top Backlinks
• Suggested Keywords
• Keyword Search Volume

 

1. 2. Brand Reputation

If you’re struggling to determine the reputation of your brand and how it appeals to your target audience, you can use research tools like Kred, Social Mention, and Google Trends to get a digestible outlook on your business’s social footprint. You can access Social Mention and Google Trends for free, while Kred has a 10-year free pricing option.

 

Kred allows you to take control of your entire social footprint. The platform gives you a Kred score that measures the level of influence and outreach your brand has obtained based on how your audience shares your content and engages with other people online. The platform also allows you to rank your relevant contacts as well as find experts in your community to reach out to and partner with. Kred also provides transparency through Kred Story which reports on what Kred sees your brand is doing, how people react to your content, and why Kred feels your brand is influential in that field. Apart from this, you will also get brand analytics and integration features such as:

• The ability to unify your profiles, community, UGC, and all of your important links on a single, memorable link on your social bio
• Access to premium brand insights and reports
• The ability to manage multiple social footprints for your clients and campaigns on a simple dashboard

Social Mention searches for mentions of your brand, competitors, or any keywords you specify in over 100 social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, and Google, as well as blogs, videos, and photos. Once compiled, the information is then presented to you in a single feed for easy analysis. The platform operates on four key metrics:

• Strength: What percentage of your keywords are mentioned on social media
• Sentiment: A breakdown of positive and negative mentions of your brand
• Passion: How many people mention your keywords on a regular basis
• Reach: The range of influence of your keywords based on how many individual users are mentioning them

If you’d like to take your research a step further than what is offered on Social Mention, Google Trends also incorporates data from the Google search engine aside from the metrics obtained in social media. The platform will:

• Display how frequently your search term is entered into Google in comparison to the site's total search volume over a specified time period
• Provide geographical and keyword-related information on Google's users
• Help you perform comparative keyword research and find keyword spikes driven by events
• Give you a broader view of the news, opinions, posts, and perceptions affecting your brand

1. Personas

Buyer personas are created by taking into account a variety of data that can be difficult to gather and, even worse, update. With tools like Facebook Audience Insights and Make My Persona, it will be easier to obtain the information you need and optimize it for your ideal personas. Both platforms are publicly accessible to all.

 

Facebook Audience Insights allows you to gain information on two categories; people who are connected to your Facebook page and people on Facebook generally. These can then be used to create targeted content that can help you find more people that match the criteria of your target audience. You’ll also be able to extract information such as:

Demographic: Age, gender, job titles, education, relationship status
Likes: Hobbies, interests, pastimes
Lifestyle: Measures the types of people who interact with your business by their location and relationship status

If you’re looking for a broader tool that covers more than just Facebook, Make My Persona is perfect for you to leverage as an insights professional. Powered by Hubspot, the platform is designed to simplify the process of creating semi-fictitious character personas in seven steps. In each step the information you will have to fill in includes:

• Demographics
• Industry
• Job responsibilities
• Reports
• Goals or objectives
• Preferred method of communication
• Biggest challenges
• Any other criteria you want to include

The tool then generates a buyer persona profile for you to share with your entire organization.

Leverage these 7 marketing research tools for your content creation and brand insights and then further optimize how you conduct your research online by partnering with Civicom. Read through our case studies to learn more about how we can help you.