The Role of Market Research in SEO



If you do a search for your company’s website, where do you show up? Or do you show up so far down the list that you may as well not show up at all? This is what your customers are seeing (or rather not seeing). Getting good results on a search engine means you are in the top 20. Most customers aren’t going to take the time to look beyond this point whether they’ve found what they’re looking for or not.

Let’s face it, even top 20 for a business is risky. You really need to shoot for top 5. So how do you develop a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy to boost your online presence and increase your brand awareness?  Two words: market research.

Here are a few examples of how market research can take your search engine optimization strategy to the next level.

Market Research… The Selling of Lust

How can market research help a company that relies on male hormones to sell its product? It’s an interesting question because it illustrates how important market research is whether you are selling pharmaceuticals, financial services or lust.

Axe makes body sprays for young men. With a $2.5 billion global brand and enormous growth they have a knack of creating marketing that is relevant yet raunchy enough to appeal to their target audience. When you go to their website, the first thing you see is a humorous environmentally friendly pitch asking if you are ready to save water. Referring to this as Showerpooling they suggest:  firstly, installing a water-efficient showerhead; secondly, limiting shower time to 5 minutes; and lastly, inviting a friend to get into the action. What’s cheeky and brilliant about this campaign is that the advice really does help the environment. More importantly for Axe though, is that every time a teen or twenty something male comes to their website and sees the Showerpooling graphic, they are sure to have a plethora of reactions ranging from fantasy to pure unadulterated testosterone driven lust.

Good Market Research - Getting to Know Your Customers

We are motivated by two things, praise or reward. It’s kind of funny, but whether you are 3 years old or 43 years old, it’s the same. I can make my son do chores or homework without a fight simply by offering him ice cream. I know I am willing to go the extra mile for an adult version of ice cream (for me that’s the latest teckie gadget). Oh heck… who am I kidding? Real ice cream still works for me too. The point is how do you motivate your customers?

The first step is to understand your customers. Market research can help you know who your customers are, as well as what they want. You have to ask the right questions though. If you don’t really know your customers you will not retain them, thus leaving you to chase after new ones constantly. Don’t just follow your instincts as many companies do. Take the time and really get to know them. Ask the right questions; get the facts; and therefore discover how to motivate your customers.

Election Jitters? Is Business Uncertainty Holding you Back?

Change, we don’t like it. In fact, we not only fear it. Many of us dread it. It doesn’t matter what it is. Whether it’s changing small things like the route we drive to work or our toothpaste, it stresses us out and makes us anxious.

Many eyes were on Denver this week when President Obama and Governor Romney met for the first of the presidential debates. Business decision makers from the U.S. and abroad were hoping to get their first glimpse into the future White House occupants, and with good reason. There are a host of policy alternatives at play in this election that will affect the course of industries from healthcare to energy, transportation to construction, and telecom to agriculture.

How market research is more than just hiney hygiene!

I can’t think of any classy way to say this, so I’ll just say it straight out. When you think of toilet paper you think of - - well -- hineys, bums, tushies, a caboose, keister, arse…. the list goes on. OK I admit it; I actually looked up slang words for buttocks!

But I digress. Procter & Gamble is the undisputed leader in the U.S. toilet paper market. Charmin toilet paper has been around for 70 years, so clearly it has wiped the cheeks of everyone from Harry S. Truman to Lady Gaga. They probably know everything there is to know about butts! Maybe there’s piped music blaring through their offices by Sir Mix-a-lot. "I like big butts, and I cannot lie!" Alright, maybe not, but how great would that be!

Advertising in Education - Old School or New School?

Marketing and advertising evident in a 1910 Schoolhouse

If you think that advertising in schools is a relatively new phenomenon, look closely at the wall of this 1910 restoration of Rosehill Schoolhouse at the Cherokee Strip Museum in Oklahoma. Along with the wood burning stove, well worn desks and dusty chalk boards you will notice a handful of advertisements for local businesses. Direct marketing in schools has been around for at least the last century; it is an interesting exercise to see how some of the marketing efforts have changed.

Have you seen the video everyone is talking about?

See what we do in 90 seconds:  http://www.marketresearch.com/corporate/video.asp




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The UK Pub Scene

After living in London for a year I can tell you that the British Pub is still the center of after-work activity, and in many parts, during work activity. But the Pubs are under siege from low-priced super-market beer, taxes and the living room.

According to a market research report by Marketresearch.com partner IBISWorld, the Pub and Bar industry got caught between legislative changes that bumped up the operating costs and the “crippling economic recession" that started in late 2008.

Apple and Market Research...I knew it

I knew it.
For years Apple claimed, or at least Steve Jobs did, that market research was something he just didn’t do. He famously said that he knew what the public wanted, not the customers.
However, the Wall Street Journal reported that in the patent war with Samsung they found studies entitled Apple Market Research and Analysis, surveying customers on iPhone preferences. Say what??

God Save the Queen (and Europe)

With celebrations across the land for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee ordinary subjects are enjoying their four-day weekend, street parties, fairs and a 1000 boat trip down the Thames. But economists are raining on the Queen's parades, derbies and big Balcony wave.
While the sale of bunting, teacakes, Royal gnomes and everything British are reaching record levels in the run up to the festivities, economists are saying this could prolong the European troubles. While the boost in consumer goods will help a little, the added bank holidays could reduce gross domestic product by .5% this quarter. Last year's Royal Wedding gave the economy a similar dip.This comes at the same time the Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe announced the findings of its Mediascope Europe market research study which found nearly 430 million Europeans use the internet, spending an average of 14.8 hours per week. Significantly for merchants, the study of more than 50,000 people found 96% use the internet to research purchases online while 87% make online purchases.

So perhaps Brits will stay home during the four day weekend and shop online keeping the economy from going through a triple dip.

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Pinterest as Market Research

Pinterest as a place for sharing pictures, yes. But for Market Research? Well, yes.
If you don’t know Pinterest, it’s the hugely popular site that calls itself the online pinboard. It’s online social photo-sharing platform. Kaila Strong on Search Engine Watch astutely finds a number of ways to use it for market research. Calling market research social listening, a term I like very much, she says that knowing the kinds of images your customers like is helpful when developing products and putting together a marketing strategy. She looks into four areas where Pinterest can help you start your market research, following the direction of how Pinterest is set up. The site organizes “pins” into categories so a market researcher can look and see the most popular pins, the fonts that people like best, search in areas on the site where they want to launch their next product and see the latest, most popular pins in that area. There is also a gift section, where you can browse through what others (the competition) are doing. You can also see what terms people use to describe items on your current site. And finally you can scan the user boards to understand how your customers like to organize their information, using that insight to organize the navigation on your site. Lots of companies are still struggling with how to incorporate social networking into their sales and marketing strategies. But it is clear that companies can learn a lot about how their customers act based on their use of these sites. Pinterest for Market Research, pin that on your wall.

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Market Research and the Apprentice, UK Style

In the US there is Donald Trump with his hair and New York accent. In the UK the Apprentice is run by Alan Sugar, with his light beard and British accent.

Sugar's main impact on the UK has been the creation of his company Amstrad, a consumer electronics company and his involvement in the Tottenham Hotspur football team which after a poor 16 year run, he sold his interest.

During a recent episode of the Apprentice, which appears to be identical to the US show, the teams are attempting to create a new consumer product. So they go through their various iterations until it's time to conduct their market research. The market research says to do one thing, but they ignore it, going another way.

Guess who gets fired for not listening to the market research...

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A New Face on MarketResearch.com

It was 2007 when Iran’s nuclear ambitions became a top story, the mortgage crisis started to hit and Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone.  It was also the year MarketResearch.com launched the last iteration of its website. Until Now.



This month MarketResearch.com launched its newest website with a bold new design, friction-free processing, more content, improved navigation, better support and social networking tools.

Since we first launched MarketResearch.com in 2001 our work has centered on helping companies find the market research they need. Over time we have continued to re-design the site with new and better browse functionality aiding the user in their quest to answer their most pressing business issues with the finest market research, most intuitive design features and the best search engine.

As with any technology, there is no destination, it is a constantly twisting journey. But our goal is get the searcher closer to the content than anyone, and Marketresearch.com is uniquely positioned to do that. Most aggregators present only the abstract and table of contents. MarketResearch.com has the whole report in our database so we can dig deeper for the client before they buy.

We make 10,000 customers a year happy. Try out the new site and you could be customer 10,001.

Put me in Coach

The business of business coaches is not just a new agey fad for profitable companies. The theory goes that everyone needs a coach, whether you’re a professional baseball player or golfer, salesperson or CEO. But in a down market a coach can look to a board of directors like a luxury and it gets cut along with the T&E budget.


According to a report by MarketResearch.com partner IBIS, while the industry experienced a downturn, along with most of the world between 2008 and 2010, the business coaching industry has rebounded nicely with growth coming last year and projected going forward.

When coaching gets cut companies look inside for help, often straining human resources and other departments.

At Marketresearch.com we have found the use of a business coach incredibly useful and a source of insight that can only come from outside the company walls.

A middle ground is sometimes found in online training courses, which will give the industry a shot in the arm.

The report suggests a less than one percent decline for the $9 billion market, up and through 2012, however, a nearly 5% growth rate is expected as a stronger economy pushes ahead.

The highly fragmented market is eating a bit of its own with smaller operators closing down or being bought by the bigger ones with the number of companies in the space declining 1% in the five years preceding and up to 2012.

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More Content, More Content, More Content

MarketResearch.com and Profound -- A Joint Effort

Since bringing MarketResearch.com and Profound together a few years ago, our goal has been a combined database that does two things: 1) Adds more market research content to Profound; 2) Loads the research reports onto Profound, faster.

This became a reality in 2012 when we added 40% more market research publishers to the Profound cache of more than 600,000 documents.



This was an effort of not just contracts and publishers. It was also a feat of technology advancement. Prior to this process all content loaded to Profound had to go through a long manual process, as opposed to Marketresearch.com, where the loading is technology driven.

By combining the databases and altering certain slicing procedures, all content is loaded up on Profound faster and more seamlessly than before, giving Profound users unrivaled access to the content they need to make their toughest business decisions.

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A New Business Approach

The first quarter of 2012 will go down as Profound's best quarter for new business since we acquired the company. Why is that?

There are two trends in this improving, yet still difficult, economy. First, companies are still spending slowly, so slices are an attractive price point option.

But a more important trend is an ever-increasing approval process above a certain price-point. More companies are clamping down on orders of a certain size, lowering the price threshold and making it harder for companies to make quick buying decisions.

This second trend is convincing more companies that buying by the slice is the way to get the information they need in a competitive and cost-saving environment.



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Market Research Surveys Build Brand Loyalty

Firms build brand loyalty through market research according to a report by Cint, a market insight company. Of those surveyed nearly 62% said they were more likely to buy a particular product from a company if they were asked their opinion in a study. While some studies have shown people getting survey fatigue, Cint says the 1200 consumer polled felt more loyal to those brands who surveyed them.


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Global Sports Market is Up

With the Superbowl, an international sporting event, it’s interesting to see the growth of the Global Sports Market, according to NPD a leading market research company.

Their 2011 report suggests the worldwide sports market grew 4% in 2010. This is based on the sales of “ sports equipment, active apparel, and athletic footwear.” The main drivers of these numbers come from sales of running, hiking/walking, and football/soccer products.

These products, the market research report found, are more resistant to downward economic conditions than other industries. The Global Sports Estimate Report shows seven countries with sports market size exceeding 10 billion, those include the USA, Japan, Germany, China, France, UK and Italy.

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Joseph Farrell who changed film-making through Market Research

No one who saw it can forget the movie Fatal Attraction.  Everyone has their own favorite scene but Market research pioneer Joseph Farrell, who died earlier this month at age 76, was responsible for convincing the studio to change the ending.

Farrell is credited with the expansion of opinion tracking for all major Hollywood studios helping market research drive key movie making decisions.  This set up a battle, however, between those who saw movies as purely art and those who viewed them as money-making ventures.

After working for Louis Harris Mr. Farrell founded the National Research Group, which re-worked the pre-release and preview screening process. The NRG became the most influential marketing consulting firm in Hollywood.

Farrell said of his much-maligned work:  “The film is the athlete; I just give it every training tip I know…Filmmaking is a creative pursuit but must ultimately go commercial. Market research, a town meeting of sorts, lets the filmmaker know if he’s communicating effectively with the public.”

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Segmenting Markets in India

Segmenting markets is becoming an important issue in business research and intelligence in India.

Market segmentation, as defined by The Market Research Company India, helps companies identify and pin point the market into groups of potential customers with similar motivations and characteristics.

By segmenting out certain markets it makes marketing in this growing economy far more productive and profitable. An organizations can study entire markets with a single offer, or target more specifically certain segments.

A Market Research Company in India can follow five ways to segment markets.

1. Geographic Segmentation.
2. Demographic Segmentation.
3. Psychographic Segmentation.
4. Behavioral Segmentation.
5. Product Differences.

While the steps to achieving segmentationg are not laid out the goal is to maximize sales and profits, not necessarily brand recognition.

Some steps include:  Identifying the entire market, profiling segments, summarizing segments, assessing which segment is most attractive, selecting a target market and determinig segment positioning.

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Analyst Suggests Market Research to Grow Sales

In a recent Washington Post article, a SageWorks research specialist, noted a 7% increase in Private Company sales last year, with most still struggling with a tough economy. A possible way out, according to the article, is using market research for customer insight. The article suggests quick call communication, better examination of how your customers use your products, bringing your customers in to your internal process and surveying them, get them talking and talking to you.

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Feedback Fatigue

At some point does a survey's results weaken the more you ask?

An Associated Press article suggests the post-holiday purchase appraisals are giving Americans feedback fatigue.

It has become so easy to ask for feedback with email 
that requests for comments and opinions has caused a backlash against the very good customer feedback that the customer at first received.

This theory took flight with late-night comedian Bill Maher telling a company, "I was actually pretty happy with your customer service, up to the point where you asked me to take a survey about your customer service."

Consumers are getting fed up with giving their feedback for free.  Further they fear giving out their personal data and who is to say the companies are listening.

Responding to the backlash Google stopped requesting feedback Gmail users complained.

While historical market research polls continue to be effective, the proliferation of email based customer-satisfaction surveys is a new phenomena.

Some fear the pushback on feedback could hamper important government data-gathering like the census or unemployment statistics .

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The Drunkest Market Researchers?

The Daily Beast used Marketresearch.com partner Experian Simmons to help determine, just in time for holiday season, America's Drunkest Cities of 2011.

The Daily Beast used Simmons to help determine the average number of alcoholic drinks that were consumed, per month by the residents of more than 200 cities across the US.  The report was completed before the considerable holiday drinking, so this includes more likely beer and wine more than Eggnog.

Binge or heavy drinkers for each metro area was also gleaned using the Centers for Disease Control statistics. In determining a final ranking they gave the average number of drinks twice the weighting as the heavy drinking population.

Congratulations to Boston where 20% of the population are considered binge drinkers, while Springfield Mass comes in at second place.  The East Coast stranglehold was crushed in third place by Milwaukee, the home of many brewers on and off the field. Rounding out the top five was Reno and San Antonio.

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Marketresearch.com and Yoda

How often is there a New York Times article mentioning Yoda, Marketresearch.com and Larry Finkel?



Not that often, but it did happen on January second in an article about how Pepsi is using the release of “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace 3D” to promote its Brisk iced tea and juice drinks.

New product packaging and a mobile game app is being rolled out targeting males aged 18-29.

Mekanism, a San Francisco based agency is working to help Lipton's Brisk ice tea in the social media market.  An effort industry experts say is working.

Brisk brand sales have more than doubled and according to our own Larry Finkel, dollar sales are up 12%.

This sales growth exceeded rival brands including Arizona and Snapple.

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