There’s a story I love to tell whenever people ask me about how we gather market insights. It takes me back to my days as a CMO at a small Series A startup, where “budget constraints” was the name of the game. I remember one Sunday afternoon, standing in an IKEA parking lot with a car full of flat-packed furniture, thinking to myself, “If only gathering customer insights were this straightforward!” Fast forward to today, and while my budget has grown, the mindset remains the same: being scrappy and resourceful is key.
Over the years, I’ve refined four practical ways to gather market insights that don’t require hefty research budgets. Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or a scrappy startup founder, these methods will help you turn market insights into action—without breaking the bank.
We all know the value of keeping an eye on competitors. The problem? It’s incredibly time-consuming. Enter AI. One of the first things we did at Daxko was to set up custom AI agents to pull in XML feeds from competitors’ blogs, forums, and even customer review sites. These feeds, loaded with useful data, are automatically dropped into a Slack channel. This means that every day, I get fresh, relevant market insights straight from the source, without having to spend hours scouring the web.
But we didn’t stop there. We also use AI to pull in discussions from industry-specific forums, like those on Reddit or Spiceworks, depending on where our target customers hang out. It’s a goldmine of unfiltered opinions and insights, all available at our fingertips. This helps us stay ahead of the curve by understanding not just what our competitors are doing, but also what our target customers are saying.
Takeaway: Use AI for competitive intelligence and market insights, especially if you’re short on time and budget. You don’t need expensive tools like Clue or Crayon; a custom setup can do wonders.
In my opinion, BDRs should sit with the marketing team. They talk to potential customers all day long, so who better to gather firsthand insights? We set up a weekly “Voice of the Market” sync with our BDRs where they share the common pain points, objections, and trends they’re hearing from prospects. This allows us to continuously refine our messaging and product positioning.
Another scrappy trick? Get BDRs to include polls in their outreach emails. People love a quick this-or-that question. It not only drives engagement but also gives us valuable data on what matters most to our target customers.
Takeaway: Your BDRs are on the frontlines. Use their interactions as a treasure trove of customer insights. Structured properly, this data can help you turn market insights into action, refining both your product and marketing strategies.
Here’s where things get fun. Every industry has its niche publications with highly engaged audiences. In the fitness world, where Daxko operates, we partner with small vertical-specific publications that might have just the right audience for us. Often, we propose running small polls or studies on their platforms, gathering data that helps us make smarter product decisions.
Even better? The insights we gain from these partnerships double as content for SEO. We’ll write blog posts, reports, or even whitepapers based on the data. Not only does this drive traffic, but it also strengthens our thought leadership in the industry.
Takeaway: Partner with niche publications to gather insights and boost your content marketing efforts. It’s a two-for-one: you get actionable data and content that ranks well in search engines.
Finally, let’s talk about influencers—not the Instagram kind, but the industry experts and consultants who have a finger on the pulse of what’s happening in the market. We often partner with consultants who work with large customers on RFPs and ask them for feedback on our product messaging. Sometimes we’ll even invite them to host small customer roundtables, where they act as a moderator and help us gather insights while adding their credibility to the mix.
These influencers help us see things from a different perspective. Their market knowledge becomes a bridge between us and the insights we need from our target customers.
Takeaway: Work with industry influencers and consultants to facilitate customer roundtables. They’ll help you gather insights and add credibility to your brand in the process.
So, how would you turn market insights into action? For me, it’s about being scrappy and smart, using the resources you already have, and finding innovative ways to gather data. AI for competitive intelligence, BDRs for customer insights, niche publications for dual-purpose content, and industry influencers for credibility and feedback—all of these playbooks have one thing in common: they help turn market insights into action, fast.
You don’t need a massive budget to make smart decisions. You just need a little creativity and a lot of drive. Ready to turn your insights into action?
