Chapter 1: The Importance of Customer Research

Understanding the role of market research is essential for creating customer-centric marketing strategies and products. A customer-centric or market-centric approach is fundamental to developing offerings that resonate with consumers.

1. Market-Driven Marketing encompasses a thorough understanding of customer needs and market dynamics, guiding effective strategies, tactics, and marketing resources that foster customer adoption. This approach ensures that go-to-market (GTM) strategies align with product validation and organizational objectives.
2. Market-Driven Product methodology aids in confirming existing assumptions about current and prospective users while prioritizing research feedback to shape product strategy and roadmap.

Types of Research

Jobs to Be Done (JTBD)

My personal framework, PMD Product Market Fit ®, aims to uncover the essential needs and motivations of customers when they "hire" a product or service to accomplish a task in their lives. This framework focuses on identifying the functional, emotional, and social aspects that influence customer behavior and choices, allowing for the design or enhancement of products, services, and marketing strategies.

Clayton Christensen, a distinguished Harvard Business School professor and author of "The Innovator’s Solution," popularized the JTBD concept. According to this framework, customers select products or services to meet specific tasks or jobs in their lives, which can span practical needs to emotional or social requirements. The goal is to understand the fundamental job customers want to complete, rather than merely concentrating on the product or service itself.

By comprehending customers' jobs, businesses can better align their offerings with customer needs and preferences, ultimately enhancing customer satisfaction, loyalty, and business success.

My framework, PMD Product Market Fit ®, is built on over 15 years of validating customer sentiments from both product and marketing perspectives. Often, market research is conducted within a narrow scope, focusing solely on initial assumptions or a pure product viewpoint.

When discussing market research, I refer to a comprehensive assessment of the potential ecosystem, business environment, product, operational impact, and technical strategy before any development occurs.

This customer research process is a thorough investigative effort involving business and product interviews. It allows for a deep understanding of the mindset of ecosystem participants, their purchasing decisions, and their business goals. Questions should start broadly, gradually becoming more specific.

Research indicates that five to seven customer interviews can yield 80% of the required insights. Beyond that, additional interviews may not provide statistically significant information. For organizations with diverse customer bases, I recommend interviewing five to seven clients within a specific market segment.

While this rule covers most scenarios, it’s crucial to focus on existing customers and early adopters, as their feedback is vital during the initial product launch phase.

After these interviews, amalgamate the cross-functional insights with business and product feedback into a report detailing key findings and trends. This report can be shared internally with relevant stakeholders. Additionally, engage with cross-functional teams such as product management, customer success, UI/UX, and business development.

I typically compile a comprehensive set of business, operational, marketing, and product inquiries. It’s important to be both broad and specific; I have posed over 100 questions in a single session, starting with open-ended questions before delving into more detailed queries.

Customer Research Questions

Below are sample questions for conducting Business to Consumer (B2C) and Business to Business (B2B) customer research interviews. These should be tailored to the specific market and industry, focusing on the problem and pain points you aim to address.

To effectively segment and create personas for your target market, ensure you have a complete audience profile before beginning the questioning phase.

Audience Profiles

• Vertical / Category
• Demographics (Age & Sex)
• Income
• Occupation
• Education
• Relationship Status
• Language
• Ethnicity
• Interests
• Social Media Platforms
• News & Other Media Sources

Sample Questions for B2C Market Discovery Before Product Development

1. What interests you about [insert industry and market]?
2. How long have you been engaged with this market or industry?
3. What motivates your involvement in this ecosystem?
4. What are your views on [potential product or solution] in the market?
5. What challenges do you face in [insert industry]?
6. How do you seek solutions for those challenges?
7. On a scale of 1–10, how significant are these challenges?
8. How would you define your role within this industry?

Sample Questions for B2C Product Discovery at Early Stages

1. How did you search for a solution to your problem?
2. When did you make your purchase?
3. What alternatives did you consider before choosing our product?
4. Were there any influencers in your decision-making process?
5. How did you first hear about this product?
6. When did the desire to purchase arise?
7. What solutions did you explore? Why did you choose not to try others?

Sample Questions for B2B Market Discovery Before Product Development

1. What are your goals for the upcoming year?
2. How do you approach revenue projections and budgeting?
3. What is your company's annual revenue?
4. What drives your revenue generation?
5. How do you plan to achieve your revenue goals this year?

Sample Questions for B2B Product Discovery

1. What would motivate you to use this product?
2. What is your core business objective for the upcoming year?
3. What product goals do you have for the near future?
4. Are you currently using competitor products?
5. What demand generation or lead sourcing tools are you using?
6. How large are your product and development teams?
7. On a scale of 1–10, how significant is the pain point you are addressing?
8. What alternatives are you currently using?

After conducting deep dives and completing five to seven interviews within each category or vertical, along with documenting customer segments, you should be able to extract key trends and commonalities from both business and product perspectives.

At this stage, you’ll grasp the key decision-makers, their influences, and their annual objectives, along with a list of recurring keywords useful for your product messaging.

This market research phase is all about understanding your market, the players in your ecosystem, and how they operate and make decisions.

If you're interested in learning more about Product Marketing, stay connected and subscribe. For deeper insights on launching your product, check out my Go-To-Market workshop, where I share over a decade of experience in product launches.

If you'd like to collaborate or bring a GTM workshop to your organization, feel free to schedule a 15-minute consultation.

Chapter 2: Effective Market Research Strategies

The first video titled "EXACTLY how I do market research for new products" provides a detailed overview of practical market research techniques that can be applied to new product development.

The second video titled "How To Do Market Research! (5 FAST & EASY Strategies For 2024)" offers quick and efficient strategies for conducting market research in the current landscape.