Market research that tells you what to sell, and to whom.
Most marketing that fails does not fail in the ad account. It fails because the offer was aimed at the wrong buyer, priced against the wrong competitor, or described in words the customer never uses. We do the research that settles those questions before the budget goes out the door.
Research that changes a decision, or we do not run it.
Plenty of market research produces a handsome deck and no change in behaviour. Ours is scoped backwards from a decision you actually have to make — which service line to push, which territory to open, what to charge, which objection to answer first in the ad. If a piece of research cannot change one of those answers, we do not bill you to run it.
Frame the decision
We start from the question in front of you, not from a standard research menu. What are you deciding, what would change your mind, and how much is riding on getting it right?
Gather the evidence
Search demand, competitor positioning and pricing, review mining, your own closed-won and closed-lost records, and where useful, direct conversations with your customers.
Test the cheap version first
Where a question can be settled with a small live test instead of an opinion, we run the test. A few hundred dollars of traffic against two offers beats a boardroom argument.
Hand over something usable
You get the recommendation, the evidence behind it, and the messaging and targeting that follow from it — in a form your campaigns and your sales team can use on Monday.
What our market research services cover.
Engagements are scoped to the decision. Most clients need two or three of these, not all six.
Customer & audience research
Who actually buys, what triggered the purchase, and what nearly stopped them. Built from your own won and lost records rather than a persona template someone invented in a workshop.
- Buyer segmentation by value and cycle
- Purchase triggers & objections
- Language mining from real reviews and calls
- Closed-lost analysis
Competitor & positioning analysis
What the other firms in your market promise, charge, and rank for — and the gap between what they all say and what buyers say they want.
- Offer & guarantee comparison
- Pricing and packaging teardown
- Share of search & visibility gaps
- Ad creative and messaging review
Demand & keyword research
How much real demand exists, in which words, in which months, and in which postcodes. This is what tells you whether a new service line is worth launching before you staff for it. Feeds directly into search and paid media planning.
- Search volume & intent mapping
- Seasonality modelling
- Geographic demand by territory
- Cost-per-click and competition benchmarks
Offer & message testing
Two or three live offers, run against real traffic, measured on booked appointments rather than clicks. The fastest way we know to settle a positioning argument.
- Offer variants against live traffic
- Landing page and headline tests
- Measured to booked jobs, not clicks
- Read-out with a clear recommendation
Market & territory sizing
Before you open a second location or push into an adjacent county, an honest estimate of how many buyers are there, who already serves them, and what it would cost to be seen.
- Addressable demand by area
- Local competitor density
- Entry cost & payback estimate
- Prioritised expansion order
Pricing & packaging research
What the market will bear, where you sit against it, and whether your quotes are losing on price or on how the price is presented.
- Competitive price benchmarking
- Quote win/loss by price band
- Packaging & financing options
- Margin impact modelling
Who hires us for this.
We are a performance marketing agency that does market research, not a research house that hands over a report and leaves. That distinction matters, because it means the research is scoped by people who will have to make campaigns work off the back of it — and who will be held to the result.
Most of this work is commissioned by established service businesses at a decision point: a home improvement or renovation contractor weighing a second territory, a professional services firm whose lead cost has climbed for three quarters running, or an operator who suspects they are competing on price because nobody has checked what else they could compete on. If you are earlier than that and simply need leads, lead generation is the better place to start.
Research usually runs as a defined project ahead of a campaign build, and often pairs with conversion rate optimization and tracking, so that what the research recommends can actually be measured once it is live. If the honest finding is that your market is fine and the problem is follow-up, we will say so — that answer points at marketing automation and costs you a great deal less.
Common questions.
What does a market research project actually include?
It depends on the decision you are trying to make. A typical engagement combines two or three of: customer and audience research from your own won and lost records, competitor and pricing analysis, search demand and territory sizing, and live offer testing. We scope it backwards from the decision, so you are not paying for research that cannot change an answer.
How long does market research take?
Most projects run three to six weeks. Desk-based work such as competitor analysis, demand modelling, and review mining is usually complete inside two weeks. Anything involving live offer testing needs longer, because it has to gather enough real traffic and booked appointments to be worth trusting.
Can you do the research without also running our marketing?
Yes. Research runs as a standalone project and you own everything it produces. Most clients do go on to have us build campaigns off the back of it, but that is not a condition, and the recommendation is not written to sell you a retainer.
What is the difference between market research and a marketing audit?
An audit looks at what you are currently doing and how well it is working. Research looks outward at the market, the buyers, and the competitors, and asks whether you are aiming at the right target in the first place. If your campaigns are underperforming, an audit usually comes first. If you are choosing a direction, research does.
Do you run surveys and customer interviews?
Where the question warrants it, yes. Often it is not necessary, because the answers already exist in your closed-won and closed-lost records, in your sales calls, and in the reviews your competitors' customers have already written. We start with the evidence you already own and commission new primary research only when there is a genuine gap.
What decision are you trying to make?
Bring it to a free 30-minute call. We will tell you what evidence would actually settle it, what that would take to gather, and whether it is worth gathering at all.