Market Research

First PublishedMay 24, 2026Last UpdatedMay 25, 2026ByAtif Alam

Market Research is the first leg of the Marketing framework: Research → Strategy (STP) → Marketing Mix → Branding → Analytics. It’s the input layer — the work that grounds every downstream decision in evidence instead of opinion.

Why this section exists

Almost every weak GTM plan can be traced back to thin research: a fuzzy ICP that came from imagination, positioning built against a competitor the customer doesn’t actually weigh, market sizing that confuses TAM with opportunity, or a trend that turned out to be a fashion. This section is the antidote — concrete methods, templates, and metrics for each kind of research, beginner-accessible but designed to produce defensible artifacts.

The research outputs here feed directly into Strategy (ICP, Positioning, Pricing) and into the Workbook, which turns them into a fillable plan.

How to use this section

Suggested reading order for someone building a first GTM plan from scratch:

1. Start with Customer Insights — needs and pains first, then how to gather them (interviews, surveys, voice-of-customer), then how to organize what you find (personas, jobs-to-be-done).
2. Then Competitor Analysis — map the alternatives the customer is actually weighing (including “do nothing”), and add Win/Loss Analysis as soon as you have deals to learn from.
3. Then Market Sizing — quantify the opportunity using the TAM/SAM/SOM nested view, with bottom-up grounded in your real ICP.
4. Then Trends & Demand — scan the macro signals, then run Demand Validation Experiments to test specific offers at price.

For an existing product, the priority order flips: start with Win/Loss Analysis and Voice of Customer — they give the highest signal from what’s already happening in your funnel.

Pages

• Customer Insights — needs and pains, how to gather them (interviews, surveys, VoC), how to synthesize them (personas, JTBD).
• Competitor Analysis — the alternatives a customer weighs, including “do nothing.”
• Win/Loss Analysis — the ongoing post-decision interview loop.
• Market Sizing — TAM / SAM / SOM with bottom-up and top-down methods.
• Trends & Demand — passive scan of market direction; distinguishing fashion from trend.
• Demand Validation Experiments — active tests (landing pages, pre-orders) that prove demand at price.

See also

• Strategy — where this section’s outputs are consumed: ICP, Positioning, Pricing.
• Workbook — the fill-in template that turns research outputs into a single GTM plan document.
• Worked Example — what the through-line looks like end-to-end for a sample product.
• Glossary — quick lookup for the acronyms used throughout (MQL, NPS, TAM/SAM/SOM, ICP, JTBD…).