AMA: Glassdoor Product Marketing Team on Market Research

There are a few different ways to go about creating personas (which may be more closely aligned to “archetypes” or “segments” depending on the terminology your organization uses). The way you source the data largely depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. But the short answer is you can use qualitative data, quantitative data, or a mix of both. Either way, you’ll usually get the best results with primary research data - data you collect as opposed to insights you find in published research. ...Read More

There are a number of foundational research reports and insights you can provide to your product partners before they delve into the development process. These include: A broader overview of the competitive landscape and market landscape As well as a closer look at the health of your brand and how it fares against it competitors over time through brand trackers and CSAT (consumer satisfaction) surveys In terms of users and target audience, they can draw on segmentation and persona research And I ...Read More

Persona frameworks are unique to the organizations and teams who use them. But there are a few core elements that will add some structural integrity to your personas. Context and Market - How do you define the market that this persona is pulled from? Do you need to be able to size the perona’s incidence in the marketplace? Name - Choose a name that is memorable and conveys whatever it is that makes this persona unique and/or valuable. Some folks like to give their persona a name like “Steve” or ...Read More

Ideally you would draw on both a combination of quantitative and qualitative data to shape your segmentation research. Start with a hypothesis of who your TAM (total addressable market) is. This will help you to identify new market segments you may not have thought to target. For example, for Glassdoor our TAM is comprised of all working age adults who are either currently employed or want to be employed. Segmentation can then be used to expand the sandbox (market) that you’re playing in by expa ...Read More

Yes! Glassdoor, under the leadership of Bonnie (Head of Market Insights), established two market research online communities (MROC): one for consumers (B2C) and one for customers (B2B). We regularly field message tests to these two research communities to get quick, detailed feedback on messaging. This is what Bonnie had to say about MROCs: MROCs make message testing easy, efficient, and effective! Once your online community is fully recruited, you can send them a survey and usually get a suffic ...Read More

In the most simpliest terms, a direct competitor is solving a simliar or same pain point as you are. One goal in conducting a competitive analysis as part of your market research is to identify points of differentiation and keeping a pulse on what's working (or not) in market. You can produce helpful reference docs such as a competitive market landscape to competitive messaging frameworks to sales battle cards! Here is an example from Patti, our Head of Consumer PMM, from her past life: think ab ...Read More

Before we answer this one, here’s a little context about market research at Glassdoor. Our market research team is called “Market Insights” and it sits on the PMM team. Market Insights projects almost always have a strong PMM lead. Before product built, PMM/Market Insights takes it; once built, UX takes it. There are some exceptions, but the reason for this criteria is that market research is more in tune with the attitudes, wants, and needs of the total audience, which helps us identify opportu ...Read More

In our experience, market research is generally better suited toward future-focused strategic decisions than behavioral data (e.g. where can we expand our product offerings and what problems should we be solving?). Behavioral data can usually offer a clearer view into how to improve experiences and deepen engagement with existing products (e.g. after they do X, Y is a natural next step so let's send them a notification to nudge them in that direction). You can even link your survey data to behav ...Read More

Bonnie, Patti, and I always recommend getting in touch with your target audience/customers by any means necessary! One way to get started is to identify who has the best direct line to customers/consumers. Make friends w/ Customer Service team and make sure you’re aligned on best practices when reaching out to and speaking with customers. The people in your organization who can help you are usually in Sales, Social Media, Customer Service, UX, and Market Research. Pro tip: You can build an infor ...Read More

First of all, *hugs*. I've worked on both the vendor and client sides of research, so I've had the opportunity to work with many different teams with varying levels of interest in market research. When I'm working with a team that isn't "bought-in" on the value of market research, it's usually due to one of the following reasons: They're in "start-up" mode and not creating space within their processes to leverage market research insights They haven't made it a priority to upskill their team on h ...Read More

Market shifts cannot be ignored, otherwise you will be left behind and will no longer be relevant. In the last two and a half years, we’ve all seen significant changes in the market given global events and cultural shifts on a number of fronts especially in terms of the pandemic and for social justice. Within a month of covid shutting down the US, Glassdoor quickly created a Covid-19 Response Campaign that offered a slew of resources and tips for job seekers from directing them to companies who ...Read More

From my, Patti (Head of Consumer PMM) and Bonnie’s (Head of Market Insights) point of view, a successful GTM launch requires early PMM/market research involvement in the product development lifecycle. At the pre launch stage, and ideally during product development: Talk to your target audience Validate product/market fit based on the market research conducted; be sure to get clarity on who you are solving for and what their JTBD or Pain Points are. Once validated, go into message testing/value p ...Read More

There are so many best practices here! We’ll name the ones most top-of-mind, but please know this is not an exhaustive list. It seems simple, in theory, to conduct a research interview. It’s just asking questions, right? But moderators spend years learning and perfecting their craft. Screening Lean into your champions, not your haters. Find respondents who have a real need in the space and who don’t already have negative feelings towards your brand. These people will give you the feedback you ne ...Read More