AMA: Route VP of Product Marketing, Aliza Edelstein on Market Research

This depends on two things: How much you already know How much risk you can take  How much do you already know?  A lot - you already have existing data at your disposal. If this is the case, you do not necessarily need to seek more information. You can leverage these existing insights, or analyze the data sets again from new angles.  A little - you have some data but need to validate some burning questions. If this is the case, you can be scrappy yet comprehensive with the additional research. T ...Read More

While surveys to a representative sample are a key input for keeping your finger on the pulse of industry trends, they likely won’t tell you what you aren’t thinking to ask.  Imagine being in a library and only picking out books that you want to read; you’ll continue to learn more about what you already want to know. Imagine instead that you ask others for some book recommendations; you’ll more likely end up expanding your horizons and learning things you didn’t even know to ask about. So, depen ...Read More

Two ways to answer this question: Follow best practices Use common sense Best practice: Survey fatigue isn’t as much about the time it takes to complete a survey but about the number of questions to answer, as well as question type. Best practices for the exact number vary, but the suggestion I follow is to keep the shortest path to under 35 questions. The question type matters as well—open-ended questions have a much higher mental load than multiple choice questions. This article has great sugg ...Read More

This is a big question so bear with the long answer! If you are on the research team, product team, or product marketing team, it is your job to synthesize your research. And, it’s even better if you can consolidate it with, or tie it to, another team’s complementary work (this can be a cross-functional and collaborative effort). I’ll answer your question two parts, since you’ll need to do both of these things: Formatting: Tactically speaking, my personal style is to make a visual deck on the to ...Read More

There are so many ways to conduct research on a limited budget—and even for free! Gen AI. You no longer need to hire expensive agencies or consultants to write well-structured surveys. Use AI tools as a starting point and refine it. (See for yourself what happens when you ask ChatGPT “can you write a 10 question concept testing survey that will help me validate 3 new product name options?”) Templates. Same point as above - here’s an excellent set of templates (scroll to bottom). Online communiti ...Read More

Determine what you need to answer, and then work backward from that. The research needs to be relevant to your company in order to move the needle. For example—Do you need to prioritize what to build from a feature request backlog? Do you need to create more demand from new audiences/markets? Do you need to drive adoption of functionality that customers are already paying for? Do you need to identify an unmet market need so you can build the solution? Do you need to figure out whether it makes s ...Read More