What are the best sources for market research when your org/company doesn't have a research team?

This is a great question and an opportunity to debunk the idea that market research has to be expensive or a dedicated function. You don't need to outsource your market research, and there's a lot that you can do just by being scrappy. First of all, you should be thinking about how you can use AI to get a jump start on the topics, personas, markets you need to better understand. Once you've done that, you should think about leveraging the resources you do have available. Most importantly, your s ...Read More

There are a lot of great tools out there that are available for free (or with free trials). You just have to get a bit creative and be willing to experiment with which combo of tools work best for you.  Internal sources Customer interviews and prospect conversations Sales call recordings (ex. Gong) Support tickets and NPS results Win/loss reports External sources Review sites: G2, Gartner Peer Insights,  Capterra, TrustRadius. Reddit, Hacker News, Discord, and Slack communities where your person ...Read More

Use Notebook LM from Google to synthesize large volumes of articles, reports, and videos into actionable insights quickly and for free. Notebook LM is a scrappy but powerful tool: keep a running list of every article, blog, research report, and YouTube video relevant to your market and feed them all in. It's remarkably good at synthesizing 50+ sources, including competitive webinars. The Gemini models powering it are only getting stronger. You can also feed in your own materials for battle-testi ...Read More

The most effective sources include direct customer conversations, Gong call transcripts fed into AI tools, analyst reports, peer review sites, Reddit communities, and real-time B2B message testing tools like Wynter. Here are the most useful channels for market research without a dedicated research team: 1. **Talk to customers** — Ideally, be pulled into customer meetings and sales calls proactively. Even as a fly on the wall, you gain invaluable insight. 2. **Gong transcripts** — If your company ...Read More

Use a blend of internal data (Salesforce, call logs, customer interviews) and third-party research to understand both existing customers and those you're not yet reaching. New AI-powered synthetic research tools are also emerging as cost-effective options. When refreshing a go-to-market motion, pull from multiple data sources: - **Quantitative internal data**: Salesforce records, call logs, usage data - **Qualitative internal data**: Interviews with sales teams, internal stakeholders, and custom ...Read More

Partner with third-party research firms like GLG for statistically significant primary research, especially when you need market credibility. Market research is a craft, and getting statistically significant data matters. For a recent white paper and campaign at Atlassian, the team partnered with GLG (Gerson Lehrman Group) to conduct both qualitative and quantitative primary research. The goal was to establish a credible point of view on where a market category was going. Going to existing custo ...Read More