Categories: Articles

Is Your Market Researcher Some Yahoo Named Google?

I love that title. It isn’t mine. I actually stole it from an entrepreneurial conference that I heard about in the States a few years ago. I was also inspired to write this Blog posting after reading Kate Trgovac from My Name Is Kate and her posting, Satisfying Blogger Egos … Even More Tools. Kate has some great insights into what we, as marketers, need to be paying attention to. Why does this matter? It’s not about ego surfing (although that does give you a decent indication as to whether or not your new marketing tactics are working), but more importantly, it’s an ideal market research tool.
It got me thinking. Then it got me PowerPointing. I put together a handful of slides on how to do market research online.
Here’s what I came up with:
1. Check with Alexa how something ranks (don’t forget to check out Related Links).
2. Check out the Google PageRank.
3. Load up on Google News Alerts.
4. Use Google to snoop around (try typing in a URL and then click on the “Find pages that contain the term” link to see who is linking in to that website).
5. Try Google Suggests or Overture Keyword Selector Tool to see which keywords and keyphrases related to your space consumers are looking for.
6. Pay attention to places like Technorati and Bloglines. If people are talking about you (or your competitor), you should be paying close attention.
7. Get a feed. If you don’t know about RSS or have an RSS reader, you’re completely in the dark.
8. Pay attention. Doing it once is not good enough. Block off time every few days to check out what the world is saying about you and your competition.
Did I miss any cool tools? Let me know, I’ll add them to the list.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.