Consumer preferences keep changing, but brands must predict and develop strategies to handle such shifts. Besides, a competitive organization will actively monitor how the rival brands overcome the challenges in releasing a new product and building brand loyalty. This post will elaborate on utilizing market intelligence for a small business. 

What is Market Intelligence (MI)? 

Market intelligence gathers data on consumer behavior and competitor strategies to help brands improve their products and other deliverables. Also, MI professionals integrate automation tools because they save time and resources. Still, expert oversight is required to ensure the appropriate usage of market intelligence solutions. 

Powerful functions offered by Demandbase One, Klue, PipeCandy, Databook, and many more tools or online platforms help you learn about competitors. Some applications can enhance customer relationship management (CRM), while others discover more efficient supply chain partners. 

How Can a Small Business Leverage Market Intelligence? 

1| Increasing Email-based Conversions 

A market intelligence database encompasses customer insights. It allows corporations to personalize email marketing techniques. Since their email copywriting benefits from MI-led personalization ideas, consumers are more likely to respond positively to your calls to action (CTAs). 

Remember, according to HubSpot, 40% of consumers admit to having a minimum of 50 unread emails in their inboxes. But Bluecore reports all individuals to consider email the most personal communication channel, although the trend varies across older and younger customers. 

You can gain more extensive insights into how recipients respond to corporate emails using marketing analytics consulting. Besides, content personalization promises improvements in email opening rates. Therefore, MI datasets that provide consumer behavior predictions and profile monitoring have become popular. 

2| Finding Patterns in Complaints 

Most enterprises have a self-service portal designed to impart product troubleshooting knowledge. Likewise, several software and hardware vendors host the “frequently asked questions” (FAQ) live streams. You will also notice the FAQs at the end of articles serving an educational or problem-solving intent. 

However, why do companies go the extra mile to embed the help menus, tutorials, and FAQs? Their helpdesks often receive identical grievances from the customers. And only a few of these complaints need an expert’s intervention. By finding patterns in the compliant and negative reviews’ data, brands can fill the knowledge gap through FAQs and self-service facilities. 

Market intelligence streamlines compliant categorization and severity tagging using natural language processing (NLP). Therefore, a small business can use MI and NLP to shortlist recurring consumer criticism. Later, it will direct customers who need only an easy fix to its official self-service or knowledge base (KB) site. 

In the long term, this use case of market intelligence saves a small business’s resources. It also helps customers fix the standard issues they face when using a product. 

3| Discovering, Testing, and Releasing New Models or Service Options 

When Android was a new operating system (OS), each version update meant a lot to every smartphone user. Most updates prioritized under-the-hood security enhancements after the OS and smartphone market matured. Now, whether consumers use Android 11 or 13 makes a little difference. 

If a product or service category is novel to consumers, they will have curiosity accompanying their purchase decisions. However, launching a new model of established consumables requires data-driven assurances. Consider the following queries: 

1. Will there be a demand for your new offerings? 
2. How will releasing a newer model affect the sales performance of the old version already distributed to the stores and consumers? 

Conclusion 

Growing a small business is challenging, but market intelligence can help you overcome the obstacles to improve your position. Managers will learn more about why consumers purchase and which factors are more crucial using MI databases. 

When you propose or launch a new product, market researchers will estimate its sales performance, leveraging insights into consumer preferences and identical goods. Whether you plan to integrate email marketing or address customer complaints quickly, professional MI insights will help you strategize.