What does marketing research cover?
Four questions, answered with evidence rather than assumption:
Who is actually buying? Not the persona from the pitch deck — the real customers, described by what they have in common, what triggered the purchase, and what nearly stopped them.
What language do they use? The exact words customers use to describe their problem, which are almost never the words a business uses to describe its solution. This gap is the most common reason good marketing underperforms.
What are competitors doing? Their positioning, pricing, offers, ad creative, content strategy, review sentiment, and search footprint. Not a list of who they are — an analysis of where they're strong, where they're exposed, and what nobody in the category is saying.
Where is the opportunity? The demand that exists and isn't being served, the search terms nobody is targeting well, the objection nobody is answering, the audience everyone is ignoring.
When should a business commission research?
- ✓Before a rebrand or website build. Designing before deciding is the most expensive sequence in marketing.
- ✓Before entering a new market or launching a service line. Two weeks of research is cheaper than a quarter of failed campaigns.
- ✓When marketing works but nobody knows why. Leads arrive; the pattern behind them is invisible.
- ✓When marketing has stopped working. Something changed — the market, the competition, or the message — and guessing at which is expensive.
- ✓When your team disagrees about the audience. Research settles arguments that opinion can't.
- ✓Before a major budget decision. Any significant marketing investment deserves two weeks of evidence in front of it.
What's included in a research engagement?
Customer research
- Interviews with current customers — why they chose you, what nearly stopped them
- Win/loss analysis where a sales process exists
- Review mining across your listings and your competitors', at volume
- Support and sales conversation analysis
- Voice-of-customer language library — their words, organized by theme
Market research
- Category demand analysis — search volume, seasonality, and trend direction
- Segment sizing and prioritization
- Adjacent and emerging demand you aren't currently serving
- Pricing landscape across the category
Competitor research
- Positioning and messaging audit across your real competitive set
- Ad creative analysis — what they're running, on which channels, and for how long
- Content and SEO footprint — what they rank for and what they've ignored
- Review sentiment analysis — what their customers praise and complain about
- Pricing and offer structure
Synthesis
- Findings document with evidence, not assertions
- Positioning implications — what the research says you should claim
- Opportunity list, prioritized by size and difficulty
- Recommended next actions with expected impact
How does The MBC Group run research?
This is the service where AI changes the arithmetic most dramatically.
Traditional market research is expensive because it's labor. Reading four thousand reviews, analyzing two hundred competitor ads, coding fifty interview transcripts, mapping a category's search footprint — all of it is slow, and slow means either a large fee or a small sample.
AI removes the sampling constraint. We read every review rather than a sample. We analyze every ad a competitor has run rather than the ten most recent. We process full transcripts rather than notes. A senior strategist then does the part that matters: deciding what it means and what to do about it.
The result is research at a depth that used to cost five figures, delivered in two weeks.
- Days 1–3
Scope, competitive set definition, data collection at volume.
- Days 4–7
Customer interviews and review analysis.
- Days 8–10
Competitor and market analysis.
- Days 11–14
Synthesis, findings document, and a working session to walk through it.
Research vs. the alternatives
| Doing it yourself | Research firm | Consultant | The MBC Group | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| How you're billed | Your time | Large project fee | Project or day rate | Project fee, or included in your plan |
| Timeline | Ongoing | 8–16 weeks | 4–8 weeks | 2 weeks |
| Sample size | Whatever you can read | Statistically sampled | Limited | Full population, not sampled |
| Deliverable | Notes | Report | Report | Findings plus prioritized actions |
| Applied afterward | By you | No | Sometimes | Yes, if you're on a plan |
The traditional research firm produces excellent work and hands you a document. The gap most businesses fall into is between the document and the doing. Our research is designed to be executed — by us, if you want, or by anyone else, because it ends in actions rather than observations.
How is research priced?
Standalone research is quoted as a one-time project, scoped by how many competitors, how many customer interviews, and how many markets. You get the number in writing before anything starts.
Research is also the first phase of every MBC engagement at no additional cost. Every plan begins with a full audit, competitor analysis, and positioning read in month one.
See pricing →Frequently asked.
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Find out what you're missing
A free 30-minute session with a senior strategist. We'll show you a sample of what your competitors are doing that you probably haven't seen, and tell you whether a full research project is worth your money.