Carolyn CreweDecember 17, 2014
It’s surprising how many entrepreneurs make decisions about everything from business strategy to social media based on intuition and gut feelings. Not knowing if you made the right decision for your business is the stuff that probably keeps you up at night. While there’s never a guarantee, what if there were a way to make more educated business decisions? When you have facts and information to work with, those choices become far easier to make and much less stressful. This is why I spend so much time doing online research on industry trends and consumer behaviour before making recommendations to my clients, so that I can present them with relevant data that enables them to make better business and marketing decisions. But, as you may have guessed, research takes time. These handy online resources will make finding, aggregating, and understanding industry trends and consumer behaviour data a little easier.
1. Google Consumer Surveys
You may want to validate a new business idea, or perhaps test new potential logos to see which one people like the best. With Google Consumer Surveys, you can put a customized survey in front of the right audience, collect useful data, and draw insights that will make those tough business decisions a piece of cake.
2. Google Databoard for Research Insights
Need to impress at your next meeting? This tool allows you to explore Google’s research studies on a variety of topics and industries, easily share the information with others and best of all, create your own infographics! The only catch is that the information is limited the USA market at the moment.
3. Google Trends
This nifty tool allows you to see trends based on the topics people are searching. The explore feature also lets you see how keywords related to your business are trending across the world, or in your country.
4. Consumer Barometer
This interactive tool, based on 2014 Google data from 45+ countries, helps you understand how people are using the Internet across the world.
5. Brand Impressions
This tool lets you track pictures, words and actions of whatever brand you’re interested in, like Apple for example, to show you what brands are doing now and what they’ve done over time. You can even do a comparison of brands.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Unfortunately, there’s no magic wand to help you make perfect business decisions every time. But, armed with relevant, timely data, your decision-making can become better, easier and significantly less stressful. These are just some of the Google research tools that I’ve found useful, but here’s an even larger list of available tools. What online tools make your life easier? Tell us in the comments!
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