🔥 Primary research = your brand’s secret weapon
Special thanks to Robert Manigold for inspiring this week's content!
Do you really know your customer? Is your product market fit all in your head? It's easy to rely on public studies and assumptions. But here’s a reality check: using the same public industry stats everyone else is using, gives this many competitive advantages: 0.
Your audience isn’t some statistical mean; they’re actual humans with quirks, annoyances, and specific needs. This is where primary research steps in. I’m talking about going straight to real people—your customers, would-be customers, and the ones who *foolishly* passed on working with you to find out what they think. In real life. Straight from them. You get it.
Primary vs. secondary research
In Primary Research, you create the data yourself by going straight to your audience. In Secondary Research, you rely on existing info—industry reports, competitor analyses, or public stats gathered by a third party. Both are useful, but today we're talking about the core benefits of Primary.
With primary research you get:
Unique data no one else has access to
100% pure insights from actual customers
Research framework that is custom to a specific goal you have
(In other words, you choose the lens to look through.)
My picks:
1 on 1 interviews: customers, partners, and if you're sneaky, ex-employees of competitors
Surveys: send to existing customers, or run a paid one on SurveyMonkey
Polls: via email or social
Focus groups: these are old school but I still love them. The dialog between people in the same space is pure gold that you can't get in a 1:1 or survey
Mapping tools: HotJar, Wantent, and other tools that track facial expressions and eye movements
A/B testing: the kind you already know about, plus now IG Reels lets you do Trial Reels to test performance on a group of non-followers.
Overwhelming? Are you a team of one? Here's the starter kit:
Talk to a handful of customers
Ask a prospect who never converted why they bailed
Run a small survey that ask customers what they struggle with
Learn how to do research and build a brand framework in my Masterclass: The Brand Framework Course or join the community for research resources and help.
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What to know this week
✌️ Nike + Lego? YES PLEASE. Check this collab dropping 2025.
👀 Instagram prioritizing views over likes in new algo update.
💁♀️ I'm doing a weekly AMA, for all your burning marketing questions. This week we talked about getting your team onboard with a LinkedIn strategy, and how to decide what skills will help give you an edge for specific roles.
🤖 What are the legal, ethical and economic implications of AI in creative work AdWeek's Jenny Rooney moderates “To AI or Not to AI,” a debate between David Lee, chief creative officer at Squarespace & Rei Inamoto, founding partner of brand consultancy I&CO.
✍️ I started a new series where I break down jargon terms into how I explain it to my mom.
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