How to Gain Market Insights Using Qualitative Techniques

Everyone talks about differentiation, but hardly anyone tells you 𝑯𝑶𝑾 to do it. Most people (especially founders) think they know, but they forget they have rose-colored glasses on. Here’s how you differentiate and communicate value to buyers. You must do all 5 things. No cutting corners. 𝐕𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐧 𝐛𝐮𝐲𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐬 Understanding customer pain points is crucial because it ensures your product messaging directly addresses the challenges your customers face, making your product indispensable. – Use surveys, interviews and feedback sessions to continuously gather insights. – Map pain points to specific features of your product that alleviate these issues, strengthening your value proposition. – Use customer language in your marketing to reflect their concerns and solutions. 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧'𝐭 Sales reps are on the frontline and often closest to the buyers. – Conduct regular debrief sessions with sales teams to gather qualitative data on customer reactions and objections. – Create feedback loops where sales insights inform marketing messages and product roadmap. – Enable GTM teams on the nuances of the value of each product. 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐃𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 If you don't know your customers, you can't determine how you're different. – Identify and monitor key competitors and analyze their product capabilities and GTM strategies. – Never publicaly bash competitors, but rather highlight strengths of your product that are competitors' weaknesses. – Update competitive insights regularly and have a process to communicate those to the team. 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐬/𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐀𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 Leverage the trust and credibility of others to extend your reach in the market. – Engage with analysts and influencers who align with your product’s niche and audience. – Provide them with detailed product demos and use cases to help them understand and advocate for your solution. – Leverage their content and recommendations in your marketing to strengthen trust and authority. 𝐌𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐓𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐄𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐈𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐁𝐮𝐲𝐞𝐫𝐬 Always be testing to ensure you still have message/market fit. – Use A/B testing on different messaging elements across your marketing channels. – Gather and analyze qualitative feedback on messaging. – Iterate based on performance data, refining your message to optimize clarity, impact, and relevance.

We’ve all been there—the first blush of new love. On the first few dates, we show up as our best selves, full of energy and curiosity. We give glowing reports to our friends and family about how we’ve finally found “the one.” In short, we get a little nuts. Our ability to assess the situation and report on the pros and cons tends to get a little wonky. It isn’t until we’ve witnessed our new flame in close quarters that we start to really suss out what level of compatibility might exist and what areas could stand to improve. How do they deal with untangling Christmas lights? What’s something they never get tired of? When are they at their best, and when are they at their worst? Similarly, the only way you’re going to get to know your customers on a truly authentic level is if you take the time for journey mapping. Journey mapping allows companies to dig beneath the surface of how customers interact with their products and get to their core motivations, frustrations, and quirks. It provides the real-world information developers need to create something that’s relatable, credible, and compatible with customer experience. Journey mapping is a qualitative process, so you must use qualitative methods. The goal is to create as many direct lines of conversation or observation with representative users as possible. This can include: Competitive analysis. This can be useful if a product hasn’t in launched yet, and you’re trying to gather a base sense of the ideal state. Having representative users interact with a competitive product is useful to see what areas of friction emerge and then try to avoid those elements. Customer or user interviews: These allow researchers to capture firsthand stories about users' experiences with products and give insight into the feelings, mindsets, and emotions surrounding the experience. They can be conducted remotely or in person. Field study or contextual inquiry: Real-time observation of representative users while interacting with a product, in it’s actual environment allows researchers to identify discrepancies between what users/ customers report and what they actually do. As anyone can tell you, what people say they do doesn’t always match up with what they actually do. Diary studies. These are useful because they capture user experience longitudinally. Having people keep track of the experience in this way helps alleviate the fallible memory aspect that can impact the accuracy of reporting. A solid relationship isn’t built on fairytales and fuzzy feelings, and neither is an excellent product. Paying close attention to your customer’s experience using journey mapping methods is a necessary step in finding out if their needs and your product are a match made in heaven.

You ran the sessions. You found the themes. The insights feel right. But before you present, a quiet question lingers, did I go deep enough? Did I check the right things? This is the part of qualitative UX research we don’t always emphasize. Not just doing the work with care, but supporting it with structure. Adding rigor isn’t about questioning your effort - it’s about strengthening your insights. It brings clarity, consistency, and confidence - for you, your team, and anyone who’ll act on what you’ve found. Here are eight practical ways to add that kind of rigor without slowing your work down. Start with triangulation. Don’t rely on just one type of data. Pair interviews with usability testing, behavior logs, or survey responses. Ask another researcher to take notes independently and compare interpretations. This builds confidence that your insights reflect more than one lens. Maintain an audit trail. Keep a record of key decisions, theme changes, or shifts in scope. Use a shared doc, spreadsheet, or even versioned codebooks. Others should be able to see how your findings evolved- not just the end product. Practice reflexivity. Before analysis, write down what you expect to find. During synthesis, notice when your background might be influencing what feels important. If you’re working in a team, make this a shared habit. You’re part of the instrument, and that’s worth tracking. Use member checking. Once your findings are drafted, send a summary to a few participants and ask if it reflects their experience. Their feedback will tell you where you’ve nailed it- and where you need to dig deeper. Use structured frameworks. Lincoln and Guba’s trustworthiness criteria are great for longer studies. The PARRQA checklist helps keep fast-paced projects grounded. Either way, frameworks give your work consistency and make your choices visible. Look for negative cases. Instead of just confirming patterns, search for outliers. Find the participant who doesn’t fit the theme. Revising your analysis to include their story makes your findings more durable. Make your insights transferable. Don’t stop at “users want X.” Add who those users were, what tools they used, and what constraints they faced. When findings are rich in context, teams can apply them more confidently. Document key decisions as they happen. Use a shared log or notes thread. Track sampling shifts, analysis changes, design pivots. Later, include this in your final report. It shows how you got from raw data to real insight- and helps others trust it. Rigor isn’t about adding more work - it’s about adding more strength. Even a few thoughtful checks, built into your workflow, can make your qualitative UX research clearer, more credible, and easier to stand behind when the pressure’s on.