How to Create a Market Intelligence Report in Excel?

You need to stay ahead of the competition in the quick-paced business environment of today by making informed decisions. In this situation, a market intelligence report is helpful.

You can improve your decision-making thanks to its insights regarding the market, rivals, customers, and products.

Let’s say you oversee marketing for a mobile phone company. You’ve noticed a decline in sales over the past few months and are curious why.

What do you do?

Conduct market intelligence research and create a market intelligence report.

This research will provide meaningful market insights, such as consumer preferences and competitors’ strategies. These insights will help you modify your marketing approach. For instance:

• Pay attention to consumer demands.
• Enhance product features.
• Target specific customer segments.

Let’s face it – market research can be a snooze-fest. What if we told you that creating a market intelligence report doesn’t have to be a dreary task? In fact, with the right tools and strategies, it can be downright exhilarating.

Table of Content:

1. What is Market Intelligence?
2. Why is Market Intelligence Important?
3. Types of Market Intelligence Reports
4. Difference Between Market Intelligence and Market Research
5. How to Develop Market Intelligence?
6. How to Conduct and Analyze Market Intelligence Survey Data?
7. Wrap Up

Let me show you how.

What is Market Intelligence?

Market intelligence constitutes gathering and evaluating data regarding a particular market. It tries to obtain knowledge of market trends, rivals, clients, and products. It facilitates informed decision-making about marketing tactics, product development, and competitive positioning.

Why is Market Intelligence Important?

• Risk-Mitigation

Market intelligence plays a crucial role in risk mitigation. You can identify potential risks and take steps to mitigate them before they cause significant harm. For instance, it can help you stay up-to-date with regulations and compliance requirements changes. Thus, you can avoid potential fines and legal issues by staying on top of these changes.

• Holistic View of the Market

Market intelligence provides businesses with a holistic view of the market. Through competitive analysis, you can comprehensively understand market trends, consumer behavior, and the competitive landscape. This is crucial for making informed decisions to set your business up for long-term success.

• Improved Sales Process

Market intelligence offers pertinent data on customers, markets, and competitors. This intelligence aids in creating marketing plans that can boost profits, sales, and income.

• Boost Efficiency

Market intelligence provides information that aids in boosting efficiency in the following ways:

• • Optimize resource allocation to focus on the areas of the market with the most potential.
  • Streamline product development to meet the customers’ needs.
  • Improve marketing strategies.
  • Enhance decision-making with accurate data and insights.

• Customer Holding

Market intelligence helps retain customers and build long-term loyalty. Using data, you can tailor your products/services, marketing, and customer experience to meet customer needs. This increases customer satisfaction and reduces the risk of customer churn.

• Competitive Advantage

Gaining an edge over the competition requires in-depth knowledge of the market. It sheds light on developments in the market, consumer habits, and competition. Thus, you’ll be better positioned to devise strategies to set you apart from the competition and lead to sustained success.

Types of Market Intelligence Reports

• Competitor Intelligence

The term “competitor intelligence” describes the gathering and examination of data regarding industry rivals and the competitive landscape. This entails examining your competitors’ offerings, pricing, marketing, and consumer feedback.

You can develop strategies to gain a competitive advantage by understanding the competition. Competitor intelligence is particularly important in industries with high competition or rapid technological change. In such industries, staying ahead of the competition is crucial for success.

• Product Intelligence

Product intelligence employs data and analytics to gain insights into rival products and how they compare to yours. It involves collecting and analyzing data from various sources, such as user feedback, sales data, and social media. Product intelligence can help you identify areas for improvement. Consequently, improve your offerings to meet customer needs effectively.

• Market Understanding

Market understanding refers to your knowledge and insights into the target market. It entails examining consumer data to grasp the target market comprehensively. This information is essential for developing goods and services that satisfy customer demands. Also, it aids in the development of tactics that work in a market that is continuously changing.

• Customer Understanding

Customer understanding is gaining a thorough understanding of consumer needs, interests, habits, and expectations. It entails compiling data from sources such as surveys, social media, customer support encounters, and customer feedback.

This aids in developing goods and services that align with the customers’ wants and demands. As a result, enhances the consumer experience and develops lasting connections.

Difference Between Market Intelligence and Market Research

Although they sound similar and are often used interchangeably, market intelligence and market research are different.

Here are the key differences between the two:

• Scope

Researchers undertake market research to obtain information about a certain facet of the market. Conversely, market intelligence aims to provide a broader understanding of the nature and behavior of target markets.

• Purpose

A specific objective, like the introduction of a new product, drives the conduct of market research. Market intelligence, on the other hand, focuses continuously on fully comprehending the market.

How to Develop Market Intelligence?

1. Data Collection

This entails collecting relevant data from sources like consumer surveys, social media analytics, and competitor analysis. This data should be both quantitative and qualitative for comprehensiveness.

2. Data Analysis

Upon gathering the data, you must analyze it to glean valuable insights. Data analysis entails sorting, structuring, recognizing trends and patterns, and drawing conclusions.

3. Report and Presentation

The final step is to prepare a report and presentation summarizing the data analysis findings. The report should be easy to understand and present the insights clearly and concisely. The presentation should be appealing and insightful to highlight the key findings and recommendations.

How to Conduct and Analyze Market Intelligence Survey Data?

Follow these steps to carry out a market intelligence survey:

1. Define your goals.
2. Create neutral, lucid, and concise survey questions.
3. Use a web-based tool like Google Forms to create your survey.
4. Disseminate the survey to the intended audience via various means, including email, social media, and website.

Upon collecting data from the survey, it’s time to analyze it. Here, you need to use a tool like Excel to organize and sort through the data. Unfortunately, Excel poses some challenges with visual data analysis, especially when there is considerable data to analyze.

This is where ChartExpo comes in handy.

ChartExpo is an Excel add-in that facilitates effortless data visualization and analysis. It allows you to create insightful visualizations from which you can readily derive information.

Why ChartExpo?

Benefits of Using ChartExpo

• ChartExpo’s user-friendly interface enables you to create meaningful charts and graphs without requiring coding skills.
• ChartExpo allows you to customize your visualizations to align with your brand. You can modify the fonts, colors, and other graphic aspects.
• ChartExpo is a cost-effective data visualization tool. It offers a 7-day free trial to let you try out its features. After the trial ends, you can subscribe to its $10 monthly plan.

How to Install ChartExpo in Excel?

1. Open your Excel application.
2. Open the worksheet and click on the “Insert” menu.
3. You’ll see the “My Apps”.
4. In the office Add-ins window, click on “Store” and search for ChartExpo on my Apps Store.
5. Click on the “Add” button to install ChartExpo in your Excel.

ChartExpo charts and graphs are available both in Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel. Please use the following CTA’s to install the tool of your choice and create data visualizations in a few clicks in your favorite tool.

Example

Let’s say you want to create a market intelligence report. Thus, you need to conduct an online survey about your brand and product. Your survey consists of the following questions.

• Is our brand well-known in the industry?
• Is our pricing competitive in the market?
• Is our customer service responsive and helpful?
• Does our product meet your needs?

Your respondents are to provide an answer to each question from the following responses.

1. Strongly Disagree
2. Disagree
3. Neither agree nor disagree
4. Agree
5. Strongly Agree

Let’s say you have conducted your survey and obtained the data below.

Do you think that our brand is well-known in the industry?	Do you think that our pricing is competitive in the market?	Do you think that our customer service is responsive and helpful?	Do you think that our product meets your needs?
Agree	Strongly Agree	Strongly Disagree	Neither agree nor disagree
Disagree	Neither agree nor disagree	Agree	Strongly Agree
Disagree	Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree	Neither agree nor disagree
Neither agree nor disagree	Neither agree nor disagree	Agree	Disagree
Strongly Agree	Disagree	Strongly Disagree	Strongly Disagree
Disagree	Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree	Agree
Strongly Agree	Agree	Agree	Strongly Disagree
Strongly Agree	Neither agree nor disagree	Disagree	Agree
Disagree	Agree	Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree
Strongly Disagree	Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree
Agree	Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Neither agree nor disagree
Neither agree nor disagree	Strongly Agree	Strongly Disagree	Strongly Agree
Disagree	Neither agree nor disagree	Disagree	Strongly Disagree
Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree
Agree	Agree	Agree	Agree
Agree	Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Neither agree nor disagree
Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree	Disagree	Strongly Agree
Strongly Disagree	Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree	Disagree
Agree	Disagree	Strongly Agree	Strongly Disagree
Disagree	Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Disagree

• To get started with ChartExpo, install ChartExpo in Excel.
• Now Click on My Apps from the INSERT menu.

• Choose ChartExpo from My Apps, then click Insert.

• Once ChartExpo is loaded. Click on “Likert Scale Chart” from the list of charts.

• Click the “Create Chart From Selection” button after selecting the data from the sheet, as shown.

• When you click on Create Chart From Selection you have to manually map responses with numbers. The Likert scale has this arrangement:
  • Strongly Disagree = 1
  • Disagree = 2
  • Neither agree nor disagree = 3
  • Agree = 4
  • Strongly Agree = 5
• Once all set click on Create Chart.

• The Likert Scale Chart will look as follows.

• If you want to have the title of the chart, click on Edit Chart, as shown in the above image.
• To change the title of the chart, click on the pencil icon that is available very next to Chart Header.
• It will open the properties dialog. Under the Text section, you can add a heading in Line 1 and enable Show Give the appropriate title of your chart and click on Apply button.

• Let’s say you want to add text responses instead of numbers against every emoji.
• Click on the pencil icon next to the respective emoji, expand the “Label” properties, and write the required text. After that click on the “Apply All” button.

• For saving changes click on Save Changes. This will persist the changes.

• Your final chart will look like the as below.

Insights

• 50% of the customers are familiar with the brand, while 40% are not. The remaining 10% do not have a definite opinion.
• As for pricing, 55% agree that it is competitive, 25% disagree, and 20% do not have an opinion.
• Regarding customer service, 55% find it responsive and helpful, while 45% do not.
• Regarding product satisfaction, 45% agree that the product met their needs, 35% disagree, and 20% maintain neutrality.
• Overall;
  • 33% of the participants strongly agree with the questions, while 19% agree.
  • 21% of respondents disagree with the statements, and 15% strongly disagree.
  • 13% of participants chose to remain neutral.

FAQs

What are the 3 types of market intelligence?

The three primary types of market intelligence include the following;

• Competitor intelligence.
• Product intelligence.
• Customer understanding.

These types of market intelligence provide a comprehensive understanding of the market. This understanding contributes to wise decision-making.

How do you Analyze market intelligence?

Market intelligence data analysis necessitates the use of spreadsheets and analysis tools. For effective data analysis, use ChartExpo for Excel. This is an Excel add-in that converts data from spreadsheets to meaningful visualizations. From the visualizations, you can glean insights effortlessly.

What are the benefits of using market intelligence reports?

Market intelligence reports provide businesses with data-driven insights. These insights inform decision-making on marketing strategies, product development, and competitive positioning. This contributes to improved performance which translates to increased sales and profit.

How often should I conduct market intelligence research?

Regularly conduct market intelligence research to keep abreast of market trends, opportunities, and threats. The frequency can change based on the industry and the business needs. However, it is good practice to execute it once every quarter.

Wrap Up

You must stay one step ahead of the competition to win over consumers and sustain your growth trajectory. To earn an edge over competitors, you need in-depth market knowledge.

This is where market intelligence comes into play.

A market intelligence report provides information necessary to gain an in-depth understanding of the market and inform decision-making. Consequently, helps in establishing strategies that aim at maintaining a competitive edge and boosting profits.

However, developing a market intelligence report can be a daunting task. Regrettably, most companies lack the necessary resources to invest in market intelligence. Therefore, making the most of freely available tools and resources is essential.

Creating a market intelligence report does not, therefore, necessitate outsourcing.

Choose a web-based survey tool like Google Forms, which is intuitive and mobile-friendly. Then analyze the data with ChartExpo for Excel. ChartExpo allows you to create insightful visualizations for easy gleaning of insights.

Don’t wait.

Start Using ChartExpo today and take your market intelligence to a higher level