What Is Market Intelligence? A Guide for Local Media Sellers and Agencies

Are your prospects scrutinizing every detail of the proposal you’re pitching? Whether you’re selling media space, creative services or digital marketing services, providing the right information at the right time is critical. Because prospects want the best value for their money, you should use market intelligence tools to ensure you’re presenting the most relevant and up-to-date data. Without that competitive edge, you could easily lose the deal.

What Is Market Intelligence?

Market intelligence is a collection of information that businesses seek. Specifically, they want to understand how big the market for their product is. Understanding who their competitors and customers are helps them shape their approach to selling products and services. In addition, business owners need information about trends in their industry vertical to give them a starting place when developing products for the market.

Market intelligence can also help businesses understand how and when to advertise their products and services. Our research shows that 26% of medium-sized business owners (51 to 250 employees) expect to purchase online advertising this year.

How to Use Market Intelligence Tools

As you work with your prospect, you’ll want to position yourself as a credible source of knowledge. You can only do that if you regularly use market intelligence tools. You can begin by learning about the industry your prospect operates in.

The best decision-makers should be tracking new product and service announcements in the industry to stay ahead of what their competitors are doing. Do your prospects know if a new class of customers has started purchasing products that are similar to what they sell? If that’s happening, your prospect has the opportunity to sell to a new target market.

At most small businesses, decision-makers don’t have time to track industry developments. You can increase your credibility and your chances of closing a deal if you share industry information with them that they haven’t yet heard. Devote a few minutes every day to reading trade news in your target industries. Products like AdMall from SalesFuel make it easy for sellers to find that information in one place.

The Difference Between Business Intelligence and Market Intelligence

Factor	Business Intelligence	Market Intelligence
Primary Focus	All about a specific company	All about market trends
Data Scope	The data points are about the company’s operations such as its revenue and what products it uses.	Market intelligence includes data points about market size, key businesses and customers and trends.
Main Use	The data is used to target a prospect during a sale	The data is used to gain an understanding of a market before a product launch.
Example	Public financial reports	Competitor analyses and audience purchase intent data

"Business intelligence refers to data specifically about a company, while market intelligence looks at the overall trends,” writes Jamie Johnson for businessnewsdaily.com. While you regularly research your target industry, you should also keep tabs on the changes that your prospect company is making. Has a new CEO taken charge of the business? If so, you might want to review that individual’s LinkedIn profile. Take note of whether they were brought into the organization as a change agent or if they were promoted. The knowledge can help you position the solution you’re trying to sell.

By consistently reviewing press releases and news reports about your prospect company, you’ll also learn about their commitment to environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues. If you happen to support a local nonprofit organization that the prospect also donates to, you have a positive way to connect with them.

Market Intelligence Trends for Local Media Sellers

Selling advertising and digital marketing services requires you to possess knowledge of market intelligence and develop insights about trends.

As you prepare your pitch to a prospect, you should research the audiences that make the best fit for their products. You should also learn which businesses pose the biggest competitive threat and how they advertise. Part of that analysis should include a focus on customer reviews for your prospect and their competitors.

In addition, you should monitor market developments that range from new product offerings to new competitors entering the market. Because your prospect and their competitors will be targeting the same audience, you'll benefit by showing them what they need to do to become more visible.

The Digital Audit, from AdMall by SalesFuel, serves as a powerful market intelligence tool when you need to convince your prospect to invest in digital marketing.

Benefits of Market Intelligence for Local Media Sales and Agencies

Having access to great market intelligence tools isn’t the only thing you need. While market intelligence offers detailed information, local media sellers and agencies develop insights. With the right information, you can identify a new opportunity for your prospect, such as a new audience. When you know how a specific audience responds to advertising in a paid media environment, you can recommend an ad campaign that delivers results.

Detailed market intelligence allows sellers to build presentations that connect the dots between advertising investment and increased sales. These types of informed sales conversations lead to increased revenue for the seller and the buyer.

How to Choose a Market Intelligence Tool

Before signing up for a market intelligence subscription, media companies and agencies should consider multiple factors.

Market intelligence is often sold online. Vendors may allow “freemium” access to limited information but charge a monthly or annual fee for access to the rest of the data.

Buyers should analyze the pricing structure. If the vendor charges a per-seat access fee, buyers should compare pricing models from the competitors. Vendors may also charge setup and training fees.

Beyond the pricing concerns, buyers should analyze whether the tool contains the intelligence they need.

Data Coverage

Some market intelligence tools may only cover part of the geographic region you need. Or they may include, and charge far more, for access to global data. But be sure to match what is offered with what you need.  Solid research of the available tools should consider how much of the needed data is readily available.

Data Freshness

Market intelligence information comes in all forms. Businesses may sell an annual report. Or they may sell a subscription where users have continuous access to the data. Buyers should verify the last time the data was updated and how frequently the updates are made.

Competitor Insights

The best market intelligence tools provide information about specific verticals. They should also list data points about your prospect’s competitors. In addition to information on pricing and discounts, the market intelligence data should indicate how competitors are marketing and advertising their products and services.

Local Market Coverage

Most small businesses face competition on several levels. Global and national businesses may have retail outlets in the local market. Online-only businesses may be targeting the same customers. And other locally owned businesses may be fighting for the same market share. The best market intelligence tools contain local coverage.

Ease of Use

Sales professionals learn to use many tools as part of their training programs. Intuitive and easy to learn tools are the ones that sales professionals use most and appreciate. When assessing which tools can help your sales team, ask for a trial period. During the trial period, encourage your most curious team members to explore features and analyze how quickly they were able to find the data they needed.

Integration With Sales Workflows

As sales workflows typically vary according to role, it’s important to find a market intelligence tool that allows a new business hunter to be as efficient as a full-cycle sales rep. In any system, users should be able to customize local markets and set outputs to match the type of media or services they are selling.

How AdMall Supports Market Intelligence for Local Media Sellers

AdMall market intelligence contains what local media sellers and agencies need. With AdMall, users can quickly view a local market overview for over 400 industry verticals. Users also have access to over 1,350 audience profiles in AudienceSCAN and 200+ business buyer profiles in B2B BuyerSCAN. Each profile highlights the type of advertising that generates the biggest response — such as buying the product, visiting the store, or checking out the website.  In addition, users can learn how their clients are advertising and the marketing strategies their competitors are paying for. AdMall also comes with a built-in sales coach to help sellers find answers to their most challenging questions, making it among the most valuable of sales intelligence tools.

Conclusion: Using Market Intelligence to Support Better Client Decisions

Local business owners lack the market intelligence they need to solve their business problems. They are often too busy to notice what is happening in the local or national market. Our research shows that these owners believe some of their toughest upcoming challenges will be unpredictability in the economy (30%) and increased competition (25%). The right market intelligence, including industry-specific trends and advertising strategies by competitors, can help clients of media companies and agencies make better decisions. And those decisions can improve their return on investment and grow their revenue.

Frequently Asked Questions

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