Enhancing Market Research with Expert Insights

When conducting primary market research, most researchers are primarily focused on quantitative data to validate their theses and inform their business strategies. Hard factual data—like numbers, tables, and graphs—is more accessible than ever before and provides an objective narrative that helps researchers make data-driven decisions. However, even extensive quantitative research cannot provide a complete 360-degree view of a market without the insights provided by softer, qualitative research.

AlphaSense, a leading artificial intelligence (AI)-based market intelligence platform, provides Expert Insights from industry experts who have firsthand experience within a range of industries. Expert Insights is a powerful alternative data source for experiential knowledge that most investors and business professionals are missing when making important business decisions.

Expert Insights supplements data-driven research by providing qualitative context to quantitative data. Below we explore the key ways Expert Insights can enhance your market research with reliable soft data.

Hard Versus Soft Research Data

First we must understand the major differences between hard and soft research data. Essentially, hard data is factual data that has been methodologically developed by conducting research to produce quantifiable results and is typically sourced by standardized organizations. While this quantified data is indeed reliable, it is often retrospective because it can only be acquired over a period of time and then organized into numbers, tables, graphs, and charts. In fact, AlphaSense provides a vast amount of factual, financial data and documents in its platform.

In contrast, soft data is subjective information that is more qualitative and acquired through focus groups, forums, surveys, questionnaires, and interviews. Soft data is unique in the sense that it is formed through the opinions, sentiments, and interpretations of humans. This subjective data can provide descriptive context to hard data that is critical in helping researchers interpret numbers into meaning.

For this reason, soft data is often used as a complement to hard data by market researchers to create a comprehensive view of any research topic. Since soft data is inherently human in nature, researchers can leverage this valuable insight to gain a deeper understanding of consumer needs, market movements, business motivations, and more. Ultimately, soft data is a quintessential element of market research and strategic planning.

Using Expert Insights for Soft Market Research

Although quantifying soft data is difficult, insights from experts can be structured and organized in innovative ways that make them more accessible. Some examples of accessing expert insights are: conversing with experts through calls, transcribing expert interviews into transcripts, conducting a customer survey panel, or establishing a vast network of experts. 

However, it’s imperative that the qualitative insights we gather from subject matter experts come from reliable people with true expertise in their field to ensure accuracy. 

AlphaSense Expert Insights offers an extensive expert transcript library and Expert Call Services to provide premium quality and proprietary content on public and private markets. We discuss the benefits of using Expert Insights as a primary source for soft data to enhance market research in greater detail below.

Quality Context to Hard Data

Market research is typically data-driven because quantitative methods provide objective and factual insight into the performance of a market or company. However, the qualitative nature of Expert Insights can explain what those key metrics actually mean for any business, market, or trend to help researchers validate investment theses and make well-informed decisions.

For example, the human element of cognition is needed to fully understand why a company underwent a leadership change. However, that level of context cannot be gained without the qualitative reasoning and explanation provided by experts familiar with the subject. Unfortunately, data or financials cannot depict exactly why a leader exited from a company or why a merger and acquisition was unsuccessful.

Researchers can gather this qualitative insight through Expert Insights via tens of thousands of transcripts found within the AlphaSense expert transcript library. AlphaSense users can easily navigate these transcripts with powerful AI-search features, instant AI-generated insights, and time-stamped audio to capture voice inflections of each interview.

Furthermore, by leveraging Expert Call Services, users can dive even deeper into a subject by speaking directly with an expert to discuss factual findings and add necessary context to quantitative research.

Valuable Insights on Consumer Behavior

Understanding the voice of the customer (VoC) is imperative for business professionals to gain descriptive context around consumer behavior patterns and trends within a competitive market. By listening to the VoC, businesses can learn critical insights into what customers value most, which helps them make informed decisions about product development, marketing strategies, customer service initiatives, and overall business operations.

AlphaSense’s extensive expert transcript library includes VoC transcripts across the technology, media, and telecom (TMT) industry which allows you to understand the customer voice through structured interviews with buyers, influencers, and decision-makers. Our VoC transcripts cover essential topics like product use cases, value, buying processes, and product stickiness which can help you identify winners and losers in the tech landscape.

Business professionals can leverage our VoC transcripts to gain actionable consumer insights through diverse perspectives on customer experiences across the adoption curve to enhance their strategic decision-making.

Firsthand Perspectives in Real-Time

Reliable firsthand information can be incredibly hard to find when performing market research as there is considerable nuance to individual company cultures, industry competitive landscapes, and consumer behavior in any given market. These facets are not always reflected in traditional research, and while public company information is easily accessible online, that information is typically positively skewed and biased.

Fortunately, Expert Insights allow researchers to explore these nuances with industry experts who provide relevant and firsthand perspectives on any market. These experts come from a wide range of operator perspectives from former or current executives, employees, customers, or competitors and provide unbiased quality insights not typically available through traditional research methods.

One biopharmaceutical insights company used AlphaSense Expert Insights to gain a fresh perspective that led to better projections on their part.

“That was a game changer—being able to access how other people have come to their conclusions—and it led to better projections on our part. AlphaSense enabled us to look at projections from a whole new perspective.”

– Senior Director of Clinical Pharmacy | AlphaSense Case Study

AlphaSense users can enable real-time alerts and notifications for trends and topics of interest to gather real-time firsthand perspectives from experts. This ensures you never miss an insight as market trends move fast and change rapidly.

Additionally, experts recruited by AlphaSense for Expert Insights are carefully screened for expertise and compliance to ensure that any information gathered mitigates risks of exposure to material non-public information (MNPI). Explore our compliance process in greater detail to understand how AlphaSense delivers trustworthy proprietary insights.

Granular Insights on Niche Topics

Expert Insights also provides deeper insight into niche markets and highly regulated or technical sectors that are generally inaccessible through quantitative methods. Many investment researchers or firms entering high-growth industries may not always have a complete understanding of all the intricacies at play and Expert Insights can help fill in these critical research gaps at a granular level.

To capture a comprehensive view of a technical industry or market it is best to gather insight from those who have operated within that field and possess a mastery of the subject. For example, when an investment firm aims to enter a high-potential niche market, like generative AI technology, there are facets of information that only industry experts are able to provide guidance about in terms of product adoption, governance, or sustainability.

Expert transcripts and calls can uncover insights and potential research areas that a typical market analyst simply could not have known to explore. Expert knowledge also helps guide the overall direction of research by steering market researchers away from topics that have little value to save time.

By leveraging Expert Insights, investment researchers and businesses can make fully informed decisions without being hindered by a lack of technical expertise. For example, see how that same biopharmaceutical insights company uses AlphaSense Expert Insights to get granular research on specific insights from key opinion leaders.

“[Expert Insights] helps us get specific information from key opinion leaders on how a particular drug will be used and what the uptake might be. Because we aren’t directly connected to a health system or a payer, my role doesn’t have direct access to KOLs, making [Expert Insights] an invaluable part of my job.”

– Senior Director of Clinical Pharmacy | AlphaSense Case Study

Enhance Your Market Research with Expert Insights

Expert Insights provides essential qualitative research to market researchers that gives human context to hard factual data. This enables market researchers to capture a comprehensive view of any market or industry to make well informed business decisions.

Enhance your market research today with Expert Insights. Start your free trial.