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To be an effective marketer, it is important to understand your targeted customers and their buying behaviors. Many internet startups fail because of a sheer lack of research and ignoring the importance of market intelligence.

It is simply crucial to have knowledge about your market and this is known as market intelligence (sometimes it is also known as competitive intelligence), by knowledge I mean:
•    Your target market – who they are, what demographics they belong to
•    Nature of your market  – buying behaviors
•    Needs of your consumers – what specific needs and gaps are you addressing
•    Locations – where is your targeted audience most likely present – what sites do they frequent
•    Your competitors – who else is offering similar or alternate products and services to your targeted customers
On the basis of this information, you should devise your marketing plan and your website. Now the question is how to uncover this information? Thankfully there are various tools and websites available online that can help you in conducting your research. Some of the main sources for marketing intelligence are:
•    Sites like eBay Marketplace, SitePoint Markeetplace, or Yahoo Shopping are good place to do market research
•    Audience panels like Nielsen NetRatings or Comscore
•    Large scale surveys
•    Industry analysts and date aggregators
•    Software tools like Micro Niche Finder Review  or PPC Bully Review that allow users to find profitable keywords and micro niches
Market intelligence helps you in identifying business opportunities, better market selection and positioning and customer orientation. This will also help accessing your business performance in comparison to the overall development of the market and how to take actions that affects the outcome of your marketing campaign.