Hupspot Market Research Guide

Hubspot has popularized a practical, step-by-step approach to market research that aligns every insight with the buyer’s journey. In this guide, you will learn how to mirror that approach so your marketing, sales, and service teams build campaigns and content that match what buyers actually want at each stage.

Why a Hubspot-Style Approach to Market Research Matters

Most teams jump into tactics before deeply understanding their audience. A Hubspot-style framework fixes that by connecting market research directly to:

• Awareness, consideration, and decision stages
• Content planning and messaging
• Channel choices and campaign timing
• Sales enablement and follow-up sequences

Instead of broad, disconnected surveys, you collect targeted insights that explain what your ideal customers think, feel, and do as they move from problem to purchase.

Step 1: Define Your Buyer’s Journey with Hubspot Precision

Begin by mapping your buyer’s journey into clear stages. Follow the structure popularized by Hubspot so research aligns with each moment of the process.

Map the Three Core Stages

Break the journey into three primary stages:

1. Awareness – Buyers realize they have a problem or opportunity.
2. Consideration – They define the problem and explore possible approaches.
3. Decision – They evaluate vendors and choose a solution.

For each stage, write down:

• What the buyer is trying to accomplish
• Questions and objections they have
• Information sources they trust
• Internal and external stakeholders involved

Hubspot Framework for Journey Questions

Create a simple worksheet that mirrors a Hubspot-style journey map. For every stage, answer questions such as:

• What triggers this stage for the buyer?
• How do they describe their problem in their own words?
• What consequences do they fear if they do nothing?
• How do they compare options and define success?

This structure keeps your research focused on the decisions that truly move deals forward.

Step 2: Build Buyer Personas Using the Hubspot Method

Next, build detailed buyer personas modeled on the approach made popular by Hubspot. Personas should be based on real data, not assumptions.

Core Persona Elements to Capture

For each persona, document:

• Background: role, industry, company size, seniority
• Demographics: location, team size, budget influence
• Identifiers: communication style, tools they use
• Goals: what success looks like in their job
• Challenges: obstacles that slow or block success
• Buying triggers: events that force a solution search
• Objections: reasons they might say “no”

Gathering Persona Data the Hubspot Way

Use multiple data sources, just like Hubspot recommends in its research guides:

• Customer interviews (recent wins and losses)
• Sales and support conversations
• CRM notes and deal records
• Website analytics and search queries
• Online reviews and competitor sites

Combine qualitative interviews with quantitative behavioral data to avoid bias and guesswork.

Step 3: Design Market Research Around Journey Stages

With personas and journey stages defined, design research projects that mirror Hubspot practices by tying every question to a stage and decision point.

Awareness Stage Research

Your goal here is to understand how buyers first recognize and describe their problem.

Key prompts:

• “What was happening in your business before you started looking for a solution?”
• “What made the issue impossible to ignore?”
• “What terms or phrases did you search for first?”
• “Which resources or channels did you turn to for information?”

Consideration Stage Research

In this stage, discover how buyers frame the problem and evaluate different types of solutions.

Ask:

• “How did you define the problem once you understood it better?”
• “What solution categories did you consider?”
• “How did you compare approaches or models?”
• “What made you rule out certain options?”

Decision Stage Research

Now focus on what makes buyers choose one provider instead of another.

Questions to include:

• “Who was involved in the final decision?”
• “What criteria mattered most when choosing a vendor?”
• “What almost made you choose a different provider?”
• “What risks did you need to eliminate before saying yes?”

This staged approach ensures your market research delivers insights that are immediately actionable for content, campaigns, and sales enablement.

Step 4: Turn Research into Content Using Hubspot Best Practices

Once research is complete, follow Hubspot-style best practices to convert insights into strategic content across the entire buyer’s journey.

Match Content Types to Each Stage

Use your findings to map content formats to buyer needs:

• Awareness: blog posts, checklists, infographics, how-to guides
• Consideration: comparison articles, webinars, whitepapers, templates
• Decision: case studies, product demos, ROI calculators, FAQs

For each asset, note:

• Persona it serves
• Journey stage
• Primary question it answers
• Next step or call-to-action

Use Research Language in Your Messaging

A hallmark of the Hubspot approach is mirroring your audience’s exact language. Pull phrases directly from interviews and add them (naturally) to:

• Headlines and subheads
• Email subject lines
• Ad copy and social posts
• Landing page value propositions

This improves relevance, organic visibility, and conversion because your content sounds like your buyers, not like internal jargon.

Step 5: Validate and Iterate Like Hubspot

Market research is not a one-time project. A Hubspot-inspired workflow emphasizes continuous validation and optimization.

Quantitative Validation

Measure how well your buyer-journey content performs:

• Organic traffic and rankings for journey-focused topics
• Click-through rate from awareness to consideration assets
• Conversion rate on decision-stage pages
• Sales cycle length and win rate by persona

Use these metrics to confirm which assumptions were correct and which need refinement.

Qualitative Feedback Loops

Layer in ongoing feedback to keep personas and journey maps accurate:

• Regular interviews with new customers
• Post-demo or post-onboarding surveys
• Sales team feedback sessions
• Support ticket and chat analysis

Refine your profiles and messaging every quarter so they stay aligned with real buyer behavior.

Tools and Resources for a Hubspot-Style Research System

You can implement a professional, Hubspot-inspired research process with a simple stack of tools.

• CRM and pipeline data for understanding the journey
• Survey tools for structured feedback
• Interview recording and transcription apps
• Analytics platforms for behavior tracking
• Content planning tools to map stages and assets

If you need help operationalizing this approach, Consultevo specializes in building research-driven buyer’s journey frameworks and content systems.

Learn More from the Original Hubspot Resource

The process in this article is closely modeled on the original guidance from Hubspot’s own marketing blog. To dive deeper into examples, templates, and detailed recommendations straight from the source, review the full guide here: Hubspot Market Research and the Buyer’s Journey Guide.

By combining a disciplined buyer’s journey model with structured market research, you can create a marketing and sales engine that feels as cohesive and effective as the best Hubspot-powered programs, no matter which tools you use.