Market research used to take weeks. With Claude, the work compresses to hours — if you know how to ask. This is the playbook for B2B market research workflows that actually produce decisions, not just decks.
Use Claude for: competitive analysis, ICP refinement, market sizing exercises, trend synthesis from public sources, customer interview analysis. Pair with Perplexity Pro for fresh-source research. Skip dedicated market research platforms unless you need primary research (surveys, interviews). Total cost: $40/month replaces $5K-$30K of analyst time per quarter.
Prompt: 'Research [Competitor]. Their positioning, pricing if public, target customer, recent product launches, hiring patterns, customer reviews. Output: 1-page brief with key strategic implications for [your company].' Time: 30 minutes vs 8-12 hours unassisted.
Paste in closed-won and closed-lost deal data (anonymized if needed) with: 'Analyze these deals. What patterns distinguish wins from losses? What ICP characteristics correlate with wins? What disqualifiers correlate with losses? Output: refined ICP doc with evidence cited.'
'I'm building a market size analysis for [category]. Help me structure: TAM, SAM, SOM. Identify proxy data sources I can use. Surface comparable categories I should reference. Identify assumptions I need to validate.' Claude won't have proprietary data; will help you structure rigorously.
Use Perplexity Pro for fresh sources → paste into Claude for synthesis: 'Synthesize the most important trends in [category] over the past 6 months. Distinguish noise from signal. Identify implications for [your company].' Pattern-recognition at superhuman speed.
Conducted 10 customer interviews? Paste transcripts: 'Synthesize the themes across these 10 interviews. What pain points came up most? What solutions did they describe trying? What unspoken needs are implied? Quote verbatim where memorable.'
• Perplexity Pro ($20/mo) — for fresh-source research
• Notion or Google Docs — for storing and organizing research outputs
• Loom or Fathom — for interview recording + transcript
Total cost: ~$40/mo for individual researcher. Replaces $5K-$30K of analyst time per quarter.
Three things:
1. Primary research. Surveys, interviews — humans do, Claude synthesizes.
2. Proprietary data analysis. Bring the data; Claude analyzes.
3. Real-time data. Claude's knowledge has a cutoff; pair with Perplexity for fresh.