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.