Market and audience research
It runs inside every engagement, it is never sold separately, and the file leaves with you.
The short version
Is this for you? For the audience described from memory and the persona copied off a template. It is never sold on its own; it runs inside every engagement, so if research is all you are after, the free audit is the honest place to start.
What leaves your plate. A written map of your market, your audiences and the subjects nobody has claimed, built by actually asking rather than assuming, with the same template run on this studio too so you can see it works.
What starts working. A map of your market sitting in your own drive, yours to keep, and a content plan that starts from evidence instead of from taste.
The smallest way in. A free audit: three fields, and a written reading back, usually within about three working days. It commits you to nothing.
What to read next. The five levels to see where this fits, or the casework to see it done.
The dossier is yours, and it leaves with you
The dossier leaves with you at the end
Research is an easy thing to hold hostage. Ours goes into your drive in the same format we use ourselves: the competitor file, the audience map, the topic list with the crowded ones marked. A partner who can brief a photographer, a copywriter or their own assistant from that map is worth more to us than one who cannot move without asking first, and the second kind of arrangement tends to end badly anyway.
Being asked is often the first time it gets answered
Which archetype, expressed in which colours and which type. Which cultural register, global or specifically British. Where you sit on price and on quality, how wide the niche is meant to be, and who stands nearest to you. Expert-led brands usually carry all of this somewhere behind the eyes and none of it on paper. The pause after the first question is not an embarrassment; it is the most useful minute of the fortnight.
Somebody has to be repelled
Audiences get sorted four ways: ideal, neutral, low fit and anti. The last group earns its place on the page. Knowing who you would rather not attract decides which subjects you turn down, which register you refuse to adopt, and which comments you can read without flinching. A channel addressed to everybody is addressed to nobody in particular, and its comment section says so eventually.
The same template gets run on this studio
BUBI has its own archetype file, its own competitor set graded on price and quality, its own list of subjects that are already saturated. Running the process on ourselves is how the template got sharp. It is also why a partner's version takes days rather than a quarter, and why every question on the list is one we have had to sit down and answer, which changes the way it gets asked.
What is inside the file you keep
| Competitor set | primary, secondary, entry level, and the ones who could take your share |
|---|---|
| Read for each | archetype, price and quality level, main markets, headline offer, the solution in one sentence |
| Also read for each | search keywords, likely audience behaviours, the pain points they answer, a mini SWOT |
| Reviews, both directions | the most detailed positive one and the most critical one |
| Your audience, split four ways | ideal, neutral, low fit, anti |
| Awareness | five stages, unaware through to most aware, with a likely share for each |
Mapping a niche somebody has already worked
Where the room is, and where it has gone
Subjects your near competitors have covered to exhaustion get marked as such, and so do the ones nobody in the niche has taken seriously. Red ocean and blue ocean are useful words for about a minute; the deliverable is a list of actual subjects with a note beside each on how crowded it is and what would have to be different. Every claim in the map carries its evidence type beside it, what was observed, what is sourced, what is our estimate, and what is still a hypothesis to test, so a behavioural claim about your audience is never mistaken for a measured fact.
When it happens
Weeks zero and one, alongside the drive setup and the handover of access. There is no version of an engagement that skips it, because the strategy written in the following fortnight is assembled out of it. It gets revisited when the market moves, or when the channel outgrows the map.
The file is yours at the end of it, because a partner who cannot brief anybody but us has been made dependent, which is not the same as helped.
Dependence is easy to sell and dishonest to build, so the map leaves in your name.
What changes for you
A written map of your market, your audiences and your unclaimed subjects, sitting in your own drive. A content plan that starts from evidence instead of from taste.
Related: Channel strategy and DNA · The free audit · Defining the goal · Content systems and planning
Before strategy is discussed, we read the channel: what it publishes, what it promises and where the two part ways. The audit comes back in writing, so the first call starts from evidence rather than introductions.
Request your free audit.
Three fields, and a written reading back: a fit snapshot, two or three prioritised opportunities, and a recommended next step.
A person reads the channel and writes the audit by hand: a considered read typically takes three working days. That is the usual shape, not a promised turnaround. We use these details only to reply to you: no lists, no lurking.
What you will get
A fit snapshot: where your channel stands, and whether we are a match.
Two to three opportunities: specific, prioritised, yours to keep.
A recommended next step, even if that step is not us.
The audit is free and commits you to nothing: nobody follows up with a call you did not ask for.
The casework shows all of this done.
The case studies are the same work with the numbers, the sources and the dates attached.
See the casework →