Market research is any method used to find out more about a company's target market and learn more about them. Businesses use this information to make better products, enhance user experiences, and come up with a marketing plan that provides business leads and sales.

A marketing strategy tells you where you want to go with your marketing and what your goals are.

A competitive analysis is a strategy that involves looking into the products, sales, and marketing methods of your biggest competitors. A competitive market analysis can help you come up with better business plans, keep competitors away, and get a bigger share of the market, among other things.

A content marketing plan is a written strategy that describes your content's who, what, when, where, why, and how.

Brand research is a formal way to gather information and figure out what it means. It looks at your reputation and how well-known you are to help you figure out where your company fits in the market.

Lead generation is a term that gets thrown around a lot in the world of marketing for small businesses, but the idea behind it is pretty simple: A strategy for generating leads is any plan or action you use to bring customers to your business in the hopes that they will do business with you in some way.