Understanding AYTM: A Powerful DIY Research Platform

AYTM – short for Ask Your Target Market – is an online market research platform designed to simplify and speed up consumer feedback. It allows businesses to create custom surveys, reach hundreds or thousands of consumers, and generate actionable data in a matter of days. As part of a growing category of DIY research tools, AYTM is valued for its intuitive interface, agile functionality, and ability to support both simple and advanced survey needs.

Why AYTM Is a Go-To for Early Market Research

When exploring new ideas, product concepts, or shifting consumer behavior, early research is essential. However, traditional research timelines can be too slow or costly. This is where AYTM shines. By offering flexible options for survey creation and targeting, AYTM enables teams to:

• Test hypotheses quickly before investing in large-scale research
• Identify patterns in consumer responses early in the product or brand development cycle
• Get directional insights that guide which ideas are worth pursuing further

Beyond speed, AYTM also supports advanced functionality like need state mapping, conjoint analysis, and segmentation tools – making it highly suitable for exploring nuanced behavior, even at an early stage.

AYTM and the Rise of DIY Research Tools

Today’s research environment is evolving. Businesses are under pressure to work leaner, faster, and smarter – which is why DIY research platforms are gaining popularity. AYTM fits well into this landscape by enabling rapid learning while maintaining a solid level of analytic depth.

Still, having the right tools doesn't automatically guarantee the right results. While AYTM makes it easy to launch surveys, crafting the right questions, sampling the right audiences, and analyzing results effectively still require expertise. This is where On Demand Talent from SIVO can elevate your efforts – by providing experienced professionals who know how to structure research to deliver truly actionable insights.

In short, AYTM is a powerful platform for early-stage consumer behavior research – and when paired with the right strategy and talent, it can help organizations stay attuned to fast-shifting needs and trends.

Defining Consumer Need States

Consumer need states refer to the specific motivations, emotions, and situational factors that drive behavior at a particular moment. In other words, it's not just what a consumer does – it's why they do it, when they do it, and what context they’re operating in. Understanding these states helps brands develop offers that are relevant, timely, and resonant.

For example, someone buying coffee in the morning before work may be in a “functional recharge” need state – seeking energy and convenience. The same person later in the afternoon might buy coffee to “take a break” or as a “treat,” which reflect very different motivations and contexts. These subtle shifts in behavior uncover opportunities for positioning, product development, and customer experience design.

Why Need States Are Crucial in Market Research

While traditional demographic segmentation tells you who your consumers are, need state mapping tells you why and when they act. Early market research centered on need states can:

• Reveal unmet needs that emerging products could satisfy
• Identify new usage occasions or rituals around your category
• Pinpoint barriers preventing trial or adoption
• Uncover emotional drivers behind brand choice

By mapping usage occasions, identifying drivers and barriers, and exploring what influences decision-making, brands can move beyond surface-level insights to more strategic thinking. These findings can directly inform messaging, innovation, pricing models, and more.

Using DIY Tools to Map Need States

Platforms like AYTM offer versatile options for capturing consumer need states through dynamic survey design. You can present respondents with everyday scenarios, test motivations behind behaviors, ask about frustrations and decision hurdles, and segment by context rather than just by age or gender.

For example, a brand exploring snack foods might set up a survey that first explores snacking occasions – such as "on the go," "after school," or "midnight cravings." For each occasion, the survey can prompt consumers to describe:

• What triggered the need (driver)
• What they typically choose and why (behavior)
• What gets in the way (barriers)

This type of research can generate rich behavioral insights early, helping teams prioritize ideas that truly fit into consumers’ lives.

Why Expert Guidance Leads to Better Outcomes

While DIY platforms make need state research more accessible, not all teams have the time or internal expertise to create optimal survey structures or dig into complex behavioral segmentation. That’s where partnering with SIVO’s On Demand Talent becomes a valuable advantage. These seasoned insights professionals work alongside your team to design impactful studies, ensure clarity in how need states are defined and analyzed, and tie findings back to your broader strategy – not just as data points, but as direction for growth.

Whether you’re a startup testing messaging or a Fortune 500 brand exploring product expansion, understanding need states early can help you make smarter, faster decisions – and lay the groundwork for stronger customer connections.

Understanding consumer need states requires looking at the full context of when, why, and how people make choices. AYTM (Ask Your Target Market), a leading DIY research platform, offers a fast and flexible way to capture those insights early in the product or marketing development process.

One of AYTM’s greatest strengths lies in its ability to go beyond basic preferences and start identifying what drives behavior, what gets in the way, and what moments matter most. This is crucial for early need state mapping, helping brands position themselves where real opportunities exist.

Uncover Moments That Matter

Mapping usage occasions is a key step in identifying when consumers are most likely to think about, seek out, or use your product or service. With AYTM’s survey tools, you can create custom questions that prompt respondents to describe:

• Specific times or environments where they’ve used a solution
• Alternatives or substitutions they’ve tried
• Emotional or functional triggers that led up to the moment

By analyzing these findings, you can begin developing occasion-based frameworks to guide positioning and innovation strategy.

Dive Deeper into Drivers and Barriers

Equally important is understanding what motivates a decision, and what obstacles stand in the way. AYTM’s survey engine lets you explore not just what people do, but why they do (or don’t do) it. Using question types like MaxDiff or custom rating scales, early-stage researchers can investigate:

• Drivers – value perceptions, sensory preferences, convenience factors, price sensitivity
• Barriers – confusion, accessibility issues, lack of alternatives, trust concerns

These insights feed directly into a more complete consumer behavior research model, helping teams prioritize features, messages, or innovations that match consumer realities.

Make Early Insights Actionable

Early insights gathered through AYTM can fuel a variety of downstream initiatives. For example, fictional research for a beverage startup may surface that young professionals see hydration as part of a “brain boost” need state during afternoon lulls – which not only guides flavor and packaging innovation, but also informs messaging, distribution (e.g., vending vs. shelf), and pricing strategies.

Whether you're testing hypotheses about emerging consumer needs or refining existing personas, AYTM puts fast, high-quality market research tools in the hands of growing brands. And when paired with expert support, the results can be remarkably strategic and grounded in real-life usage, not assumptions.

DIY research tools like AYTM have made it easier than ever for teams to design, launch, and analyze surveys on their own. They offer speed, affordability, and accessibility – empowering teams across marketing, product, and insights. But while these tools put research execution at your fingertips, they still benefit significantly from the expertise of trained researchers.

Why? Because the platform can only take you so far. Getting value from DIY tools still depends on how well the study is crafted, how questions are framed, and how the results are interpreted and applied. That’s where expert guidance makes the difference between raw data and true insight development.

Ensuring Methodology Matches the Objective

One common pitfall of self-led research is choosing the wrong methodology or question formats. For instance, a team exploring early stage consumer need states might mistakenly field a concept test instead of exploratory qualitative-style survey questions. Even subtle missteps—like leading language or poorly-worded scales—can bias results or limit response quality.

Experienced researchers know how to avoid these traps. They help ensure the objectives are clearly defined, the survey is designed with best practices, and the right metrics are captured to answer your most critical business questions.

Interpreting Signals from the Noise

Modern DIY survey tools can analyze responses quickly, but interpretation requires judgment. What’s a meaningful finding? Is that 5-point difference significant or just noise? How do you connect online survey results to real-world behavior?

Insight professionals bring the skillset needed to spot patterns, synthesize them, and identify which insights matter for business decisions. They add context that dashboards don’t provide, translating data into strategy.

Maximizing ROI on Research Investments

Time and budget pressures are real. Teams invest in platforms like AYTM to move faster—but without the rigor of experienced support, outcomes may fall short.

That's why many forward-thinking teams are building hybrid models—leveraging tools like AYTM with flexible access to support when needed. It's not about replacing internal teams—it's about enhancing capability for greater return.

In short, DIY tools can help you get started. But expert guidance helps ensure you finish strong—with data that’s trustworthy, findings that are clear, and outcomes that drive smart business action.

If you're using DIY platforms like AYTM but feel your team is stretched thin—or lacking the right skillsets to go deeper—SIVO's On Demand Talent solution bridges the gap. Whether you're launching early consumer behavior research, testing concepts, or mapping new emerging consumer trends, our seasoned insights professionals help you do it faster, smarter, and with greater impact.

Strategic Support Without Long-term Commitment

On Demand Talent are not freelancers or temporary hires. They are experienced, trained professionals with a background in insights strategy, market research methodologies, and cross-functional collaboration. You gain access to this talent quickly—often in just days—without the delays or costs of traditional hiring or agency retainers.

This makes it ideal for:

• Short-term or finite research initiatives
• Covering leave or bandwidth gaps on core insights teams
• Elevating internal DIY efforts to strategic-level outputs

Speed Meets Precision

Coupling AYTM's fast fielding capabilities with On Demand Talent's strategic lens is a major win for growing businesses. You don’t sacrifice speed for rigor—instead, you gain confidence that your DIY research is designed properly, executed cleanly, and interpreted through a business lens.

Whether your study needs better question design, stronger analytic storytelling, or help linking research to key decisions, our professionals ensure your research delivers results you can trust and use.

Building Long-Term Research Capabilities

Our goal isn’t just to fill short-term resource gaps. SIVO’s professionals often support teams by teaching best practices, refining research approaches, and even mentoring junior teammates. It’s about growing your team’s long-term capabilities—so your investment in tools like AYTM pays off more each time you use them.

For example, a fictional mid-sized food brand using AYTM to segment lunch shoppers may lack the skill to structure questions around need states like convenience vs. indulgence. An On Demand talent expert can not only build the study but leave behind frameworks for future use—raising the team’s research maturity over time.

By pairing market research platforms with flexible, expert support, you get the best of both worlds: independence and velocity, paired with strategic grounding and data you can act on confidently.