The most effective way to research what your students actually want is to combine direct conversation with systematic observation across multiple channels. The ten methods below — from buying someone a coffee to analyzing AI-generated audience insights — give you a complete research toolkit that ensures your course solves a real problem people will pay to fix.
The Foundation: Empathy Over Assumption
Before diving into specific research methods, it's worth understanding why audience research matters so much. The single biggest mistake we see course creators make is building courses based on what they want to teach rather than what their audience needs to learn.
Empathy — the ability to understand another person's perceptions, beliefs, and feelings — is the skill that separates great course creators from mediocre ones. These ten research methods are all, at their core, exercises in building empathy. Each one gives you a different lens into your audience's world.
If you haven't already defined who your ideal student is, start there before proceeding with research. Our guide on creating your ideal student avatar → will help you establish a clear picture of who you're researching.
Method 1: Direct Conversation
This remains the single most valuable research method available, and nothing in the AI era has changed that. Buy someone a coffee (or a virtual equivalent), ask open-ended questions, and listen deeply.
The key is to listen for what lies beneath the surface answers. When someone says "I want to learn about nutrition," the real story is usually something like: "I've tried three diets, they all failed, I feel ashamed about my health, and I'm worried about keeping up with my kids."
Questions that unlock real insights:
- "What have you already tried?" — Reveals their history and what hasn't worked
- "What would change in your life if you solved this?" — Uncovers the deeper motivation
- "What's the hardest part about [topic] right now?" — Identifies the specific pain point
- "If you could wave a magic wand, what would be different?" — Reveals the ideal outcome
- "What made you decide to look into this now?" — Uncovers the triggering event
Aim for 10-15 conversations before you draw conclusions. Look for patterns — the same phrases, frustrations, and desires appearing across multiple conversations.
Method 2: Online Community Monitoring
In 2026, the richest audience intelligence lives in online communities — but the landscape has shifted significantly from the early days of Facebook groups.
Where to look now:
- Reddit — Subreddits are goldmines. Search for your topic and read threads where people ask for help. The comments reveal both the questions people ask and the language they use.
- Discord servers — Many professional and hobby communities have moved to Discord. Join relevant servers and observe the conversations in help channels.
- Facebook groups — Still active for many demographics, especially professionals over 35. Search for groups related to your topic and note the recurring questions.
- LinkedIn comments — For B2B or professional topics, LinkedIn post comments reveal what practitioners are struggling with.
- YouTube comments — Under popular videos about your topic, people reveal what they still don't understand or what they wish was covered.
The critical practice: capture exact language. Don't paraphrase. Copy the actual words people use to describe their problems. This language becomes the foundation of your course marketing.
Method 3: Data Analytics and Search Research
Quantitative data complements your qualitative research by showing you what people search for and how often.
- Google Trends — Compare search interest across related topics to understand which angles have growing demand
- Keyword research tools — Ahrefs, SEMrush, or even free tools like Ubersuggest reveal how many people search for topics related to your course each month
- Google's "People also ask" — Type your topic into Google and expand the "People also ask" boxes. These are the exact questions your audience is typing into search engines.
- AI-assisted analysis — Use AI tools to summarize patterns across your research. Paste your interview notes, community observations, and search data into an AI assistant and ask it to identify recurring themes and unmet needs.
- Answer the Public — Visualizes the questions, prepositions, and comparisons people search for around any topic
A word of caution: search data shows you what people think they want, which isn't always what they actually need. Use it to validate and quantify what your qualitative research reveals, not to replace it.
Method 4: Empathy Mapping
An empathy map is a visual framework that synthesizes everything you learn about your audience into a single, actionable document. It's divided into four quadrants:
The Four Quadrants:
- Think & Feel — What are their internal worries, hopes, and aspirations? What keeps them up at night about this topic? What would make them feel successful?
- Say & Do — What do they tell friends and family about this challenge? What actions are they currently taking (or avoiding)? What's the gap between what they say and what they do?
- See — What solutions are they exposed to? What does their environment look like? Who influences their perception of this topic?
- Hear — What advice are they getting from friends, experts, media? What messages are they receiving about this challenge from the world around them?
How to create yours: Take a large sheet of paper (or a digital whiteboard) and draw a cross dividing it into four sections. Label each quadrant. Then populate it with specific observations from your research — real quotes, real behaviors, real influences. Don't generalize. The power of the map comes from specificity.
Add a section at the bottom for Pains (fears, frustrations, obstacles) and Gains (wants, needs, measures of success). This bottom section becomes the direct input for your course design and marketing messaging.
Method 5: Surveys and Polls
Surveys work best when you already have hypotheses to validate — after you've done qualitative research. Sending a survey cold to an audience you don't understand yet produces superficial results.
Best practices for course creator surveys:
- Keep it to 5-8 questions maximum
- Include at least 2 open-ended questions ("What's your biggest challenge with..." and "What would you most want to learn about...")
- Use multiple choice for validation, open text for discovery
- Offer a small incentive (a useful resource, a discount, a free mini-lesson)
- Distribute through your email list, social channels, and relevant communities
Tools to use: Google Forms (free, simple), Typeform (beautiful, conversational), Tally (free with advanced features), or even a simple poll in a social media post or community.
Aim for at least 30-50 responses before drawing conclusions. Fewer than that, and individual outliers can skew your understanding.
Method 6: Case Study Analysis
Study what's already working in your space — and more importantly, what's missing.
Read industry blogs, listen to podcasts in your niche, review the most-shared content on social media about your topic. What questions keep coming up in the comments? What topics generate the most discussion? Where do readers express frustration that a post didn't go deep enough?
The gaps you find are opportunities. If every blog post about your topic covers the basics but nobody addresses advanced implementation, there's your course angle. If people consistently ask follow-up questions about a specific subtopic, that subtopic deserves deeper treatment.
Method 7: Industry Expert Interviews
Contact 3-5 professionals who already serve your target audience in a different capacity. A therapist who works with your audience, a blogger who writes for them, a consultant who advises them. These people have accumulated insights about your audience through thousands of interactions.
Key questions for expert interviews:
- "What's the most common misconception people have about [topic]?"
- "Where do people typically get stuck when trying to [desired outcome]?"
- "What do you wish your clients/readers understood before they came to you?"
- "What questions do you get asked most frequently?"
Most experts are generous with their time when you approach them with genuine curiosity and respect for their expertise. Offer to share your findings, credit them in your work, or simply buy them lunch.
Method 8: Competitor Research
Your competitors' customers are already talking about what they want — and what they're not getting. This is publicly available intelligence you should be using.
- Reviews of competing courses — Read both positive and negative reviews. Positive reviews tell you what people value. Negative reviews tell you where there's room to do better.
- FAQ pages — A competitor's FAQ section reveals the concerns and objections their audience has.
- Support forums and communities — If a competitor has a public community, the questions people ask there are a direct window into unmet needs.
- Sales pages — Study what language competitors use to describe the transformation they offer. This is tested marketing copy that reflects audience desires.
The goal isn't to copy competitors. It's to understand the landscape so you can position your course to fill genuine gaps. Use our course outline tool → to start organizing insights from your competitor research into a differentiated curriculum.
Method 9: Event Immersion
Attend conferences, workshops, webinars, and meetups where your target audience gathers. In 2026, this includes both in-person and virtual events — and virtual events have made this research method more accessible than ever.
Pay attention to:
- Which sessions have the longest lines or highest attendance
- What questions the audience asks during Q&A sessions
- What people talk about during breaks and networking
- Which exhibitors or sponsors attract the most traffic
- What people post on social media during the event
The hallway conversations at events often reveal more than the formal sessions. People are more candid in informal settings, and you'll hear them describe their challenges in their own unfiltered language.
Method 10: One-on-One Coaching Sessions
Offer 5-10 free or low-cost coaching sessions to people in your target audience. This is the deepest form of audience research available because you're not just observing — you're actively working through challenges alongside your potential students.
Through coaching, you discover:
- Where people actually get stuck (which is often different from where they think they're stuck)
- Which explanations click and which don't
- What background knowledge you can assume and what you need to teach
- How long it actually takes someone to master each concept
- The emotional journey students go through while learning
These sessions also become the basis for your course content. Record them (with permission), take detailed notes, and watch for the moments when something shifts for the student. Those breakthrough moments become the core of your curriculum.
For a detailed framework on turning coaching insights into course structure, see our guide on designing a brilliant course →
Putting It All Together
You don't need to use all ten methods for every course. But you should use at least three or four, ideally combining qualitative methods (conversations, coaching, community observation) with quantitative ones (surveys, search data, analytics).
A practical research sequence:
- Week 1-2: Start with 5-10 direct conversations and community monitoring to develop initial hypotheses
- Week 2-3: Validate hypotheses with a survey and search data analysis
- Week 3-4: Go deeper with competitor research, expert interviews, and empathy mapping
- Week 4-5: Test your understanding through 3-5 coaching sessions
- Week 5-6: Synthesize everything into your empathy map and begin outlining your course
The investment of 4-6 weeks in research might feel slow when you're eager to start building. But this research phase is what separates courses that sell from courses that sit empty. When you deeply understand your audience, every other decision — your curriculum design, your pricing, your marketing message — becomes dramatically easier.
Ready to turn your research into a structured course? Our guide on structuring your pilot course → shows you how to translate audience insights into a curriculum that delivers real results.