Marketing English | English for Marketing

BEP 424 – English for Marketing 2: Analyzing Market Research

Advanced, Business English, Marketing English / September 13, 2026

Welcome back to Business English Pod for the second lesson in our series on English for marketing. In today’s lesson, we’ll focus on presenting and analyzing market research.

Today, we are swimming in data. We have access to an unprecedented amount of information about pretty much anything we care to investigate. The problem is: what do we do with that data? How do we look at raw information and glean the insight required to make good decisions?

Moving from information to insight is critical when it comes to market research. In our last lesson, we looked at just how important it is to do good research to grow your business. But the next step is taking that research and learning from it. The information needs to enhance our understanding.

Enhancing understanding by presenting research insights might include identifying key market gaps and highlighting key opportunities. It can also involve understanding differences between different regions and people, as well as understanding customers’ buying criteria. And finally, this will help us prioritize specific market segments.

In today’s dialog, we’ll hear Francine and Kamal, two people from a marketing agency who are presenting the insights they’ve gleaned from a research project. They’re presenting to their client, K&C Safety Supply, represented by Lauren and Josh. They work for a company that sells safety products and training, and they’re looking to expand into a new region in the U.S.

Listening Questions

1. What market gap does Kamal identify in the state of Indiana?
2. What differences does Kamal describe between the East Coast and the Midwest regions?
3. What specific priority are customers in the Midwest currently focused on?

Premium Members: PDF Transcript | Quizzes | PhraseCast | Lesson Module

Download: Podcast MP3

BEP 423 – English for Marketing 1: Discussing Market Research

Advanced, Business English, Marketing English / August 30, 2026

Welcome back to Business English Pod for the first lesson in our series on English for marketing. Throughout this series we’ll look at different stages in the marketing process. This includes everything from market research to planning and executing an advertising campaign. In today’s lesson, we’ll focus on market research.

Even the greatest products and services don’t sell themselves. In fact, part of what makes them great is the fact that people understand why they need them. Or even if they don’t need them, they are convinced they want them. So a great product without any customers isn’t really great at all.

This is where marketing comes in. Marketers, whether in-house or hired on a contract basis, focus on products, pricing, placement, and promotions. Good decisions in all these areas require good research. Good research helps us understand the people we want to sell to, as well as the other options they may already have.

Discussing market research typically begins with understanding your basic business objectives. From there, you can define the scope of the competitive landscape and begin to segment the market, or break it down into different groups of customers. Market research also helps us understand ROI, or the return on investment in specific types of marketing activities. This is critical, because the things we learn in our research should link directly to the english for marketing activities we choose.

In today’s dialog, we’ll hear a conversation with Francine, an account manager at a marketing agency. Francine is talking to Lauren and Josh, who work for a company that sells safety products as well as training services. Their company is looking to expand into the Midwest region of the U.S., and they’ve hired Francine’s company to help them understand how to do that.

Listening Questions

1. What goal for the market research does Francine mention at the start of the conversation?
2. What new “market segment” do Lauren and Josh identify?
3. Why does Francine question whether they should repeat the brand awareness research they did in the past?

Premium Members: PDF Transcript | Quizzes | PhraseCast | Lesson Module

Download: Podcast MP3

BEP 390 – English Collocations: Online Marketing (2)

Business English, Business English Vocabulary, English Collocations, Marketing English / September 25, 2022

Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on business English collocations for discussing online marketing.

The world of ecommerce is extremely competitive. Millions and millions of people are shopping online every day, viewing millions of options. How can businesses stand out in this sea of competition? How can they ensure their potential customers can even find their website? They turn to online marketing. So it’s no wonder there’s so much time, energy, and money put into marketing and measuring performance.

If you’ve ever had a discussion with an online marketing expert, you’ll know there’s a whole new language built up around it. Think about an expression like “search engine optimization,” or SEO. That’s a good example of a type of expression that we call a “collocation.”

A collocation is just a group of words that go naturally together to form an expression. You’ve already heard me use a few English collocations. Consider “measuring performance,” as an example. The verb “measure” and the noun “performance” go together frequently and naturally. By looking at collocations you can learn words together, not in isolation.

In today’s dialog, we’ll rejoin Eduardo, Emma, and Neil, who work for a kitchenware retailer. Last time, they discussed content marketing. Today, we’ll hear them talking about search engine optimization and some ways of measuring success. During their conversation, they use many English collocations, which we’ll explain later in the debrief.

Listening Questions

1. At the start of the conversation, what does Eduardo hope has increased?
2. According to Emma, what have they invested a lot in?
3. What does Neil say about their English site that might not be true about the German version?

Premium Members: PDF Transcript | Quizzes | PhraseCast | Lesson Module

Download: Podcast MP3

BEP 389 – English Collocations: Online Marketing (1)

Business English, Business English Vocabulary, English Collocations, Marketing English / September 11, 2022

Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on business English collocations related to online marketing.

Every year, ecommerce accounts for an even bigger chunk of retail sales around the world. How big of a chunk? Almost 5 trillion dollars. And with so much selling happening online, it’s not surprising online marketing has become a hot topic.

With this increasing importance has come a ton of new words and expressions. If you find yourself confused, you’re not alone. And as you navigate this new lexicon, it can be very helpful to focus on a type of expression called “collocations.”

Collocations are simply natural combinations of words. For example, you may know that we use the word “traffic” to talk about how many people visit a website. Well, did you know we normally say “drive traffic” when we talk about techniques for bringing people to a website? We don’t say “make traffic” or “move traffic.” It’s not a grammatical rule. It has just become a natural combination of words.

In today’s dialog, we’ll hear Eduardo, Emma, and Neil, who all work for a retailer that specializes in cooking equipment. They’re discussing their company’s online marketing performance. During their conversation, they use lots of English collocations, which we’ll explain later in the debrief.

Listening Questions

1. What does Eduardo regularly do to understand their online marketing performance?
2. What does Neil say is becoming harder, especially with new privacy rules?
3. What does Emma say is not a good technique for reaching younger audiences?

Premium Members: PDF Transcript | Quizzes | PhraseCast | Lesson Module

Download: Podcast MP3

VV 55 – English for Marketing: Product Management

Business English, Business English Vocabulary, English Video, Marketing English / February 4, 2018

In this lesson, we’ll look at business English vocabulary related to product management.

In many companies, product managers help promote a product. Companies do market analysis as well as competitive research in order to develop a business case for a product. A product roadmap lays out the plan for developing a product, including the go-to-market strategy and the product launch.

Premium Members: PDF Transcript | Online Quizzes | Audio MP3

Download: Podcast Video