Instant Census Blog
By Elyse Desmarais on December 21, 2015
With the end of the year comes the seemingly endless “best of” lists. So we asked ourselves, what were the most significant developments in 2015 according to Market Researchers? What new technology and trends are working to change the world of market research and what can we expect for 2016?
Our friends at Research-live have identified the major developments in the world of Market Research for 2015. While these developments include new tools and technology to help Market Researchers perform better research, they also point to the need to “think behind the research,” rather figure out new ways of carrying it out. Here’s this years findings:
Eye tracking, voice recognition, and facial recognition software developments continue to grab Market Researchers’ attention. Jane Rudling, MD of Marketing Sciences notes that these developments hint at a “continued shift to measuring, rather than asking people questions.”
Here at Instant Census, we’re all too aware of the need for mobile and automated survey solutions in all types of research. That’s why we created our text message survey software and why our customers are reaping the benefits of this new technology by performing better research.
Christian Dubreuil, MD of Northern Europe, Research Now notes:
“For declarative data collection, we have seen a significant rise in panelists wishing to complete surveys via mobile in 2015, and at the same time the industry is struggling to ‘mobile-optimize.’ This is creating tension that we have to address as an industry.”
Amanda Phillips, Head of UK Marketing at Millward Brown explains that Marketers want to use analytical techniques for “deeper and more significant insights from the ‘big data’ they have.” By analyzing information they already have, Marketers can “make it work harder to find new answers to existing problems.”
Understanding customer behavior, specifically what behaviors positively or negatively affect the buying process, is essential for Market Researchers in order to improve their organization’s sales and customer experience. To place more focus on this area, many companies have begun hiring in-house staff strictly devoted to this research.
Crawford Hollingworth, Global Founder of The Behavioral Architects explains that there has been a “rise of in-house behavioral science teams - in both the private sector and public and, equally, a growth of in-house behavioral insights experts including some chief behavioral officer positions at board level.”
Some Market Researchers feel their clients are more interested in the results new technology and tools yield and how it can give them a competitor advantage, rather than the tools themselves and how they function.
Andrew Wiseman, MD of ICM Limited further supports this school of thought, explaining that since his clients focus more on outcomes, they use a different approach when speaking with them about new tools and methods. “Rather than talking about the great methodological steps we’ve taken this year, we’re focused on how these tools can embellish the results from more ‘traditional’ Market Research approaches to give us a broader understanding of how customers think, feel and behave.”
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