Marketing research is often used by physical and virtual businesses to establish trends in sales, products, and services. The daily duties may include pulling information from surveys, creating market research reports from the data pulled, and writing surveys. Data from market research is collected and analyzed as part of developing future marketing plans.
Surveys can be a huge part of the daily functions of a market researcher. The survey results can be used to provide trend-based data for the current consumer. The consumers used for marketing research surveys are commonly screened to fit into the profile of the common shopper for a specific business or service provider.
Once the information is gathered from the consumer surveys, the market researcher may compile that data into reports used to guide future changes in products, services, and business plans. The focus of the surveys will often cover a variety of business elements. These may include products, store or website design, pricing, and employee/consumer interaction.
The market researcher may also play a part in the design process of the surveys used to gather consumer opinion. These surveys can be presented as online surveys, in-store surveys, mail surveys, and phone surveys to name a few. Depending on the delivery method of the survey, different tactics are commonly employed in the survey writing process.
The wording of the questions used in the marketing survey may be the most important aspect of the market researcher daily duties. If the wording is incorrect, the results of the marketing survey could take a different angle than intended. This could mean the entire survey may need to be repeated with a more focused questionnaire.
Many projects completed by the market researcher will include three stages. The first stage includes presenting the survey to a small group of focused consumers. These consumers should fit the profile of the business clientele for the establishment gathering the marketing data. This is the test phase of the marketing survey.
Once the test phase is complete, the survey may be presented to a larger group of the focused population. The results of the larger survey are often used as the data collection for future reports written for business management and product buyers. Then the marketing researcher usually gathers the data collected, assembles it, and reports on it to the business manager. The survey results can be used to reevaluate daily business activities and future product trends, or determine successful and unsuccessful product choices, among other results.