Future of Market Research: Changing Landscape In A Post-Covid World

Market Research as a domain has come a long way. Think of the previous decade or second half of the decade and we find that evolution of social media has led to numerous social listening technology and new research techniques. Researchers have ventured into psychology and started inculcating psychological and anthropomorphic factors in their research. Just like any other domain, we will base our future trends on the previous journey and hence we will be able to predict the future of market research, right? But one thing we have to remember is that trends, although a brilliant prediction of the future, can also wildly off the mark. Depending upon the trajectory and technology widely used, we can charter a course. But all of this can be wildly inaccurate if we see great innovation that can either fast-track our development or take us a decade back.

So, with all the factors in mind, we will try and paint a picture of what the future of market research awaits us. But before we make any predictions, we must map the journey of Market Research till now, or at least in the last 5 years.

Journey of Market Research

• Automation: Automation wasn’t always a norm for industries. 5 years back, Automation was a show of strength but 5 years later, today every brand is expected to have an automated process for everything. With the introduction of AI, brands have been able to collect and analyze their consumer data more efficiently while conducting a market study.

• Social Media: With the rise of social media, the tech world has launched numerous social listening tools that allow brands to collect to collect more passive data from social media platforms to gain insights into consumer behavior.

• Psychology: If I were to break this into simple terms, your buyers are humans and humans have psychological impulses and beliefs. Over the last 5 years, brands have started factoring in the psychology and behavioral insights of the buyers when conducting a market study.

• Research Channel: When we wish to predict the future of market research, no better place to start than analyzing the evolution of research channels over the last 5 years. With a myriad of channels now available including VR, AR, Heatmapping, you can optimize your market research easily.

• Crisp & Sharp: Over the years, the methodology of the survey collection has changed. From conducting an exhaustive 15-20 market research interviews, brands were made to get the relevant information using short and crisp surveys. The onset of pandemic sped up the process with brands now extensively focusing on digital surveys that use short formats to get user inputs.

With the evolution of accessible market research tools, we now have data silos that can help brands get actionable insights from their market research. But just like evolution is an eternal process, we can use these 5 points as our base to predict what the future of market research holds for us.

• Social Listening Will Focus on Virtual Reality & Voice Assistant: A change in consumer behavior has pushed Virtual Reality games to the brink of explosion and alongside a growing use of voice assistant means the future of Market Research would be focused on social listening that deals with voice commands and filters for the data in them. Humans on average speak 130-140 words a minute while we hardly type 40 words a minute. This means that a shift to voice commands and the virtual reality world is imminent and the market research methodologies would be adapting themselves to the new world.

• Adapting to the world of Mobile Phones: There would be a continued push from businesses all over the globe to ensure their market research is adaptive to mobile compatibility. The 2010s were known for making PCs accessible to every household, in today’s world, most of the surveys filled are via a mobile phone. Hence, there would be a push to make sure that the market research surveys are mobile compatible.

• Behavior Analysis will progress: Collecting and analyzing behavior would be a prime focus for market researchers. Understanding the behavior insights would allow researchers to understand why a consumer buys from a particular brand and what’s the push. This would allow for more extensive research into the buying pattern for a particular industry and brand. Tracking daily habits and daily routine will be important to capture the impulse or the trigger to buy. There would also be a shift to understand Neuroscience and capture reactions will gain importance. You can read more about it, here.

• Online Communities will be more common: Agile Research with a focus on online communities will become the epicenter of the company’s Market Research strategy. More and more companies are opting for an online community where brands can conduct surveys and users can voice their options. The reason the focus would be on online research is that it helps us streamline data, save time, reach a wider audience and get quicker results. Some famous brands opting for this OnePlus, Android. Right now this change is best seen in the technology sector but in the years to come, this is going to be mainstream. Online Surveys also help us get feedback at various touchpoints which have become more important than ever.

Market Research is an integral part of any company’s growth. Not only does it provide you an insight into the brand perception but also helps you analyze where the market is going. If you are looking for a platform for all your market research needs, Survey2Connect offers you a wide range of tools to choose from. Select from a vast list of survey templates or create your survey in minutes, Survey2Connect can help you streamline your market research process. Visit www.survey2connect.com to know more about this.