The last 15 months were the most unusual I’ve experienced in the market research industry in my 20 years of work.
It’s been fascinating to witness: plenty of insights professionals accelerated their research to keep up with the ever-changing consumer — stretching already thin teams. Some, who were feeling financial strain due to COVID, pulled back a bit. But everyone moved their research – along with the rest of their lives – online.
Change is hard. That’s why the Remesh content team put together a comprehensive guide of relevant highlights and trends to help better navigate the current landscape.
In this guide, we identified three key themes to help researchers make the right, actionable decisions for their organizations during and after this transformation.
Unprecedented potential for growth & expansion online
Our research found that among the most asked questions related to market research on Google, searchers wanted to know how market research is changing, the consequences of poor methodology or practice, and how to conduct market research online. The transition to online research is no surprise, with 60% of researchers reporting that they’ve had to “move all of our research online,” according to one Remesh study.
The most desirable researchers are strong analysts
A new environment would imply a new set of skills needed for insights professionals. It seems now is the time for a lot of new roles in the industry – either those hiring new team members to keep up with stakeholders’ demand, or those who are looking for the next move in their career. In analyzing over 40 market research-related roles, we learned that strong analytical skills were the most in-demand hard skill across most market research-related job listings – notably even more so in the hard skills category than “Experience in Market Research.”
Technology is transforming market research
While technology has been transforming our industry for quite a while, its increasing role in the insights industry is becoming more evident. Among the most in-demand hard skills for market research related functions, previous experience in market research tools secured a spot in the top three most-desired skills.
Our sources for this report include: top questions about market research asked on Google, top topics discussed alongside the word “market research,” top Google search queries related to market research, and top required skills for market research roles. We collected both quantitative and qualitative data through multiple primary and secondary data sources.
Download the full 25-page report, The Market Research Trends Report of 2021 for free, here
