Market Research Survey is evolving to become tech savvy, modern and shedding its time consuming and expensive older process.
10 years ago, a marketing researcher would carry a bunch of forms and try getting them filled from various customers. Efforts would then be put into collating, understanding and inferring from the feed backs. After a meticulous process of drafting and redrafting of reports on market research survey, the process of redefining a brand would finally begin. This was before the internet revolution had surfaced. An age when computers were mere support tools and smartphones were yet to arrive.
Marketing Research has changed face since the revival of technology. Being its part, marketing research survey has also evolved. Let’s see the various aspects of this change.
The Necessity
Why is a survey required in the first place? Professionals working in the creative communications field – advertising, marketing, branding, designing, PR – are in a process of continual improvement. Very few brands can survive on the same tagline or the same packaging for a lifetime. This creates the necessity of understanding the market, the customers – as they are, and the pattern in which they are changing. A survey brings in valuable inputs that can act as guidelines for future strategies.
Traditional Methods
As mentioned, the traditional survey methods rely too much on manual efforts. There is a whole lot of fieldwork involved; clerical work of segmenting data, classifying it and then drawing patterns becomes tiresome. These methods are also costly and time consuming. It is also very difficult to identify the target audience and even when it is identified, to access it in one go. These drawbacks have contributed in these methods getting more obsolete by the day.
The Changing Face
Social networking sites, big data and sophisticated informatics characterize the modern marketing methods. With social networks, you can reach a host of audience in one go. Various groups on Facebook and WhatsApp mean you already have segments of like-minded people. Big data has also dethroned Consumer Panel Companies, which possess long e-mail lists but function poorly thanks to old Marketing Research methods.
Most importantly, the internet has made it possible for any marketing professional to carry out surveys through D-I-Y methods. The speed with which feedback mechanisms work, you can have the results of your surveys within hours or days at max. And with latest processing tools, the statistics can be generated quite easily. You can save all the labour and jump into action straight away, based on these results.
The Post Graduate program on Marketing Research by North Point India (NPI) Institute teaches many such aspects in detail. It is a golden opportunity for aspiring marketing professionals and a gateway to an industry that beholds the key to your success.