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The July issue of Quirk’s Marketing Research Review offers their annual survey of client-side market research, with a new addition this year of verbatim comments about what client-side market research like best, and least, about their jobs.
Thank you, Quirk’s, for this new feature and here’s hoping you will continue it in future surveys.
What struck me most about the comments is how little has changed in the world of client-side market research. It has been almost fifteen years since I worked that side of the industry. The comments about the highs and lows of being a market researcher could all have been voiced by myself or fellow market researchers back in the early to mid-1990s and I suspect by market researchers before that.
Such comments are main reason I started the Market Research Optimized website. In my years on the client side, I too enjoyed the variety of the work in market research, especially after I took a slight detour into product management and spent my days working on the same issues endlessly. In market research, I worked on business cases, developed projects for a variety of internal clients, conducted focus groups, wrote report, and enjoyed simply brainstorming with other marketers. Almost every day was different. I also liked the discovery aspect of the positions in market research, hunting through data and other market research findings for the nuggets and insights that would help the organizations I worked for.
On the flip side, I was frustrated with clients that thought they were questionnaire writers or methodological experts. Frustration came also via clients who embraced research findings when the findings supported their pet theories and then wanted to shoot the messenger when the findings controverted their beliefs. Overall, I too had a sense that market research was simply not truly respected, especially among managers who, sniff, sniff, had P&L responsibility (of which they reminded me constantly).
Over the years, I developed strategies to reduce (but not eliminate) some of these frustrations. Some of these I have shared in previous blogs. Others I will be focusing on in future content.
So check back often for more posts and articles and feel free to subscribe to the email list where as a subscriber you will receive exclusive content on optimizing market research in your company.
Comments welcome.
Dr. Bob
