What does a career as a marketing researcher include, exactly? It’s hard to pin that answer down, because a market researcher can research so many different things, as is true for all research jobs. A researcher in this field may focus on doing surveys, which would then entail a wide range of methods. Face to face interviewing, phone calls, online surveys—almost anything the mind can conceive. Or a market researcher may focus on a specialized aspect of the field—Qualitative Research, for instance. Those in this aspect of researching put their efforts toward more professional venues. Research of this caliber mostly deals with things medical—healthcare research and such—or even recruiting statistics and organizations.
Another aspect to this many faceted career is Product Research. Marketing researchers will look into different stages of developing items—whether they are lotions or a new kind of cereal. A marketing researcher would look at the product’s development, packaging, marketing, and then possibly even follow it to the end by looking for public response. After all of these steps, the researcher would then find where the product excelled or fell short and then report their findings.
Following behind Product Research would be the particular field of Customer Research. This research is focused on customer satisfaction and/or customer loyalty. In this field, you may have the opportunity to get out and into different stores to actually talk to customers, and then evaluate their feelings about products or services rendered to them.
Yet another choice in this wide field of marketing research is Advertisement Research. Through surveys and other research methods (including multiple experiments) you can search for and then measure advertisement effectiveness. Whether advertised through the television, or through a magazine or newspaper, advertisements are everywhere. As a marketing researcher you would find the more successful advertisements, and find out what they have in common, or why they individually succeed. You would also get a deeper look into why certain brands are favored—is it because they’re really better, or are they less popular because your grandmother never bought into them? You would get to explore these questions, and then make a salary by bringing forth what you discover. Jobs involving research have very varying pay rates—it depends on your personal experience and efficiency, what aspect of research you wish to focus on, and who your employer is.
There are many career opportunities in researching, and while some of these possible careers take a large amount of schooling, some you can begin with right away. The field of marketing research is vast and the work is varying. A market researcher must first choose what method or genre he or she wishes to work with. There are so many job openings for so many different types of marketing researchers so this should not be too difficult. But you should look into whatever firm you intend to hire on with so you can get a better idea of what types of research they conduct. Some firms want face to face interviewers or researchers that will find their facts through phone calls or other kinds of surveys.
If you have a serious aversion to people this probably will not be your dream scenario any more. So you would want to find a firm that would offer opportunities to conduct research through the internet or other set apart methods. There are many online marketing researching positions, and also many technical and analytical job openings. You would gather data, enter it in, and tabulate results. (There would be few people involved, other than yourself.)
If you are excited and ready to start researching now, you will need to search first for employment. Finding a marketing research firm will probably be your most successful move. You can find lists of general marketing research firms easily with a simple internet search. You can also use this same method to find more specialized firms, like those discussed above such as advertisement research, product research, and so forth.
The most essential qualities needed to excel in this career are: a sense of curiosity (to keep your interest up) and deep thinking skills. Research is not merely glancing at facts—you are finding the facts, and giving them to everyone else. You will need to be not just a surface observer. You will, after all, be a researcher.
