The Market Researcher is responsible for determining customers’ needs, desires, interests, and willingness to pay for products and services. The Market Researcher working at an agency has an interesting job. He or she researches market conditions in local, regional, and national areas to determine potential sales of products and services. Market Researchers are needed by the agency for many reasons. One is to help decide the kind of facts that should be stressed in advertisements. Another is to learn how effective a particular advertisement or commercial is. Other reasons include determining which media will most successfully sell a product, who is using specific products or services, and why people are purchasing other companies’ or competitors’ products.
In order to do market research the individual uses a number of research techniques. He or she might use a survey to find the answers to questions. The Market Researcher may be responsible for developing a survey questionnaire, or he or she may simply execute the survey. To do this, he or she would go out in public or phone a large number of people and ask them the questions on the survey. The survey might ask about a person’s age, sex, and income level. It may ask about potential buyers’ shopping habits and preferences. The respondents’ answers would then be recorded and analyzed.
Market Researchers might use data that has already been recorded, such as information compiled by federal, state, and local agencies as well as private businesses. If this is the case, the Market Researcher would have to seek out the information and incorporate it into appropriate studies. At times the Market Researcher might put together panels of consumers to test products in their home. Market Researchers may also conduct consumer buying surveys, audits, and new-product sales surveys. Many of the commercials currently reviewed on television are the result of market research. Most familiar are the blind taste tests. In this case a market researcher will set up a stand in a supermarket or mall and ask shoppers whether they prefer brand “A” peanut butter or brand “B”.
If the client’s peanut butter wins the taste test, the commercial may be reenacted and used on the air. While a lot of the time of a Market Researcher is spent writing surveys and analyzing them and writing reports on the findings, he or she often is out in the field executing interviews, supervising testing, and talking to people. The Market Researcher must be comfortable speaking to groups of people, including the agency’s clients, advertising executives, and marketing people to provide results of the research.
At times the Market Researcher will have to evaluate the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. To do this, the individual might bring in a group of people who have seen the commercials and ask them questions about their memory of the ad and if they plan to buy the product. If enough people fail to recall an ad or series of ads, the advertising campaign will probably be ruled ineffective and revised.
Market Researchers working in advertising agencies may also be responsible for doing the research to name or rename products. The individual may use questionnaires and surveys for a client’s product and find that the public finds the name offensive, difficult to remember, or too much like that of another product. In these cases the Researcher would report to his or her supervisor, and a product name change would probably occur. At certain agencies the Market Researcher works with the rest of the research department on all accounts. In other agencies the Market Researcher will be assigned specific client accounts for which he or she will do research. If the agency is very large, the Market Researcher may have supervisory functions, including training a field staff to perform interviews.
As so much of the research is dependent on people, the person in this type of position should be able to analyze not only numbers but people as well. For example, in a taste test many people will say they like anything, even if it is really distasteful. The Market Researcher must be aware of this and take it into account. The Market Researcher is, in effect, the liaison between the agency’s client and the consumer who buys the product or service. Depending on the structure of the agency for which the individual works, he or she will report directly to the V.P. of marketing or to the market research director or supervisor.
Salaries for Market Researchers vary greatly depending on the size and location of the agency where the individual is working and the experience, duties, and education of the individual. Salaries can range from $25,000 annually for beginners to $58,000 plus for more experienced people at large agencies and with master’s degrees or above. Compensation for most agency employees is supplemented by fringe benefit packages.
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