Is it the end of Market Research as we know it?

Pat LaPoint has an interesting perspective on the future of Market Research.  I've wondered the same thing myself.

Since I started working in measurement and market research, we've essentially seen phone surveys come and go as viable sources of information, and my prediction is that we will see the demise of the email survey as an effective measurement tool within the next five years. And, while I agree with Pat's point about biometrics and marketing mix modeling, I wonder what will be available for the small to midsize companies?  Maybe that's where content analysis will provide the answer.

Comments

[Business Market Research]

Thanks a lot for this useful information. I appreciate everything you shared with us and definitely like your content strategy...

[Doug Magee]

Researchers have yet to discover the one tool that can predict consumer behavior or measure the effectiveness of program efforts. There will always be a variety of tools that can be used to obtain valid and useful results.

I enjoyed reading Pat LaPointe's post and article from MarketingNPV's journal describing exciting new tools - bio-metric scanning methods - for researchers’ toolbox. And while I agree that phone surveys, and in the future web-based research, may not be used as much as in the past, to say they don't produce viable information anymore is completely inaccurate.

[Karl Sakas]

As a consumer, I don't respond to phone surveys, and I ignore email surveys unless it's from a brand I trust. And even then...I skipped most of the Consumer Reports member survey this year because it's just too time-consuming.

At least based on my experience working in New York, it's funny how sidewalk panhandlers, fundraisers, and surveyors are often indistinguishable at first contact.

As a future trend, content analysis makes sense -- getting insights into behavior and desires without interrupting people on the virtual sidewalk.

[LoveStats]

Market research is always in a state of flux as old methods whither and new methods grow. What never goes away is the knowledge we have created along the way. What we learned from paper surveys gets updated for online surveys. What we learned from online surveys gets updated for social media research. Oh, the times, they are a'changin'!