Over the past decade, we have enlarged research territories across psychological, economical, sociological, anthropomorphic, and other disciplines of scientific study. This has made market research far more comprehensive and our offerings more human. This year, however, has been a catalyst like no other. As we emerge from the plague, the world will witness subtle and dramatic changes.
Headlines, data points, and statistics that signal shifts in the way we work, how our cities look, the economy, the future of media, and market research. No one can get overconfident about exactly how the pandemic will change our lives, but the beauty of that uncertainty lies in the curiosity and the courage to evolve and see it through.
Let’s sift through the signs of the times and see what logical forecasts we can make about market research in 2021.
1. The future of chatbots
The portend
Chatbots are gaining currency everywhere.
The prediction
Across organizations of 2 and 2000, conversational bots automate and streamline activities that ultimately improve employee productivity. According to Gartner, by 2021, more than 50% of enterprises will spend more per annum on bots and chatbot creation than traditional mobile app development. There has also been a steep rise in the number of chatbot survey software. These surveys will become a powerful tool to reach a large, representative sample of customers for market research.
2. The future of privacy
The portend
Equality, data ethics, and the impact of businesses are more than pet topics.
The prediction
People will support companies that protect privacy. And stricter regulations of GDPR, the privacy shield ruling, and good data management will make sure market researchers pay attention to good data privacy protocols. Brands that do not comply will make expensive mistakes and course correct. Or go extinct.
3. The future of MR training & education
The portend
There’s a thirst for learning and research like never before.
The prediction
While the fundamentals of market research remain, digital intelligence will penetrate the way we approach research and development. This 2020, scientists, engineers, administrators, doctors, brands, and market researchers dropped whatever they were doing to find that vaccine, or add value to the chain, or do their part. Digitization plus the pandemic has infused new blood into this ecosystem. There will be a massive demand for trade bodies, educational programs, universities, trusted independent educators, market research consultants, and experts to address different needs across different market verticals.
4. The future of AI
The portend
Personalization and convenience take the center stage as AI reduces the need for traditional research.
The prediction
Researchers and brands bear an obligation to use AI-assisted data collection. The right data must reach the right stakeholders in real-time to define metrics of success. Experience-based smart research will limit human interactions in the process. In the case of long-form and open-ended data, AI-based research and sentiment analysis can take insights from text-based data without manual interpretation.
5. The future of projects
The portend
DIY in-house research work gets smarter than ever.
The prediction
Agility in research and DIY projects are going to get cooler in 2021. Smarter research software and intuitive platforms eliminate the need for complex scripting. This way, researchers can focus on insights collection rather than rote work that can be automated.
6. The future of work
The portend
Gig-economy and sharing economy are more than buzzwords.
The prediction
Companies will experiment with different models of remote and on-site work leaving them with resources to access talent from across the globe at a competitive cost. The gig economy will present new opportunities on both the demand and supply ends of market intelligence.
7. The future of surveys
The portend
Surveys are looking smarter, shorter, and human-centered.
The prediction
Survey design is going to be a field of study and constant experimentation in itself. Brands and researchers will keep experimenting. A choice-based data question can be examined in a more absolute light with simple techniques like an anchored MaxDiff question. Omnichannel surveys at various touchpoints can help you collect and correct transactional data without falling short of data quality.
8. The future of data
The portend
Longitudinal data tracking seems to be helping a macro-level view of data and insights.
The prediction
Community management platforms help researchers track behaviors across a connected timeline. This also gives researchers the edge of speed and the power to trust and co-create. In any case, having a set of respondents who can participate in ongoing monitoring studies helps accelerate your UX design projects.
9. The future of quantitative research
The portend
Online qualitative research is a by-product of COVID-19 and digital transformation.
The prediction
Research managers can now access online focus groups for research models. This eliminates in-person focus groups and qualitative research methods which now need to be migrated for continued tracking. Gamification and digital rewards are a bonus for these focus groups. And there’s more, moderating these video discussions is far simpler.
10. The future of communities
The portend
Social listening is a prerequisite to a successful business.
The prediction
The expansive social media footprint helps derive sentiments from conversations. It is a massive opportunity to gauge the broader scope of ideas, complaints, purchase behaviors, micro, and macro trends. As the future of ethnographic study, it helps you keep an eye out for short-term indicators around consumer research. A great way to establish actionable insights in the early stages.
11. The future of interaction
The portend
Instant messaging and live chats are no longer “nice-to-haves.”
The prediction
The easiest way to lose customers is to ignore them. When your brand is responsive, they know you’re a keeper. In 2021, market research will see an acute shift towards high-cadence, high-frequency studies with high turnaround times. Small polls can be sent in minutes while answers come in equally fast. Integrated analytics mechanisms draw up smart reports and your product development journey finds a short-cut. They all help you go from perception to concrete business decisions in minutes.
12. The future of transactional studies
The portend
Customer delight is a priority with businesses.
The prediction
Old-school methods of transactional studies are replaced with more engaging, short, compelling, and smart intercept studies. People need not fill out repetitive information and demographic data. This is a bonus for customer satisfaction and better NPS scores. Scores at different touchpoints derive a well-dimensioned understanding of customer delight with vectors that lead to churn or retention.
13. The future of community wisdom
The portend
There are opportunities for quick turnaround and low-cost research.
The prediction
Heavyweights in the industry like Gartner and Forrester aren’t affordable for all customers and clients. But fortunately, digitization and access to information on the Internet have changed this. Besides, in a braver, new faster-paced world, companies like CleverX, Chaordix, and Whale Path help solve these problems at scale with lower costs, with either niche communities like in the case of CleverX or with crowdsourcing as in the case of the other two.
14. The future of analytics
The portend
As the cloud continues to reign, analytics is taking on new avatars.
The prediction
A quick run-through. Descriptive analytics offers insights into the past and answers what happened. Diagnostic analytics asks why something happened. Predictive analytics explain what could potentially happen. Ad prescriptive analytics offers answers on what we should do with possible outcomes.
15. The future of web analytics
The portend
Website analytics is helping create more intuitive customer experiences.
The prediction
No, you won’t need a new website, but you might need to measure your reach and optimize. Here’s how: Understand your user, enhance their experience, know your best content and focus on it, optimize for search engines, track top referrals and find ways to gain more of them, utilize outbound links as partnership opportunities, track e-commerce and drive sales. Efforts to listen and engage with customers is going to get more conversion-focused.
16. The future of media measurement
The portend
There seems to be value in multi-channel marketing and omnichannel experiences.
The prediction
Social media and the smartphone boom in the past decade has improved research techniques. There is no longer a unilateral passive collection of social data, but a dynamic relationship between brands and their customers with active engagement, conversations, and behavioral insights. What is left to do is for brands, researchers, and marketers to refine, organize, and measure this data in the pursuit of quality over quantity.
Small data is the new big data
“One piece of small data is almost never meaningful enough to build a case or create a hypothesis, but blended with other insights and observations gathered from around the world, the data eventually comes together to create a solution”
– Martin Lindstrom in Small Data
There’s plenty of conceit around ‘big-data’ but there is also a growing need for hyperlocal and personalized messages across competing brands. If your market research wants to shake hands with data, it’s time you start small, get domain experts to piece small data until the bigger jigsaw shows itself.
One way to do it is with McKinsey’s MECE (pron. mee-cee) framework helps you segment this data into usable sizes. A Mutually Exclusive, Comprehensively Exhaustive Approach buckets data into:
1. The Issue Tree
2. The Decision Tree
3. The Hypothesis Tree
Across different industries, there are undeniable efforts to automate research processes and make them more comprehensive, agile, and profitable A lot of predictions have been made over the past decades. And we shouldn’t stop making them even if most of them did not hit the mark. The only way to measure up to these predictions is to have robust infrastructure, processes, people, and perspectives. Our future is entirely up to us. The more informed decisions we make today, the better the results tomorrow.
