Chatbots increase survey response rates, while automation reduces the workload on market research (MR) professionals. Similar trends benefit researchers and clients during product reception forecasting and customized relationship management. This post will describe the top 6 emerging trends in market research for 2024.
What is Market Research?
Market research involves surveys and mining many data sources to understand customers’ consumption, purchase, and brand-value association habits. Later, organizations can leverage the resulting insights to change how they promote, design, launch, and support specific products or related offerings.
At the same time, competitive market intelligence assists leaders in determining challenges, like organizational weaknesses or business rivals’ strengths. Furthermore, given the broader availability of faster networking and communication systems, market researchers had to revise their approaches to data gathering. Therefore, new methods and audience analytics tools have gained momentum in this industry.
The Top 6 Emerging Trends in Market Research for 2024
1| Voice Data Collection, Recognition, and Synthesis
Some users interact with electronic devices using voice commands. They also prefer audiovisual content over text-heavy media articles. Besides, customer relationship strategists consider insight extraction using helpdesk call recordings vital to improve post-purchase client support.
Large language models (LLMs) and associated machine learning applications enable corporations to convert voice data into textual information pieces. These technologies also estimate customers’ emotional state and categorize audio content based on sentimental inclinations.
As more stakeholders adopt chatbots, voice commands, and accessibility features, utilizing voice recognition and speech synthesis for market research surveys becomes crucial, according to reputed strategy consulting services and industry analysts. Integrating voice data and chatbots that can simulate speaking might extend the scope and reliability of online surveys.
2| Generative AI Skill Requirements
Market research job advertisements have included skill requirements concerning generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). For instance, recruiting agencies and company executives want MR specialists to learn ChatGPT, DALL-E, Midjourney, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, Synthesia, Rephrase, and Jasper. They must also update their skills when these platforms redefine functionality and technical documentation.
Consider Gemini, formerly Google Bard. According to Google’s chief executive officer, Sundar Pichai, this rebranding better unifies multiple GenAI offerings by Google. This change also encouraged generative AI enthusiasts to try Ultra 1.0 in Gemini Advanced for the best results.
Meanwhile, Synthesia and Rephrase streamline text-to-media workflows with artificial intelligence. They can generate machine-aided audio information to enrich content, letting market researchers modernize surveys and retain more survey respondents in long-form questionnaires.
3| Extensive Social Listening with Unstructured Data Processing
Social listening strategically monitors how consumers appreciate, compare, and criticize corporate entities’ offerings. LLMs have accelerated context identification, reducing delays in insight exploration in social media content analytics. Moreover, big data facilitates cloud-powered continuous data acquisition and mixed data processing.
A brand’s online presence is no longer limited to news coverage or industry magazines. Amid the improvements in global connectivity, individuals’ neo-journalism has boosted the significance of customers’ voices over social networking sites. Visionary market researchers recognize how those emerging trends, hashtags, and influencers affect branding.
Additionally, social listening can group consumer feedback to uncover pain points and new feature ideas. Later, your product design and hypothesis testing teams can use these insights to supplement independent in-house innovation efforts. Scaling idea discovery becomes more manageable with contextual unstructured data analyses.
4| Country-Wise Data Protection Compliance
Market researchers process data for corporate enterprises’ customer relationships and revenue growth objectives. However, unethical individuals could misuse MR programs and databases to threaten customers’ interests through privacy-invasive tactics. Therefore, corporations must prevent employees and external cybercriminals from using in-house IT systems for nefarious purposes.
At the same time, regulatory bodies, consumer rights forums, and investor groups demand brands embrace transparency, accountability, and collaborative cyber resilience strategies. Non-compliance with these requirements will reduce a company’s goodwill, adversely impacting the long-term expansion timeline.
Organizations might encounter distinct compliance rules per economic zone due to lacking a universal data protection framework. Furthermore, multiple states in a country could disagree on adequate digital governance standards. These factors indicate a continuous introduction of new laws and amendments. So, companies wanting to comply will audit market research practices for legal, reputational, and tech risks.
5| Influencers as Integral Catalysts for User-Friendly Surveys
The effectiveness of television viewership and conventional marketing methods has decreased because more individuals from all age groups obsess over mobile devices. However, influencers can assist you in reaching new audiences and increasing conversions. Still, given the rise of fake follower count scams, enterprises must diversify their influencer outreach to increase survey enrollments.
Several social and professional networking ecosystems provide profile upgradation features for authoritative, entertaining, or governmental figures. Hosting polls or interactive feedback forms is also possible for those influencers. Accordingly, market researchers must scout authentic content creators with organic growth and engagement metrics to discover relevant audiences’ preferences.
CreatorIQ, Traackr, GRIN, Influencity, and Upfluence are influencer monitoring and campaign planning systems for corporate stakeholders. Although features and automation levels differ, most influencer networking platforms categorize content creators based on niche industry and engagement metrics. Global and local firms will increasingly embrace these platforms to nudge customers to participate in MR surveys.
6| AI-Managed Experiments and Polls
Experimenting with survey design, chatbot integration, sample size, segmentation, data filters, and the number of options helps market researchers optimize how they source data or report on trends. However, manual revisions are time-consuming, and artificial intelligence (AI) can help automate them.
An AI-assisted MR survey will adjust questionnaire elements based on frequently observed respondent behaviors. So, other participants will exhibit a better completion rate. After all, many MR survey respondents abandon the questionnaire due to poor user experiences. Companies will let AI determine optimal survey length, question sequences, and whether to ask for numerical or descriptive responses.
Conclusion
The emerging trends in the market research industry comprise a renewed focus on data protection, social listening, and qualitative processing, facilitating business growth in 2024 and beyond. In addition to voice recognition and speech synthesis, AI-assisted audiovisual media generation has garnered attention.
As a result, more recruiters will expect aspiring and veteran market researchers to embrace GenAI tools. Meanwhile, partnering with broad and niche influencers provides brands with authentic audience-capturing opportunities. The influencers and AI chatbots will help reduce survey abandonment. Therefore, future-oriented MR specialists can extract more valuable responses from the respondents.
The automation platforms also extend competitor monitoring, reputational risk assessment, and marketing performance. After all, they highlight consumer pain points, guiding brands on vital helpdesk planning and product modification tasks. Poised to be a USD 9.2-billion industry by 2030, market research has a promising future.
