Unique Roles of Market Research

Like any industry, there are several different jobs in market research. Many, you probably recognize: salesperson, CEO, social media manager. Others may be less common, but still recognizeable, such as project manager, quality assurance officer, or sales coordinator. However, market research has several unique roles seen in no other industry…and it’s not just ‘market researcher’.

Panel Recruiter

Imagine selling a product your customers don’t buy, but get paid by: this is the role of the panel recruiter. On the sample side of market research, the aptly-named panel recruiter’s job is to oversee the advertising for the panel and to recruit new users to join the panel. They are also responsible for maintaining panelist engagement and seeking out new methods of advertising, marketing, and outreach. Sometimes, this means putting ads up on Facebook or Google. Other times, it’s coordinating with the social media manager to create content to attract fresh eyes and entertain old ones. Still other times, it may mean working with affiliates and influencers to spread the word of the panel to their followers.

It may seem like a simple job, but it’s one of the most important. The panel recruiter is vital to the health of the panel. Panels are in a constant flux of members joining and leaving. If the number of people leaving exceeds the number of people joining, then not enough people can take surveys for clients, putting the panel, and the company that owns it, in danger. Panel recruiters are also responsible for getting the right groups of people into a panel to maintain balanced demographics. They have to anticipate the audiences needed by their clients, such as young men or immigrants, and discover ways to reach these usually-hard-to-find groups. 

Bid Coordinator

Also on the sample side of things is the bid coordinator. All market research projects run off of bids- give the best bid, and you win the opportunity to work on the project. The bid coordinator is the one who provides the bids, which have to include information about the audiences they can reach, the estimated difficulty of reaching these audiences, the cost of paying these respondents for their time, and general costs of running the project. 

Every day, a bid coordinator could be asked for a hundred bids or more. On top of sorting out each of these bids, they must also create files on each bid in preparation for them becoming projects. They must coordinate with upper management to provide figures on how many bids are coming through, for how much, and how many of these bids are being won. Oftentimes, one panel is unable to fulfill all the needs of a client. In cases like this, it’s also the bid coordinator’s responsibility to reach out to other panels for support, asking for bids themselves to then tack onto the initial bid with the client. The bid coordinator’s life is always busy, and incredibly vital.

Tabulation

Tabulation is the process of sorting through vast amounts of data and turning it into a readable, coherent format. There is an enormous amount of information that comes from a single survey: age, city, household income, and gender are asked of hundreds of people before they can even give answers to the actual survey questions. Data tabulators organize all the responses from surveys into spreadsheets to make reading and understanding all this information easier. By simplifying the data, market researchers can spend less time sorting through all this information and more time studying the insights and findings behind the data.

Even more important that tabulation is cross-tabulation. This involves the analysis of two or more variables simultaneously to identify relationships, patterns, and trends within the data. This allows for even deeper insights into the data at hand. It is thus the role of the tabulator to create both the necessary tabulation and cross-tabulation, usually in accordance with the needs of the project managers and the clients. Without the tabulator, a deeper understanding of the collected data would be impossible.

Market Research Manager

Market research managers are the lifeblood of market research. They are the ones who run studies, conduct research, tally results, create presentations, and confer findings. They are the ones who interact with every corner of the market research the world the most- they choose the sample provider, coordinate with the data tabulation team, lean into new programs from software developers, and speak directly with the client. 

Primarily, a market researcher is a storyteller. It is their responsibility to comb through the data they collect and pick out the important insights, and then take those insights to the client. However, simply showing the client a collection of data isn’t enough; the market researcher has to tell the client the story behind the data. They connect identities, expose patterns, and offer actionable suggestions to carry the client and their business forward.