Market research is another way that you might engage in social scientific research to make a living. Just as with evaluation research, market research is not a particular research method per se. Instead, it is a particular way of utilizing research methodology for a particular purpose. Market research is research that is conducted for the purpose of guiding businesses and other organizations as they make decisions about how best to sell, improve, or promote a product or service. This sort of research might involve gathering data from and about one’s core market and customers, about competitors, or about an industry more generally. Market research occurs in a variety of settings and institutions. Some firms specialize in market research specifically and are hired by others who wish to learn more about how to best promote or sell a product or service. Market research might also be conducted in-house, perhaps by large businesses that sell products or by non-profits that wish to better understand how best to meet the needs of their clientele or promote their services.
Market researchers assess how best to sell, improve, or promote a product by gathering data about that product’s consumers. Understanding consumers’ preferences, tastes, attitudes, and behaviors can help point an organization in the right direction in its effort to reach and appeal to consumers. There are many ways to do this. You could observe customers in a store to watch which displays draw them in and which they ignore. You could administer a survey to assess consumers’ satisfaction with a good or service. You could conduct covert observations by being a secret shopper or dining someplace as though you, the researcher, are a real customer. You could conduct focus groups with consumers. As you already know from reading this text, social scientific research is an excellent way to gauge people’s preferences, tastes, attitudes, and behaviors. Each of these market research methods requires knowledge and skills in collecting data from human subjects—the very thing that sociological researchers do.
In the preceding section I identified just a small sampling of the many evaluation research firms that exist throughout the United States. There are also many firms that exist for the sole purpose of carrying out market research, all of which hire individuals who have a background in or knowledge about social scientific research methodology. Market research firms specialize in all kinds of areas. For example, Arbitron Inc. focuses on media, gathering data about radio audiences around the globe (http://www.arbitron.com/home/content.stm). From Maine, Market Decisions conducts market research on “a wide variety of topics from public policy to branding to feasibility” (http://www.marketdecisions.com/index.php). Nielsen, a company many are familiar with, conducts media research of all kinds (http://www.nielsen.com/us/en.html) but is perhaps best known for its ratings of television programming in the United States (http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/top10s/television.html). Specializing in the area of information technology, Gartner collects data to help its clients make IT-related decisions (http://www.gartner.com/technology/home.jsp). These are just a few of the many potential market research employers that seek individuals with research skills.
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