Market Research & Polling Services
Description
Companies in this industry gather, record, tabulate, and present marketing and public opinion data. Major companies include Forrester Research, Gallup, Gartner, Nielsen, and Westat (all based in the US); GfK Consumer Life (Germany), INTAGE (Japan), Ipsos (France), and Kantar (UK).
Worldwide, the market research industry generated about $84 billion in 2023, according to Statista. The US and Europe dominate the industry. Countries with growing middle classes are seeing rising demand for market research services.
The US market research services industry includes about 5,000 establishments (single-location companies and units of multi-location companies) with combined annual revenue of about $20 billion.
COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE
Demand is driven primarily by the health of the economy and corporate profits. The profitability of individual companies depends on managing costs and maintaining a steady flow of work. Large companies have advantages in providing a variety of research and ancillary services to large customers, and in achieving economies of scale in marketing and computerized operations. Small companies can compete successfully by specializing in a research methodology or in emerging niche knowledge areas. The US industry is concentrated: the top 50 companies generate about 60% of industry revenue.
Competitor industries may include online or print publishers of business information, as well as marketing firms and business consulting firms. Market research companies may also face competition from the internal marketing staffs of current or prospective clients that choose to conduct research in-house.
PRODUCTS, OPERATIONS & TECHNOLOGY
Major services are marketing research, accounting for about 94% of the industry's revenue. This is followed by media, analysis, and verification services, and public opinion research and polling services both accounting for about 3% of the industry's revenue.
Most market research firms perform primary research -- they gather and analyze original data. Primary research can either be custom for a particular client, or syndicated and sold to a number of clients. Secondary research uses previously published data and provides primarily background information. Research firms conduct both consumer research projects and business to business analysis.
Marketing research begins with outlining a problem to explore, assessing a new product idea or concept, or testing a hypothesis. The firm works with the client to determine the project objectives, designs an appropriate research methodology and sample plan, chooses a data collection technique, performs the research, analyzes the results, and then communicates those results and recommendations to the client. Research firms generally outline these steps in a contract proposal that includes a project plan and price. The most profitable projects are tracks, projects that repeat but have a one-time setup cost.
The two primary forms of market research are qualitative and quantitative. Large full-service firms typically offer both; smaller firms specialize in one. Qualitative research is used for exploratory purposes with a small number of respondents, such as focus groups of eight to 12, or one-on-one in-depth interviews. Qualitative research is effective to test concepts such as new ads or marketing messages. Results aren’t representative of the general population. Quantitative research, used to draw conclusions and test particular hypotheses, is statistically based and uses random sampling techniques with a large number of respondents so results can be inferred to the entire population.
Market research firms consist of a staff of professionals with various levels of experience and expertise, support personnel with technical and clerical skills, and IT for collecting, tabulating, and analyzing data. Large firms with many professionals may have some economies of scale and produce higher annual revenue per employee than small firms. Quantitative projects can involve several interviewers, data tabulation personnel, as well as a senior researcher and support staff. Qualitative projects generally involve one or a few research professionals.
Worldwide, the market research industry generated about $84 billion in 2023, according to Statista. The US and Europe dominate the industry. Countries with growing middle classes are seeing rising demand for market research services.
The US market research services industry includes about 5,000 establishments (single-location companies and units of multi-location companies) with combined annual revenue of about $20 billion.
COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE
Demand is driven primarily by the health of the economy and corporate profits. The profitability of individual companies depends on managing costs and maintaining a steady flow of work. Large companies have advantages in providing a variety of research and ancillary services to large customers, and in achieving economies of scale in marketing and computerized operations. Small companies can compete successfully by specializing in a research methodology or in emerging niche knowledge areas. The US industry is concentrated: the top 50 companies generate about 60% of industry revenue.
Competitor industries may include online or print publishers of business information, as well as marketing firms and business consulting firms. Market research companies may also face competition from the internal marketing staffs of current or prospective clients that choose to conduct research in-house.
PRODUCTS, OPERATIONS & TECHNOLOGY
Major services are marketing research, accounting for about 94% of the industry's revenue. This is followed by media, analysis, and verification services, and public opinion research and polling services both accounting for about 3% of the industry's revenue.
Most market research firms perform primary research -- they gather and analyze original data. Primary research can either be custom for a particular client, or syndicated and sold to a number of clients. Secondary research uses previously published data and provides primarily background information. Research firms conduct both consumer research projects and business to business analysis.
Marketing research begins with outlining a problem to explore, assessing a new product idea or concept, or testing a hypothesis. The firm works with the client to determine the project objectives, designs an appropriate research methodology and sample plan, chooses a data collection technique, performs the research, analyzes the results, and then communicates those results and recommendations to the client. Research firms generally outline these steps in a contract proposal that includes a project plan and price. The most profitable projects are tracks, projects that repeat but have a one-time setup cost.
The two primary forms of market research are qualitative and quantitative. Large full-service firms typically offer both; smaller firms specialize in one. Qualitative research is used for exploratory purposes with a small number of respondents, such as focus groups of eight to 12, or one-on-one in-depth interviews. Qualitative research is effective to test concepts such as new ads or marketing messages. Results aren’t representative of the general population. Quantitative research, used to draw conclusions and test particular hypotheses, is statistically based and uses random sampling techniques with a large number of respondents so results can be inferred to the entire population.
Market research firms consist of a staff of professionals with various levels of experience and expertise, support personnel with technical and clerical skills, and IT for collecting, tabulating, and analyzing data. Large firms with many professionals may have some economies of scale and produce higher annual revenue per employee than small firms. Quantitative projects can involve several interviewers, data tabulation personnel, as well as a senior researcher and support staff. Qualitative projects generally involve one or a few research professionals.
Table of Contents
- Industry Overview
- Quarterly Industry Update
- Business Challenges
- Business Trends
- Industry Opportunities
- Call Preparation Questions
- Financial Information
- Industry Forecast
- Web Links and Acronyms
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