Market research is a process of collecting data and information that provides useful insight into your customer's thinking and demographics. It is a vital tool which helps a business to grow by giving them the ability to understand and learn more about its customer base and adapt to their needs. Knowing market research trends is almost as important as market research itself.

According to research, it is found that customer-centric companies are about 60% more profitable than the companies that were not focused on their customers. Market research helps you to build a better relationship with your customers, whether a business is B2B or B2C, it plays a significant role in developing any business strategy to make informed, data-driven decisions to improve marketing, generate more revenue or set realistic targets.

Here is a list of a few top market research trends to look out for in 2022 -

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

AI is one of the market research trends.Businesses are blessed with a massive amount of data to analyse in order to tap into their customer needs. With the vast amount of data to handle and the ever-changing market, it often slows the process of getting the needed results. AI is not something recent, businesses and industries have used AI for the longest time now as it simply makes the process easier and gives more accurate results thereby minimising risk. Standard methods such as surveys, focus groups, etc are too slow, so by the time a company acquires the results and then further goes ahead and analyse, the market can switch to some different trend. Agility is the future of business and the speed of getting to the required insight is one of the most important aspects of getting ahead in the market and staying ahead.

ADJACENT MARKET

Cover-19 has shown us how a world crisis can affect your business and different markets. Uber is a great example of it of how an adjacent market can affect your business but it also took full advantage of its side hustle Uber eats.When you conduct your market research, try to squeeze in time and budget to learn more about your adjacent markets, as it could really save your business from drowning. Always have a Plan B, and be aware of who they are and what they are. But of course, you can't plan for every possible scenario but at least you should always be ready if things go south. Thereby you should know your adjacent markets forwards and backwards.

ALIGNING WITH CONSUMER VALUES

Today, customers want to invest in the kind of business which aligns with their own values. Market research is now much more than just demographics, age, gender, location, etc.  Consumers are searching for brands like never before, especially the latest generation of customers (Gen Z). They care about your brand identity and your business values. Consumers are looking at the brands as an extension of their own personality and they are ready to go an extra mile with the research to know where their money is going, as it is extremely important to them. Silence is not a violable option here neither is having a fancy mission statement. That means your mission statement needs to back up by actions. This trend has shown no signs to slow down, infant it has become a standard consumer behaviour, particularly with Gen Z. Thereby you need to look into your customer value, as brands who are not paying attention here are at a stand of losing their customers already.

SOCIAL LISTENING

Market research trends include social listening. Social listening tools are around there for a while now but they are getting highly popular lately especially real-time social listening, one of the reasons is Metaverse. Your brand’s longevity depends on avoiding social missteps and capitalizing on consumer intelligence. A study by Innosight found that in 1964 the average age of companies on the SP 500 was 33 years old. The average age in 2016 was 24 years old, and by 2027 it is expected to be 12 years old. Social listening mentions show that monitoring and managing misinformation are among the top five conversational themes. These are the issues your competitors are paying attention to. Since social media never sleeps, that means the potential for market influence doesn’t either and that is why you should incorporate real-time social media competitive analysis which will set you ahead of your competition and will act as a safeguard to your business.

Market research has never been more exciting! You will achieve greater results when you adopt strategies. Market research trends are important, but without keeping up with them you cannot take advantage of them. What's the solution? Use market research trends to propel your business forward. By doing so, you'll find new customers and show your existing ones that they're important.