What is a market research analyst and what does the job require?
Market research analyst jobs are all about spotting and utilizing opportunities to encourage more sales. Businesses trying to boost sales might include a market research analyst to provide the rest of the marketing and sales teams with insights into consumer behavior. Other common titles for this type of work include marketing manager, survey researcher, management analyst, and business intelligence analyst.
This job is usually a combination of explaining reports and market trends effectively, conducting market research experiments, and general creative problem solving for the marketing side of a business. Given the rise of digital marketing and research skills, market research analysts are in high demand. Here's the full breakdown of what a market research analyst job is like and how to get one.
Education requirements
To get a market research analyst job, you could have some experience in almost any other kind of field, as long as it shows you can identify with customers and find ways to increase participation, awareness, or sales for a brand. A bachelor's degree in something related to communications, creativity, marketing, or business is a popular start. The most common education level after that is a master's degree. You can also strengthen your image by getting certifications in marketing management, applied economics, consumer merchandising, and of course market research.
Salary and availability
The average salary for a market research analyst is $84,764 per year. These jobs first boomed in cities that dominated in the tech field, but with the rise of online networking and online business, there are marketing analyst jobs to be found everywhere. Some great hotspots for marketing jobs right now are Boston, New York, Chicago, Charlotte, and Houston. Marketing research analyst jobs are also more common in public rather than private sector companies.
Responsibilities and challenges
It's often a market research analyst's job to come up with grand ideas that a team will work to carry out. For instance, a market research analyst for a sports drink company might find a way to conduct cheap, large-scale drink flavor surveys with local college sports teams. This would allow the company to use all that product instead of discarding it, and the survey results on favorite flavors could be used to make new predictions and tests. Some other examples of market researcher analyst duties include:
- Creating or testing new promotional angles and themes
- Managing social media or overall marketing budgets and strategy
- Coordinating marketing across multiple channels
- Building relationships between a brand and media outlets
- Monitoring website and digital presence improvements, especially SEO
- Finding solutions to customer service matters through marketing
- Brainstorming new products or product verticals to grab a new audience
- Managing employees or third-party vendors involved with marketing or branding
- Evaluating and troubleshooting underperforming campaigns
- Delivering concise reports of brand building and marketing progress to upper management
A great marketing research analyst can not just pull data that already exists, but create potential marketing efforts that benefit the company while supplying more customer information. Put another way, being a market research analyst is a more important, responsibility-based job than something like beginner sales or marketing work. Some positions may also function more like a consulting role, where you are not in charge of a team but the team leaders are listening to your advice.
Skills and experience
There's a very close split in how much experience you need in related jobs. About a quarter of market research analysts have three to five years of prior relevant work, while another quarter has six to 10 years. The best soft skills requested in this job include customer service, reading and writing, sales and marketing, leadership, and decision making.
The most common first position leading to this job is an internship or entry-level position in sales, marketing, or business. However, any field that requires data analysis, surveying, and data collection, as well as writing skills, will put you in the right position over time.
Now that you have an idea of how to become a market research analyst, all that's left is to upload a resume, look up job postings, and start a little online networking. With time and experience serving different clients or companies, opportunities to handle marketing tasks that are more important will finally appear. Marketing is a wonderfully rewarding field for creative thinkers, with a lot of influence and a high average salary. You have the tools laid out to get a market research analyst job, so take the next steps and make the dream happen.
More career tips to get an analyst or marketer job:
See what it's like and what it takes to be a marketing manager.
Alternatively, see what it takes to become a financial analyst.
Try a few new tips to build up your marketing skills in the workplace.
Grow your credentials with the best certifications for today's job market.
Keep your spirits up when you apply. Even when missing some qualifications, you can still get the job.
