IAB’s 2021 marketplace outlook survey mentions data privacy to be the topmost challenge this year for the buyers. And Covid-19 has put customers at the center. According to IAB, technology and analytics will be 2 significant factors to help prepare for privacy.

Not just privacy, technology has taken the onus of leveraging data accuracy, transparency, and speed. Technology also influences market research trends in 2021. Let’s see which technology trends you should follow in market research in 2021.

Top 5 Tech Trends to Follow in Market Research in 2021

1.Artificial intelligence

If AI has penetrated all fields, why not market research?

Market research is about future predictions using past data and human interactions. And when we talk about predictions, AI automatically makes a space for itself in this field. AI can perform lots of mundane tasks for researchers, making them free for more human-worthy tasks like innovation, brainstorming, and creativity.

AI helps in sorting the relevant data from humongous datasets based on machine learning algorithms and customer research. By Reducing human interactions in repetitive tasks, you can capture data with minimal error. AI facilitates the proper data collection in real-time and eases human tasks. This aids researchers to focus more on generating foresight rather than collecting data.

For open-ended data collection and questions with long answers, AI-based autofill options and suggestions relax your users’ efforts. Sentiment analysis of responses by AI reduces the manual interpretation.

2.Conversational, Mobile-First Surveys

Not that long-form surveys with open-ended questions are outdated, but artificial intelligence reduces the problems with them, as mentioned above. Now your users can participate in quick, engaging, and gamified surveys and quizzes.

The pandemic has brought down most of the things to mobile screens. Another trend that emerged recently is contactless processes. Hence contactless and mobile-first surveys with crisp forms would lead the researches. These forms also offer a great user experience.

Statista quotes online and mobile surveys to be the top rankers in market researches according to the data collected in Q3 and Q4 of 2018.

Without the need to interact with external devices or people, users can fill the forms using facial recognition. The form can capture their sentiments with facial cues.

You would use more emoticons in your forms to seize their responses. Sliders and star-rating questions would ease your respondents’ efforts with just one touch of the screen. Multiple choice questions would still be a massive part of the surveys. How about forms with smileys to express emotions?

3. Blockchain

Blockchain lends trust in a system because transactions in this technology are immutable. This imparts trust, confidence, and transparency in the network globally. Nothing but truth flows from one end to the other. And that is what marketing research needs.

Participants in a market research—focus group members, interviewees, participants at online survey sites in India , the US, and elsewhere—want to know how their data has been utilized. The collected data in a blockchain network is immutable. So, what goes in would come out in the dashboards.

Also, the respondents verify their data and would know how it has been used. A blockchain system compels researchers to seek respondents’ permission for their data consumption. Transparency and confidence also bring in the accuracy and completeness of data from the respondents. Half-baked data would not create biases and skew the reports and studies.

4.Chatbots and Voice Assistants

Chatbots have been helping companies in customer support and helpdesk areas. Likewise, chatbots help in market research where a heavy interaction goes between research companies and respondents.

Interactive and AI-enabled chatbots are a rage nowadays because they, once matured enough, have the caliber to answer and assist users like a human assistant.

Chatbots rule out the hassle of downloading long surveys, memory consuming apps, and tiring interactions. You can deploy a quick survey on social media or via text messages. Users get a notification, and they hop on to fill in the information.

Voice-based data reporting is so much fun, you can’t not use it. All you need is to ask Alexa or Siri an open-ended question—as specific as you want—and you will get real-time insights. Perhaps your respondents would love to answer a question asked by a voice assistant, too!

5.Data Analytics and Big Data

While AI helps speed up and simplify the data collection, big data helps to maintain, segregate, and aggregate voluminous data from various sources. The world right now is flooded with people and companies’ data. In such cases, a standard relational database would go berserk in compiling data. Big data is the answer to that.

Data analytics helps in generating visualizations for various research-based reports and studies. Analytics also helps in predicting foresight based on previous data and patterns.

Whenever you talk about data, business intelligence, analytics, charts, and insights come into the picture. While data analytics is the foundation of these fancy terms, surveys and researches have one culmination: reports.