Which Marketing Sector Has Had its Highest Growth Since 2010?

Chart of the day: The Market Research sector has seen its biggest growth since 2010

This is according to research by International research association ESOMAR, in their annual global research report.

The sector was worth $44.5 billion in 2016, this is an increase of 2.3% after inflation and the highest since 2010.

The money is being spent, for the most part, on traditional research methods (such as focus groups and good old-fashioned surveys), but new research techniques are catching up. It just shows though, especially for those young budding researchers out there, companies are still spending the most money on traditional techniques, so be a master of those as well as learning about the more innovative techniques.

In the report, they summarise 2013-2015 spend on techniques.

Which are the biggest growth areas?

$19.5 billion was spent in the US, whilst UK businesses spent $6.6 billion and Germany spent $2.8billion. Africa was the biggest growth region with 22.7% growth compared with 2015.

The largest industries buying research were media and entertainment as well as Pharmaceuticals.

Social media monitoring and online analytics were the techniques with the biggest growth.

So what does this mean for the industry?

Market research isn't dead and new techniques are bringing down the cost of research, making it more accessible. It could also be that traditional techniques are getting cheaper, efficiencies such as easier recruitment for focus groups and online focus groups are most likely driving down costs of research and making it quicker.

And, for those who don't think they need market research. Ask yourself this, do you want to achieve any of the following. Answering "yes" to any, means you need to do market research.