All you need to know about market research: Insights from a LinkedIn market research manager

00:00:00.000 | You're listening to Let's Talk Jobs, where we give you practical insights into jobs and

00:00:11.380 | careers.

00:00:12.380 | I'm Tim Chen, and today we're talking about how to be a market researcher.

00:00:17.960 | Market research, in my opinion, is a field that often flies under the radar, but is critical

00:00:22.120 | to any company in any industry.

00:00:24.680 | In high tech, there's a lot of emphasis put on product management, demand generation,

00:00:29.960 | business operations, engineering, but you rarely hear about market research.

00:00:35.120 | It kind of reminds me of the iPhone.

00:00:36.880 | So back in the day, I owned this indestructible little brick called Nokia.

00:00:41.120 | These cell phones were all the rage, and it came with all these cool interchangeable covers

00:00:45.400 | and accessories.

00:00:47.460 | But work started to require more access to email, and then Blackberry became the next

00:00:51.880 | big thing.

00:00:53.400 | So when the iPhone first came out, I looked at it as pure luxury.

00:00:57.400 | Until I got one.

00:00:59.320 | Then like everyone else, I never looked back, and I can't imagine life without one.

00:01:04.460 | So to me, market research is like that.

00:01:07.100 | With it, you can identify market trends, you can gain insight on your competitors, and

00:01:11.800 | you can hear directly from your customers about what they actually want by testing new

00:01:15.920 | products and services.

00:01:17.680 | So if you've ever considered a career in market research, then this episode is for

00:01:21.920 | you.

00:01:22.920 | Today, we're going to sit down with Tony Tong.

00:01:24.400 | He's a senior market research manager at LinkedIn.

00:01:27.960 | Not only are you going to get a day in the life of a market researcher, but you're going

00:01:31.400 | to get some practical insights on several topics, including when to use primary, secondary,

00:01:36.680 | qualitative, and quantitative research, how insights influence the major product decisions

00:01:41.240 | at LinkedIn, and how to start a new career as a market researcher.

00:01:45.560 | All right, let's get started.

00:01:47.720 | Today, we're talking about market research, and joining us is Tony Tong.

00:01:51.800 | Tony, how are you doing?

00:01:53.240 | I'm doing awesome.

00:01:54.240 | Thanks, Tim.

00:01:55.240 | Tony, I don't want to make you nervous.

00:01:56.800 | I've actually truly been looking forward to this conversation because I'm a huge fan of

00:01:59.680 | market research.

00:02:00.680 | You know, like companies, we always say that we strive to be customer centric, we put our

00:02:04.280 | customers first.

00:02:05.280 | We don't really know if you're succeeding in that if you don't hear the voice of the

00:02:08.680 | customer.

00:02:09.680 | And that's kind of where someone like you in market research comes in.

00:02:12.040 | So can you tell us a little bit about what you're doing for market research, how long

00:02:15.640 | you've been doing it, and then how it relates to LinkedIn?

00:02:18.320 | Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

00:02:20.000 | So I kind of cringe at this question a little bit because it makes me realize how long I've

00:02:27.840 | been doing this.

00:02:28.840 | But it has been, as the kids like to say, it's been a minute.

00:02:31.800 | I've been in market research almost three decades now.

00:02:36.120 | So I started on the agency side, then I worked at Visa for a number of years, and then at

00:02:42.560 | Logitech for a short stint, and then currently, I'm at LinkedIn where I've been for the last

00:02:47.240 | nine years.

00:02:48.320 | So yeah, that's a quick journey.

00:02:51.900 | We're seasoned vets, as we say, right?

00:02:54.200 | That's right.

00:02:55.200 | Cool.

00:02:56.200 | So can you help us understand and you can use maybe LinkedIn as an example, but like,

00:03:00.720 | what is market research?

00:03:02.120 | You know, and what objectives or questions are you trying to solve?

00:03:05.280 | And then what are the common types of market research you do?

00:03:08.000 | Yeah, yeah.

00:03:09.200 | So very simply put, market research is essentially trying to understand what...

00:03:16.080 | So I'm going to use the word members because at LinkedIn, we talk about members, but yeah,

00:03:20.120 | if you are a company, you might talk about your customers or your consumers, whatnot.

00:03:25.020 | But yeah, so at LinkedIn, basically, in terms of market research, we're trying to understand

00:03:29.560 | what our members, what their needs are, what their attitudes are towards certain things.

00:03:35.680 | And that's really to help kind of inform two major areas.

00:03:39.200 | One is like products that we build, and then two is like marketing, how we market to members.

00:03:45.480 | And so in terms of market research, at the end of the day, what I'm trying to do is help

00:03:51.160 | LinkedIn understand like the needs of our members in terms of products and what that

00:03:58.560 | experience on LinkedIn is like, and what kind of tools resonate with them versus what tools

00:04:03.960 | that some engineer might want to create, but it's not really resonating with members.

00:04:09.780 | And so we try to steer basically our products towards being products that are actually useful

00:04:18.400 | for our members.

00:04:19.400 | And so that's from a product standpoint.

00:04:21.080 | From a marketing standpoint, I also support marketing.

00:04:23.240 | Actually, my core stakeholders are typically PMMs, product marketing managers.

00:04:28.960 | And so a big part of their job is just trying to understand how to best market to members,

00:04:34.720 | what kind of messages like resonate with members.

00:04:41.040 | So I'll give you a very quick example.

00:04:43.580 | One of the things right now that's new on LinkedIn is this whole idea of verification.

00:04:49.620 | So LinkedIn, maybe like a lot of social media platforms, maybe less so than other social

00:04:53.960 | media platforms.

00:04:54.960 | But one of the things that LinkedIn struggles with is sometimes we have people who are not

00:04:59.400 | who they claim to be.

00:05:00.400 | And so this idea of verifying like who you are, the fact that you work at Netflix or

00:05:06.420 | you work at State Farm, what have you, basically verifying your employment as well as verifying

00:05:14.080 | who you are, that's an initiative that's going on right now at LinkedIn.

00:05:18.880 | And so in terms of messaging, we're trying to figure out what is that core messaging

00:05:26.560 | or that positioning that really will help people sign up to verify that they are who

00:05:32.040 | they say they are.

00:05:33.040 | So two very high level examples, but yeah, so market research in essence is helping companies

00:05:39.520 | understand the needs, the desires, the attitudes of their members, their customers, their consumers.

00:05:47.080 | Can you help us understand, maybe even through practical example, I'd love the example you

00:05:50.040 | just now used right now, verification.

00:05:52.400 | You mentioned you have two stakeholders, one being marketing, one being product.

00:05:55.480 | I assume each of those have their own priorities of things that they care about, right?

00:06:00.520 | So what does it look like to you, like when you're working with your stakeholders to look

00:06:03.520 | at maybe the roadmap of research they want to do, is it categorized by genres, by type?

00:06:10.640 | And then how do you then kind of prioritize which one you're going to do?

00:06:14.600 | Yeah, that's a great question.

00:06:16.680 | So I think that kind of differs depending on the role someone has within market research.

00:06:22.560 | So typically I would say what would happen is that on a quarterly basis, a market research

00:06:28.040 | manager would get together with people in product, with people in marketing, and for

00:06:33.760 | that upcoming quarter, basically talk about what are the core research needs that those

00:06:39.400 | teams have, and we'll call them the big rock.

00:06:42.560 | So we'll work on those big studies that are usually more strategic questions.

00:06:48.920 | But then within those big rocks, there's all sorts of like micro questions that usually

00:06:52.640 | come up.

00:06:53.640 | And like that's actually a world that I play in pretty heavily.

00:06:57.560 | And so for my role, specifically at LinkedIn, I manage what we call an insight community.

00:07:03.320 | And the core goal of an insight community is to answer more, they tend to be more tactical

00:07:08.800 | questions.

00:07:09.800 | So yeah, so in addition to those core, you know, big rocks that we're tackling, we also,

00:07:15.560 | you know, we're an internet company, it moves like really quickly, really quickly.

00:07:20.400 | So a lot of times you don't have time to spin up like a huge study.

00:07:24.540 | And so that's where having like a community at the ready to answer these types of questions

00:07:29.240 | is really useful.

00:07:30.800 | And the program that I've managed, launched probably six, seven years ago now, and has

00:07:37.560 | grown each and every year, it's highly leveraged.

00:07:41.420 | But yeah, earlier, you asked like different types of research, and let me sort of backtrack

00:07:45.840 | a little bit.

00:07:46.840 | Yeah, that'd be great.

00:07:47.840 | What I'm talking about right now is called primary research.

00:07:51.160 | There's a whole nother world called secondary research.

00:07:54.640 | So if you're familiar with like organizations like Forrester or Nielsen, they do what we

00:07:59.980 | call secondary research.

00:08:01.520 | And the difference between primary research and secondary research is, I'll go back to

00:08:07.400 | like Netflix, as an example, if you're in Netflix, one of the questions you have, you

00:08:11.560 | might have is like, hey, what are the trends like in streaming?

00:08:15.200 | And you and that's a very big question that maybe a lot of like, maybe Disney Plus has

00:08:20.400 | those questions, Hulu has those questions.

00:08:22.860 | So someone like Forrester may have already done studies about like the landscape of like

00:08:27.400 | streaming media, right?

00:08:28.840 | So that's secondary research.

00:08:30.560 | That's basically research that's broadly applicable.

00:08:35.040 | It's at the ready, assuming it's been done already.

00:08:38.240 | The other world, I'm getting my hands straight.

00:08:42.000 | Primary research is basically specific questions.

00:08:45.520 | So like Netflix might have a question that's specific to Netflix, right?

00:08:49.280 | So maybe it's something along the lines of, oh, we being Netflix are really curious about

00:08:55.360 | the appetite for like Korean dramas outside of Korea, like, do we think that this is like

00:09:01.680 | something we should really double down on?

00:09:03.600 | Or like, are people like, I don't speak Korean, and therefore, it's not relevant to me.

00:09:07.680 | So that's a primary research question.

00:09:09.600 | So Netflix might commission a study specifically to answer that question.

00:09:14.660 | And so I share that because those are two big worlds of research, primary and then secondary,

00:09:22.320 | which is already done.

00:09:23.320 | So the world that I'm in is primary research, they're research questions that are specific

00:09:27.440 | to LinkedIn, specific to our members, specific to our situation.

00:09:32.120 | And then so once you kind of like, those are two big schools, the other two big schools

00:09:37.240 | is qualitative research and quantitative research, right?

00:09:42.000 | And so qualitative research is things like focus groups, one-on-one interviews.

00:09:48.500 | Quantitative research tend to be survey-based research.

00:09:52.680 | And I've done both in my career.

00:09:54.800 | Right now, I'm more on the survey side, which is more quantitatively based.

00:09:58.840 | But there is a path for either someone who wants to specialize in qualitative, someone

00:10:06.920 | who wants to specialize in quantitative, or someone who wants to exercise like both parts

00:10:11.360 | of those brains, and they kind of exercise different parts of your brains.

00:10:15.720 | So it's kind of cool.

00:10:17.000 | So there's some variety within the market research realm.

00:10:20.600 | And then there's another way to kind of parse this out, which is market research.

00:10:26.280 | And then there's user experience research.

00:10:28.720 | These are all kind of like primary research, secondary research, qualitative, quantitative.

00:10:35.040 | And then I'll stop here.

00:10:36.440 | But the last one is market research, traditional market research, and then user experience

00:10:41.040 | research, which is another very big branch of research.

00:10:43.800 | And so at a 30,000-foot level, user experience research tends-- now, not all of this is 100%,

00:10:50.880 | but 90% of the time, it tends to be qualitative.

00:10:53.740 | And it's typically about how a single person interacts with your product.

00:10:58.960 | Like if I click this, what do you think is going to happen?

00:11:01.200 | Is this button in the right place?

00:11:02.720 | Like that sort of thing.

00:11:04.700 | And then market research is more like at the broad, like hundreds, if not thousands of

00:11:09.680 | people level, trying to understand attitudes toward certain things, perceptions of different

00:11:16.960 | things, that sort of thing.

00:11:19.500 | So that was a lot.

00:11:21.080 | My apologies if I went too deep.

00:11:23.440 | Those are like three kind of like dichotomous ways of looking at market, looking at research

00:11:28.480 | in general.

00:11:29.480 | Yeah.

00:11:30.480 | And I appreciate that, because that's so important.

00:11:32.360 | And I'm thinking about like, companies like LinkedIn, they're large.

00:11:35.720 | You can afford to have all the disciplines, right?

00:11:37.720 | And I think the smaller you go, I'm thinking even my previous companies, like they would

00:11:42.000 | double down in certain areas and try to skate by on the other ones, just based on, again,

00:11:46.440 | maybe feedback from customers, maybe that's enough for the kind of usability piece of

00:11:50.240 | it.

00:11:51.240 | And they kind of focus on something else.

00:11:52.240 | So I definitely see the need, ideally, to kind of double down on all of those.

00:11:56.240 | Because again, they give you such different insights that can drive business decisions

00:11:58.960 | that ultimately impact the customer.

00:12:00.720 | And so I appreciate that.

00:12:03.000 | I'm kind of curious.

00:12:04.000 | So LinkedIn, you mentioned earlier, you have like, there's like 1 billion users right now,

00:12:07.840 | or members.

00:12:08.840 | Nearly.

00:12:09.840 | Yeah.

00:12:10.840 | Oh, nearly.

00:12:11.840 | So obviously, like when you're running a test, like, typically, what is your size, your pool?

00:12:16.000 | And how long does it normally take you to reach statistical significance based on whatever

00:12:19.800 | research you're conducting?

00:12:21.120 | Yeah.

00:12:22.120 | So like in the community that I manage, and then even outside, like for the other market

00:12:27.080 | research managers, usually, at the very minimum, you're talking about like 100 plus people

00:12:34.880 | per segment to reach statistical significance to be able to say, to make some broad statements.

00:12:40.880 | Obviously, the more the better, and the more confidence you have.

00:12:44.160 | But usually, at the minimum, we've got about 100 people per segment that we're trying to

00:12:49.440 | make statements about.

00:12:50.720 | Got it.

00:12:51.720 | And what incentives do you use to either get them to participate, or even discover and

00:12:56.520 | find them?

00:12:57.520 | And find willing participants?

00:12:58.520 | Right?

00:12:59.520 | Oh, my goodness.

00:13:00.520 | So yeah, that's such a great question.

00:13:03.080 | And I will say we are very typical, very atypical in the world that I'm in, whereby a lot of

00:13:10.760 | market research, either companies or market research groups within many companies will

00:13:15.280 | offer an incentive to take a survey.

00:13:18.320 | So we in this community, there's no monetary incentive.

00:13:22.940 | And so the way we've positioned the community, like, if you want to join the community, it's

00:13:27.960 | a very like, reciprocal relationship that we have with them.

00:13:31.560 | And so the idea behind the community is that they share back with us their feedback on

00:13:36.560 | like some new product idea.

00:13:38.760 | And then we share back with them how LinkedIn is going to be better as a result of them

00:13:44.200 | having taken part in this research.

00:13:46.680 | And so really, their payment is knowing that they're having an impact on their experience

00:13:52.440 | on LinkedIn.

00:13:54.480 | And this is, I would say it's, it's unique, I wish it was not so unique.

00:14:00.200 | I really think that that is one of the ways that market research can thrive.

00:14:06.200 | And I think that's one of the things that the industry needs to strive more for is not

00:14:11.160 | so much like paying people 5-10 bucks for for their time, because what we don't want

00:14:15.800 | at the end of the day is like a professional survey taker.

00:14:18.920 | That's just gonna give us like, you know, five, five, five, five, like they're not,

00:14:22.720 | they're not really thinking about it.

00:14:24.360 | Like what I'm trying to do in this program that I manage at LinkedIn is basically offer

00:14:30.320 | value back to them.

00:14:31.960 | That's not monetary, it's actually worth much more than 5-10 bucks.

00:14:35.160 | It's basically, help me help you on LinkedIn, help me help, help me be the voice of you

00:14:44.440 | so that we can make better products for you that fit what you're looking for in your career.

00:14:48.880 | Yeah, that's really helpful.

00:14:50.600 | And in the B2B world, like there's, you might hear like partner champion programs or customer

00:14:54.880 | reference programs or brand advocates, and that's similar.

00:14:57.720 | But I agree with you that detaching some kind of monetary reward, instead, instead of focusing

00:15:04.640 | on like making them feel like they're a part of your roadmap, is actually not only do you

00:15:08.920 | get better feedback from them, but they actually develop a closer tie and relationship to your

00:15:12.960 | brand because now they feel invested in having contributed to that.

00:15:16.360 | So that's, I agree.

00:15:17.360 | Yeah, if more companies can do that, I think that'd be awesome.

00:15:20.320 | Now, opportunity kind of fucks your muscles though here, Tony, like, I personally know

00:15:26.240 | you and how like awesome you are.

00:15:28.040 | Can you give me some examples of some really big wins you've had that, whether influenced

00:15:33.600 | major strategy or decisions within a company, or maybe even from a product side, influenced

00:15:38.560 | or implemented major product feature?

00:15:40.160 | Yeah, yeah.

00:15:41.160 | Oh my goodness.

00:15:42.160 | I just, I just came back.

00:15:46.280 | I'm sweating a little bit, not because of this interview.

00:15:48.440 | I love like talking to you, Tim.

00:15:50.000 | I actually came back from a Muay Thai kickboxing class that I'm taking right now, so I'm still

00:15:55.400 | like in the aftermath of that, but anyhow, no, back to back on topic.

00:16:01.100 | I've got, I've got two examples I would share with you, things that I'm proud of in terms

00:16:07.900 | of how talking to our members actually shaped what LinkedIn did, hopefully for the better.

00:16:14.440 | And so about a year ago, LinkedIn was trying to, was trying to break out of this, of this

00:16:26.080 | idea that it's all, like LinkedIn has to be all about work, 100% about work.

00:16:31.960 | And what we, what we're trying to do is trying to be more holistic in terms of, yes, we never

00:16:37.520 | want to be Facebook.

00:16:38.520 | Like, let's get that like out of the way, right?

00:16:40.200 | We do not want to be Facebook, but we recognize that like there's a whole bunch of stuff operating

00:16:45.360 | like on our periphery that affects our careers, affects our work life.

00:16:50.680 | And so one of the studies that I did was basically about what types of content do you want to

00:16:55.880 | see on LinkedIn?

00:16:57.520 | And so in addition to those things that you might expect, like interviewing tips or negotiating

00:17:02.800 | tips or networking, you know, guides or things like that, there was a lot of things that

00:17:08.000 | were kind of like on the periphery of like your, your professional life.

00:17:13.240 | And one of the things that one of those items was mental health.

00:17:18.160 | And so mental health amongst like a whole bunch of other things that were not traditionally

00:17:23.300 | professional topics of discussion on LinkedIn, that was the one that really came out as being

00:17:32.320 | an area where our members wanted to talk about that and, and gave LinkedIn permission to

00:17:38.720 | talk about that.

00:17:39.800 | And so it was awesome.

00:17:41.800 | So like our editor in chief, Daniel Roth got, you know, was, was very interested in these

00:17:47.800 | results being the editor of content on LinkedIn.

00:17:51.680 | And so he told me that, oh my goodness, Tony, this is awesome because like this is the area

00:17:55.800 | that we've been wanting to get into, but just wasn't sure whether we really would have permission

00:18:01.160 | from our members to talk about mental health on LinkedIn.

00:18:05.000 | And fast forward a year, like I don't think it would be out of the ordinary to see mental

00:18:10.520 | health conversations take place on LinkedIn, how people are managing it, how people are

00:18:15.560 | coping with it as it relates to professional lives.

00:18:20.120 | And so that was based on a study that where I don't know that we would have dared to venture

00:18:24.640 | in that area had it not been the, the, the guidance from our members through the community

00:18:30.440 | study that talked about that, where they shared that they were willing to, to see that conversation,

00:18:36.840 | to participate in that conversation.

00:18:38.800 | So, so that's, that's one example that I'm pretty proud of in the last year.

00:18:43.440 | And that's an example where member feedback gave us permission or gave us the go ahead

00:18:49.880 | to do something.

00:18:51.120 | I'll share another example.

00:18:52.800 | This is actually the opposite is where we chose not to do something because members

00:18:58.240 | said that is not what we wanted to do.

00:19:00.320 | So the context for this next example is, is this idea of sharing your, your thoughts on

00:19:08.600 | LinkedIn anonymously.

00:19:11.480 | And so at the time we call this like masked identity, right?

00:19:14.460 | So the idea behind it, the positive idea behind it is that someone may not be willing or brave

00:19:21.800 | enough to share their thoughts for risk of cancellation or their boss seeing it, what

00:19:27.640 | have you.

00:19:28.640 | They're just not comfortable sharing some thought on LinkedIn.

00:19:32.160 | And so the idea was like, Hey, what if we gave members the ability to share this anonymously?

00:19:38.920 | And so one of the things we've been doing within the insight community is a lot is,

00:19:43.400 | is, is concept testing and concept testing in a very consistent way so that we have a

00:19:48.520 | benchmark in terms of whether 62% of audiences liking something, is that good?

00:19:54.520 | Is that bad?

00:19:55.520 | And so we have like a benchmark of of like the average concept.

00:19:59.240 | And so anyways, this whole idea of being able to share anonymously was our lowest performing

00:20:06.480 | concepts.

00:20:09.320 | And so it was a very clear sign that, well, while I, well, I think we all understand the

00:20:14.360 | rationale behind it, it's something that our members like, like, no.

00:20:19.360 | And the number one reason, as you might guess, is that they did not want LinkedIn to turn

00:20:25.480 | into like into Reddit where people like to say whatever they want to say without recourse

00:20:31.560 | or without a second thought.

00:20:34.360 | And so we, that's an example of where like market research saved us from going in a direction

00:20:40.020 | that that maybe we may have without member guidance.

00:20:43.240 | Yeah, I think that's, I would have agreed with that result as well.

00:20:46.040 | I think I would have voted the same like it that the unique thing about LinkedIn is like

00:20:49.800 | taking ownership of what you say and that that kind of representing and reflecting

00:20:53.320 | on you as an individual, usually, hopefully for the better, right, but can obviously go

00:20:56.760 | the other direction.

00:20:57.760 | And being able to like, do it in a masked way can result in a lot of content that's

00:21:01.840 | probably not maybe even professional on this.

00:21:04.640 | Yeah, like very much of LinkedIn is all based on the reliability of your profile, right?

00:21:10.760 | You are, you are, you're proud of what you're saying, what you're putting out in the world.

00:21:15.100 | So I think this kind of went against that.

00:21:17.840 | Cool.

00:21:18.840 | So talking back about the fundamentals of market research, you know, like, can you help

00:21:24.080 | me understand what skills are, do hiring managers look for or skills that someone brings to

00:21:31.360 | the table that are, are paramount for succeeding in this role?

00:21:36.120 | And I'm kind of thinking about different kinds of people, right?

00:21:38.360 | So one audience could be someone who is maybe looking to transition into market research

00:21:43.080 | and trying to figure out, do their skills translate to maybe an entry level role?

00:21:48.280 | And there's the other side of it, which is like, you're a practitioner and you're trying

00:21:51.280 | to become an even more seasoned expert.

00:21:52.920 | So can you kind of help us kind of get a little bit of the land of what to look out for?

00:21:57.960 | Yeah, yeah, I, it's a great question.

00:22:03.280 | I, I'm trying to think about this conversation, how I like, honestly, I'm trying to think

00:22:08.160 | about like, how can I add like unique value?

00:22:10.920 | Because anyone can kind of like chat GPT or Google, like, what are the core skills of

00:22:15.880 | like a market researcher?

00:22:17.480 | And I think a lot of things will come down, like analytical skills and Excel skills and

00:22:23.400 | presentation skills and that sort of thing.

00:22:26.760 | I, I would like to take a step back and like, just in my experience, like specifically,

00:22:33.400 | if you want to kind of differentiate yourself, it's so much about the soft skills and just

00:22:41.160 | being able to like relate to people, to have a genuine curiosity for why people do the

00:22:49.160 | things they do, why they like the things they like, why they don't like the things that

00:22:52.560 | they don't like.

00:22:55.120 | It's being very comfortable, like in a collaborative environment.

00:23:01.040 | This, this, this job is very much like a people person job.

00:23:05.480 | It's like a team oriented job.

00:23:08.040 | Like I'm at any one point in time, I'm usually working with some combination of PMMs, PMs,

00:23:15.720 | product managers, brand people, operational people, biz ops people, and, and it's very

00:23:22.960 | much a cross functional team effort.

00:23:26.660 | It's also important that I should be a little cautious about saying this, but I'm going

00:23:33.640 | to say it because that's kind of how I see it.

00:23:36.440 | You should be comfortable being a supporter at the end of the day.

00:23:39.680 | You're very much in a supportive function of like product and marketing.

00:23:43.920 | You're trying to help product shine.

00:23:45.520 | You're trying to help marketing shine.

00:23:47.360 | There's moments for you to shine as a market research expert as well, but ultimately you're

00:23:51.700 | part of a greater team.

00:23:53.060 | So I think like it's this whole being comfortable with that, being like being that, being like

00:23:59.440 | the place where you want to be, where you're kind of wired that way.

00:24:02.060 | I think it's helpful.

00:24:04.000 | So all those sort of like soft skills are helpful along with like being analytical and

00:24:09.180 | like learning research methodology.

00:24:12.640 | I'll dive back more into like the more practical side of things too.

00:24:17.480 | So like research methodology, yeah, you could learn it from, you know, like from books or

00:24:23.360 | like resources online, practically speaking.

00:24:27.080 | And I think that's kind of will be pertinent to people who are interested in a career in

00:24:31.640 | market research.

00:24:33.160 | I tend to think that it's great to start on the, on the agency side.

00:24:38.960 | So like earlier I had all those like, you know, this or that.

00:24:42.560 | So in market research, you could be on the agent, you can be on the agency side, which

00:24:47.400 | is basically a market research agency that is providing market research services to a

00:24:52.480 | whole plethora of clients.

00:24:55.500 | Or you could be on the client side.

00:24:56.760 | You could work like within a market research department, like within a Netflix or a state

00:25:02.280 | farm or what have you.

00:25:04.440 | So I, my, my strong recommendation is if you're first starting out, this is how I started

00:25:09.160 | as well is to start on the agency side, because on the agency side, you learn all sorts of

00:25:15.680 | different research methodologies.

00:25:17.360 | That's where I learned to do both quantitative and qualitative research.

00:25:21.200 | They all have like their nuances.

00:25:22.560 | They all have their specialties within those broad sectors.

00:25:26.320 | You also get to learn to work with different industries.

00:25:30.920 | So when I was on the agency side, I was very fortunate to work with an agency that had

00:25:36.200 | really like great clients.

00:25:39.200 | So at any one point in time, I was working with like Microsoft and EA and Adobe, but

00:25:45.200 | at the same time, I was also working with Pillsbury and Dreyer's ice cream, and then

00:25:51.160 | like a whole other sphere with all sorts of like insurance or visa finances or something

00:25:56.720 | like that.

00:25:57.720 | So I highly suggest like starting out like on the agency side if, yeah, if you're able

00:26:04.240 | to, because that's where you can get a lot of different experiences.

00:26:07.520 | I would totally agree with that.

00:26:08.520 | And that's actually how I started my career in digital marketing as well.

00:26:11.200 | And to your point, you get to experience breadth, and then depth and the ability to move around

00:26:17.240 | because like within agencies, they also kind of depends on how big or small they are.

00:26:21.040 | But everyone kind of needs to kind of pitch in and apply to various disciplines.

00:26:25.840 | And to your point, it gives you exposure, either direct exposure or observing someone

00:26:31.080 | else doing it, and you kind of passively kind of kind of grow that skill set, even though

00:26:35.360 | you're not practicing it.

00:26:36.360 | So that's a really, really good call out.

00:26:38.280 | I'm even thinking, I'm hoping this is unique to this current market today, right?

00:26:43.720 | But like, right now, like, leveraging external resources versus hiring for internal, there's

00:26:49.440 | obviously the current economy is harder for people to hire dedicated market researchers.

00:26:53.520 | So you might just naturally find more opportunity on an agency right now, as it is, again, I'm

00:26:58.320 | really hoping that this market kind of turns itself around, but that's kind of where I'm

00:27:01.400 | seeing a shift.

00:27:02.400 | And it applies to digital marketing as well.

00:27:04.360 | I'm seeing those trends, too.

00:27:06.080 | Yeah, so I really appreciate that.

00:27:08.560 | It actually gives me a lot of hope, quite frankly, Tony, because I don't know if I ever

00:27:12.520 | admitted this to you.

00:27:14.640 | About like two years ago, I was like, considering a career change as well.

00:27:17.720 | I was like, Oh, man, can I do some market research?

00:27:19.920 | And I was like, Oh, no, no.

00:27:21.920 | I know, Tony, I don't want to look like an idiot to him.

00:27:24.440 | I don't want to ask, but it but part of the things that caused me to not want to reach

00:27:28.360 | out to you besides pride, or whatever I call it, is just, I want to make it look like I've

00:27:33.800 | got my stuff together.

00:27:34.800 | And I was afraid that I didn't.

00:27:36.400 | And what you're telling me here, which is really helpful is like, yes, there's some

00:27:39.640 | hard skills, you definitely need to know.

00:27:42.440 | But the the soft skills part is so important.

00:27:46.240 | And that's, I think, something that a non practitioner has.

00:27:49.600 | And so I think if you're listening to this video, and that's where you find yourself,

00:27:52.200 | like, don't be discouraged from considering market research at all, as a matter of fact,

00:27:56.200 | like maybe lean into it a little bit, because your natural skills might actually kind of

00:27:59.720 | take you ahead.

00:28:00.720 | And you just would know if you don't give yourself a chance.

00:28:03.440 | Cool.

00:28:04.440 | So Tony, can you help us understand just just career growth in market research?

00:28:10.040 | Like, like, what does an entry level position normally look like?

00:28:12.840 | And what is for someone like in your role, who's been kind of obviously more seasoned?

00:28:16.760 | Like, what does growth look like?

00:28:19.000 | Yeah.

00:28:21.000 | So I can I can speak to my own career, which I think is a is a fairly linear path that

00:28:27.920 | someone could follow.

00:28:29.360 | So like I said, I started on the agency side.

00:28:31.720 | And I started out being as I worked on in a market research agency, but not so much

00:28:37.960 | in a market research specific role.

00:28:39.680 | So my role was that of a we call it a data coordinator.

00:28:42.880 | And so the whole idea is that I worked with a lot of market research managers to basically

00:28:47.000 | get the data from the research studies into like PowerPoint decks.

00:28:51.040 | And so I did that I did a lot of that.

00:28:53.360 | And so I did that for about a year.

00:28:55.200 | And then after a while, I had an opening for an assistant research manager.

00:29:01.640 | And obviously just be kind of marinating in that world for a while, like I became an assistant

00:29:06.720 | research manager, realize I loved it, like I was very much in my sweet spot.

00:29:11.960 | And by sweet spot, I mean, I'll take you back to college real quick.

00:29:17.240 | I didn't declare a major until I think my junior year.

00:29:20.960 | And I knew I wanted to do something in marketing, but I didn't feel I was creative enough to

00:29:24.920 | do marketing.

00:29:25.980 | But I also knew I love my psychology classes.

00:29:28.880 | So market research and psychology, psychology, and, and marketing kind of like fits, it kind

00:29:36.680 | of becomes market research.

00:29:38.080 | Yeah.

00:29:39.200 | And so I knew that's what I wanted to do.

00:29:40.920 | And so sure enough, like in that first legitimate market research role, I really felt like,

00:29:46.160 | yes, like this is what I wanted to do.

00:29:47.800 | I had a curiosity for people, I was kind of okay with numbers.

00:29:50.680 | I'm Asian, I hate math, I'm doing okay, but I'm not I'm not a mathematician, not a mathematician.

00:29:57.660 | So don't let the word the fact I'm using the word data, this is very straightforward data

00:30:02.140 | that very is very basic data.

00:30:05.580 | So so yeah, so from from being an assistant research manager became research manager.

00:30:10.720 | And then from from the agency side, I went to visa, where I got to experience life on

00:30:17.480 | the on the client side, which has a lot of benefits.

00:30:21.160 | So in terms of growth, I would say, my apologies, if I'm jumping back.

00:30:25.720 | No, this is perfect.

00:30:26.720 | You're doing great.

00:30:27.880 | One of the things that what growth may look one of the dimensions of growth is how much

00:30:35.040 | visibility do you have to the person actually making use of your data and the insights from

00:30:41.720 | your studies.

00:30:43.000 | So like, when I was a data coordinator, I had zero visibility, I they hid me in the

00:30:47.360 | back room in the corner somewhere.

00:30:49.720 | And then as an as an assistant research manager, I was like the silent person in the room.

00:30:56.000 | So like the research managers interfacing with the client, I'm there like taking notes,

00:31:01.160 | doing the best that I can not to look like if like a fool not to say anything stupid.

00:31:05.320 | And then when I became a research manager, then I like had amassed enough knowledge enough

00:31:10.120 | confidence to to be able to talk to the clients.

00:31:17.080 | And then when I became a senior research manager, that's when I made the jump from being able

00:31:21.280 | to talk the language to being able to consult and like, and to basically translate like

00:31:26.600 | their business questions into research solutions.

00:31:32.060 | So earlier, like, let's say like, we were, let's say we're working on Netflix, and Netflix

00:31:36.400 | had the question of, hey, should we double down on Korean content like outside of Korea?

00:31:43.180 | And so I'd be as a research manager, I would have to come up with like the proper research

00:31:47.200 | solution.

00:31:48.640 | Is it is a primary research?

00:31:50.520 | Is it secondary research?

00:31:51.840 | Is it quantitative?

00:31:52.840 | Is it qualitative?

00:31:55.240 | And then like, so on down the line, and so I would be able to like consult on that.

00:31:59.920 | And then so from there, I left and went to the to the client side at Visa.

00:32:06.360 | And then when you're on the client side, you're even closer yet to the people who are acting

00:32:11.480 | on it, right?

00:32:12.480 | Because on the agency side, you may be working with you may be working with a market researcher

00:32:17.360 | at the client, not even the people who are making use of that data, that study.

00:32:22.880 | And so when you're on the client side, you're working with the PMMs, you're working with

00:32:26.000 | the product, the people who are making the products, you're working with, yeah, the people

00:32:30.920 | who are basically implementing the studies that that you're you're executing on.

00:32:36.700 | And so, yeah, I would say that's probably one dimension, that's the one that comes that's

00:32:40.960 | most apparent to me, it's just kind of like, how, how removed or how close at the hip are

00:32:46.840 | you to the people?

00:32:48.080 | How much of a partner are you to those people who are actually doing it and executing on

00:32:52.840 | on the studies?

00:32:53.840 | Yeah, that's really good, actually, that you even kind of hinted at another skill set here,

00:32:58.640 | which is, I don't know if it's a software hard skill set, but the ability to take a

00:33:03.320 | lot of information, and then distill it down and framed in a way that can be used in research,

00:33:09.240 | right?

00:33:10.240 | Because again, like, someone can have like five disparate ideas, and they think it's

00:33:14.040 | one singular thought for a business objective, and you're like, actually, maybe, maybe it's

00:33:18.920 | being able to ask the right questions to kind of get to the crux of what you want, and then

00:33:22.400 | taking that and framing it into a test, I think that that ability to kind of logically

00:33:27.120 | work through that is probably really good.

00:33:29.160 | And I liked also the part we talked about, like how you engage with people, I think about

00:33:34.480 | even my own career, right, the, the, there's a lot of ways where you can show value to

00:33:40.280 | either a peer or a manager, right?

00:33:42.600 | One of them is like, because you sit so close to the data to the research, providing value

00:33:47.200 | could look like, hey, I've noticed something else in the data that might be worth looking

00:33:51.360 | at, or have we considered this or when someone comes to you with a research idea, maybe,

00:33:56.880 | as you kind of help them qualify or, or substantiate the request, maybe there's a different way

00:34:02.000 | of looking at it.

00:34:03.000 | And those questions, while they may not become executed upon, like that sets you apart as

00:34:08.200 | well, right?

00:34:09.200 | That's providing value.

00:34:10.200 | I think those are the kind of thinking mechanisms or skill sets that I at least look for when

00:34:13.960 | I'm looking for direct, for even junior folks, like if they show that I'm like, oh, that's

00:34:18.240 | like kind of rockstar quality, because you're coachable, right, and that attitude is important.

00:34:22.440 | Yeah.

00:34:23.440 | Yeah.

00:34:24.440 | So that, that, that kind of speaks to like, to another continuum too, right?

00:34:27.040 | If it's not evident, I love these continuum, but I'm also working on my camera, spatial

00:34:31.880 | skills here.

00:34:32.880 | It's a continuum between like, just like supplying data versus like making sense of data and

00:34:38.880 | then like, kind of like, you know, driving value from that data.

00:34:43.280 | Yeah.

00:34:44.280 | Cool.

00:34:45.280 | So this question, maybe closing question for you is just like, you know, if you think of

00:34:49.880 | a typical person, maybe who's trying to consider a new career in market research, like you

00:34:54.280 | should consider a market research if blank, you know, or maybe you should not consider

00:34:58.480 | it for blank, like what would those look like to you?

00:35:04.120 | Yeah.

00:35:05.520 | So I think first and foremost is just like a natural curiosity for, for human behavior.

00:35:15.640 | I think more because at the end of the day, a lot of this is just being intellectually

00:35:20.840 | curious about why people think the way they do.

00:35:25.520 | So that's part of it.

00:35:26.520 | So intellectual curiosity, you know, earlier I talked about like the team orientation,

00:35:31.400 | you're part of like a broader team to accomplish something.

00:35:35.000 | You're not like a soul, like Lone Ranger, Rockstar out there.

00:35:39.000 | You're part of a collective effort.

00:35:40.400 | So it's, it's good for someone who's, who, who functions that way and it's comfortable

00:35:46.400 | in those environments.

00:35:48.960 | You have to be a good communicator, both verbally as well as written.

00:35:54.600 | There's a lot of like communication, presentations, that sort of thing.

00:36:01.460 | So like communications, and that's not just market research.

00:36:04.200 | I think I'll serve you well in any, in any, any discipline.

00:36:10.440 | There's probably a ton more, but I would kind of stop there.

00:36:12.960 | Yeah.

00:36:13.960 | I think it's good.

00:36:14.960 | It's really helpful.

00:36:15.960 | And like, I really enjoyed this conversation today, Tony.

00:36:17.920 | I think you have a lot of really good insights on like how to practice the skill and industry

00:36:23.740 | of market research.

00:36:24.740 | But I think you're kind of your real life applications kind of really helps humanize

00:36:28.840 | the experience.

00:36:29.840 | And I think in a way that people can relate to and, and for those viewers out there who

00:36:33.760 | are trying to consider a career, like hopefully this inspired you to maybe dig deep or do

00:36:38.880 | some research and learn more about it.

00:36:40.440 | I definitely think as a seasoned professional, you gave them a lot of things to think about.

00:36:43.920 | I think areas to hone the craft and maybe they, you actually identified the six areas

00:36:48.880 | essentially of market, of research and maybe other areas that maybe other muscles they

00:36:52.960 | want to flex because maybe they've been overly focused on market research.

00:36:55.680 | Maybe I'll do something else within the research field.

00:36:57.760 | So I think this is really good.

00:36:59.000 | Tony, thank you for your time and hopefully you can come back soon and talk about something

00:37:02.700 | else.

00:37:03.700 | Yeah, absolutely.

00:37:04.700 | 100.

00:37:05.700 | And before we go, like, I think I'm in a season of my life where I mentioned I'm almost

00:37:10.080 | like in market research for 30 years.

00:37:12.200 | So I think I'm very much in a season of giving back.

00:37:14.460 | So if any of your viewers like wanted to talk market research, working at LinkedIn, what

00:37:19.500 | have you, in more depth, happy, reach out to me on LinkedIn and happy to chat.

00:37:24.920 | How can they find you on LinkedIn?

00:37:26.840 | Just Tony Tong, market research should do it.

00:37:29.920 | Cool.

00:37:30.920 | All right.

00:37:31.920 | Thanks a lot, Tony.

00:37:32.920 | Have a great day.

00:37:33.920 | Thank you.

00:37:34.920 | Bye.

00:37:35.920 | Bye.

00:37:36.920 | If you found this video to be helpful, please support us by liking this episode and subscribing

00:37:39.200 | to the channel and hitting that notification bell so you'll know when a new episode is

00:37:43.840 | available.

00:37:44.840 | You know, I started this podcast as a response to help fight the unemployment crisis happening

00:37:49.760 | in high tech, but I quickly learned that it goes much more beyond that.

00:37:54.280 | The need for this type of content extends to anyone who's considering a career pivot

00:37:58.680 | or college students struggling to get their foot in the door.

00:38:02.880 | This channel was made for all of them, and I hope the information was helpful.

00:38:06.920 | Have a great day.

00:38:07.440 | Bye.

00:38:08.440 | Bye.

00:38:09.440 | Bye.

00:38:10.440 | Bye.

00:38:10.440 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

All you need to know about market research: Insights from a LinkedIn market research manager

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