An Interview with Joy Levin, AMADC Board Member and independent market research consultant. She gains insights through data and research to reduce risk and market with confidence.
Leading Market Research at AMADC
An Interview with Joy Levin, AMADC Board Member and independent market research consultant. She gains insights through data and research to reduce risk and market with confidence.
Tell us about your role on the AMADC Board.
I work to understand what members and nonmembers want from the chapter. As Co-VPs of Data and Insights for the chapter, Wendy Price and I use research and data and trying to help create content that will resonate well with members. We use data to understand how to best serve our community of marketers.
What inspired you to pursue a career in marketing?
From a very young age I was interested in marketing and advertising, but I didn’t see myself in market research until I went to grad school. There I developed a much clearer picture of how vital research is to marketing. How it should really drive just about every decision. Today I am an independent market research consultant. I work with organizations to gain insights, through data and research, so they can decrease the risk from their decisions and execute marketing with a lot more confidence and strategy behind their work.
Do you have a favorite part of your role as a market research consultant?
I like the variety of work I do. I work with many different organizations and industries which allows me to leverage the experiences in each to create solutions for other projects. My clients have included large corporations such as AT&T, mid-size businesses such as WEX Inc. and Barclay Products, various startups, and many professional and trade associations. I’m also involved in working with individuals from backgrounds such as consumers ranging from truck drivers, to physicians, and everyone in between!
How has being involved with AMADC impacted your career?
I love being an independent consultant, but I sometimes miss interacting with people in an office. This chapter and AMA National are kind of like my water cooler. I get to have conversations and relationships with people in marketing. It has also helped me build a more robust network and learn more about marketing in general. For example, I have learned from many professionals in the creative side of marketing that they don’t know how research and metrics impacts the work they do in determining what appeals to different target audiences.
Have you met AMADC marketers who influenced you?
I have been fortunate to meet so many great people at AMADC, one of whom is Wendy Price of WHP Research. Wendy and I share the role of leading the research and insights efforts at AMADC. We have similar ideas about research, but we also have our unique perspectives and I think this further enriches the work we do for the chapter. She has really become a great friend, and I consider her to be a research BFF!
How do you keep up to date with changes in research?
There is so much information out there that curation tools, like Google Alerts and Marketing Charts really help to clue people in on the latest research out there. These tools can alert you to interesting studies that are being published every day. That may have a direct impact on your industry, products, or your audience. Marketing Charts aggregates data from studies in nearly every different industry and compiles them into readable metrics. Before undertaking a big research study you have to know what’s already out there and then your study can be used to fill in whatever is missing that you need to know.
What recent trends have you seen in the marketing field due to COVID-19?
Covid-19 is forcing marketers to tweak their products, services, or expand their strategic thinking in order serve the new and changing needs of their customers. For example, many retailers and commercial business have adapted the BOPIS (Buy Online Pickup In Store) model and restaurants are fulfilling the need for consumers to order online and then pick it up to eat at home. Have you ever received a message saying the order is ready, but then it’s not ready when you go to pick it up? Restaurants need to refine this experience, otherwise they risk losing customers.
Where do you see the future of marketing?
Marketing research is becoming more valued because marketers want to make sure that they are making decisions based on clear evidence that shows the reality of what is going on in the field. I definitely see that research will have an increasingly important role in marketing in general. At the same time, researchers need to stay up to date with a lot of the new advancements in the field to make sure that the field stays relevant and marketers do as well. New technologies such as using texting for surveys, artificial intelligence, and new feedback mechanisms that people want to use are needed to improve data quality for this to happen.
Article written by: Jack Boardman