Professional Certifications in Marketing Research

Introduction

I’ve been asked about the most popular and important courses that people working in marketing research should attend, so I wanted to write an article on this for the benefit of whoever asked and others. To begin, I’d like to clarify that anyone working in marketing research should possess a diverse blend of soft skills and technical skills simultaneously, and it’s hard to detail the courses I’d recommend for each personal or technical skill separately. In this article I’ll focus on the professional certifications that address the technical side.

There is no integrated body of knowledge in marketing research as there is, for example, in project management or business-process management. Nor is there a single globally recognized certification — like the PMP, for instance. However, there is a set of courses at varying knowledge levels, each contributing in one way or another to a marketing-research specialist’s body of knowledge. Below I list the best-known ones I’m aware of. Note that all the courses below are in English.

Principles of Marketing Research Certificate Program | University of Georgia

This course is taken online and asks students to buy two books in addition to its substantial content. I recommend it to anyone working in this field. When I finished it about three years ago, the course’s downside was that it relied heavily on text, so students may feel bored by the nature of the content compared with other courses that include images and audiovisual clips.

The same university launched another important course:

Principles of Mobile Market Research

MRS Certificates

Next in importance are two courses from the Market Research Society (MRS) in Britain. The first is a prerequisite for the second. I recommend attending both:

MRS Certificate in Market & Social Research
MRS Advanced Certificate in Market and Social Research Practice

From the same association, there are two online courses — one on questionnaire design, in addition to a course on interviewing skills, which is good for agencies wanting to invest in their field-researcher teams. The MRS is one of the best bodies for offering training courses and runs them throughout the year in Britain.

MRA Certificates

There are also two important courses offered by the American Marketing Research Association, different from those above. This association offers two courses in the fundamentals of quantitative and qualitative research — both made up of small online courses delivered via a partner of theirs called Research Rockstar. I’ve taken some courses with this partner, and the content was rich and excellent. Below are the course names with links:

This association also offers a professional certification, with certain conditions and after passing an exam. One of their conditions is having a certain number of years of experience plus attending the course I mentioned at the start of this article. I can’t judge how heavily this certification weighs on a CV in Western countries and the U.S., but it’s not widely known in Middle East markets except at some global firms. The certification name is below:

(PRC) Professional Researcher Certification

There is also another professional certification, and again I don’t have information on its weight and value on a CV:

CMRP (Certified Marketing Research Professional)

This is offered by the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association — a non-profit headquartered in Canada.

In-Person Training

Some people prefer in-person courses for a change of pace and the opportunity to travel. The following institute offers many valuable courses in marketing research — and is, notably, originally an offshoot of an operating research firm. The institute is headquartered in the United States, and most of its courses are held there in several states:

Burke Institute

Free E-Learning Platforms

The famous Coursera site is one of the best free educational platforms. I took two courses there I recommend.

The first course is on questionnaire design — link here. The second course is on data analysis — link here.

On the same platform there are more courses:

A course on qualitative research methods — link here.
A course on quantitative research methodology — link here.

Closing

I ask every reader working in this field to mention the courses I haven’t covered in the comments on this article. Many thanks in advance.

In a later article, I’ll talk about the most important professional associations in this industry. Anyone who’d like to contribute to that article, please write to me at my personal email.

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