Marketing Insights Researcher

About our family of companies: We are on a mission to bring learning to life! At our family of companies, Learning Resources® , Educational Insights , and hand2mind , we create a unique range of toys, educational products, and supplemental curriculum trusted by teachers and loved by families alike. Voted among the Chicago Tribune’s Top Workplaces for six consecutive years, we are a 500+ person strong, family-owned global organization dedicated to helping kids succeed in school and develop a love of learning.

In addition to high-quality, hands-on products like Versa. Tiles® and Cuisenaire® Rods, we make award-winning toys, including top sellers such as the Pretend & Play® Cash Register, the Farmer’s Market Color Sorting Set and Toy of the Year winner Botley® the Coding Robot as well as Educational Insights top sellers Kanoodle®, Geo.

Safari® Jr. series, and Playfoam™. We pride ourselves on being committed to our employees’ personal and professional development, a thriving culture, and a diverse, creative atmosphere. Along with our culture and competitive benefits package, we offer a variety of opportunities for training and development. We are looking for professionals who are truly just kids at heart!

We hope you will join our award-winning team today! Team & Position Description: We are currently seeking a Marketing Insights Researcher to join our Shared Services Analytics Team! This role is a critical partner to our internal teams and provides a great opportunity to join a high performing team in a hands-on role helping drive business and shape strategies.

If telling compelling stories with data is your jam, join us! What you’ll do day to day: Deliver Insight-Led Solutions: Transform complex data into simple, visually engaging charts, graphs, and infographics across all business functions. Own Market Research Function: Internal owner of all qualitative and quantitative market research, including surveys, focus groups, and third-party software.

Draft surveys, own focus group scripts, serve as the main point of contact with external partners, complete all analysis of research, and present results to internal stakeholders. Support Retail Insights: Build scalable retail insights function by leveraging AI software to pull internal and external data to develop strategy and report results.

Support Product Innovation: Collaborate with product development teams to translate data and research into actionable insights to inform new product ideas and innovation. Participate in product brainstorm sessions and testing Own Competitive Research Function : Internal analytics owner for monthly competitive landscape reporting, including ownership and reporting for monthly Circana updates.

Support Business Updates and Planning: Provide analytics and insights support for annual planning and quarterly business updates, assisting with data insights and visualization. Support Strategic Creative Projects: Create product concepts, mockups, sell sheets, packaging explorations, and other special projects that transform consumer insights and business opportunities into compelling visual stories.

What we’re looking for (Key Performance Objectives): In the first 3 months: Create Insights Vault consisting of all prior company research (focus groups, surveys, etc.), where any employee can easily find and review prior research. Develop a 12-month, prioritized research roadmap that balances the needs across all departments (product, marketing, school, sales) and stay within budget.

In the first 6 months: Audit our internal tech stack for market research and suggest alternative software to improve our effectiveness. Become a power-user for Circana and Scintilla reporting systems. Audit our current catalog of PowerBI reports and dashboards within the sales and marketing departments and recommend any optimization or consolidation opportunities.

In the first 12 months: Attend at least 1 internal and 1 external (retailer) line review presentation. Become fluent in PowerBI and audit existing dashboards and reports for data visualization opportunities.

Requirements

& Ideal Attributes: Education: Bachelor's degree in a marketing or digital analytics related field Experience: 4+ years of marketing or digital analytics experience Mindset: Curious, results oriented, and proactive in identifying insights and opportunities Execution Excellence: Highly organized, able to manage multiple projects in parallel, and deliver reliably against timelines Market Research: Knowledge of quantitative research methods (survey design, analysis and statistics) Technical Skills: Familiarity with data visualization tools and modern analytics tools; ability to learn and adopt new platforms quickly; Analysis Skills: Experience analyzing and evaluating consumer data and developing actionable insights Visualization & Reporting: Proficiency in Power BI (or other visualization tools) to build scalable, automated dashboards We are a drug-free workplace and an EEO employer.

Please note : This role will be filled by our internal recruitment team, so no assistance is needed from any outside staffing agency at this time.

Compensation

$95,000 – $105,000 annual salary – Actual compensation may vary due to other factors such as: years of experience, skill set and location. Total compensation includes profit sharing bonus potential, 401k matching, and a variety of other benefits (details can be found here ). #LI-hybrid