what comes to mind when you think of

market research do you think of a survey

maybe a focus group

well you're partially correct but that's

not the whole story

to get started let's understand what

market research is and why you should do

it

market research is the function that

links you to your customer through

information in its most simplistic form

market research is simply a process for

collecting market information but market

research can and should be much more

than that your real goal is not just

gathering information but gleaning

insights insights are the difference

between having facts about your customer

and really knowing your customer an

insight is sometimes called an epiphany

an aha moment or a Eureka feeling when a

solution to a problem presents itself

suddenly insights come when you dig

beneath the surface going beyond just

what the customer is saying and looking

for motivating behavior do you remember

New Coke this was considered one of the

biggest product flops in history in 1985

sales of coca-cola had decreased by 24%

as their core demographic aged so

coca-cola decided to reformulate Coke to

be sweeter to compete with Pepsi

significant market research was done and

the facts showed that in blind taste

testing the new Coke outperformed both

Pepsi and traditional coke

two-hundred-thousand taste tests

confirmed this preference and yet the

introduction of new Coke was nothing

short of a disaster wasn't just that

consumers didn't buy it the company

actually received over 400,000 letters

from angry customers why because they

had the facts but missed this insight

brand loyalty Trump's taste people had

an emotional attachment to the iconic

brand and didn't want it to be replaced

even if it tasted better unfortunately

for them the ha moment came after the

product was launched

there's no shortage of examples of

product developers who didn't do market

research because they just knew their

product was the greatest thing since

sliced bread but it wasn't in today's

market consumers are constantly

bombarded with new products and trends

change almost daily never assume you

know what your customers want the risks

are just too high so why do market

research it centers your business on

your customer it keeps you focused it

allows you to pursue the right

opportunities and abandon those that

aren't it keeps you relevant and future

oriented and it improves your

decision-making capabilities and reduces

your risk the key to success is a deep

understanding of your customer market

research is how you get there if you

could sit down with one of your

customers today what would you want to

learn think about what you would want to

know what questions could you ask them

that would give you a deeper

understanding of your market maybe you'd

like to know why they buy your product

do they buy for themselves or for others

what about how they perceive your

company versus your competition what

could you be doing better to win more of

their business chances are there is at

least one insight waiting to be

discovered and the more insights that

you discover the more information you

have to make sound business decisions

you

how are you making important business

decisions today are you just going with

your gut maybe you're asking a trusted

adviser or maybe you're watching what

your competition is doing any of these

methods might work but it's still a bit

of a guessing game what market research

does is take the guessing out of it

simply put to make a good decision you

need good information and market

research is a key source of that

information let's say someone comes to

you with a new product idea and wants

you to invest in it but all they can

tell you is how the product works

without any additional information

that's a risky investment you would

likely want to know things like is there

a need for the product who are the

competitors and how does this product

stack up to them how big is the market

what do potential customers think of the

product each piece of additional

information backed up by research makes

the decision less risky market research

gives you the information you need to

help identify opportunities and problems

and find solutions to address these it

also helps you develop marketing or

business strategies another important

use is to help you assess customer

reactions to products ads prices and

packaging and you might use market

research to monitor customer

satisfaction or marketing performance

one of the areas where market research

is used most frequently is in marketing

the principal tasks of marketing is to

create value for customers and to create

value you need an in-depth understanding

of the market and the customers and by

now we know that understanding the

customers who they are how they behave

why they behave as they do is at the

heart of market research marketing

decisions involve everything from major

shifts in the positioning of a business

or the decision to enter a new market to

tactical questions like how to price a

product let's look at the four stages of

the marketing planning process to see

how you would use market research for

each the first stage is situation

analysis otherwise known as a SWOT

analysis this is essentially where

you're taking the temperature of your

organization

several key areas you're asking

questions like what are the potential

threats and how do we address them where

are their potential opportunities and

what can we do to leverage them and

what's our competition doing and how

should we respond the second stage is

strategy development which is

essentially deciding where you want to

be and how you're going to get there

here you might be asking questions like

these what segments of the market should

we serve what our competitive advantages

and how should we measure performance

the third stage is marketing program

development you may have heard this

described as the four P's product price

place promotion you'll be asking

questions that address the four PS how

should we position and price the product

how are we going to distribute the

product and which promotional

opportunities will be most effective the

final stage is implementation now that

you've put your plan and program in

place do you need to make any

modifications you'll be asking how are

we doing against our performance

measures how satisfied are our customers

and how could we refine our strategy or

tactics so think about the decisions

that you need to make in the near future

do you have solid information are you

going with your gut what questions could

you ask to improve your decision-making

ability and reduce your risk you don't

have to be in the marketing department

to use market research whatever your

role is chances are you're making

decisions and market research can help

you make informed decisions

ever heard the expression ready aim fire

how about ready fire aim we've all been

there

when you need to make a decision and

move quickly there's a tendency to shoot

first and ask questions later the same

is true when someone says I need this

information and I need it yesterday

which is all too common at the start of

a market research project market

research is about asking questions but

that doesn't mean it's always the answer

so the first question that you should

ask is should we do the research to

determine this you'll want to consider a

number of factors first why do you need

to do the research in other words what

decisions are hinging on the information

if you can't clearly define the

decisions the results will just be nice

to know and not need to know and

although it appears evident you'll also

want to ask has a conclusion already

been reached if the CEO has already made

a decision will the information from the

research really make a difference next

you want to consider if it's worth doing

the research cost budgets and timelines

always play a role first ask yourself

what is the cost of not knowing in other

words does the value of the research

exceed the cost of getting the

information if so then ask am I willing

to make the investment to do the

research correctly and am I willing to

allow the time necessary to do the

research correctly if the quality the

market research is going to be

compromised due to budget limitations or

time restrictions maybe shouldn't do it

because if the research is worth doing

it's worth doing well lastly you want to

consider what you will do with the

information if you aren't going to use

the findings shouldn't do the research

is there a commitment through all levels

of the organization to use results and

do we have the budget to implement the

findings and as a final check before

proceeding you probably want to ask the

obvious has someone in the organization

already done this

research and a larger company you might

be surprised at how often this turns out

to be the case so when you're ready to

engage in that market research project

stop to aim before you fire ask yourself

can we clearly define the decisions that

are hinging on this research are we

willing to invest the time and money to

do this right does everyone agree that

we will act on the findings and do we

have the budget to do so if you can

answer yes to each of these questions

congratulations you are ready to start

the market research process

you

Albert Einstein once said if I had an

hour to solve a problem and my life

depended on it I would use the first 55

minutes determining the proper question

to ask for once I know the proper

question solving the problem is easy the

formulation of a problem is often more

essential than its solution so it is

with market research understanding the

nature of the problem will ensure that

the right problem is being investigated

and that the information obtained will

be useful to solving the problem at hand

to illustrate let's consider a very

simple example let's say that Joe the

head of marketing asks you to conduct a

study to evaluate the effectiveness of

the most recent ad campaign sounds

pretty straightforward right so off you

go and you come back with the results

showing that the campaign was moderately

effective you've done your job and given

Joe what he asked for

but what if Joe's real question is how

much should we allocate to the

advertising budget or why aren't sales

higher does knowing the effectiveness of

the ad campaign give him the information

he needs to answer these questions you

can see how critical it is to formulate

the problem correctly in order to

execute the right research and you

should never assume that the person

asking for the research has accurately

articulated the real need here are three

steps to formulate the right research

problem step one is understand the

background ask questions like what

circumstances are prompting the research

who are the stakeholders and what's at

stake for them what decisions are you

trying to make based on the research so

in our example we might have uncovered

that sales have not hit targets and Joe

is being asked to come up with a plan to

increase sales but he'll have to do so

with a lower budget unless he can

justify the existing budget this puts

the need for research in the perspective

step two is translate the business

problem into a research problem business

problems focus on an action in our

example this might have been increased

sales with a lower budget

the research problem rephrases the

business problem into meaningful terms

from an analytical point of view

identify potential reasons that sales

have not been higher the research

problem always starts with action verbs

like evaluate assess identify measure

determine think of it this way the

business problem is what marketing needs

to do the research problem is what

marketing needs to know to do it step 3

is create a hypothesis in this case what

are the possible causes for sales being

under forecast from Joe's initial

request he may be hypothesizing that not

enough money was allocated to the

advertising and therefore the campaign

was not effective but it could also be

that a new competitor has entered the

market or the quality the product has

not lived up to expectations or the

distributor's have more of incentive to

push a different product these

hypotheses will drive the topics that

will be covered during the research once

you've done this you put the information

into a clearly defined research

objective what needs to be done the

action and with whom the target market

what information is needed how is the

information going to be used so back to

our example what needs to be done we

need to identify potential reasons why

sales have been lower within our target

market what information is needed

determine what factors impact which

product a customer purchases then

evaluate their perception of our product

on each of these factors how will the

information be used results from this

research will inform the action plan for

increasing sales and creating a budget

Yogi Berra is credited for saying if you

don't know where you're going you will

often end up someplace else are you

asking the right questions to ensure

that you will get the right answers do

you know what the single most important

question is that your research must

address make sure you know where you're

going

if you were planning to build a house

what would be your reaction if your

builder came back and said blueprint no

no I know what you want we don't need a

blueprint I'm thinking you might be

looking for a different builder while it

is possible to build a house without a

blueprint the final product may be

different than what you ordered the

research design is to market research

what the blueprint is to home building

it's the framework or plan for the study

which will act as the guide for data

collection and just like there is no

single right way to build a house

there's no single right way to do

research however you can categorize

research designs in much the same way as

you might categorize houses as ranch

split-level and two-story research

approaches are categorized into one of

three types exploratory descriptive

causal let's take a look at each the

first type of approach exploratory

research is just that an exploration the

general objective is to gain insights

and ideas about the problem you would

use this most often when you don't know

very much about the problem here are

three examples of when you might use

exploratory research to develop a

hypothesis or clarify concepts for

instance if you want to understand what

is meant by ease-of-use so that you can

develop a method to measure it to

establish priorities for further

research for instance if your sales have

decreased you might use exploratory

research to get a sense of whether this

is due to new competitors poor quality

or any number of other possible factors

this would tell you then where you

should focus your more detailed research

to increase familiarity with the problem

for example if you are developing a

product in a new category and you don't

know much about the category the second

type of approach descriptive research

makes up the bulk of the market research

that is done it's generally based on one

or more hypotheses which implies that

you do have some information about the

problem three potential ways you might

use descriptive research are to describe

the characteristics of certain groups

for example developing the profile of

the average user of your product in

terms of demographics attitudes and/or

behaviors to estimate the proportion of

people in a specified population who

behave a certain way

for instance the proportion of your

average users who buy your product at a

specific store and to make predictions

for example predicting the level of

sales for each of the next three years

if your product is placed in these

stores our final type of research is

causal research you would use causal

research when you're trying to test a

cause-and-effect relationship between

two variables

you start with hypothesis for example

shelf placement is a critical factor in

sales so where we have good shelf

placement we have good market

penetration that's the hypothesis you'll

test if in your research you determine

that in a large number of territories

with good shelf placement you do not

have satisfactory market share then you

would conclude that your hypothesis is

not true good shelf placement does not

necessarily mean you'll have good market

penetration so have you created a

blueprint or are you just forging ahead

with a hammer and a bucket of nails how

much do you know about your problem do

you have enough information to create at

least one hypothesis or are you trying

to get a feel for what's going on at

this stage are you looking to understand

uncover or identify or are you looking

to measure select or prioritize if you

can answer these questions you're ready

to select the type of research that will

best solve the business problem at hand

and begin to develop your blueprint

you

imagine you aren't feeling well and you

visit your doctor you have a good doctor

who keeps up with all the most recent

studies on various illnesses and

potential treatments one of the first

things he does is review your chart

checking for any underlying medical

conditions then he's likely to ask you

questions about your symptoms such as

when they started and how severe they

are he may take your vitals perhaps do

some blood work and run some tests and

finally he may give you a prescription

or suggest that you do something

differently to see if that helps your

doctor has multiple methods of obtaining

data that may lead to a correct

diagnosis and treatment similarly you

have multiple data collection methods at

your disposal

once you've formulated the problem and

categorize the research approach it's

time to consider how you're going to get

the data you need you may select one or

multiple methods as our doctor did so

let's consider at a high level what

options you might choose from secondary

research contrary to its name is the

first thing you should consider it uses

data that is already available

information that someone else collected

for some purpose other than solving your

present problem there are two types of

secondary research using internal data

and external data in our dr. example the

current studies that he reads on

treatments and conditions could be

considered a type of external secondary

data while reviewing your charts would

be more like internal secondary data

primary research is research that is

specifically commissioned for the

problem at hand and there are three

types of primary research qualitative

quantitative and experimental

qualitative research is about uncovering

feelings or understanding decision

making quantitative is generally more

about numbers and objective data in our

dr. example asking you about your

symptoms could be considered qualitative

research while getting tests could be

considered quantitative sending you home

with a few things to try to see if they

work would fall into the experimental

category let's consider an example

that's in the business room

you work for GE and you're interested in

understanding the difference in the

demographics of customers who are buying

your refrigerators versus your

competitors you might first turn to

industry data that's been collected on

refrigerator purchases this is available

to anyone it's not specifically about

your project but could provide some

valuable information this would be

considered external secondary data you

might also analyze the warranty card

information that has turned in by your

own customers which would be considered

internal secondary data since it already

exists in house you could alternatively

interview buyers and potential buyers to

understand their attitudes and

preferences you could use this to

profile the segment's that purchase your

refrigerators versus the competitors and

this could be done using qualitative

research you could then do a

quantitative study to determine what

portion of your buyers fall into

specific demographic or attitudinal

segments experimental might not be

appropriate in this instance but for

illustration purposes you could set up

observation in Home Depot and watch who

buys which refrigerators going back to

our doctor example as a patient do you

want your doctor to rely on just one

method of gathering data no you want

them to be selective but willing to use

whatever combination of methods are

appropriate to make an accurate

diagnosis and prescribe treatment as you

consider your market research problem

you have a whole toolbox at your

disposal you may not need all the tools

we should pick and choose the ones that

will work for you you need to determine

the best way to get information that can

shed light on the problem and data that

will point to potential solutions

the last time you bought a car or made a

major purchase did you do any research

first did you look at consumer reports

read reviews or consult any other

resources my guess is you probably did

which means you were using secondary

data to help you answer the question

which one should I buy secondary

research is data that is already

available information that someone else

collected for some purpose other than

your specific research problem often

once the research problem has been

defined the natural tendency is to jump

right in and create a survey however

it's a good rule of thumb to pause and

consider what you can learn from

secondary data first the main advantages

of secondary data are that time and

money they can save essentially someone

else has already spent the money to

conduct the research so instead of

spending weeks preparing the survey

fielding the survey and analyzing the

data you simply read the other

information that's available and in the

age of the internet it is easier than

ever to access a multitude of

information with a few clicks of the

mouse let's say that you have invented a

new pet product that will be targeted to

people with incomes of 40,000 to

$100,000 and you need to do some

forecasting a quick Google search

provides multiple hits for statistics on

pet populations ownership and trends in

the US information from this search may

answer some of your questions and help

you refine what other information you

might want to seek with primary research

census gov is a website that provides a

plethora of information including

populations household incomes size of

households all split out by age

ethnicity and geography among many other

factors and for our pet project they

even include the number of households

with pets number and types of pets

dollar spent on pets and even annual

number of trips to the veterinarian

however it's important to be mindful of

the disadvantages of secondary research

including the uncertainty surrounding

the accuracy or quality of the data and

the potential for the data to be

an imperfect fit with what you need for

example let's say one of the sources

reports household income in increments

of thirty to sixty nine thousand and

seventy nine to one hundred and nine

thousand this doesn't fit precisely with

the forty to a hundred thousand dollar

range that you need

although the secondary data will rarely

be an exact fit for your question it's a

good place to start for several reasons

first even if not precise it may be

enough to address your needs and you can

eliminate the need for the primary

research altogether second it may answer

some of your general questions which

means you can spend your time and money

asking more specific questions third it

may provide you with some information

that leads you to ask different

questions than you had initially

intended general sources of secondary

information include directories trade

associations and professional societies

government websites such as census gov

business intelligence reports such as

done in Bradstreet or Moody's

periodicals newsletters and journals and

online databases think of secondary

research as doing your homework what is

your research problem type it into

Google and see where it leads you what

trade associations and periodicals come

up visit their websites do a specific

search within their site you will

probably find that there is too much

information rather than not enough

the purpose of qualitative research is

to access the emotions of your consumers

to get an in-depth understanding of what

they're thinking and why they do the

things they do it's designed to reveal

their behavior understand what is

driving that behavior and discover what

might motivate a change in behavior in

qualitative research an interviewer

called a moderator leads a person or a

group of people called respondents

through a discussion on a particular

topic in contrast to a quantitative

survey where all questions are asked

exactly the same way and in the same

order

qualitative research uses a less

structured discussion guide as its name

implies this is a set of discussion

topics with open-ended questions and

probes that guide the discussion as a

result the moderator is able to push

respondents to reflect and explore their

feelings perceptions and behaviors let's

consider an example to illustrate you

work for andis a national chain of

family restaurants and you're planning

to renovate all of the restaurants to

appeal more to the younger twenty to

thirty year olds without losing the

current appeal to families you may

conduct focus groups with parents who

regularly eat at Andy's with their

families to discover what it is about

Andy's that appeals to them you'll be

looking to discover not just what they

like but why those features are

important and how they make your

customer feel it's often the underlying

emotion that drives loyalty to a brand

for example you might ask them to tell

you about a memorable experience they

had at Andy's or to describe the types

of occasions when they go to Andy's or

you may ask what is though one thing

Andy's should change and what is the one

thing they should not change you may

also conduct focus groups with twenty to

thirty year olds to understand what

types of places they frequent again

you'll be looking for in-depth

descriptions good and bad that will help

you appreciate the overall experience

that this target audience desires while

the dynamic and flex

double nature of qualitative research is

the great advantage the subjectivity is

considered by some to be one of its

disadvantages another disadvantage is

that it relies on a small sample of

people which may or may not reflect the

views of the entire population of

consumers as a result qualitative

research is directional in nature it's

not considered conclusive so if you need

to really understand your customer

understand the emotions that drive their

decisions understand why they behave a

certain way start with qualitative

research

quantitative research is all about

numbers and statistics it seeks to

quantify the thoughts and actions of a

target audience to understand past or

current behaviors and/or to predict

future behaviors how satisfied are our

customers

how will a price increase impact sales

what is the market size for our new

product to illustrate let's continue

with our Andes restaurant example recall

that you work for Andes a national chain

of family restaurants and you're

planning to renovate all of the

restaurants to appeal more to the

younger twenty to thirty year olds

without losing the current appeal to

families because you are looking to

quantify your results all questions

should be written in a way that produce

numerical results some questions are

naturally quantitative in that they ask

for a numerical answer such as how often

do you eat out in an average month on

average how much do you spend when you

eat out how often do you order a salad

or an alcoholic beverage how far do you

typically drive to a restaurant or how

far are you willing to drive other

questions may not request numerical

responses but are asked in such a way as

to be able to quantify the results on a

scale of one to seven please rate how

important each of the following factors

are as reasons that you visit Andes

where one is not at all important and

seven is extremely important on a scale

of one to five please indicate how

strongly you agree or disagree with each

of the following statements because one

of the main goals of quantitative

research is to statistically reflect the

views of a population the execution of

the research is critical several things

must hold true the sample population

that is included must be representative

of the entire population of your target

audience

this may include considerations of

demographics socioeconomic factors

geographic distribution gender ethnicity

specific purchase or activity behaviors

etc the sample population must be

large enough to ensure that the results

will be statistically projectable to the

total population in other words you want

to be sure that the results you got with

this sample would be reproducible if you

conducted the survey again with

different people

finally the questions must be well

formulated unambiguous with a complete

set of mutually exclusive options if not

you're left wondering what the

respondent was thinking when they

answered the question in renovating the

andis restaurants you will want to look

at whether responses differed by region

of the country or by age or by

socioeconomic factors Andes in

California may require a slightly

different layout a different menu or a

different neighborhood location than

Andes in Ohio or you may decide to

market to a slightly different audience

in one location versus another based on

the market potential if this all sounds

complex just know that its standard

practice to consult a statistician on

the front end of a quantitative project

to ensure that the sample size and

characteristics will produce

statistically relevant results so if

your research problem seeks to quantify

thoughts and actions such as forecasting

sales predicting consumer behavior or

measuring satisfaction a quantitative

study may be in order

what would you say if someone asked you

to describe how you do laundry if you're

like most people you would say something

like I sort the laundry into whites and

colors put it in the washer and

detergent when it's done move it to the

dryer yet cetera the problem with asking

someone how they do something is that

they primarily think about main steps

leaving smaller steps out because they

don't think they're relevant or they may

not even realize they're doing something

but if you are trying to come up with a

new product idea to facilitate doing

laundry those little steps or the

unconscious compensating behaviors may

provide precisely the insight that fuels

a new idea the way around this is

ethnography which is a method of

observational research ethnography is

systematically watching someone do

something in his or her native

environment in our laundry case this

would involve watching people do load

after load of laundry under different

circumstances in their home apartment or

laundromat whatever is their natural

environment consider that years ago

people would measure detergent in a

measuring cup ethnography revealed that

people would frequently misplace the

measuring cup or simply not use it

because it was an added step instead

they were using the lid of the detergent

bottle to guesstimate the quantity but

when they put the lid back on whatever

detergent was left in the lid would leak

down the side of the bottle that little

discovery led to adding drainage slits

in the bottle and measuring lines on the

lid

ethnography with surgeons in operating

rooms has led to the development of

instruments that are more ergonomically

suited for where a surgeon stands

relative to the patient ethnography and

health clubs led to the addition of

magazine racks and water bottle holders

on the treadmills after observing people

consistently crafting their own holders

during workouts ethnographic research is

often referred to as in homes or shop

belongs depending on the type of

observation it entails in shop belongs

you would accompany the respondent on a

shopping trip and observe how they shop

what catches their attention what do

they pick up what do they read and

ultimately what do they buy this might

lead to changes in package design or

shelf placement

or if you're the store owner perhaps in

the redesign of the store the key is to

watch for annoyances or inconveniences

and for compensating behaviors what do

consumers do as a workaround for

something that is not exactly what they

want or need these are opportunities for

innovation

another method of observation is

simulation like ethnography simulation

involves watching someone do something

however unlike ethnography it's done in

a simulated environment

for example you may have a Test Kitchen

where you bring people in and watch them

bake cakes or you may set up shelves of

cereal similar to how they would look at

a grocery store and watch people shop

the advantage of this is that it is a

controlled environment and potentially

makes it easier to observe the downside

is that it cannot exactly replicate the

natural environment so some things may

be missed a third method of observation

is an experiment similar to simulation

you're watching people do something in a

simulated environment but in this case

you may have different environments or

multiple product options to see how a

change impacts behavior for example

maybe you arranged the cereal in two

different ways on the shelves and see if

it alters which products consumers pick

or perhaps you stock this Test Kitchen

with different utensils or different

cake mixes and see what impact this has

on how the cakes are made observational

research is a great tool but it isn't

for every project think about your

project would Observation be useful to

accomplishing your goals if so how and

where does your customer interact with

your product and is it feasible to

observe this observational research is

expensive and time-consuming but if it's

appropriate it always leads to discovery

of some critical nuance that might

otherwise have been missed

you

let's assume that a company is looking

to develop a new product line of

fragrances that you can add to a load of

laundry with this product you can add

any fragrance you want and as much or as

little as you like the company wants to

conduct some market research to predict

potential purchase how do you think

their predictions would differ if they

talk to all shoppers age eighteen and

older who shopped at Walmart on Saturday

and Sunday versus moms who do at least

eight loads of laundry a week versus

people who buy scented laundry detergent

or anyone who buys at least one bottle

of laundry detergent per month you might

expect that the opinions of each of

these groups of people would vary right

the point is who you talk to can

influence what you hear it doesn't

matter how many people you talk to if

they aren't the right people you will

likely end up with incorrect or

irrelevant information so first you want

to define your target audience based on

the research objectives in the example

above perhaps the company decides to

include women in the u.s. ages 25 to 45

who do at least four loads of laundry a

week but they want to exclude anyone who

says they will only buy unscented

products the population refers to

everyone in your target audience in this

case every single person in the US who

fits the inclusion and exclusion

criteria now since it is likely

impractical to talk to the entire

population of your target audience you

will talk to a sample of the population

whose opinions will then represent the

total population in addition to

inclusion and exclusion criteria there

are three primary things you will

consider in creating the sample first is

the size of the sample this will depend

on the type of research you are doing

whether it's qualitative or quantitative

time and budget constraints and how

critical it is to ensure that the sample

is statistically representative of the

population second will be quotas for

specific characteristics that define

your pop

violation in our example we might want

to ensure that we have a specific number

of ethnically diverse women in our group

to ensure that the total population is

represented and while we've said women

ages 25 to 45 we may want to ensure that

a specific percentage are 25 to 34 and

35 to 45 so we don't end up with

everyone being 25 to 30 we may also want

to ensure that we have a mix of women in

different socio-economic categories or a

mix of those who live in rural suburban

and urban locations or in different

parts of the country to get all

perspectives in quantitative research

you may want to look for differences

among these groups how does the opinion

of someone who is twenty five to thirty

four differ from that of someone thirty

five to forty five how does the opinion

of someone on the East Coast differ from

that of someone on the West Coast third

are special considerations required for

the research for example maybe they have

to have internet access now not everyone

in your population will have internet

access so your sample will not be

totally representative or perhaps

everyone has to be fluent in English or

has to be comfortable talking in a group

just know that these may decrease how

representative your sample is but the

trade-off may be worth it to ensure that

you're able to get the information

you're looking for so who do you need to

talk to to ensure that the data you

collect is relevant and applicable to

your research objective can you define

what the inclusion and exclusion

criteria should be to recruit the

correct respondents how will you balance

the need for accuracy with the budget

when it comes to sample size and type

the key is never assume that as long as

you talk to enough people you will have

enough information to solve the problem

at hand

make sure you are talking to the right

people

you've heard the saying ask a stupid

question get a stupid answer right is he

think about market research it may be

more precise to say ask a question

stupidly get a useless answer if you've

ever filled out a survey and thought

none of these options apply to me you

know what I mean so let's talk about

what goes into creating a good set of

questions for your research there are

two types of questions open-ended and

closed ended questions closed any

questions are questions with a limited

choice of responses whereas open-ended

questions do not limit responses to

illustrate the difference consider these

two questions tell me about why you shop

at mini-mart versus which of the

following are reasons why you shop at

mini-mart the first question is

open-ended meaning the respondent

answers with whatever comes to mind and

as they answer the interviewer can ask

follow-up questions about their response

for example if the respondent answers

because it's convenient the interviewer

can ask what is convenient mean and why

do you consider mini-mart to be

convenient the second question which of

the following are reasons why you shop

at mini-mart is a closed-ended question

which means that the respondent can only

select from a list of predetermined

options like convenient location variety

of products price etc designing well

formulated questions is an absolute

requirement to getting useful data so

let's consider some not so well

formulated questions to get a sense of

what we need question number one what is

your age with these options to choose

from

how does someone respond if they're

thirty would the checkbox be or box see

the problem is that when you're

analyzing the results you don't know

which box the 30 year old respondents

checked ensure that your answers are

mutually exclusive question number two

you indicated that you eat at Pete's

check less than once a month

why don't you eat there more often with

these options

one of the respondents reason is that

there isn't a location near their house

or they don't like the food they will be

forced to pick an answer that does not

represent their reason which will skew

your data at the very least this

question should have an other option but

it is important to ensure that you have

a fairly complete list of options to

choose from question number three what

is the fastest and most economical way

to get from New York to Boston well an

airplane is the fastest but a bus is the

most economical how would a respondent

answer do you pick the airplane or the

bus or do you pick something in between

unfortunately when you analyze the data

you'll have no idea what the respondent

was thinking when they answered ensure

that you are asking only one question at

a time

question number four don't you agree

that the government should not force us

to pay higher taxes this is what we call

a leading or biased question you are

biasing the answer by setting up the

question in a way that makes it appear

there is one right answer don't you

agree

implies that the right answer is to

agree additionally use of extreme words

like force can also buy us the answer so

you can see how important the design of

the questions is if you ask a poorly

designed question you'll have no idea

whether the results are reliable or how

to interpret them have you set yourself

up for success the best way to know is

to test the questions before you launch

your project

have you ever noticed that well-written

articles use an inverted pyramid

structure for the flow of information it

starts with the broad information first

who what when where and why to give the

reader the basic information set the

context for what follows and generally

engage the reader the article then moves

to the important details of the story

and finishes with background information

a similar approach is used for

structuring the questions in a market

research survey or discussion guide in

most cases you are going to structure

questions from broad basic questions to

more specific ones this funnel approach

serves several purposes first it allows

the respondent to ease into their

participation the first questions are

crucial as they set the tone for the

rest of the survey or interview if the

first questions are threatening or

uninteresting the respondent may refuse

to answer the rest of the questions so

start with easy to answer factual

questions that are on topic these

initial questions may not even be

relevant from an analysis perspective

but may simply relax the respondent and

gain their cooperation for answering the

more specific questions later second it

gives you context for the subsequent

answers if they share with you that

their car was recently in the shop three

times for repairs and you later ask what

factors are most important in a new car

purchase you have some context for why

they might put reliability in warranties

at the top of the list third it lends

itself to a degree of logic which is a

requirement for a good survey jumping

from topic to topic confuses the

respondent and can therefore result in

potentially contradictory answers fourth

it minimizes the likelihood that early

questions will bias the answers to later

questions if a respondent is asked first

about how prices compare among products

and whether they think the products are

reasonably priced and then later you ask

them what aspects of the product are

most important James says our price will

be overemphasized because you've already

introduced

which to some degree implies that it's

important finally it establishes rapport

so that the respondent is more open to

answering more sensitive or specific

questions later as an example let's say

you want to get a reaction to a new

over-the-counter pain medication you

might start with general questions like

under what circumstances do you use an

over-the-counter pain medication how

often do you use them which brand or

brands do you use today and why these

are not too personal so they are

relatively easy to answer and serve to

warm up the respondent for the topic at

hand then you might move to what are the

most important characteristics of pain

medications what do you like and dislike

about the current products

what would an ideal pain medication look

like these are a bit more personal as

they involve some level of judgment but

by now the respondent is engaged

additionally by asking what is top of

mind

you've not biased their thoughts on the

new product that will be shown next then

finally you move into a description of

the new product and ask what their

thoughts are likes and dislikes and how

likely they would be to use it you have

a context for their responses as they

previously shared what they thought an

ideal medication would look like so as

you structure the survey or discussion

guide keep the inverted pyramid in mind

introduce broad topics first and then

drill down to more specific topics begin

with framing questions before moving to

more specific questions if you give the

respondent an opportunity to warm up

relax and get engaged before honing in

on the key questions you have

substantially increased the likelihood

of getting information that will be

useful in solving your research problem

think of the last time you purchased an

item and someone contacted you to get

feedback on your experience did you

receive a survey in the mail or via

email or did someone call you did you

respond whoever was conducting the

research had to weigh the pros and cons

of each of these options for collecting

data

considering budget time response rates

and availability of contact information

to decide what method to use the same

will be true for you when you conduct

your research in addition to internet

surveys mail surveys or phone surveys

you could consider intercept surveys

where you stop people on the street or

exiting the polls or in the mall or you

might consider recruiting people to come

to a specific location where they could

take a self-administered survey or do a

one-on-one interview or participate in a

focus group or you could do some

combination of these options the choice

will depend on several factors such as

the number of participants where the

respondents live the type of information

you need your budget and the

demographics of your participants among

other things here are a few examples to

help you understand how the project

needs may influence the data collection

method let's say you need to get 2,000

people ages 25 to 80 to participate and

you have a limited budget it's a lot of

people so stopping people in the mall

might not be efficient or representative

and recruiting people to a central

location might cost too much so here you

might consider internet or phone options

if the topic of your research is

determining the type of people who shop

at a specific mall then doing them all

intercept might be the most appropriate

option if you have a complex topic or

need to show people a product you really

have to consider an in-person option if

your respondent population is elderly

not all of them might be on the internet

so a telephone survey may work better if

your respondent population includes

people who might have difficulty reading

or writing a self-administered survey

might not be the right option if you're

discussing a politically or personally

sensitive topic a group setting might

not be the right

option there really is no single right

way to collect your data but it is

important to consider the trade-offs to

determine which one or ones fit best

with your objectives and project

constraints so ask yourself some

questions to help you determine what

will work for your project what

information am I looking for does this

rule out any of the collection methods

what is the budget and how does that

impact my choices

where are the respondents I need to

include and what's the best method for

reaching them are there any special

considerations for my respondent base

once you have answered these types of

questions it is very likely that you

will have a good idea of which method

will best balance the pros and cons for

your project

in theater when the curtain goes up the

audience watches as a play unfolds

telling a story

the audience is unaware of all the work

that transpired behind the curtain

leading up to this one show their

experience and their review will be

based only on what they see when the

curtain goes up in market research the

report is much like what happens when

the curtain goes up

many people who read the report will

have had no involvement with what went

on backstage the entire market research

project will be evaluated on the basis

of how well a report tells the story in

fact research indicates that the report

is one of the five most important

elements affecting whether or not the

results of the research actually get

used so let's look at the elements of a

good market research report first know

the audience who is going to be reading

the report what were their assumptions

going into the project what do they know

about the project the answers to these

questions will frame the report for

example if the results contradict what

their beliefs were going into the

project the report may need to highlight

the comparisons between the actual

results and the expected results second

ensure that the report is a complete

representation of the project provide

enough background on the project for a

reader to understand the circumstances

that led to the initiation of the

research remember some of your readers

will know nothing about this project

briefly explain the methodologies of the

research including sample design in any

rationale for those methodologies

clearly state the objectives and key

questions the research sought to address

then ensure that the bulk of the report

addresses these objectives and key

questions third be clear and concise

this doesn't mean the report should be

short but it doesn't mean it shouldn't

be a data dump of everything you learned

address the objectives with enough

information to back them up and do so

within a logical organized structure

keep sentences brief into the point and

when possible use visuals to communicate

rather than a paragraph of

texts continuously ask yourself what am

I trying to say here and why am i trying

to say it if you can't answer these

questions you can be sure your audience

can't either

forth tell a story summarize the results

but include verbatim to flavor the

findings and bring them to life Chip and

Dan Heath authors of multiple books

explain that data are just summaries of

thousands of stories tell a few of those

stories to help make the data meaningful

it's the story that will keep the

audience engaged in the results finally

tell them what the results mean to their

business this is after all why the

research was done to make some decision

about the business these are the

conclusions and recommendations and

should clearly tie back to the

objectives and I cannot emphasize the

importance of checking that the report

is free of spelling and grammatical

errors

nothing diminishes the perception of the

quality of the report and hence the

quality of the entire research project

faster than typos have someone else

proofread before you hit Send so as you

are writing the report ask yourself will

this report engage the audience did I

give them context for why and how the

research was done did I loop back and

address the objectives that were

established did I provide the right

amount of data in a way that is

meaningful one of the laws of market

research is that people would rather

live with a problem they cannot solve

then accept a solution they cannot

understand

make sure your readers understand the

solution so the results will actually be

used

you

unfortunately there are several

opportunities for errors to occur during

the market research process

that can lead to poor data collection

and therefore unusable results one

category of errors is sampling errors

which primarily applies to quantitative

research since it's impractical to

survey every single person in your

target audience you have likely selected

a sample of the population whose

opinions will represent the total

population sampling errors result in the

sample not being representative let's

look at the possible sampling errors and

how to minimize them population

specification error this error occurs

when the researcher doesn't understand

who should be included in the survey for

example if you're conducting research on

future car purchases and you sample

current car owners you've missed a

segment of your population namely those

who don't currently have a car but may

consider a purchase in the future sample

frame error the sample frame is the

population from which the sample is

chosen and this type of error occurs

when that population isn't

representative of your total a classic

example of this occurred in the 1936

presidential election the researchers

used car registrations and the telephone

directory as sources for their sample

randomly selecting names from both for

their poll however in 1936 many

Americans didn't own cars or telephones

and those who did were largely

republican so when their random sample

was polled they wrongly predicted a

Republican victory selection error this

type of error occurs when respondents

self select their participation only

those interested respond for example

suppose you're looking to get feedback

on airline services if you survey only

those who are interested in the survey

topic there's a possibility that you'll

have a negatively skewed result those

interested in participating may be more

likely to have had a bad experience and

now on an opportunity to vent

you can minimize this through persistent

follow up with everyone invited to

participate non-response error this type

of error occurs on the makeup of the

audience who responds to the survey is

different than the makeup of your total

audience population non-response errors

have increased in recent years with the

institution of laws inhibiting

telemarketing and caller ID enabling

people to not answer calls from parties

they don't recognize convenient samples

may also result in a population that's

not representative of the total audience

but this is less of an error than a

choice if for example you've chosen a

specific location for conducting the

research out of convenience or cost this

sample may not be representative of the

total sample the difference is that in

this case you're consciously making the

decision to bias the sample and can take

this into account when analyzing the

data so as you move forward with your

research think about these opportunities

for error as you consider both the

design of the sample and the data

collection methods meet with a

statistician at the start of the project

to determine the sample size needed to

minimize these errors consider what

resources you'll use to get people to

participate sampling errors can be

minimized by careful sample designs

large samples and persistent multiple

contacts and follow-ups to ensure a

representative response

in market research we use the phrase

garbage in garbage out meaning that when

the data collection is flawed the

results won't be useful response errors

are errors that occur during the data

collection and are not related to the

sample itself while sampling errors are

most applicable to quantitative research

response errors can be found in both

qualitative and quantitative research

there are four primary types of response

errors the first type of error is

respondent error this refers to the

respondent providing incorrect

information either intentionally or

unintentionally for any number of

different reasons the respondent may not

want to give the true answer because the

question is sensitive or there are

socially acceptable responses this is

more likely to occur when the respondent

is answering questions verbally versus

in a written or online format where

there's greater anonymity for example if

you asked a question like do you take

medication to manage stress the

respondent may not want to admit that in

fact he does take medication to manage

stress questions that rely on memory or

recall can often result in unintended

respondent error for example asking

respondent how much they spent at the

grocery store last week the respondent

may be trying to answer truthfully but

may not know the actual amount spent

respondent error can also occur with

fatigue or lack of engagement during the

research which may result in giving

average answers versus thoughtful

accurate responses or the respondent may

simply misunderstand the question the

second type of error is interviewer bias

this can either be biased responses from

the respondent based on who the

interviewer is or the interviewer

imposing bias in the way questions are

asked in the first situation the

respondent may engage with the

interviewer differently based on the

interviews gender or ethnicity a female

respondent may provide very different

responses to the same questions

if asked by a female interviewer versus

a male interviewer in the second

situation the interviewer can also bias

the results different interviewers may

administer a survey in different ways

in qualitative research where the

questions are less structured the

interviewer may ask questions in a

biased way such as don't you think that

X is better than Y or the order in which

questions are asked may bias answers to

subsequent questions interviewer bias

can be minimized by matching gender and

ethnicity as often as possible and

hiring skilled interviewers to conduct

the research the third error is

measurement error which is generally

result of poorly worded questions the

question may use language that is

unclear to the respondent or may be

ambiguously worded the list of potential

answers might be incomplete or

definitions may be open to

interpretation

for example asking an employer how many

part-time employees they have will

result in different answers depending on

how the employer defines a part-time

worker measurement error can be

minimized by pre testing the

questionnaire to ensure that all

questions are well formulated and easily

interpreted the final type of response

error is recording here this is often

simply a matter of incorrectly typing a

response this can be minimised by

instituting controls and data processing

and/or using a computer program that can

check logic consistency across answers

and flag those that don't make sense

response errors cannot be completely

avoided what steps can you take to

ensure that the data coming in will not

be producing garbage going out

ever start a simple project only to have

it balloon out of control you know what

I'm talking about the bedroom needs a

new coat of paint simple enough just by

the paint find the time to do it but

then you think oh maybe a new color

would be nice but then the curtains

don't really go with it

so you need a new window treatment and

as long as you're doing all of that you

might as well get a new light fixture

sound familiar when conducting market

research it is all too common to hear

the phrase as long as we're doing this

why don't we ask fill in the blank we

call this scope creep which refers to

changes in the original parameters of

the project which you establish when you

formulated the research problem talking

to customers is so beneficial that when

others learn that you will be doing this

they want to jump on the bandwagon

unfortunately adding objectives and

other desired information to the

original plan can significantly impact

the timeline and the budget additionally

as you add length to the interview or

survey you risk respondent fatigue which

can decrease the quality of the data

collected so what can you do to prevent

this

first you should involve all

stakeholders who will be using the

research results early on in the project

don't assume you know what others will

want from the research allow them to

provide direct input once you have all

the input it's critical to prioritize

the need to know from the nice to know

information ensure that all information

being sought will be actionable once

you've done this you put the information

into a clearly defined research

objective what needs to be done action

and with whom target market what

information is needed how the

information is going to be used

establish the deliverables for the

project and get others to sign off on it

finally implement a process for making

changes to the original project scope

even though you've put everything in

place to avoid scope creep there may

still be times when there is a need to

expand the project parameters just

ensure that it is a conscious decision

and all parties understand the

implications

to the budget and timeline so imagine

starting your room renovation with a

list of everything you might like to do

getting input from anyone else who might

have an opinion and prioritizing the

must-do versus the nice to do then you

can make fewer trips to the store and

end the project on time and on budget

don't just wish your market research

project could run that smoothly plan for

it and make it happen

former Supreme Court justice Potter

Stewart once said ethics is knowing the

difference between what you have a right

to do and what is right to do the

ability to conduct market research

depends on the willingness of the public

to participate currently people are

getting more and more protective of

their privacy which makes it more

difficult to recruit respondents bad

research experiences that violate the

trust of participants can only make it

worse

this is all the more reason why

researchers must abide by a code of

ethics that protects participants so

let's talk about a few of the key

ethical considerations concerning

respondents first is that it is critical

to preserve the anonymity of and the

privacy of respondents this means that

personal information about the

respondents including full name phone

number email addresses or any other

identifying piece of information should

not be revealed to the client in

addition to the researcher anyone

observing the research or utilizing the

data must adhere to this as well second

is that any potential respondent must be

informed upfront what the purpose of the

research is and what their participation

entails and they must willingly give

their consent to participate third is

that if the research will be audio or

video recorded or has been observed the

respondent must be informed of this up

front and must be given the option to

refuse at any time during the research

the respondent always has the option not

to answer a question or not to continue

with the research fourth is that the

information be used for market research

purposes only this is not about selling

or promoting anything and the

information should not be used for sales

or solicitations this one might not be

quite as clear so let's consider two

examples you are conducting focus groups

with surgeons during the course of the

group one of them expresses a negative

opinion about your company's product due

to some incorrect information the

regional manager is observing the focus

group recognizes the surgeon and

immediately contacts the local rep to

tell them to meet with the surgeon to

give them the right information that

violate two of our rules not preserving

anonymity and privacy of the respondent

and using the information to sell

specifically to that individual another

example a client or a colleague

approaches you to conduct research on a

new product that's about to be launched

they want you to contact a specific list

of competitive users to share the

details of the product get feedback and

gauge interest here you need to be very

careful about the intent of the research

the fact that a specific list of

competitive users is being used to

recruit makes this sound a bit like

paying someone to listen to a sales

pitch the researcher also has an

obligation to abide by the code of

ethics that apply to the client or

whomever initiated the research among

the most important of these is to

provide appropriate disclosure of the

means and methods used to conduct the

research and to always report research

results accurately and honestly even if

they are not what the client wants to

hear for a complete code of ethics you

can visit the marketing research

associations website marketing research

org just because you can do something

doesn't mean you should do it put

yourself in the respondents shoes and

ask yourself how would you like to be

treated this is often the best gauge of

whether or not something is within the

code of ethics
you

when you think about what makes a

company successful customers are going

to be at the top of that list but what

really differentiates one company from

another is how well they know their

customer and market research is the key

market research is all about getting to

know your customer at a deeper level

what they want what they need and what

makes them tick as a result of this

course you should now understand the

fundamentals of market research and

understand the tools available to

conduct a successful market research

project if this course is what your

appetite and you want to learn more

there are a number of organizations that

you might find helpful

including the marketing Research

Association the qualitative research

consultants Association the Council of

American survey research organizations

and the european society for opinion and

market research one of the things I hope

you've taken away from this course is

that although market research is a

science it is very much an art as well

so take what you've learned and get to

know your customer you'll be surprised

at what you might discover

you