Do you know the techniques you can use
for doing market research? What differences are involved in doing qualitative
research as opposed to collecting quantitative data?
Read the text and then do the
exercises.
1
Companies carry out
Market Research to gather and analyse data to understand and explain what
people think about products or adverts, to find out about customer satisfaction
and to predict how customers might respond to a new product on the market.
2
Market Research can
be categorised under two subheadings – Quantitative Research and Qualitative
Research. The questions asked with Quantitative Research are structured whereas
Qualitative Research questions are much more open and can often reveal
consumption habits which the researchers hadn’t previously considered. You
carry out Quantitative Research when you need to know how many people have
certain habits and the Qualitative Research when you need to know why and how
people do what they do.
3
Companies involved in
Market Research include the Research Buyer and the Research Agency. The
research agency carries out the market research in ways previously discussed
with their clients – the research buyer. Sometimes companies only need their
own data analysed, or are simply looking for advice on how to carry out their
own research. Points that are discussed between the two parties can include:
- The time duration of the research
- The budget available
- Who the target groups are
- Predictions of results
- How the results will be helpful
- Street Surveys - stopping people in the street
- Phone or postal - people fill in questionnaires and send them back
- Internet surveys - a relatively new technique which functions in a similar way to other surveys except that a large number of people are interviewed at the same time
- Am I asking the right groups of people?
- How many people should I speak to in order to get representative answers to my questions?
- Are my questions easy to understand?
- How am I going to analyse the data?
- Focus groups - discussion between a small number of people about a product, or advert etc. to find out their views or habits
- Personal interviews - in-depth discussions on a one-to-one basis
- CAPI - computer assisted personal interviewing where questions are ‘asked’ by the computer and the answers are typed by the interviewee directly into the database for analysis
- Observation - this can be used as a complement to asking questions to see how people do what they do
- Are my questions open enough to get personalised answers?
- Have I restricted my target group?
- Do I only need to find out ‘why’ people do what they do or should I also do some quantitative research?
Comprehension
Match the article's
paragraph headings with the paragraph numbers.Types of data Why carry out Market Research? Who does Market Research?
Ways of collecting Qualitative data Qualitative research - questions to ask yourself
Quantitative research - questions to ask yourself
Ways of collecting Quantitative data
Task 2
Question formation
Put the words in these
questions into the correct order.people? asking of I the right groups Am
understand? my questions Are to easy
the I goin am How data? analyse to
enough open personalised answers? to get Are my questions
target I group? Have my restricted
Keys
Task 1
1. Why carry out Market Research?
2. Types of data
3. Who does Market Research?
4. Ways of collecting Quantitative data.
5. Quantitative research - questions to ask yourself.
6. Ways of collecting Qualitative data.
7. Qualitative research - questions to ask yourself
Task 2
Am I asking the right groups of people?
Are my questions easy to understand?
How am I going to analyse the data?
Are my questions open enough to get personalised answers?
Have I restricted my target group?
