Market Research Methodology for the Rest of Us!

To better understand your business market, you need to employ the right market research methodology to your research endeavors.

Market research is aimed at identifying and understanding the needs and elements of your target market. Whether you already have a business with paying customers or are just starting out, you'll need to profile your target customers. Market research is one effective way to confirm and develop a consumer profile.

There are several forms of market research methodology, but all of them tend to fall into one of two overarching types of research: Quantitative Research and Qualitative Research. Both are aimed at extracting messages and information from target users and buyers. The difference between them lies mainly in how they attempt to do so.

Qualitative market research aims to gain insight into the customer's or user's 's attitudes and feelings. It doesn't really ask the customer or user to rate their satisfaction or agreement to any attribute. Instead, its purpose is to extract key messages, issues and perceptions, which can be used to better understand what messages and issues appear to be important to them. This can be achieved in focus group discussions, panels, taste tests and in-depth interviews.

Qualitative research is often used as a foundation for developing quantitative research. Messages and issues can be quantified and measured using scales in quantitative research to confirm and investigate the extent to which those messages are relevant to a larger sample.

Thus, quantitative research carries investigates the target market on broader scale, but in less detail than does qualitative research. It aims to measure various metrics of a business, its product and services numerically, such as using an index or establishing percentages. The most common method of conducting quantitative research is through a survey or questionnaire.

The combined use of qualitative and quantitative market research methodology is known as quali-quant research.

It's also important to determine the best way to recruit your sample market. After all, you can not survey the entire market, since it's likely too big to capture. But a reasonable and acceptable sample can represent the larger market with a certain level of accuracy.

If you aim to determine the demographic make up of your target customer base, you can utilize random sampling as your basis of recruiting samples. On the other hand, you may want to set a quota based on certain criteria to ensure you gain information from a broad scope of users in the market. Screening and qualifying respondents to survey is important to the quality of your sample.

Another market research methodology is known as secondary research, or desk research. Secondary research involves studying information and data from secondary sources. In other words, you were not directly involved in collecting and processing of data yourself. Instead, you acquire data from other sources such as newspapers, journals, interviews with industry experts, government statistics and industry reports. This is an effective market research methodology when exploring the feasibility of entering new markets or when you want to understand industry trends at an overall level.

Regardless of which research method you employ, thesee common steps apply towards developing a study:

1. Identify what you want to know, what results you are seeking
2. Establish your objectives
3. Identify who your target groups are and what size of sample you will need and can afford for the outcome to be statistically meaningful
4. Design your research by selecting the most effective and relevant methodologies
5. Identify how you will recruit, screen, and select your target sample
6. Design your survey questionnaire or guide
7. Hire and train your data collection team
8. Check and clean your data from potential errors or inconsistencies
9. Analyze your data and study your findings
10. Create an action plan based on your objectives and results

Incorporating these steps into your market research process will help you achieve reliable results. By employing the best market research methodology and designing your research model effectively, you can gain valuable insight from your user, customers - even customers of your competitors - and improve your business to better meet the needs of the market.

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