Focus Insite

If qualitative market research is a new concept for your organization, you may be surprised to learn how many steps are involved to take a market research study from beginning to end. We’ve seen a lot of studies go sideways because the person or team in charge doesn’t fully understand all the layers, or perhaps they don’t place enough importance on certain facets, and that becomes the weak link. Let’s explore the various steps involved in a well-executed qualitative market research study. Hypothesis or Essential Question to be Explored Before you fill a study, it’s important to have a very clear understanding of the hypothesis to be tested or essential question you want answered. You don’t want your question or hypothesis to be too broad. By keeping the focus narrow, you’ll be more likely to discover what you are looking for. This can be a challenge for teams who don’t have experience in conducting qualitative studies, as the tendency is to ask too many questi

With the availability of Survey Monkey, and other social media platforms making easy-to-create surveys available to users, you may be wondering if you can manage insite research for your organization by relying on the quick and easy marketing tools available online. DIY survey tools have been around for a few years now, and what we’ve noticed is that while these tools may offer quick snapshots for easy questions, they are no substitute for comprehensive market research studies. Part of the issue, is survey questions aren’t written up properly, and the responses based on poorly written survey questions can be irrelevant. This can end up wasting time and energy, which is a bummer, but not the end of the world. The bigger problem is if strategic decisions are made using faulty data. This isn’t to say that DIY survey tools don’t have a place within organizations. There is little doubt that they can be helpful if done properly. Mostly, we want to caution organizatio

Before any insite research study can get underway, you first need to identify and recruit qualified participants. While it may seem straight forward, market research consultants give a lot of thought to the type of person who best represents the subject of the study, and will create screening guides to assist with the recruitment process. This isn’t a superfluous layer that adds billable hours to a project, it’s an essential component of recruitment that not only saves time and money, but also influences the outcome of the study. Research consultants will work with the company commissioning the study to understand what they want to learn, and then determine what qualifications are important for the type of people to recruit to participate in the study. Much of the nitty-gritty work of market research takes place before the first participant is even recruited. Precisely defining what you are and aren’t looking for will make recruiting easier, regardless if this i

When qualitative research consultants design market research studies, it is likely to include focus groups. While there are a number of other research methodologies that can be utilized, focus groups remain popular. Deciding to include focus groups in a study is the easy part, but focus groups won’t be successful if some thought isn’t first given to a number of questions. Four essential questions that need to be considered before conducting focus groups include: What is the overall budget for the market research study? This question informs the researcher about how many focus groups can be included in the study. If the budget is small, a lot more consideration needs to be given on who is invited to participate. You want to extract the most meaningful information from fewer people, so considerable thought needs to go into recruitment efforts. With more ample budgets, researchers can conduct enough focus groups to be more holistically representative Who should