Contrary to many people’s perception, conducting a market research study is not a simple process of putting together a few questions, interviewing some people and counting each person’s answers to the questions asked. It involves careful thinking and planning, and more important, it involves strategy and operational efficiency.

The downside of not doing so could result in one or more of the following:

• Last minute and constant changes to the research questions and timing.
• Inability to form useful and meaningful conclusion.
• Wastage of resources (money and manpower) in re-doing or over-doing tasks.
• Missing the business opportunity, especially if the company is under competitive environment.

The following are some essential (it is not at all exhaustive) guidelines on how to design, plan, develop, execute and obtain meaningful outcome from a marketing research study.

These guidelines are assuming you wish to conduct the market research on your own, or at least provide you some understanding how market research companies operate.

1. 1.      Designing the research study

1.1   Before you embark on any market research study, the company (management or marketing team) need to be clear exactly what is expected from this research. The Objective of the study should be framed within the boundaries of marketing and better yet, be able to support / complement the marketing plan, or to solve a marketing-related problem. An example of a research objective based on a problem could be: “In view of the new entry of Competitor A into the market, what and where are the opportunities for us to focus on to remain profitable ?”. Another research objective could be: “If we lower our price by 10%, or reduce the size of the bottle by 5%, how much effect will it have on the customer in terms of choosing this product against that of our competitor?”.

1.2   After formulating the research objective (or, problem / opportunity statement), you will need to map out all the possible anticipated answers. For each of the possible answers, the management/marketing team may need to think through these scenarios and plan for some actions.

1.3   For every product or services you have, be specific on who are your target audience. It is too simplistic to merely say “Everyone”, since you do not have unlimited budget. As such, try to narrow down your target respondents to people directly impacted by your product or services. Eg: “All females aged 19 – 35 years old, single or married, personal income > 2000 per month, own 2 or more credit cards”, or “”Senior citizens aged 60 years and above, living alone and with no visible disabilities”.

1.4   For research methodology, you may choose from one of the following: census, quantitative or qualitative research. It is also possible to have a hybrid study, whereby you may wish to commence your research with qualitative focus group study first to verify your hypothesis, and followed by quantitative study on selected samples of the universe. Only in rare cases will you need to conduct a census.

1.5   To design a sampling frame, you need the assistance of a statistician or person well-versed with statistical analysis. Where your market is homogeneous (ie: same sort of profile), it is ok to use random sampling. But most times, your market is heterogeneous where your respondent profile is varied, resulting in use of probability sampling, quota sampling or weighted sampling.

1.6   Finally, in designing a study, think about the fieldwork effort. Whether your research is conducted face-to-face, via telephone, online, self-completion, mall-test or via social media, it is good to be realistic about the number of interviews that can be done per day. Factor in rejection, incomplete or erroneous study, verification and validation checks, the number of interviews that can be complete correlates with the number of resources available.

1. 2.      Designing the questionnaire

2.1   It is good to know that a typical survey research interview Is 20-30 minutes in length. As such, you should always design your questionnaire with that in mind, else you may incur the wrath of the respondent thus receiving negative feedback instead.

2.2   Once you have decided the length of the interview, you now need to decide the breadth of the interview. How many key areas do you wish to cover? Meaning, if you are surveying regarding a product, some common key areas could be:

(a)    usage, awareness and incident of use. Eg: how often do you use product X? Have you heard or seen product X? when was the last time you purchased or used product X?

(b)   advertising and promotions. This includes the respondents awareness, consumption or reaction to the advertising or promotions campaign.

(c)    Competition. Awareness, usage and feedback on competitive products.

(d)   Product attributes – Likes/Dislikes.

(e)   Product image and reputation. May include branding, packaging, promotional messages, etc.

2.3   For each of the key areas, formulate 3-5 sub-questions to probe into that key area. Eg: You say you have used product X, how would you rate the product in terms of …. Smoothness? Taste? Smell? Ability to heal?

2.4   Demographic questions are profiles of the respondents you wish to capture and to analyze against. These should be single answers, non-ambiguous and unchanging during the lifespan of the study period. Eg: Respondents age, gender, personal or household income, occupation, etc.

2.5   Finally, when formulate the questions, take care to simplify your questions and not have too many variables in the question, or be too presumptuous, eg: DO NOT ask “In a typical day, when you wake up and go to work, how many slices of bread do you usually eat?”. This question is presuming that the respondent (a) goes to work, (b) eats bread for breakfast, and (c) is a typical person.

1. 3.      Analyzing the research findings

3.1   When you have completed your research fieldwork, after the data is cleaned (validated and verified) and coded (open-ended questions should be categorized, grouped and coded), the next step is to generate reports and/or charts. Instead of attempting to generate every combination of questions against each other, you only need to cross-tabulate the key questions against the demographic questions:

3.2   As you analyze each key and sub-questions, pay attention to exceptional answers where (a) you expected high count but resulting answers is lower, or (b) you did not expect something to emerge but resulting answers show some significance. For each of these exceptional cases, you may wish to probe deeper into the results by analyzing those results. Eg: Suppose Product X shows a significant number (or percentage) for respondents aged 18 years and below, you an probe as follows:

3.3 Finally, do not forget the primary objective why the research was conducted in the first place. Is the findings sufficient to proof or disproof your hypothesis? Is your business problem solved? Have you found your area of opportunity?

The next time you embark on conducting a marketing research, it is always good to look ahead and determine if you really need to do it yourself. Check if the data is available elsewhere, or if you can make a decision based on other information or data. Proper market research is costly and time-consuming!