Top 6 marketing research methods

There are several methods for conducting market research. Most businesses, however, use one or more of the six basic marketing research methods: focus groups, observation, personal interviews, surveys, field trials, and competitive analysis. The methods you choose will be determined by how much money you are willing to spend and the type of data you require.

Also read: Market research tools

1. Surveys

Using concise and straightforward questionnaires, you can evaluate a sample group representing your target market. The larger your sample size, the more reliable your results are. There are several ways to conduct marketing research using surveys, such as in-person surveys (one-on-one interviews), telephone surveys, email surveys, and online surveys.

Surveys are the most basic type of marketing research method. These are useful when you want to quantify something and have a relatively large sample to survey. You can gather quantitative and qualitative data using surveys. 

2. Focus groups

A moderator uses a scripted series of questions/ topics to lead a discussion among a group of people in this type of marketing research method. It can last one or two hours and requires at least three groups to produce a balanced result. You can gain valuable insights into customer attitudes as well as identify problems with new products/services.

It is no secret that focus groups have a significant impact on decision-making. The diverse viewpoints of each participant can provide you with a wealth of information. 

A moderator can leverage mobile offline surveys to gather data during a focus group session. This way, you can gather surveys without the internet and remove the use of paper questionnaires. Like Voxco’s offline survey tools, it allows you to gather data offline and integrates the data once the device is connected to the internet. 

3. Interviews 

A personal interview, like a focus group, includes open-ended and unstructured questions. They typically last about an hour and are recorded. Personal interviews provide more subjective information than quantitative surveys. The results, however, are statistically unreliable because they do not represent a large portion of the population.

i) Telephone interviews:

These are the most effective ways to gather information quickly; the interviewer can also clarify questions if respondents do not understand them. 

You can leverage phone survey software to conduct CATI surveys or IVR surveys and gather data.

ii) Personal interviews: Face-to-face

These are the most adaptable marketing research methods. More questions can be asked, and additional observations about the respondent, such as dress and body language, can be made by the interviewer. 

You can use mobile offline surveys to conduct personal interviews. The versatile Voxco mobile offline will help you to manage face-to-face data collection projects. You can conduct dynamic personal interviews on mobile devices with no network connection.

4. Observation

Individual responses to focus groups and surveys may differ from people’s actual behavior. For example, by videotaping customers in action at stores or work, you can observe how they use or purchase a product. This will provide you with a detailed picture of customer purchasing patterns and usage habits.

Example- During an in-store observation, a researcher or digital camera software records how customers move around a store, how much time they spend in each section, and which products they notice first.

Observational research is useful because it allows researchers to learn about customers’ actual behavior rather than what they tell the researcher or report in a survey.