Consumer Research Methods
Consumer researchers utilize a variety of methods and techniques to gain insight into their consumers' behaviors and attitudes. Research studies can be expensive and time-consuming, so careful planning must go into the methods used and the consumer groups that are studied. Brianna Sylver of design magazine Core 77 talks about the data gained from these studies as being "valuable only if it's used to inform an organization's development and marketing initiatives."
Other People Are Reading
-
Qualitative Methods
-
Family Health International describes qualitative research as "especially effective in obtaining culturally specific information about the values, opinions, behaviors, and social contexts of particular populations." Focus groups, personal interviews and ethnographic studies are common qualitative techniques that give researchers a view into participants' attitudes rather than behavior. They usually involve small groups of consumers or a representative sample of a population. Studies are flexible in nature and questions are open-ended, allowing the participants to go into more detail on "why" they behaved in a certain way rather than quantifying what their behavior was.
Focus groups exploit group interaction to generate results, while personal interviews allow researchers to explore a topic or behavior in detail. In ethnographic studies, researchers observe consumers in a natural setting such as a store, for a true read on shopper behavior. Paco Underhill, founder of Envirosell and author of the bestseller "Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping," describes the science of ethnography as an ever-changing science where "We never quite know what we'll find until we find it, and even then we sometimes have to stop to figure out what it is we've seen."
Qualitative research collects textual information obtained from audiotapes or videotapes and notes taken during the focus groups or interviews. Researchers compile the results and form an overall profile of the targeted group, quite often using the results as the basis for questions asked in future studies.
Quantitative Techniques
-
Researchers employ quantitative methods, such as questionnaires, surveys and market trials, when they need concrete, quantifiable information about how their consumers feel, think or behave. This type of research is highly structured, with simple close-ended questions and a stable study design. Analysts assign numerical values to the responses and use the resulting data in a variety of analyses. To ensure accurate data reads, large groups of consumers are usually involved in the study.
Researchers employ a variety of techniques to conduct their questionnaire and survey studies. The most common methods are online or through the mail. But research companies such as Nielsen and SymphonyIRI Group deliver scanners to consumers who use them to track all of their purchases for a certain period of time. Market trials involve staging experimental scenarios on a small scale in the retail environment, such as a certain promotion or price change, and then analyzing the results.
The results of these types of research studies help to segment a consumer population through various characteristics (brand X's target market is young, urban professionals), identify causal relationships (consumers who purchase milk also purchase cereal) or explain variances (lowering the price on brand X resulted in more sales).
-
Historical Performance Analysis
-
Analysis of historical sales data is critical to a consumer researcher. They utilize their own in-house sales data or purchase it from the retailers. Trade associations and industry organizations sometimes facilitate data sharing between like companies. They use the data for many different purposes, including forecasting, determining market share and evaluating the results of their marketing activities.
-
References
Resources
- Photo Credit checking out the hats image by monamakela.com from Fotolia.com
