Secondary research
This is research using information that already exists.
You can often find out a lot by searching on the internet, in libraries or in Government reports. Often this is free, but be careful: the research may be out of date, biased, or not specific to the questions you need to answer.
For some types of information, you might be able to use observation: watching traffic flows (cars or people), seeing how people behave or what they buy.
Or you could become a mystery shopper, ordering competitors’ brochures and using their services to compare them with those of your business.
Primary research
This is research designed specifically by or for you.
Questionnaires are best for simple questions with closed answers (yes/no or a simple scale). For example, you might ask:
1 Do you ever buy a daily newspaper?
Yes No
2 How often do you buy The Daily Recorder?
Every day, More than once a week, Weekly, More than once a month, Less than once a month
Questionnaires can be used for large numbers of responses. If you use simple questions, they are easy to analyse. Think carefully about what you are planning to do with the answers before deciding on your questions. In our example above, our business owner runs a small store and she wants to know whether it is worth continuing to stock The Daily Recorder newspaper, so she needs clear numbers to help her decide -- numbers of people buying a daily newspaper at all, then how many of those people buy The Daily Recorder.
Work from your end result backwards -- ask yourself, ‘What do I need to know?’, then ‘What questions can I ask that will help me find out?’ and, more importantly, make sure that your questions are phrased to avoid any confusion -- both to the person filling in the questionnaire, and to you when you have to analyse the responses!
You will get the highest response by questioning people face-to-face, and the lowest by sending your questionnaire by post. Telephone questionnaires are cheaper and quicker than face-to-face, but don’t expect such a high response rate.
Interviews and focus groups are better for more complex questions, such as:
• How do our customers feel about our after-sales service?
• How do customers perceive the quality of our product compared to those of our competitors?
For these ‘touchy-feely’ questions, it is best to talk in more depth to a few people, either
individually or as an informal group discussion.
You often need a combination of different types of research to give you all the information you need. It is often a good idea to start by exploring all the secondary research that already exists, because this is usually quite quick and cheap. You can then fill the gaps in your information with some primary research. Often this will also help to check whether the secondary research information you have found was valid and accurate.
Everyone tells you to 'research your market' -- but how do you do that? - To learn more about this author, visit Julie Stanford's Website.
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