Market research can be a daunting undertaking, especially for small- or medium-sized business owners that don’t have experience with conducting their own research. We’re commonly asked by business owners what they need for market research and our answer is always “it depends.”
The specific needs of your market research will greatly depend on the type of information that will benefit your business. Depending on the size and breadth of your study, you might not need much in terms of technology – but you will always need a lot of human capital. That being said, there are a few tried and true staples that are beneficial in all market research projects.
Below are a few important things for launching any successful market research project:
Questions & Goals
Before you can effectively launch any type of market research initiative, it’s necessary to have a firm understanding of what your business is trying to learn/achieve. Before beginning any project, it’s necessary to be able to clearly articulate your specific research questions. Without developing specific questions, research often becomes tangential and useless at building a better business.
Develop Specific Research Methods
Research methods are simply a very specific set of plans that designate how the research will be conducted. After you’ve developed your questions, it’s time to develop very specific methods. Research is not the time to shoot from the hip or initiate half-cocked plans. Every good market
research strategy requires a specific set of plans or methods for collecting and interpreting data.
Having well-defined methods in place will guarantee that you’re collecting the proper data to answer your questions, and will maximize the value of conducting research.
An Experienced Team and/or Team Leader
Market research sometimes appears to be simple; however, just because something looks simple it doesn’t mean that it’s actually easy. Having a research team that’s experienced, primarily composed of individuals that have received professional training, will ensure that you’re collecting valid data.
There are many tiny nuances that can greatly impact your data collection; we recommend that you speak with an expert, but if you’re eager to learn more on your own you should consider picking up a book on market research or behavioral science methods. Paying for an experienced team might be costly upfront, but it will be beneficial to your bottom line in the long run.
Participants
If you want to do any kind of primary data collection—such as interviews, surveys, focus groups, etc.—you’re going to need to find people to participate in those projects. Participant recruitment can be the trickiest part of your data collection. Never forget, it’s important that you do your best to capture a representative sample of your target customer. If your customers are females aged 34-40, your participants should fall into that category; similarly, if your primary customers are outdoor runners, then you need to include runners from a variety of different backgrounds.
As a rule of thumb, descriptive surveys require 100+ participants, while descriptive interviews will require 30+ participants. But these are just the minimums, the more people participate in your study the more data you will have!
Software
You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Computer software has made life easier for many aspects of data collection and interpretation. For example, if you want to launch an online survey there are several software packages to consider (Qualtrics, Survey Monkey, etc.), for focus groups you can use transcription software, and for secondary data analysis, there’s software that can help you sort through big data.
That being said, some of these software packages are not user-friendly and can be expensive for small businesses to afford. If you foresee your business regularly conducting market research, investing in these software packages can be extremely beneficial.
Location
The old saying “location, location, location” has never been truer. If you’re collecting data in person, you need to pick a location that provides you access to an accurate sampling of your target audience. Oftentimes, unless you’re running a small study, it’s necessary to collect data at multiple locations to accurately reflect your target customers. Admittedly, negotiating for access to venues can be difficult, but it’s important that you don’t settle on subpar locations.
If you’re launching an online study that doesn’t require a physical location, you still need to think
about when/where/how the link to your study can be distributed. Oftentimes, businesses indiscriminately e-mail blast everyone they can possibly put on a list. This approach will get you results sometimes, but oftentimes businesses benefit from a more thoughtful distribution process.
Patience
Patience is a necessary virtue when conducting research. Remember, data collection is something that occurs over time. Small studies sometimes generate information that is immediately groundbreaking, but oftentimes market research requires some time to understand the bigger picture. Don’t get focused on preliminary findings that only explain the tip of an iceberg, have the patience to let research develop and tell the whole story.
So, what are the things you need for market research? To start, you need to develop specific questions that are beneficial for your business. Good questions form the foundation for great research. Be concise and specific while developing your research methodology, this will prevent you from going off track and developing useless data. After that, all you need is a solid team of researchers to find participants that are relevant to your business. There’s also a variety of software that will assist in processing the data from your market research, it’s often worth the investment to save you time in the long-run.
But at the end of the day, all you really need for market research is people. Never forget, human capital is the cornerstone of all research.