Here at Quirk’s we’re always interested in hearing what research methods – quant or qual – client-side market researchers find most useful in their day-to-day work. It helps us get a better sense of the topics our readers are most interested in and reveals trends throughout the industry.
We also believe that you, our readers, benefit from knowing what’s popular and how your peers are effectively using a diverse set of tools.
In Quirk’s Marketing Research Review’s Before You Go series, “10 minutes with a corporate researcher” – a Q&A-style conversation between Quirk’s and client-side market researchers – we’ve asked several of your peers to share their preferred methodology. From social listening to one-on-one interviews, each researcher had an interesting take on how to best gather valuable insights.
While our interviews verified that client-side researchers use a variety of methodologies, a few researchers had clear favorites:
“I love one‐on‐one conversations with consumers. This can happen anywhere: at home, a central location, the market or anywhere in the world… When we are developing a new product, I am a huge advocate for taking prototypes to consumers early on, outside the confines of the team and the walls of our offices. Listening and seeing consumers’ reactions for the things we missed allows us to make improvements before we get deeper in product development – before it’s too late. Teams are typically uneasy about this process. I always say it’s not about consumers nit-picking your product but to learn about how we can make it better. Better is good! Then the light bulb turns on!” Cindy Dumlao, Wrigley
“Early in my career, qualitative was not true research to me. It wasn’t science and it wasn’t valid market research – other than to explore and develop hypotheses. I especially loathed focus groups as a way to hear what you wanted to hear. Now, later in my career, quantitative is a bias that I always guard against, especially when conducting surveys. I always try to ask myself: Can qualitative better address the issues? I’ve fallen in love with ethnographies and observation, especially using mobile and geofencing technology to track shopping behavior.” Larry L. Musetti, Benjamin Moore & Co.
“Storytelling and data visualization are about making meaning – different audiences may require the meaning to be expressed in story or a visual. It’s my job to know which and be adept at both. Or some business partners love to explore the data themselves – I’m thrilled about democratizing data and letting partners such as the editors and writers pore over verbatims.” Nancy Cox, Hallmark Cards
Other researchers decided to discuss what they consider to be overlooked methodologies:
“I’m a big fan of using max-diff. The results are easy to interpret and communicate, as they can be placed on a 0-to-100-point scale, and sum to 100. It’s a great way to measure the relative priority for a large set of attributes. What are customers willing to trade? The results make it much easier for us to take action compared to a standard ranking or rating scale.” Kristin Guthrie, Honeywell
“In an age of DIY research and free online survey tools, there are some who may be tempted by the opportunity to look toward fast, inexpensive quantitative survey methods … but as they say, you get what you pay for. In talking through research opportunities, there are times when some may leap to the online survey as a solution but that tends to be driven by familiarity with the method and perceived ease of execution, more than anything else. My experience has shown that once you have a dialogue around business objectives and the breadth of research methodologies available, qualitative research quickly becomes much more attractive and in many cases, the obvious choice. Thus, my focus is on working closely with our business partners to ensure that we identify the optimal research method based on what we’re trying to achieve and the approach that works best with our client base. As a result, the majority of our research tends to be qualitative in nature. We leverage qualitative research to help support our product development efforts, to inform the development of many of our strategies and of course to evaluate the client experience.” Michael Rosenberg, J.P. Morgan
And, when asked to look to the future, two of our interviewees touched on how online research communities are changing the way they work:
“We’re developing our online international community and plan to use it to maximize the feedback we can get with a fairly small sample of buyers and sellers in some of our markets outside of the U.S. One of the core challenges with international research has been keeping pace with product development and attendant research needs without overwhelming the smaller base of international users. Through the online community we can get valuable insights to help inform global launches without conducting slow and costly qualitative lab research for every research need. Note that this is not a silver bullet. It is one methodology among several and will be used judiciously. However, by using an online community for international research we can maintain some flexibility and provide regular feedback to our product teams.” Katharine Giari, Etsy
“I’m most inspired about a project collaboration that includes our C space (formerly Communispace) moms’ research online community, social listening and big data. A true 360-degree view. And I anticipate delivering stories and visualized data from that exploration.” Nancy Cox, Hallmark Cards
If you’d like to learn more about the state of the industry from the client side, be sure to check out Quirk’s 2016 Corporate Researcher Report and watch for new client-side Q&As in each issue of Quirk’s.