Market Research Methods
Introduction
A market research questionnaire is a useful tool for collecting and understanding the opinions, preferences and buying behaviour of customers or potential customers. It is also a means of adding structure to a customer interview or focus group. The questions asked assist with estimating levels of demand and opinions on pricing in relation to a product or service. Questions must be constructed carefully in order to obtain unambiguous answers from respondents about their needs and opinions.
Here we outline the most common methods of using questionnaires to gather market information, testing the questionnaire and data protection.
This is a starting point only. Appropriate professional advice should always be sought where necessary.
Uses of market research questionnaires
A well-thought-out questionnaire that asks the right questions and is properly completed can be a useful means of revealing, analysing and understanding factors relating to a product or service, such as:
Consumers' awareness of a product or service.
Consumers' attitudes towards a product or service.
Consumers' attitudes towards a competitor's products and services.
Consumers' perceptions of product performance.
Consumers' buying behaviour.
Questionnaire methods
The four main ways to get questionnaire responses are: personal interviews (that is, face-to-face), telephone interviews, sending the questionnaire by email or creating an online questionnaire (typically using platforms such as SurveyMonkey, SurveyPlanet and Typeform).
The choice of method will depend on the type of customer group being targeted and the type of information that is being sought.
The key advantages and disadvantages of each method can be summarised as follows.
Personal interview
Advantages include:
Greater flexibility and control - opportunity to clarify misunderstandings and ask supplementary questions.
High response rate.
Can watch body language as well as verbal response.
Disadvantages include:
Time-consuming and expensive.
Respondents have little time to think.
Telephone interview
Advantages include:
More flexibility and often a higher response rate than email questionnaires.
Reach people who won't give a personal interview.
Fast.
Disadvantages include:
Interviews must be fairly short.
Respondents have little time to think.
Advantages include:
Cheap/free.
Respondents have time to think.
Useful when respondent is hard to reach.
Disadvantages include:
Possible low response rate.
No flexibility to clarify answers.
Limited information obtained.
Online
Advantages of online questionnaires created using platforms such as SurveyMonkey include:
Opportunities to reach more people by sharing the questionnaire on multiple channels, including social media and blog posts, as well as emailed invitations.
Integrated tools to analyse survey results.
Options to export survey data to spreadsheets, PDFs, etc.
Disadvantages include:
No flexibility to clarify misunderstandings and ask supplementary questions.
May be expensive. For example, SurveyMonkey costs around £30 per month for a single user.
Testing a questionnaire
Test the effectiveness of a questionnaire before using it as a tool for market research. To do this, the questionnaire should be tried out on a small sample of people. Ensure that the questions are easily understood so they will lead to the desired type of response. This testing should expose any ambiguous or unnecessary questions and reveal which questions are suitable for the purpose of the survey.
Analysing questionnaire results
Although individual responses can give some interesting insights, it is the collective questionnaire result that is of most use for market research and the development of marketing plans. Analysis of this raw data provides evidence of patterns and trends among customers and potential customers.
Data protection
Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), anyone who collects, stores or uses personally identifiable information (such as the name and contact details of questionnaire respondents) must ensure that it is kept securely and used only for the lawful purpose for which it was collected.
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