Qualitative Market Research: Qualitative market research method in market research
Summary
TLDRThis script delves into the power of qualitative research, illustrating its importance for businesses to understand customer needs and preferences. It discusses various methods such as focus groups, interviews, and observations to gather in-depth insights, enabling companies to refine marketing strategies and product offerings. The script also highlights the evolution of qualitative research with technology, emphasizing its role in shaping consumer-centric business decisions.
Takeaways
- 🔍 Qualitative research helps companies understand customer desires, improve products, refine marketing, and integrate products into customers' lives.
- 📈 This research method benefits businesses of all sizes by uncovering customer feelings, values, and perceptions about products or services.
- 🤔 Qualitative research seeks to understand why people act the way they do using methods like in-depth interviews and group discussions.
- 📊 The goal is to identify the underlying reasons for customer behavior and their values and beliefs.
- ❓ Open-ended questions starting with 'what,' 'how,' and 'why' are used to gather insights before a product or service is launched.
- 🕵️♂️ Historical context: Paul Lazarsfeld and Ernest Dichter pioneered methods like focus group interviews and motivational research in the 1940s and 1960s.
- 🌐 The advent of the internet and mobile devices has transformed qualitative research, enabling large-scale surveys and social media analysis.
- 💬 Common qualitative methods include focus groups, individual interviews, observations, in-home videos, and ethnographic research.
- 🎥 Focus groups have shifted from in-person meetings to online discussions using video conferencing tools.
- 📱 Social media analysis provides brands with real-time feedback and insights into customer behavior and preferences.
Q & A
What is the main purpose of qualitative research?
-The main purpose of qualitative research is to find out what customers want, come up with ideas for product improvements, clarify the marketing mix, and understand how the product fits into customers' lives.
How can qualitative research benefit businesses of different sizes?
-Qualitative research can help businesses of all sizes by providing insights into customer feelings, values, and perceptions about products or services, which can inform marketing and sales strategies.
What methods are commonly used in qualitative research?
-Common methods in qualitative research include focus groups, in-depth interviews, observations, in-home videos, lifestyle immersion, ethnographic research, online sentence completion, and word association.
How did qualitative research evolve in the early 20th century?
-In the early 20th century, qualitative research evolved with the use of focus group interviews by sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld during WWII and motivational research by psychologist Ernest Dichter, who used Freudian psychology to understand consumer behavior.
How has the internet and mobile devices changed qualitative research?
-The internet and mobile devices have enabled larger-scale surveys, hyper-segmentation, hyper-personalization in advertising campaigns, and easier analysis of social media content to understand customer thoughts and behaviors.
What are focus groups, and how are they conducted?
-Focus groups are meetings where a moderator leads a discussion among 6 to 10 people about a product. They can be held in person or online, allowing participants to express their feelings and reactions to the product.
How do individual interviews differ from focus groups in qualitative research?
-Individual interviews are one-on-one discussions, usually conducted in person, over the phone, or via video conferencing. They allow for more in-depth and flexible conversations compared to focus groups.
What is ethnographic research, and how is it conducted?
-Ethnographic research involves observing people in their natural environments to understand their real behaviors and actions. It uses methods like photography, video recordings, notebook studies, and direct observation.
What is the purpose of online sentence completion and word association in qualitative research?
-Online sentence completion and word association are projective methods used to understand how people think and feel about a product or brand. Respondents complete unfinished sentences or respond to trigger words, providing insights into their perceptions.
How do companies like McDonald's, Starbucks, and LEGO use qualitative research?
-McDonald's uses customer feedback to improve its menu and marketing. Starbucks gathers ideas through social media and feedback platforms. LEGO conducted studies with children and parents to design toys that appeal to both boys and girls.
Outlines
🔍 Exploring Qualitative Research Methods
This paragraph introduces qualitative research as a tool for businesses to understand customer desires, enhance products, clarify marketing strategies, and determine how products fit into consumers' lives. It emphasizes the importance of open-ended questions and the collection of non-numerical data to uncover the motivations behind consumer behavior. The historical development of qualitative research is traced from the 1940s, highlighting the contributions of figures like Paul Lazarsfeld and Ernest Dichter, and noting the impact of the internet and mobile technology on modern research techniques.
🗣️ Conducting In-Depth Research Techniques
The second paragraph delves into various qualitative research techniques such as focus groups, individual interviews, observations, in-home videos, lifestyle immersion, and ethnographic research. It discusses the shift from in-person to online focus groups and the use of social media for direct customer feedback. The paragraph also covers the importance of observations in stores to understand consumer behavior and the use of immersive and ethnographic methods to gain insights into customers' lives and preferences.
📈 Strategic Planning for Qualitative Research
This paragraph outlines the process of setting up a qualitative study, starting with defining clear research goals. It discusses the selection of appropriate research methods based on demographics and target audience characteristics. The paragraph also covers the importance of information gathering through moderators, the combination of qualitative and quantitative research, and the analysis of collected data through qualitative coding. It concludes with the examination of the final report, which should provide actionable insights and suggestions for product improvement based on the research findings.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Qualitative research
💡Focus groups
💡In-depth interviews
💡Observations
💡Ethnographic research
💡Lifestyle immersion
💡Social media analysis
💡Word association
💡Sentence completion
💡Qualitative coding
Highlights
Qualitative research helps companies understand customer desires, improve products, and refine marketing strategies.
Qualitative research can reveal why people act the way they do, aiding in marketing and sales planning.
Businesses of all sizes can use qualitative research to understand customer feelings, values, and opinions about products and services.
Qualitative research involves collecting and analyzing non-numerical data through methods like in-depth interviews and group discussions.
The goal of qualitative research is to uncover the real reasons behind consumer behaviors and their values and beliefs.
Open-ended questions in qualitative research help uncover customer thoughts on new products or services before they are launched.
Qualitative research provides insights into customer sentiments about brands and helps identify product strengths and weaknesses.
Paul Lazarsfeld pioneered focus group interviews to study the impact of propaganda during World War II.
Ernest Dichter developed motivational research using Freudian psychology to understand consumer behaviors.
John Howard integrated psychology, anthropology, and economics to study customer behavior in the 1960s.
Modern qualitative research utilizes online tools, video conferencing, and social media analysis for broader data collection.
Popular qualitative methods include focus groups, individual interviews, observations, and ethnographic research.
Focus groups, typically involving 6-10 participants, discuss products and marketing strategies with a moderator.
In-person focus groups are being replaced by online discussions using video conferencing tools.
Social media analysis provides brands with direct insights into customer behaviors, preferences, and feedback.
One-on-one interviews offer flexible, in-depth conversations to understand individual customer experiences.
Observations allow researchers to study customer interactions with products in real-life settings.
In-home videos and lifestyle immersion provide a deeper understanding of how customers use products in their daily lives.
Ethnographic research, rooted in anthropology, involves observing people in their natural environments.
Online sentence completion and word association methods help researchers understand customer perceptions of products and brands.
Effective qualitative research requires clear goals, appropriate methods, and professional moderation.
Combining qualitative and quantitative research provides a comprehensive understanding of customer insights.
Qualitative coding helps categorize and analyze data to identify themes and trends.
Well-known brands like McDonald's, Starbucks, and LEGO use qualitative research to improve products and customer experiences.
McDonald's uses qualitative research to understand customer preferences and improve menu options.
Starbucks leverages social media and customer feedback platforms to refine products and services.
LEGO conducts studies with children and parents to design products that appeal to both boys and girls.
Qualitative research is essential for developing new products, enhancing existing ones, and solving complex marketing challenges.
Transcripts
Qualitative research lets companies find out what customers want, come up with ideas for how
to improve the product or add to the product line, make the marketing mix clearer, and find out how
the product fits into customers' lives. The study will help all kinds and sizes of businesses. For
example, businesses can use qualitative research to find out how customers feel about the product
or service, what they value, and what they think of it. With qualitative research, you can figure
out why people act the way they do and use that knowledge to make marketing and sales plans.
The study can also help you make sure that your products and services meet the needs of the people
you want to reach. For example, if you own a 125 restaurant and want to come up with a new menu,
you can do qualitative research and ask people in the area what they think about the food, service,
and prices. This strategy will make it more likely for you to succeed. How do you define qualitative
research? Qualitative research tries to figure out why people act the way they do by using
methods like in-depth interviews and group talks to observe and ask questions without a set plan.
The method involves collecting and analyzing both main and secondary data that isn't about numbers.
The goal of qualitative study is to find out the real reasons why people buy things and what
their values and beliefs are. In qualitative research, you ask open-ended questions that
start with "what," "how," and "why" to find out what people think about a new product or service
before it comes out or is made. This way shows how customers feel about the brand, what buyers want,
and what the pros and cons of the product or service are. It also helps you analyze your
marketing materials and guess how your product or service will affect your customers' lives.
In the early 1940s, American sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld used focus group interviews to study
how propaganda affected people during World War II. In the late 1940s, American psychologist and
marketing expert Ernest Dichter created a new type of consumer research called motivational research.
Dichter used Freudian psychological ideas to figure out why people do the things they do.
He talked to customers in detail to find out what they wanted and how they felt about
certain products. 126 In the 1960s, marketing professor John Howard started looking at customer
behavior through the lenses of psychology, anthropology, and economics. At the same time,
market analysts paid attention to how people feel and what they think about things. As a result,
in-depth conversations, video-recorded focus groups, and computer-assisted telephone interviews
became popular ways to do qualitative research. Since the Internet and mobile devices came along,
qualitative study has changed in many ways. Researchers can now do surveys on a much bigger
scale because of the Internet. Marketers can use hyper-segmentation and hyper-personalization
to start targeted advertising campaigns, use software to analyze market research,
and find out what customers think by analyzing social media. Let's look closely at the basic
ways qualitative study is done. Qualitative means of research Focus groups, individual interviews,
observations, in-home videos, lifestyle immersion, ethnographic research, online sentence completion,
and word association are some of the most popular ways to do qualitative research. We'll talk about
each one in more depth below. Focus groups Focus groups are meetings where people talk about a
certain product and how to sell it. Most groups have between 6 and 10 people and a moderator who
pushes people to talk about how they feel about the product. Focus 127 groups are usually held
in person so that people can say and show how they feel about a product or advertising effort.
This method can be used to try marketing programs, figure out what a product's overall idea is,
look at the words and pictures in ads, and figure out how new types of product packaging work.
Focus groups that meet in person are becoming less popular these days. Instead,
researchers are paying a lot of attention to online talks that use video conferencing tools.
A look at social media Social media and mobile gadgets give brands more ways to get information
and figure out what it means. Customers can now talk with brands directly on the social
media sites where they spend their free time. Content analysis of Facebook posts, comments,
tweets, YouTube videos, and Instagram pictures lets brands find out what people are doing,
where they are, and what words they use most often. You can ask users for feedback,
ask them to fill out a short survey, or talk to customers to let them know about your marketing
plans and how new goods are coming along. Also, the people who take part in qualitative
study can give more information about their lives, like photos and videos, which helps us
understand their thoughts and feelings better. Interviews with each person Most of the time,
a one-on-one discussion is done in person, over the phone, or through video conferencing.
The interviewer asks the customer a number of questions to find out why he bought the goods
in the first place. 128 One-on-one talks are like free-flowing conversations and include questions
that don't have to be answered in a certain way. The talks can be flexible, partly planned, or not
planned at all. You can ask the customer what they don't like about the product, why they bought it,
and where they heard about it. Observations Observations give researchers a chance to see
how customers react to the goods in the store and to study how they shop and what they buy.
This way is better than written surveys because it gives a better idea of how people feel.
For example, the researchers can watch where people stop in front of the store,
what draws them to the shop window, and which way they walk inside. Observations also help
find problems with the way products are placed on shop shelves, with too much stuff on the shelves,
or with products that are out of stock. You can also get feedback from customers to improve some
parts of the shopping process, such as how the package looks. In-home movies Researchers can
see how customers use a product in their own homes by watching movies taken there. With this method,
you can watch how users act in a casual and unforced way. So, you can get a better idea
of how people are using your goods. Customers can keep video diaries or make videos with detailed
comments about your goods. You can put all of the qualitative material in one place and make
a hub to help you analyze and use the information you've collected in the future. 129 Immersion in
a lifestyle Lifestyle involvement is another way to get feedback from customers in a comfortable
setting. Immersion means that the expert is very involved in the life of a customer. For example,
the researcher might go to an event, like a party or family get-together, and watch how the person
acts and reacts in a familiar setting. Watching how people talk to their family and friends is
becoming an increasingly useful way to learn more about their wants, problems, and motivations.
Research on ethnic groups Ethnography is a type of study that grew out of anthropology in
the 20th century. It involves watching people in their natural environments, not in a lab.
In particular, the researchers watch how the people they talk to do things like go food
shopping or make dinner. This lets you see what people really do, not just what they say they do.
Ethnography uses many different methods, such as photography, video recordings, notebook studies,
and direct observation. Researchers can watch how a person acts at home,
at work, or with family or friends. As a method of ethnographic research, passive observation means
following and watching people without talking to them or getting in the way of what they are doing.
Active observation, on the other hand, means working or cooperating with customers,
asking them questions about a product or service, and joining their team or group.
Online sentence finishers and word games 130 A projective method used in qualitative study,
sentence completion lets customers say what they think and feel. With this method, the people who
fill out the poll get it with sentences that aren't finished. They should fill in the blanks
in sentences that describe the goods or find the right words for the sentence. With this method,
the researcher can arrange qualitative data. Word association is a similar method that
helps researchers learn about how well known a product or brand is and what pictures and
ideas people have about it. The respondents are given the trigger words and told to write down
the first word, thought, or picture that comes to mind. Unlike interviews and focus groups,
phrase completion and word association can be done online and reach more people.
Also, it takes less time to look at the data and figure out how users feel. Once you know
the most common ways to do qualitative research, you can plan the research process step by step.
How to set up a qualitative study? Planning and strategy are very important if you want to
get good results from your study. Here are a few general rules about how to do qualitative study.
Find out what your study goals are Before you can plan or run qualitative market research,
you need to know what you want to learn from it. Specifically, the research goals could be to find
out how the product or brand is currently or could be positioned, to find 131 out how
people feel about the company or product, to find out how people react to advertising campaigns,
packaging, or design, to test how easy it is to use the website, and to figure out what
the product's strengths and weaknesses are. If the researcher didn't have clear goals,
it would be hard to do qualitative research, which uses open-ended questions and in-depth
answers that are hard to directly understand and analyze. Choose the way you will study. Figure
out the best way to do market research by looking at demographics, where your target group lives,
how they live their lives, and the product that is being looked at. Most of the time, market
researchers work with professional recruiters who find the volunteers and check them out. A big part
of the researcher's job is to come up with a list of topics that small groups can talk about. You
need to have moderators, who would spend 90 to 120 minutes with the group asking questions, watching
how people respond, and studying behavior. Look into different ways to gather information.
Once you've decided on observation, you'll need a moderator to watch how the players act and take
notes. Most of the time, you need a video camera or a one-way mirror for this method. You can also
combine qualitative and quantitative research to get both answers and observations from customers
and numbers to assess. When running focus groups, you can either have one discussion with eight to
ten people or a number of online meetings that last three to four days. 132 Respondents will
either answer questions from the moderator or comment on movies that have already been made.
When you do one-on-one interviews, you need to talk to the people you're interviewing over the
phone or set up a meeting. This way will work if you want people to try the product and tell
you what they think about it. Look at the info you've collected. Most of the time,
it will take the researchers a few days to a few weeks to gather the information.
Then, researchers will look at the data and answer your questions based on what they find. The next
step is qualitative coding, which is a way to sort the results into groups to find themes and trends.
The experts could also include figures to explain what the data means. Also, the report might have
a narrative study of the messages and phrases that were meant to be hidden. The last step is to look
over the report that the experts made. It can be written down or recorded on film. The paper,
which is based on MECE principles, will help you group the patterns and similarities and sort them
by demographics and other customer traits. The document will have specific suggestions,
so you can draw your own conclusions and start making changes to how you sell your products.
In the next part of this piece, we'll take a look at how well-known brands have used qualitative
research methods. Examples of qualitative research 133 Qualitative market research helps brands
improve their image and trustworthiness, divide their customers into groups, find market trends,
raise awareness, rebrand their products, and find out what consumers want. Let's find out
how McDonald's, Starbucks, and LEGO use data to compete with tough rivals. McDonald’s McDonald's
asks customers several important questions about the best-selling goods, the best prices,
the most effective ads, and the most-visited restaurants when doing market research.
By answering these questions, you can figure out if the business was able to get more customers.
Also, McDonald's uses customer comments to make its products better. Many customers were
especially upset that there weren't any healthy or organic options on the menu. So, the company
added apple pieces and other healthy foods to the menu and started a campaign to show that chicken
nuggets and burgers were made of real meat. Starbucks Starbucks wants its customers to give
feedback on its website and share ideas through Twitter. The company keeps an eye on social
media and cultural trends, and customers can try out the goods in the stores. From 2008 to 2018,
Starbucks used the My Starbucks Idea platform to get feedback on its goods and keep making them
better. The company used more than 275 suggestions from customers, such as ideas for new products
and ways to improve business responsibility. 134 Before a few years ago, LEGO was mostly thought of
as a business for boys. Then LEGO chose to promote equality by making toys for both boys and girls.
The company did a study with 3,500 girls and their parents to find out how kids act when they play
with toys. Later, LEGO used the information to figure out the size of the figures and make bright
wrapping for the "Friends' ' toy line, which was made just for girls. Without market research,
companies wouldn't be able to come up with new goods, improve the ones they already have,
meet customer needs, or solve the most difficult problems. Qualitative research will help you get a
clear picture of your target customers, understand how they feel about your brand, find possible
barriers to purchase and missing features in your offer, and, as a result, create a great product.
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