Andover Group: Advertising, Public Relations, Direct Marketing, Market Research
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Market research•
 
Getting the most out of your research dollar
Not doing market research is like driving blindfolded: You don't know where you're going, you're not sure when you've gotten there – and you can get into a lot of trouble along the way. But just throwing together any old kind of research can be a big waste of money and effort.
 
Getting the most out of focus groups:
  • Internal brainstorming will help you create ideas to be evaluated in focus groups
  • Never base a marketing strategy on an opinion expressed by a few people in a focus group. To confirm strategies, use large-scale telephone or direct-mail research.
  • Present concepts to focus group attendees as simplified ads on boards, with a short, factual headline and sample illustration. It's important to evaluate the idea, not the quality of the ad.
  • Figure an average cost of $3,500-4,000 per focus group. To save money, some business-to-business marketers bring in clients or prospects for an informal gathering; while not a true focus group, such a meeting can provide you with some good insights on which to base future decisions.
  • It's important to let focus groups bring up negative comments, since they will often highlight a problem that can be fixed before it become a bigger threat.

  
Getting the most out of quantitative research:
  • To properly evaluage a marketing idea or new product, use large-scale research, using telemarketers or direct mail. For maximum results, offer each decision-maker who agrees to take the survey a substantial $$ reward.
  • The easiest way to do research is with existing customers, although prospects are more likely to speak the truth.
  • Quantitative reearch should be limited to multiple-choice questions if possible (and give four choices instead of five so respondents won't be tempted to check too many threes).
  • Well done market research can prevent marketing disasters of fix problems that may be depressing your revenues.
  • Business-to-business marketers may find quantitative research particularly helpful because the decision-makers responding to the survey are professionals in their field – so the results will carry more weight than data derived from consumers.
 
> Samples
Market research often can be an expensive prospect – but it can be still more expensive to proceed with an avertising and marketing campaign without the kind of data that only high-quality research can provide. We've learned that the key to conducting research that's worth more than the paper is written on is to listen to the client, then conduct research that answers questions that need to be answered.