Qualitative Research

Qualitative research methods are used to get inside the minds and hearts of your customers and prospects.  They provide insights, understanding, guidance, and direction, and are used to uncover the ‘hot button’s related to a specific issue or topic.  Qualitative research is considered exploratory in nature and is often used to see if your list of important issues agrees with those of your customers or prospects.

Qualitative research uses a variety of open-ended, non-directive discussion techniques to evoke the information sought after in group and one-on-one conversations.  For example, Projective techniques are used to probe beyond the rational explanations for stated attitudes and behaviors to uncover the true underlying drivers of perceptions and opinions.  Laddering techniques are also utilized here to understand how consumers translate product attributes into personal values (the ‘whys’ of purchase decisions).

Very often, the learning from qualitative research is used to uncover just what the critical issues are on a topic which should be covered in subsequent quantitative studies (typically surveys, which answer the questions: ‘how many’, ‘how much’ and ‘how often’, etc. about the targeted individuals).  By getting initial qualitative feedback from people representative of those you intend to survey, you can better word your questions and design clearer explanations of the new concepts you wish to test.

Qualitative research is often used to:

• Explore attitudes, motivations, and buying behaviors for new or established products—uncover how people think or feel about a topic or issue
• Obtain preliminary reactions to:
  • New product or service ideas
  • Product advertising options
  • Product formulations
  • Packaging
  • Alternative positioning options
• Develop ‘consumer language’ for advertising and promotional activities
• Testing the usability of a product
• Evaluating existing programs
• Test advertising concepts
• Get reaction to messaging, copy or visual stimuli

In-person Focus Groups

A focus group is a group interviewing technique that uses group dynamics to generate insight on issues of interest.  It is useful for answering ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions, to understand thinking processes and attitudes, and get insights into determinants of behavior.

Focus groups are typically conducted in-person at a research facility, but more recently Internet focus groups have become popular.  Respondents who fit the profile (demographic, psychographic, experienced based, etc.) dictated by the research needs are contacted and invited to attend.  Some type of incentive or honorarium is almost always offered to encourage participation.

Very often some type of material, called ‘stimuli’, is used in the discussion to elicit opinions and comments:

• For product development research, stimuli may include product mock-ups, prototypes, etc.; similar stimuli are used explore packaging ideas
• For product positioning and concept development, stimuli typically include benefit statements, concept line drawings or full color visuals, headline, and copy

Bulletin Board Focus Groups

A Bulletin Board Focus Group is a threaded online discussion on a selected topic for which a targeted group of individuals is recruited to participate.  Participants are asked to answer questions posted by the moderator, comment on the postings of other participants and to respond to any probes by the moderator for additional information.  Any computer with a web browser can be used to access the website.

Each group consists of 12 to 20 respondents.  Because they are able to respond at their convenience any time of the day, responses tend to be rich, thoughtful and quite detailed, as compared to what can be obtained in typical 2-hour face-to-face groups.  The identity of the participants can be masked from each other, if required.

Bulletin Board Focus Groups are ideal for the following situations:

• There aren’t enough potential respondents in any one location to fill a face-to-face group.  That is, the targeted individuals are too scattered
• When the desired individuals are too busy to set aside a fixed time to come to a central research facility
• When the needed information is best provided via thoughtful, in-depth comments rather than top-of-mind reactions
• When the subject is rather personal or sensitive, would benefit from group discussion and interaction, but is unlikely to be discussed candidly in a face-to-face setting
• When clients do not have the time or budget to travel to observe the research

In-Depth Interviews

In-depth, one-on-one interviews are used to capture the same kind of information as are group interviewing techniques.

In contrast, however, they allow for much more extensive discussions and probing since the allotted time is dedicated to a single individual.  They are used when the topic under discussion is very personal or proprietary (as in competitive information) and you expect people would not be likely to share the information with others.   They are also used when they targeted individuals are expected to have widely divergent views which need to be uncovered.  Often such people are reticent to fully disclose their thoughts and feelings among those who do not share their views.

In-depth interviews are used for gathering insight from:

• Executives/professionals
• Corporate management
• Small business owners/personnel
• Consumers

Observational (Ethnographic) Research

Rather than using a formal research tool or setting, Ethnography research involves observing people in their natural environment.

Ethnography is a systematic process that uses observational notes along with capturing photographs, videos, audio recordings and other contextual data.  It allows us to see patterns of behavior in a real world environment and documenting the differences between what people perceive they do and what they actually do. Observations allow you to capture where people have developed ‘work-arounds’ to problems that exist to which they are consciously unaware.  Since ethnographic studies can last days or weeks, they allow for some of the most in-depth understanding and insight of peoples’ attitudes and behaviors.

Quantitative Research

Quantitative research, the collection of research methodologies which produce numbers as output, plays a key role in validating marketing and business decisions. Here is where you answer the questions of, ‘how many’, ‘how much’ and ‘how often’, etc. about the market under investigation.  Glasser Research offers a full range of quantitative services.

Surveys

Glasser Research offers both telephone and internet-based surveys for providing quantitative measures of your markets.  In addition to standard cross-tabulation analysis, we offer multivariate analysis to uncover the more complex relationships and interactions that can exist across a large number of survey questions.  Often these techniques result in the greatest insight into the attitudes, buying motivations, etc. of the population under investigation.

Multivariate techniques offered:

• Factor Analysis
• Cluster Analysis
• Multidimensional Scaling
• Perceptual Mapping
• Conjoint Analysis, Discrete Choice
• Discriminant Analysis
• Regression Analysis
• Analysis of Variance

Data Mining and Advanced Analytics

There’s money in your customer data.

Glasser Research can help you uncover the patterns and trends in your data that enable greater opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling, and using analytical methods for targeted marketing and response analysis.  We work with you to uncover the relationships hidden within.

Taken together, your company’s databases ‘know’ which customers buy different combinations of products, when they buy them, what their annual buying patterns look like, how these vary geographically, how they vary by customer type (e.g., by industry for businesses, possibly by family size for consumers), etc.  They also know how all these measures relate to each other—that is, what patterns exist across them (e.g., which customers tend to make their largest purchases in mid-summer vs. mid-winter).  This is the kind of knowledge that makes for better, smarter business decisions.

And the databases know it, but you don’t.

The rub is that you’ve already paid for this knowledge through your ongoing investment in the collection and storage of your customer database, billing database and marketing/lead management system which you maintain to run your business.   You’ve paid for it, but you can’t get to it.   You’re ‘data rich but information poor’ as they say—a tough way to run a business.

Glasser Research’s data mining and advanced analytics capabilities allow you to:

• Better understand customer buying behavior
• Do better targeting by classifying customers based on their:
  • Recency of purchase
  • Frequency of purchase
  • The monetary value of their purchase
• Anticipate a customer’s next purchase
  • Select customers for cross- and up-selling promotions based on their previous purchases
• Develop more effective personalized offerings based on a customer’s buying habits and cycle
• Measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns
• Reduce your selling costs

Fortunately, the process of getting additional value from your existing data is not an all-or-nothing undertaking.  It can be done in stages to allow you to get comfortable with the process and incrementally see its benefits.

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