As a full-service market research company, we love to talk about quotes. It is not just the traditional quote or estimate for a project which you can receive from our team quickly by sending us a message here. Our team typically responds within a few hours!
For this post, I am writing about the other types of quotes, as in sayings that inspire our team. Below you will find 5 of my favorite quotes in market research with some meaning behind each.
Top 5 Market Research Quotes
“You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.” - Naguib Mahfouz
The quote above demonstrates the unique and complex relationship between a market researcher and a market research participant. Simplified, market research involves asking questions, receiving responses, and analyzing the responses.
There are several steps to complete a successful market research project. The basic steps include designing the questions, asking the questions, and analyzing the responses are vital to the overall success of the market research process.
The answers and questions are equally important in market research. Participants’ answers provide valuable insight regarding their needs, preferences, and opinions related to a product or service. Due to the value of the answers, it is imperative the researcher who creates the online survey, moderates the focus groups, or facilitates the one-to-one interviews asks the right questions. The right questions will provide beneficial responses, while the wrong questions can sabotage the success of market research campaign.
We talk a lot about this on the Drive Research blog. The results and report can only be as good as the clarity of the objectives and the instrument used to collect feedback. Garbage in, garbage out (GOBO).
Learn more about the market research process.
“To understand how consumers really thinks and feels, it is vital to go beyond words.” - Katja Bressette
This quote represents reality regarding market research, especially by means of B2C (business to customer) relationships. Research shows that individual customers are more likely to buy based on emotion, while B2B (business-to-business) purchase decisions are based more on logic. While conducting B2C research, it is vital to not only listen to the words spoken, but to also explore the emotions behind the words.
Think about an on-site market research project in a department store. This might be an intercept survey at a retail location or mystery shops on-site. A researcher may ask a buyer upon leaving, “Why did you purchase from this store today?” Or, “How was your shopping experience?” In order to understand this customer on a deeper level the questions need to be more directed to the customers emotions.
“How did you feel when you entered the store today?” “What caused you to feel that way?” “What was going through your mind while you were at the register purchasing your new items?” Going beyond words into someone’s emotions provides an essential layer of data for analysis, which will be later applied into a successful marketing campaign.
“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.” - Zora Neale Hurston
Curiosity is a strong desire to know or learn something. The purpose of market research is to gain a deeper understanding of an ideal customer by asking questions and analyzing the responses. Often the questions are open-ended, meaning the questions give the participant the opportunity to give a detailed response, which leads to more in-depth data for analysis.
Think about a job interview. A common statement used is, “Tell me about yourself.” This open format allows the candidate to speak openly, instead of responding with a simple yes or no, and open-ended questions have the same purpose in market research. If market research questions required only yes or no responses, it would not provide the level of information needed to improve the quality, branding, or sales of a product or service. Open-ended questions poke and pry with a specific purpose.
“Telling a story remains one of the biggest challenges facing market research today.” - David Smith
Market research is used to create a successful marketing campaign. A marketing campaign can raise awareness about a product or service, generate leads for potential sales, or result in the purchase of a product or service by a customer. Marketing campaigns include some form of advertisements, which can appear in multiple formats and platforms.
Advertising is what places the product or service directly in front of the ideal customer. Advertising demonstrates the solution to a problem or it creates a desire for a specific product or service. Wondering how? By telling the ideal customer a story in words that grab their attention.
Think about all the ways a story can be told. It can be short and to the point, or it can be long and detailed. Telling a story in marketing can reflect either of those facets. Also, think about the words you use to tell a story. You would use different words when telling the same story to a child verses a business executive.
Effective story telling in advertising is challenging, but market research enhances the effectiveness using facts, data, and strategy. This is more likely to create the desired result and more revenue.
Surveys, focus groups, and one-to-one interviews enable a company to understand their ideal customer by asking questions and paying close attention to the words the participant chooses in the responses. By using the Voice of the Customer (VoC) in the copy (actual wording used in the advertisement), the advertisement tells a compelling story directly to the ideal customer which leads to more sales.
“Torture numbers and they’ll confess anything to you.” - Gregg Easterbrook
Market research includes quantitative and qualitative research. Simply stated, quantitative research is data and numbers driven, while qualitative research is experience driven. Both are conducted and valuable for the market research projects based on the objective of the research. Quantitative analysis creates numerical confessions.
Validity and reliability are terms used in research methodologies. Validity refers to how accurate the research measures what it claims to measure, and reliability refers to how consistent the results are across different groups.
Since quantitative research yields numerical data, it is easier to test for validity and reliability of the results. Quantitative (numerical) data not only provides valuable data, but it also can be proven to be valid and reliable.
B2B (business to business) relationships often require a large amount of marketing material to convince the decision makers to buy a product or service. Case studies that included numerical data that is valid and reliable can help guide a business to buy. After all, numbers don’t lie.
The quote also speaks to the amount of depth and focus which needs to be placed on analysis in market research. In our reports, the Drive Research team always works to find nuggets and insights beyond surface level numbers. This points to types of analysis like correlation and regression where we are in fact torturing the numbers to have them confess these insights.
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