After deciding to conduct market research, the next consideration businesses often have is, “Should I conduct my own market research, or should I outsource this project to a third-party research company?”
This decision may go one way or the other depending on the objectives of the study and the type of market research service the organization is hoping to use – employee surveys, customer satisfaction survey, intercept surveys, focus groups, etc.
For example, a human resource team looking to conduct Voice of Employee (VoE) research may think, “I know the questions I want to ask my staff and I can just use a free online survey platform to administer the study.” Our market research firm, would argue there are many cons to conducting employee surveys in-house.
- Using a Third Party for Employee Surveys
- Benefits of Using a Third-Party Market Research Firm
- Why Every Successful Company Uses Employee Surveys
Regardless if you are conducting employee surveys or other types of market research, it is important to understand the cautions of doing this on your own. There are many ways a market research study can go wrong if it is administered in-house.
Watch as Drive Research, a national market research firm, outlines 4 main concerns of conducting market research without the assistance of a third-party.
Skewed Data
When doing marketing research on your own, a business falls victim to skewed results in their data. It is very difficult to take a step back, and ask questions in a way that is not leading or altered to encourage more positive feedback from the respondent.
An every day example of a leading question is, “There was a man with brown hair standing outside, right?” When in reality, to receive nonleading feedback, the question should be phrased as, “Was anyone standing outside?”
In reference to a question in market research a leading question may be, “Did you have a positive experience when working with Company X?” However, when asking about satisfaction in a survey the nonleading phrasing would be, “Rate your last experience with Company X on a scale from 1 to 5.”
No business likes to see poor commentary about their organization, however this type of feedback is important in uncovering elements of your business that turn customers off or away from ever buying from you again. For this reason, when hiring a third-party market research company an organization is assured questions are asked with out any bias and the results are 100% accurate.
Lacking Experience and the Know How
While free online market research tools might make research seem like a very easy and doable task for your team, it is not that simple. The art of survey writing is not so black and white. One word in a question of a market research study can affect the final survey data in a major way. When conducting market research on your own, you run the risk of ruining the results before you even begin fieldwork.
Speaking of results, analyzing the data of a market research study is an intricate process and can be broken down into many variations. A market research company has the skill and know how to review the data in an impartial manner to find the most surprising statistics and findings.
Research analysts are able to show different segments of the data as well. In other words they are able to split the data to show differences in gender, ages, income levels, and many other demographics.
For example, a market research study often tests sources of awareness for organizations. The top source of awareness for their females demographic may be television, while the most common answer for males is social media. This then can impact the marketing messages and creative to target these specific audiences in their most preferred media channels.
Wrong Choice of Methodology
Much like every business and target audience is different, so is every methodology in market research. The choice in research methodologies can significantly impact the results of a study. There are a variety of factors that go into choosing what type of research such as the objective of your research, your target audience, your budget, and so on.
A third-party market research agency will be able to determine what methodology is best for your specific needs and project goals based off the projects they’ve completed in the past. They are the experts in knowing what does and does not work to conduct a market research study successfully.
A full-service market research company also understands the pros and cons of each methodology. For example an online survey is possibly the most cost- effective research option but is limited to the level of detail received in the feedback. A focus group while expensive, offers the highest quality of data and feedback based on the objective of your study.
More Effort and Cost
Perhaps the most misconceived notion of conducting your own market research is the idea that it will take less time and less money. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. DIY market research will almost always result in more effort, thus more mistakes and costs associated to solve these errors.
By outsourcing this task to a market research firm, they are able to take on as much or as little of the project you need. This is done in the most objective and effective way possible. Say you have an online survey in place, but are having trouble tracking down your target audience or recruit respondents to complete the questionnaire.
Our market research firm sees this particularly a lot for businesses looking for a very specific kind of audience (right handed females who live in NYC), or those looking to conduct non-customer community research.
A market research company has access to online recruitment methods to find your most challenging recruits, cost effectively. In this case, the market research firm acts as a part of your team to provide you with the list of research participants for your team to then take control of fieldwork and analysis.
Contact Drive Research
Drive Research is a market research company located in Syracuse, NY. Our team has the knowledge and tools to design a robust market research study, should it be the right fit for your business.
Interested in learning more about our market research services? Reach out through any of the four ways below.
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Email us at [email protected]
Call us at 888-725-DATA
Text us at 315-303-2040