When conducting research, many marketers do not delineate their research objectives beforehand and end up gathering useless data, losing money and time. Learn how to avoid these issues and pick the right set of questions for your next research project.
Let's talk about research and dive deep into the most crucial step when conveying a marketing campaign since it is key to identify the audience's needs and how they perceive the brand before coming up with an entire campaign to ensure its success.
Research is important, and that is why brands such as Disney are constantly doing it. I am sure you have gone to the parks in the past and received a survey afterward asking you to rate your overall experience because they need to know their areas of improvement to optimize their business.
More important than the research per se is knowing what type of questions to ask consumers to obtain the best results and satisfy the marketing objectives. With that in mind, two types of data could be researched, and I will briefly explain the difference.
On one side, we have qualitative research questions, which consist of asking open-ended questions such as “Why?” “How?” and “What?” to survey in-depth the opinions of consumers where unexpected findings can arise. For example, if Disney asks you why you would likely come back again within the next year, they are collecting qualitative data in which you will describe the reasons why your first experience was so magical that you cannot wait to go back. Your answer may probably be something like a cast member went out of their way to take your pictures because they noticed you did not have anyone else who could have done so, and now thanks to them, your Instagram is full of cute content. An encounter they would not have known unless you told them in the post-survey.
On the other side, there are quantitative research questions, which, in contrast, focus on numbers and will give a different type of data as a result. With these questions, such as true or false, yes or no, or rate your experience from 1 to 5, will be asked to have an estimate of the average satisfaction of consumers rather than more specific reasoning. For example, Disney could ask you from 1 to 5, how likely are you to come back within the next year. Your answer could be 5, and they will know you were satisfied with your visit, but not the reasons why you had a magical experience that made you come back.
“So now we see how important it is to pick the right questions for your research depending on the data you need to answer your initial concerns and gather the necessary information to improve the brand.”
Next time you are planning on conducting research, make sure to outline the objectives first and think about which set of questions will give you the best answers and help you understand your consumers.
I know research sounds like a hard topic, but we will be talking a lot more about it. In the meantime, I invite you to learn about the future of artificial intelligence in marketing from my last article, and as always, I hope you are having a magical day!