Understand Buyer Emotions with Qualitative Research
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Feb 2013 Webinar: How to get the most from your research budget. Find out how to determine what you really need to know. Learn how to define your approach, assemble the best research team, and then interpret the data to help you refine your lead generation, branding, and product development programs.
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Understand Buyer Emotions with Qualitative Research
- 1. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior DO YOU KNOW WHY YOUR CUSTOMERS DO WHAT THEY DO? Make qualitative research your best friend
- 2. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior WHO ARE WE? Principals of Natural Impulses Mary Samuelson Joy Ward
- 3. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior WHERE ARE WE GOING? What are the differences between quantitative and qualitative research? What should you expect from each type of research? What should you not expect from both?
- 4. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH, BIG DATA AND ANALYTICS Quantitative Research will tell you what people do. What it won’t tell you is why they do it.
- 5. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE RESEARCH What IS qualitative research? •Used to identify emotional and behavioral patterns •Looks for WHY and how a behavior is formed
- 6. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE RESEARCH •What IS qualitative research? •Famously used by Piaget to design study of child development Requires small respondent sets Effective market research can be more or less expensive than quantitative depending on what is needed Look for results, not cost
- 7. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE RESEARCH Why do I need qualitative research? The answers lie in the target markets’ heads You are NOT the target market You need to get into their heads
- 8. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE RESEARCH What are the various kinds of qualitative research? Focus groups and triads
- 9. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE RESEARCH What are the various kinds of qualitative research? Ethnographic Mystery shopping
- 10. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE RESEARCH What are the various kinds of qualitative research? Evocative Brain scans
- 11. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior UNDERSTANDING QUALITATIVE RESEARCH What are the various kinds of qualitative research? Interviews
- 12. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior WHAT DO I DO WITH QUALITATIVE RESEARCH? Use qualitative BEFORE the quantitative research to refine your information, understand emotional ties to specific product types, branding and future product and services development
- 13. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior WHERE ARE WE GOING? How do you combine qualitative and quantitative research to get the strongest, most actionable results from your research?
- 14. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH, BIG DATA AND ANALYTICS Quantitative research will tell you what people do. What it won’t tell you is why they do it.
- 15. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH, BIG DATA AND ANALYTICS Many ways to collect quantitative data CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interview) CAPI (Computer Assisted Personal Interview) PAPI (Pencil and Paper Interview) Mail Surveys Web Surveys Big Data Modeling
- 16. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior 13% 10% General Population = 26.5% General Population = 23.3%
- 17. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior TRASH IN, TRASH OUT TITO
- 18. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior An example of what can happen when you don’t ask the right questions. Qualitative research can be your best friend in helping ensure that you get the information you need. OOPS!
- 19. Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior Dad’s Dilemma Wid Get Who would be the best choice to take over my company? Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior
- 20. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior Get’s Quantitative Team Price Color Size
- 21. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior Los Angeles New York Tampa Wid’s Qualitative Team
- 22. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior Speed Partnership Attribute X Color Qualitative Research Results For Widget Attributes Attribute Y Attribute Z
- 23. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior Quantitative Research Results For Widget Attributes Quantitative Importance Percentages Price 98% Attribute V 34% Attribute W 8% Attribute X 28% Color 12% Company Size 42% Geographic Location 51% Customer Base 39%
- 24. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior Comparison of Results Qualitative Speed Attribute X Attribute Y Attribute Z Blue Partnership Quantitative Price Attribute V Attribute X Company Size Geographic Location Customer Base
- 25. Based On Qualitative Findings As your partner in the widget industry, we know what you want! We have the fastest widget on the market; it does X, Y, and Z, and comes in a beautiful blue color. Attributes: Speed Attribute X Attribute Y Attribute Z Color Partnership Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior Based on Quantitative Findings We have the cheapest widgets in the industry. They do V and X and do it really well, so no matter what your company size or location, buy your widgets from us! Attributes: Price 98% Attribute V 34% Attribute X 28% Explained Variance =.18 For these you know WHY For these you know HOW MANY
- 26. Based On Combined Findings You would understand that: Speed Is important because in this particular industry, speed is linked to higher revenue which is emotionally linked to success. Attribute X Attribute Y Attribute Z Color Is important because in this particular industry if no specific color is required for this widget ,it is linked to pride and job satisfaction. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior Partnership Is important because this widget plays an important role in the manufacturing process and if it fails the buyer needs to feel that his “partner” will do what is needed to get their operation back up and running as quickly as possible. The emotional motivator is security. Price Is seen as important because it is linked, in this instance, to several emotions such as achievement and success. Attribute V 34% Attribute X 28%
- 27. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotion that drives buyer behavior Attributes’ Overall Importance Ratings: Speed 28% Price 38% Attribute V 54% Attribute W 43% Attribute X 22% Attribute Y 5% Attribute Z 8% Partnership 59% Color 18% Company Size 62% Geographic Location 51% Customer Base 40% Quantitative Informed By Qualitative shows: Much more important Much less important Much less important overall but more important to a specific segment.
- 28. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior Focus is on attributes V, W, price and partnership. Attributes Overall Importance Ratings: Speed 28% Price 38% Attribute V 54% Attribute W 43% Attribute X 22% Attribute Y 5% Attribute Z 8% Partnership 59% Color 18% Company Size 62% Geographic Location 51% Customer Base 40% Based on Correctly Implemented Quantitative…
- 29. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior As your partner in the Widget industry, we provide the best possible pricing for high quality widgets. (Assuming that attribute V is quality.) Our widgets are the fastest available today, fully equipped for X and Z, and we are so sure of their dependability that we offer a lifetime warranty that is second to none. Qualitative As your partner in the widget industry, we know what you want! We have the fastest widget on the market; it does X, Y, and Z, and comes in a beautiful blue color. Quantitative We have the cheapest widgets in the industry. They do X and V and do it really well, so do yourself a favor and buy your widgets from us! The Right Marketing Message
- 30. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior QUALITATIVE TELLS YOU WHY, QUANTITATIV E TELLS YOU HOW MANY.
- 31. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO KNOW BOTH? BECAUSE FOR A PRODUCT TO BE MARKETED EFFECTIVELY, YOU MUST UNDERSTAND THE MOTIVATION THAT LEADS YOUR MARKET TO USE IT.
- 32. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior QUESTIONS?
- 33. Natural Impulses Tapping into the emotions that drive buyer behavior NATURAL IMPULSES Mary Samuelson and Joy Ward are the Principals of Natural Impulses, a research firm devoted to helping their clients reach the deepest understanding of their markets and clients.
Notes de l'éditeur
- Do you wonder if you are making the most of your research dollars? Do you find that even though you’re buying research you just aren’t finding what you need to know? Are you confused by how to ask for the right research to match your planning and branding needs? Are you buying research that everyone else does just because it’s a popular method or supplier? Are you just plain confused about what you should be getting from your quantitative or qualitative research? If you answered yes to any of these questions then this is your webinar. Welcome!
- Mary Samuelson and I are the principals of the research firm Natural Impulses.Mary Samuelson has over twenty years of both academic and commercial research experience. Among her professional research positions she includes the Vice President of Quantitative Research for Brand3Sixty, the Director of Quantitative Research for Rockhopper Research, Senior Research Manager, Financial Services for Maritz Research, Project Director for Battelle CPHRE and Senior Project Manager for The Right Brain People®. Samuelson has a Masters in Experimental Psychology and extensive graduate work on her doctorate in Psychology.I’m Joy Ward and I have focused most of my thirty plus years of market and academic research on the qualitative sector. I have worked with quantitative as well as both an academic researcher including political polling. I spent a number of years working with Mid-South Research and Heakin Research using research tools from phone and door-to-door interviews, mall intercepts, taste tests and pretty much every other kind of traditional commercial technique. After completing my two Masters (Political Science MA and Management MSBA) I joined The Right Brain People®, most recently serving as a Senior Project Manager where I have worked extensively with clients from project inception through continuing involvement in implementation of project findings including branding, marketing, call center refinement and much more. I have also been a freelance and staff writer for regional, national and international publications such as Commerce Magazine (Head Writer) and Government Review (North American Business and Political Editor).
- We are going to explain the differences between qualitative and quantitative research, including what you should and should NOT expect from both types of research. We will also cover how to use both kinds of research in conjunction to get the strongest results.
- Quantitative research will tell you WHAT people do. For example, quantitative research will tell you how many people buy a service and how often they do it. What it WILL NOT do is tell you WHY they buy your service and what will make them buy more of it or why other potential clients do not your service or why they buy from your competitor. Only qualitative research can tell you that.
- Let’s start with the basics. What exactly is qualitative research? Qualitative research is used to identify emotional and behavioral patterns. It should be used in market research whenever you are trying to understand why a target market is doing what they do and how the behaviors you want to understand are formed. For example, you have a service that by all accounts should be a big seller. You did your basic investigations so you know there IS a market for this service, you know that there are no other services that meet the particular demands of that market and you are fairly sure you have priced the service appropriately. Only one problem -- the service isn’t moving. You’ve managed to get it into the marketplace but it has not been widely embraced so the sales are negligible. Yet you see your competitors’ older and less advanced services continue to grow nicely in sales. What is going on? The answer lies in the appropriate research.To understand why your competitors’ product is still the market leader you need to understand several things. What are the potential buyers for your service REALLY seeking in that service, NOT what you THINK they want or need. Oftentimes potential buyers cannot even tell you because the underlying and motivating needs are tacit or internally unexamined. Instead of spending hours examining their own motivations, potential buyers will give you a socially acceptable answer such as “price” or “easy to get.” Nice, safe answers are the kind of answers you’ll get in typical quantitative research but not answers that will allow you to make a breakthrough in your market. In short, WHY are they buying that service and not yours? Until you understand the WHY you are shooting in the dark to change the behavior.Qualitative research is essential in understanding how behaviors are formed. All of us do many things because of habits which are just behaviors that have become automatic. Many times, buying a particular product or brand is a behavior that has served the individual well over time. Once the behavior becomes engrained then if you want to cause a specific change (like buying your new product or brand) then you must understand how the behavior formed. Qualitative research is your tool to obtain that knowledge and ultimate increase in your sales.
- Piaget, the father of child development, watched his children and from this qualitative research he uncovered how his children developed. In this case, his children were, in our lingo, his respondent group. He could use a small number of people to study because he was working to understand how all regular children develop. He did not need a large group of children because all children follow basically the same rules of physical and emotional development. He was working to understand how the larger group of children develop by extrapolating from the few to those who share the same behaviors because of their shared biology. He could have asked adults about their childhoods but his research would not have been valid. The adults had gone through childhood but were not undergoing the process. Therefore, the answers they gave would have been their memories embroidered by experiences over time. But when he watched children he could see the development processes first hand. And this also explains why qualitative research does not require a large number of respondents like quantitative research. Quantitative research should have a minimum number of respondents to be statistically significant because it is about numbers. How many buy this? How many in this business segment want this or that? As you probably know, you need the large numbers to ascertain how those numbers extend into your complete market. But by targeting the market based on behavior you need fewer respondents to understand the complete segment or market.Does having fewer respondents in a project or study mean it should cost less than a quantitative project? No. In fact, the cost per respondent will probably be higher. Strong qualitative research requires more involvement with each respondent. Inexpensive quantitative research can cost you and your company much, much more in useless marketing efforts, missed and lost sales, and even lost corporate development opportunities. When comparing the costs of different research plans (quantitative to qualitative, various qualitative types, etc.) consider the costs of choosing the WRONG research versus the costs of the EFFECTIVE research that gives you the strongest answers and actionable results.
- Clients sometimes say they can figure out why their customers or clients buy this or that or have other kinds of business or consumer behaviors. In short, they say they know their clients or customers. I have heard that from all kinds of clients including business to business, business to consumer and even social issues marketers. The problem is that isn’t true because the clients are NOT their customers or clients. The people who think they know their clients are looking at the issues from their own viewpoints. They are in a different position than their clients or customers. Someone could have been the best product manager in the world. BUT once he moves on to another form of marketing or the market he, like adults moving out of childhood, move into a different phase of their lives and motivation. What motivated or caused his behaviors when he was a product manager is NOT what motivates him now. What makes it particularly dangerous to use this new position to design marketing campaigns, etc. is because the new plans could be targeting the completely wrong motivations. It comes down to that no matter how long you have been in automation or any other industry it is highly unlikely that YOU are the market you need to understand and reach. Get out of YOUR head and get into THEIRS if you want to move your products and services.
- Let’s go through the most popular kinds of qualitative research and when each can be used to reach the best results. Almost everyone in every aspect of business has experienced a focus group, either as a participant or a viewer. Triads are simply focus groups with only three participants. The reason focus groups are so popular is that they are often the cheapest and fastest forms of qualitative research. They are also the most overused and USUALLY provide inaccurate, misleading results. Focus groups can be used very selectively if you already have strong qualitative and quantitative research that you want to test. They are also used effectively for some packaging checks. But focus groups or triads should not be used as the first line of qualitative research. There are numerous stories of companies depending on focus groups only to spend millions of dollars afterwards in vain.Why? Focus groups hold some very distinct dangers. While they appear to be using respondents who share behaviors the recruitment does not easily target the underlying motivations when recruiting respondents-- so the group can have vastly different motivations. There is no control to balance out these motivations so you may see only one or two aspects of motivations, missing the most important motivator. Focus groups often evince the worst aspects of group interactions with one or two people demanding most of the attention. Focus group leaders often have to work very hard to get every one’s thoughts. Even those thoughts could be worse than useless. People are very good at giving their opinions but opinions are often misleading. People want to answer questions so they will often give the first thing that jumps in their minds. Is that the kind of information you want? The best time to use focus groups or triads is when you already understand the motivational landscape. Then you can compare the answers to what you know. Therefore, you understand if your messaging or advertising is hitting the RIGHT tones as opposed to just something that is amusing. Let me give you a quick example. Years ago I was running a series of focus groups for a company for whom our company had done extensive emotional research. The ad agency asked us to test some advertising for the upcoming holiday season. I was presented with a set of storyboards to show the groups and get their reactions. I did a double take when I saw the first storyboard. It was a storyboard of Mel Brooks in elf tights selling our mutual clients’ products – fine jewelry. I suspected this did not match the underlying motivations to buying fine jewelry. When I presented the storyboard to the focus group they broke into laughter. My boss was sitting behind the glass window with the ad agency folks and said they seemed quite pleased to get such a happy reaction. I probed the reaction and what I got from the participants was not one of “wow, that’s great jewelry. I should buy that!” The reaction was a lot closer to bawdy humor that ridiculed anything Mel Brooks would be selling wearing elf tights. The storyboard made it through one more focus group viewing before it hit the trash, never to be seen again. If I didn’t know the underlying motivators from the previous in-depth research, our client could have spent millions of dollars on research that actually HURT ther brand and sales.That brings up the last warning about focus groups – Inexperienced, untrained moderators or moderators with their own agendas. Many ad and marketing agencies do not want to spend the money for a well-trained moderator so they appoint someone in their agency to run focus groups for them. I have even had agency-based moderators tell me they would subtly lead focus groups in the direction their agency wanted to go.
- Ethnographic research has become very popular among some marketing researchers. It involves watching people go through whatever behavior the researcher is studying. It was most famously used by the great anthropologist Margaret Mead to document the lives of tribal people in the Pacific. She lived with the tribes and reported on their lives. She was able to do so this because the people she watched accepted her into their lives. They were comfortable with her presence in their activities. A number of years back some researchers decided to incorporate this technique to study how people performed chosen behaviors. For example, the researcher could ask the respondent to let the researcher accompany him t the store as he shopped for groceries. It is possible to garner some useful information using this technique. Unfortunately there are some caveats as well. Mead pointed out the worst problem. Being watched by a researcher tends to change respondent behavior. So you really don’t get an accurate picture. Consider watching a factory worker to see how they use a particular item. You might get an accurate picture but more likely you will see a sanitized version of the activity. Why? Most of us cut corners when running procedures we do a lot. We tend to change our actions to more closely match the appropriate routine. The worker thinks about the procedure and thereby changes his behavior. Ethnography can be used when the respondents are unaware they are being watched but then there are sometimes privacy issues involved. But it should be pointed out that even as ethnography was beginning to be used in commercial research, ethnography was being called into question in its original venue, academic research. Academic researchers now rarely use ethnography because of the reasons I mentioned.Mystery shopping is most often used to test business interactions with clients or customers. Mystery shopper researchers often visit or otherwise interact with businesses to see if the employees are following procedures or that the business is otherwise adhering to set procedures. Mystery shopping can be very useful in meeting these goals but is not very useful in uncovering basic motivations and behavior formation.NEITHER ETHNOGRAPHY NOR MYSTERY SHOPPING IS EASY TO DO OR VERY RELEVANT TO BUSINESS TO BUSINESS MARKETING IN AREAS SUCH AS AUTOMATION.
- Evocative research is used with either individuals or groups to identify emotional concepts that respondents attach to products, services or brands. Moderators can ask respondents to draw pictures or choose from a set of images to describe how they feel about the topics. This technique requires a very experienced, trained moderator who knows how to translate the images for the individual respondents. Usually the moderator is a licensed psychologist so the projects are priced accordingly. The big concern is that the same image can mean something completely different to two or two hundred people. Unfortunately, the moderator can tend to interpret the images in her own way so she could completely miss the underlying and accurate meanings to her respondents. Does the tiger picture mean bravery or fear to the respondents? What if it means both to different respondents? So the answers depend on the moderator’s interpretations.Unless the moderator has a deep understanding of the respondents’ motivations it is very easy for him or her to assign general meanings. That would greatly increase the likelihood that your research findings would miss or misrepresent critical findings. The result? Investing a lot of money for deeply flawed findings and ultimately incorrect marketing.Brain scans are possibly the newest form of qualitative research on the research market. About a decade ago the company I worked with was approached by a major ad agency to come up with a way to read brain scans of respondents to test advertising effectiveness. We explained that it was possible to see which areas of the brain lit up when seeing an image but that would not tell us or the agency what the brain activity meant. The brain activity could mean that the respondent was happily excited or fearful. Brain mapping is not that accurate. To understand the brain activity someone would have to interview the respondent to verbally probe the reactions. The same still holds true. Not only are they expensive research “gadgets,” brain scans are rife with ethical concerns. Fortunately, brain scans are rarely used in business to business research.
- This brings us to the oldest and what I consider the most useful form of qualitative research, interviews. Interviews were one of the first forms of qualitative research and when done correctly can provide the most in-depth, accurate and actionable results. Interviews allow each respondent-researcher team to fully explore their topic without interference from others. Also, the researcher should have the time and freedom to find out what concepts, motivations, etc. mean to each respondent. Then the researcher can compile the answers, looking for themes and the meanings of themes across the respondent pool. Interviews should be designed with both some level of standardization and some flexibility. For example, when we put together a project we design an in-depth Interview Guide that gives our analysts both a basic series of question sets to follow but also provides places to more deeply probe respondents on areas of interest. The standardization insures that the interviewer will cover all the desired topics with the respondents while flexibility allows the researcher to fully probe respondents for complete answers.For example, our analyst may be interviewing a respondent on signing a long-term contract with a supplier when it becomes apparent to there is something very important to the respondent about the supplier’s activity during the meeting. Although the individual questions are not on the Interview Guide, the analyst has the flexibility and training to switch to a probing on the meeting and how it is affecting the respondent’s purchasing behaviors. The result is that we bring crucial information into the light. That information gives us the ability to link the behaviors to the actions and thereby understand how to position the marketing, brand and whatever is the focus of the project. That results in higher sales or whatever gains are desired.In short, well designed and run interview studies are the strongest option when looking for underlying motivations and blocks to behaviors. Experienced interviewers elicit deeper information that can be more easily translated into accurate, actionable qualitative findings.
- Now that you have an overview of qualitative research, what do you do with it? Many people think of it as being in the consumer marketing toolbox but it should be in yours, too.First off, you need to decide what you want or need to know. What is the REAL question? If all you want to do is count your customer base then qualitative research is not your tool this time. But if you need to know what your customers really want from your kind of product or service then its time to use qualitative research to inform the quantitative survey. The same is true if you want to understand what your brand means to your potential market and/or current customers. Your qualitative tool is what you use whenever you need to get beyond the numbers and stats to what lies below.Use qualitative research when you need to understand the motivational and behavioral underpinnings of your market. Once you have a “map” of motivations then you can move on to quantitative research. The quantitative research can give you actual values of the motivations, geographical differences, the degree to which a concept is important to your market, and other statistical information.The next step after you have completed the quantitative phase, developed your messaging and other marketing materials is to return to qualitative for “testing.” Did you get the message right? Are you giving a message that shares the wrong motivational points? Then use that feedback to refine your information, branding and future product and services development.
- We will explain how to combine qualitative and quantitative research to reach the strongest actionable results. There are ways to spend a LOT of money and get weak results. There are also ways to spend marketing funds that will garner you the best results. Just like in computers – GIGO. Garbage in, Garbage out. We want you to know how to buy research that gives you just the opposite results – VIVO, Value in, Value out. Mary Samuelson, who handles the quantitative end of what we do, will take over now and discuss why it is important to use qualitative research BEFORE moving forward to the quantitative phase of a research project.
- Statistics and methodology are my bailiwick. I love them. Regressions, forced choice modeling, derived importance… I can hardly wait to dig into a data set and see what it tells me. But I have learned over the years that if you don’t first understand what motivates your buyers to purchase, it is difficult at best to design a questionnaire that will provide the information you need, and there is no statistic that will allow you to glean that information from the data. Even with “big data” modeling, you can gain information about what people are doing, but you have no idea WHY they are doing it, and can make bad business decisions because you don’t have that information.
- There are many ways to collect quantitative data. I’m sure that all of you are familiar with these, but I’ll go over each briefly and discuss some of the pros and cons of each as a refresher.CATI – pros Allows you to capture information directly from the person you are trying to target. It can be designed to easily meet specific quotas so that your data is representative of the group you are trying to target. Cons – land line usage is on the decline and cell phone numbers are not readily available. The no call list eliminates a large part of the population and can skew results. CAPI – pros – Is an excellent tool for markets that are difficult to reach by phone or for on the spot interviews that capture real time information. Examples might be an interview conducted in an electronics store as customers try out a new product, or a series of interviews with C Suite managers whose time is limited and must be scheduled. Cons – Extremely time consuming.PAPI – pros – Can be conducted anywhere. You can go to the market you are trying to target. Cons - Must be designed very simply to avoid skip errors, etc.Mail Surveys – pros – can be sent out to a general population or a targeted group, without the issues associated with decreased land line usage. Cons – VERY LOW RESPONSE RATEWeb surveys – pros – Probably the biggest advantage to this type of data collection is that you can collect a large number of completed surveys in a short amount of time, and do it relatively inexpensively. cons – professional respondents; some people don’t use the web so data can be skewed to those who do. If that is the target you want to reach then this isn’t an issue but that is seldom the case.I’m defining big data modeling here as the practice of collecting data from various web sites, blogs, chat strings etc, and using statistics to analyze that data and formulate conclusions about a specific product, service, company, etc. Pros – LOTS of available information, Cons – you can never be sure how reliable the information is, and because of the sheer numbers of responses, even a very small difference can show up as significant.
- Big data modeling has some other problems too. The chart above can be used to illustrate one of those problems. This chart shows computer usage by age and computer brand. It was published in 2009, so I’m sure the numbers have changed somewhat since that time, but the main point is that, as you can see, big data models that pull from information on the web are probably going to be skewed to a younger population than actually exists in reality, because computer users are younger than the general population. Females 55 and older make up less than 15% of computer users yet make up 26.5% of the general population, and men 55 and older make up only 10% of computer users, yet make up 23% of the general population. If you aren’t worried about obtaining a true representative sample, then this wouldn’t be an issue.
- The biggest problem with ANY method of quantitative data collection, however, is what I call TITO. TRASH IN, TRASH OUT. No matter how careful you are to make sure that the data you collect is collected correctly and is representative of the market you want to target, if your questionnaire doesn’t ask the right questions, there is NO WAY that you can get the information you need to make sound business decisions.
- The following slides give an example of what can happen when qualitative and quantitative methods are not used properly, with qualitative research informing and guiding the quantitative work. The example illustrates why we say, “Make qualitative research your best friend”.
- Meet Wid and Get. They are the twin sons of the very rich and famous Mr. Widget, owner of the multimillion dollar company Widget Inc., that manufactures (of course you guessed it) widgets. Since their father has yet to determine which twin will take over as head of the company when he retires, both sons are extremely anxious to impress their father. To test them, he has given his sons a very important task. A new widget is due to be released on the market in six months. Their job… determine the advertising and promotion messages that will make these widgets a successful addition to the Widget line of products.
- Get is a numbers man. He and his team have brainstormed and believe that as experts in the Widget industry, that they ALREADY KNOW what will motivate buyers to purchase their product; it’s just a matter of testing and proving their belief. They are testing price, color, and widget attributes V, W, and X. They design a survey that is distributed randomly across the U.S., so that they can also look at company size, geographic location, and customer base. They are anxiously awaiting the results.
- Wid believes in qualitative research.He believes that buyer behavior is not dictated by numbers. He and his team brainstorm, and come up with three major cities where they can conduct qualitative research to determine the emotional motivation that drives purchase behavior for their new product. They choose New York, Los Angeles, and Tampa, Florida, and conduct their qualitative research in those markets, to find out what buyers expect from a widget and what would lead them to buy one widget over another.
- The qualitative report is in. Here is what it shows.A faster widget is very important to buyers.A widget that does X,Y, and Z would more likely appeal to buyers.Buyers are looking for a partner in the widget industry to help them promote their business and increase sales. (This might have come through in the quantitative research, but there is no way to understand what partnership MEANS to the buyer, so that it can be targeted effectively in messaging and advertising.)The color blue is the perfect color for a widget of this type.Armed with this knowledge, they are ready to market a fast, blue widget that does X, Y, and Z, using the message that Widget incorporated is your partner in the widget industry.
- The quantitative report is also in. It shows the following:Price is the most important thing when buyers choose which widget to purchase.Color is somewhat important, but it really doesn’t matter so long as the price point is right.Attribute V is very important, and X is important to a lesser degree, but W doesn’t matter nearly as much as the other two.So, who is right? As you can see, there is some overlap but there is a lot missing on both sides.Qualitative proposes focus on: speed, X,Y, and Z, the color blue, and partnership, all of which were mentioned frequently in the focus groups and interviews.Quantitative proposes that the marketing should tout price and attributes V and X, and that company size, geographic location, and customer base are also important to consider when marketing the new widget.
- So, who is right? As you can see, there is some overlap but there is a lot missing on both sides.Qualitative proposes focus on: speed, X,Y, and Z, the color blue, and partnership, all of which were mentioned frequently in the focus groups and interviews.Quantitative proposes that the marketing should tout price and attributes V and X, and that company size, geographic location, and customer base are also important to consider when marketing the new widget.
- 2Here is what the marketing messages might look like, based on the initial findings of each method.So, what’s wrong with this picture? The problem is, they are both right to some degree, but neither has the whole story. Here is what they should have done to ensure that their product will be a success.The qualitative phase of a project should be done first. As we can see, it reveals that speed, attributes X, Y, and Z, color, and partnership were mentioned frequently in the qualitative study. What the qualitative study didn’t tell Wid was to what degree each is important, and if there is a difference in importance based on the size of the buyer’s company, the geographic location of the company, or the buyer’s company base, to name a few of the possible mitigating factors. Had the qualitative research been used to inform and flesh out the quantitative survey, the resulting messaging would have been much stronger. For example, Attributes Y and Z, partnership, and speed would have been tested quantitatively, to determine their relative importance to other attributes. Mr. Get missed these entirely when he designed his quantitative survey. Price is a given and would have been factored in using forced choice, or some other method that forces the respondent to consider it’s relevance with relation to other factors. Had qualitative research been used to inform the quantitative survey, the results would have been much different.
- But there is more… With all factors included, things change up pretty drastically. Attribute W, which didn’t show up as important at all, now has a much higher score. Price, when factored in with the widget’s performance in areas such as speed and quality, becomes less important and is more important to one group than another. Partnership, which was not included in the original quantitative survey, ranks highest of all attributes in its importance rating because of its link to security.
- So… based on these results, the focus of a marketing campaign would be Attributes V, W, price and partnership. While company size and geographic location do play a part, the differences between variable importance was not vastly different on anything but price, so the marketing message can be targeted to a general audience with price included in the messaging. This information is important because it saves you money when developing your marketing message,but that information would not have been available using the original quantitative design that did not incorporate qualitative findings.
- This message is different than the originals. It contains elements of both research types. Qualitative provided information that allowed testing on partnership, speed, X, Y, Z, and color.Quantitative contributed price and attributes X and V (quality).Together, they allow you to formulate a message that will tap into the emotions that drive buyer behavior.
- The important thing to remember when planning your research projects is that qualitative tells you why, and quantitative tells you how many. Both pieces of information are important to have for effective messaging and branding.
- Mary Samuelson and Joy Ward are the Principals of Natural Impulses, a research firm devoted to helping their clients reach the deepest understanding of their markets and clients. Both women have been extensively involved in research from origin to completion; assisting clients effectively utilize the findings and branding or rebranding their products, services and companies or organizations.