Survey Research

 

 

What Is Survey Research?

Survey research is a quantitative and qualitative method with two important characteristics. First, the variables of interest are measured using self-reports. In essence, survey researchers ask their participants (who are often called respondents in survey research) to report directly on their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. Second, considerable attention is paid to the issue of sampling. In particular, survey researchers have a strong preference for large random samples because they provide the most accurate estimates of what is true in the population.

Beyond these two characteristics, almost anything goes in survey research. Surveys can be long or short. They can be conducted in person, by telephone, through the mail, or over the Internet. They can be about voting intentions, consumer preferences, social attitudes, health, or anything else that it is possible to ask people about and receive meaningful answers.  Although survey data are often analyzed using statistics, there are many questions that lend themselves to more qualitative analysis.

 

Most survey research is nonexperimental. It is used to describe single variables (e.g., the percentage of voters who prefer one presidential candidate or another, the prevalence of schizophrenia in the general population) and also to assess statistical relationships between variables (e.g., the relationship between income and health). But surveys can also be experimental.   

There are three main survey research methods, divided based on the medium of conducting survey research:

• Online/ Email: Online survey research is one of the most popular survey research methods today. The cost involved in online survey research is extremely minimal, and the responses gathered are highly accurate.
• Phone: Survey research conducted over the telephone (CATI) can be useful in collecting data from a more extensive section of the target population. There are chances that the money invested in phone surveys will be higher than other mediums, and the time required will be higher.
• Face-to-face: Researchers conduct face-to-face in-depth interviews in situations where there is a complicated problem to solve. The response rate for this method is the highest, but it can be costly.

Further, based on the time taken, survey research can be classified into two methods:

·         Longitudinal survey research: Longitudinal survey research involves conducting survey research over a continuum of time and spread across years and decades. The data collected using this survey research method from one time period to another is qualitative or quantitative. Respondent behavior, preferences, attitudes are continuously observed over time to analyze reasons for a change in behavior or preferences. For example, suppose a researcher intends to learn about the eating habits of teenagers. In that case, he/she will follow a sample of teenagers over a considerable period to ensure that the collected information is reliable. Often, cross-sectional survey research follows a longitudinal study.

·         Cross-sectional survey research: Researchers conduct a cross-sectional survey to collect insights from a target audience at a particular time interval. This survey research method is implemented in various sectors such as retail, education, healthcare, SME businesses, etc. Cross-sectional survey research can either be descriptive or analytical. It is quick and helps researchers collected information in a brief period. Researchers rely on cross-sectional survey research method in situations where descriptive analysis of a subject is required.

 

 

Test Marketing

 

Test Marketing

 

What is Test Marketing? Definition

Test Marketing is a controlled experiment conducted by companies in a carefully selected market to test the viability of their new product and marketing strategy. It provides you an opportunity to learn, adapt and refine your product.

The objective of test marketing is to find the limitations and strengths of the product based on customers’ reactions. It also helps us to structure the marketing strategy of that product.

A test marketing campaign aims to predict the revenue model (sales, profit, pricing). It shows you the efficiency of the product and the promotional message.

What is the importance of Test Marketing?

Launching a product can be tricky, the level of acceptance of the product, customer satisfaction, sales, demand, marketing strategy everything needs to be taken care of. Test marketing helps you to get authentic results around every aspect listed above before spending all your resources on building the finished product and hoping it works.

Now that you’re aware of what test marketing is and what you can expect while conducting a test marketing campaign. Let us talk more about test marketing and its types.

Types of Test Marketing

 

 

There are two types of Test Marketing:

1. Consumer goods Market testing
2. Industrial goods Market testing

The Consumer goods market testing explains all the goods that are used by consumers directly, this test is conducted to know the consumer behavior towards the product. The companies aim customers to go through this entire flow:

Trial —> Repeat —>Adoption —-> Purchase

To attain all these stages following types of tests are conducted:

1. Sales-wave Research

This test is conducted to determine the potential of the product to be consumed/accepted every time it is offered to the customer. The samples are often distributed for free to analyze the willingness of consumers to accept the product. One major example is a free trial of new lipsticks, perfumes offered to the existing customers, and feedback.

2. Simulated Market test

This test is conducted to ascertain the preference of the customer and their product selection. A group of people are invited to the stores and are given some discount offers to motivate them to shop in the store. The New Product is placed with the old ones or the competitors and customers are observed closely, to know if the new product was picked up over other alternatives.

The products are also distributed for free to acquire more customers for the test and they are inquired about the product later on. The example is in departmental stores where new products are placed and consumers’ behavior is tracked.

3. Controlled Market test

In this test new products are introduced to the chain stores and the presentation of the product is controlled by the brand- their presentation, sales, pitch, introduction, etc. It is not distributed for free to make people try the product for the price they will get in the future. In cafes, you are pitched by the waiter for their new recipes and they even ask you to share the feedback multiple times.

4. Test Markets

Every brand has its market, they know the demographics and geographics of their customers. A test market is a set of particularly selected areas or segments of the audience used for a launch (product launch on a small scale), this small test market is representative of the entire market size of the company.

For example, many tech companies launch their new features in particularly selected areas on the basis of sales, customer loyalty, etc.

Industrial Goods

All the goods that are produced for further use to make the final good are considered industrial goods. They are divided into two major categories:

1. Alpha Testing

This is a cost-effective way to gather initial feedback about the product. The companies distribute their product increments inside the organization itself and ask for feedback from the users. 

Most of the telecommunication giants use it, such as Jio distributes most of the products to the employees to use it as they would ahave a better take on the product not as a consumer but as a business owner who will purchase the product.

2. Beta testing

The testing is done outside the firm with real customers, these tests are conducted often in events, shows, exhibitions where a set of the particular audience are gathered. These methods help you based on, customer’s gain immediate feedback from potential clients and see their reactions to the product.

Advantages:

• It removes the risk of large scale commercialization of a new product without having any iteration according to the customer feedback
• You can have a way better idea of your marketing strategy since you have been tracking customer’s reactions testing different marketing approaches.
• The authenticity of data is real, as you have gained feedback from real customers after they have used the product
• It helps you to retarget the existing customers with an updated new product

Disadvantages:

• Distributing products for free sometimes create problem in evaluating the revenue model.
• The test market selected might not be the right representative of your entire market size.
• There is a risk of competition tracking our new move and the product.

How is Test Marketing done?

Till now we know every theoretical knowledge about the topic but your study is never completed without practicals. Let us jump on to how to do test marketing? It has 5 major practical steps:

1. Select the Right Market

It is a very important step because if we select an audience that is biased due to any reason that will completely change the data that we will collect at the end. Always select a market that is representative of your entire market size. Generally, the cities/online platforms/demographics that give you the most business are the ones that fit best in this category.

2. Duration of Test

We need to select a set duration for the campaign. Based on the repurchasing period and state of competition select a time duration. The time should be at least 1 or 2 months more than your repurchasing period.

3. Cost of Test

The cost of marketing is directly proportional to the duration of the test campaign. Find out the cost per acquisition and the duration of the test to find the entire cost of Test Marketing.

4. Collecting Data⋆

This is the most crucial step in the test marketing process because all of this is done to collect authentic, credible data therefore we need to have a structured system in place to collect our data. Some of the data points you need to measure are customer persona, channels of distribution, consumer behavior, demand size, purchasing power, feedback from customers, etc.

Analyzing the Data

Next is the Product launch but before that let me put some emphasis on analyzing the data because it is not what data you have it is what you do with that data that decides your next big move.

 

 

Types of Research - Exploratory, Descriptive & Causal

 

Three Types of Research

Exploratory research

Exploratory research has the objective of giving a better understanding of the research problem. This includes helping to identify the variables which should be measured within the study. When we have little understanding of the topic we find it impossible to formulate hypotheses without some exploratory research. The techniques of exploratory research include reviews of secondary sources of data, informal interviews and focus group interviews.

 This is a good example of where insufficient is known to develop clear objectives since the problem cannot be articulated with any precision. Thus any research would be of an exploratory nature. Such research can take the form of literature searches, informal personal interviews with distributors and users/non-users of the product and/or focus group interviews with prospective customers and/or distributors. Exploratory research is intend to help in the task of formulating a researchable problem and testable hypotheses.

Descriptive research

As the name suggests, descriptive research is concerned with describing market characteristics and/or marketing mix characteristics. Typically, a descriptive study specifies the number and size of market segments, the alternative ways in which products are currently distributed, listing and comparison of the attributes and features of competitive products etc.

This type of study can involve the description of the extent of association between variables. For example, it may be observed that there is an association between the geographical location of consumers and their tendency to consume a product. Note that we are able to describe the relationship rather than explain it. Nonetheless if the relationship between the two is fairly stable this descriptive information may be sufficient for the purposes of prediction. We may, for example, be able to predict how fast the per capita consumption of red meat is likely to rise over a given time period.

The principal difference between exploratory and descriptive research is that, in the case of the latter, specific research question have been formulated before the research is undertaken. When descriptive research is conducted, a great deal is already known about the research problem -perhaps because of a prior exploratory study- and researchers are in a position to clearly define what they want to measure and how to do it.

Causal Research or Experimental Research

Causal research attempts to deal with the ‘why’ questions. This type of research is employed when there the objective is to understand to know why a change in one variable brings about a change in another variable. If we can understand the causes of the effects we observe then the ability to predict and control such events is increased.