Market Research Design

As a researcher, one of the most important jobs we have is to craft research exercises (e.g., survey questions, discussion guide questions) that absolutely address our client needs. It sounds simple enough, but it can be hard to really know where you clients are coming from. We may know the client's objectives, but we sometimes don't have their level of knowledge about the product, the brand, or even the audience at times. Also, it can be difficult to completely understand their internal challenges (e.g., product limitations, executive pressure) that research needs to address in some way.

Background & Context

One way to achieve this understanding is to ask clients to associate a goal and a hypothesis with every research objective. For example, if they want to evaluate a concept, it is helpful to know why they are evaluating it. What decisions will be made as a result?  Also, it is helpful to have them share a hypothesis about what they think people will say. The purpose is not to prove a hypothesis true, but to give our questions/method a certain context that will address the hypothesis directly.

Actionable Research

The more specific goal/hypothesis we have, the more insightful our research activities are going to be, and the more actionable the result will be as well. Our method of choice happens to be market research communities, so this has a tremendous implications for long-term customer communities and managing client expectations over time. However, I think this has merit for all types of research methods from qualitative research to quantitative research, even extending to secondary research.

 -Ben