Market research is a vital tool for success, there is confusion to some extent when it comes to application be it for researchers compared to business men ,,
Qualitative market research can be defined as a research method through interviews conducted with a small number of consumers, primarily to gather initial consumer needs or early reactions to new product concepts. In other words, it is a type of market research that aims to find out people's opinions and feelings rather than information that can easily be shown in numbers.
Quantitative market research is a method of research that use numerical analysis techniques to provide information useful to those involved in promoting products or services. Many business applications of quantitative marketing research involve surveying customers. The information thus obtained can be used by marketing staff to assess consumer needs and formulate more effective product marketing strategies. Quantitative research is a formal, objective, systematic process in which numerical data are used to obtain information about the world. This research method is used:
• to describe variables;
• to examine relationships among variables;
• to determine cause-and-effect interactions between variables.
Whether a focus market research group study or online survey or other method, all market research survey methods are either qualitative or quantitative market surveys. Market research survey methods are of two types. Understanding their distinction is vital to planning a successful marketing research study. Online surveys, phone surveys, focus groups, survey panels, depth interviews, and ethnographic studies all fall within one of these two types.
Qualitative Market Research
Qualitative market research means "quality." Conversely, and importantly, it does not mean "quantity." Qualitative research methods are designed to talk to a relatively few people in the target audience of interest. The purpose of qualitative research is to plumb the depths and range of buyer attitudes and beliefs, not to measure incidence, project, or forecast quantity.
Popular qualitative market research methods include focus group studies, depth interviews triads (one interviewer, two respondents, and dyads (one interviewer, one respondent,) and observational techniques such as ethnography and, popular in marketing research, photo ethnography.
We include qualitative market research methods as a "market survey" method because they offer a way to measure the market, again, in terms of depth and range of buyer perceptions and needs rather than quantity. Often market researchers and clients succumb to the temptation to inappropriately impute quantitative implications and projections based on this type of market survey.
The level of professional quality and validity of results in market surveys is driven by the design, interviewing experience of the moderator or principal interviewer, and the interpretation of results by the market research consultant or marketing analyst.
Quantitative Market Research
Quantitative market research methods attempt to gauge quantity. Using a range of sampling strategies, quantitative market research methods seek to project results of a quantitative market survey to the entire marketplace.