Writing for Forbes.com, Marc Babej gives some advice on making sure the money you spend on market research isn't wasted.
According to Babej, much of the data collected can be meaningless. He explains: "A big problem is that conventional research tools are ill-suited to assess the impact of marketing investment on behavior, mainly because it's nearly impossible to track all the steps from the moment someone sees an ad to the moment when they make a purchase.
"As a result, market researchers have had to settle for metrics like awareness and attitudes - essentially asking actual and potential customers about how they feel about a given product or advertisement - which aren't necessarily predictive of behaviour."
So before you part with your money on research, Babej suggests you ask yourself the following five questions:
1) Can the question you're asking be answered by a particular research methodology?
2) You might be able to research it, but is it worth finding out?
3) Is qualitative research yielding actionable insight?
4) Is it possible to track instead of research?
5) What are you prepared to spend?
Making Market Research Pay
Marc Babej, Forbes.com, 08/10/09
