Gathering quality data at an affordable price

With today's plethora of market research options, it can be difficult to select the one best suited to meet your needs: Richard Thornton and Magdalena Ford of Ciao Surveys offer their advice.

There is a vast swathe of market research options to choose from these days from focus groups, phone surveys, face-to-face interviews and comment cards to online surveys, ad testing and eye movement tracking.

While no form of research alone can give complete insight into a market, some have a higher ratio of benefits to costs than others.

Interestingly, online surveys are one of the most affordable forms of data collection available, and at the same time can provide some of the most in depth and detailed data in the industry today.

This is for a number of different reasons.

First and foremost, online allows marketers to reach out to a vast number of people quickly, easily and inexpensively due to the prevalence of internet access around the world today.

In the past, there were concerns over online research lacking validity as the online population was not considered representative of the population as a whole.

This view is now considered outdated.

The internet is virtually ubiquitous in much of the world, especially among specific social groups, which generally are those most desired by marketers.

And even in developing nations, internet access is growing at an astounding rate, making this form of research more relevant to these locations.

Additionally, thanks to the growth in broadband connections, many studies can be carried out today online that could not be previously.

For example, thanks to streaming video, it is a simple task to test new television ads on a large number of consumers before placing them on air, and at a much lower cost than using focus groups.

The fact that it is so easy to participate in online surveys also implies that it could be more representative of the general population than some other forms of research.

The opportunity cost of participating in a survey online is much lower than attending a focus group or filling in a questionnaire by hand.

This means a bigger cross-section of the public are able to participate in the research, providing a broader range of opinions.

Online studies also can involve interactive components, which not only allow for a greater scope of research to be conducted, but also better hold the survey respondent's attention, yielding more accurate results.

An example could be a grocery retailer, who could use a multimedia simulation of a refrigerator shelf with real brands on it with prices listed to determine what arrangement works best for the shelf, or what pricing structure would result in the highest spend amount.

The only other way to analyse this would be to actually set up a shelf and have consumers come in and question them about it in person; the cost of which would be exorbitantly high in comparison to the online example.

Online methodology enables a wide range of studies to be conducted, including concept testing, brand awareness, trade-off studies and purchasing intentions.

The data from these is collected and made available in real time, making online the first choice for any type of tracking study.

Opinions can be scored and tracked each day, week or month with results provided almost instantly, providing an unparalleled source of fresh, relevant data for marketers.

As the data is gathered on a computer, it is a simple process to sort it and break it down by virtually any demographic, from age to gender to postcode to income.

This means reports can be generated more quickly and in more detail from online research than from other methods.

There are other advantages to online research in addition to the flexibility and quick response times it provides.

For example, panel sizes are far larger online than those available for offline research, leading to a bigger cross-section of the public.

International research is also simplified as it can easily be regionalised to match local language, and still carried out just as quickly as domestic research.

As with any form of market research there are some things that online cannot do as well as other methodologies.

The depth of insight, and emotional responses, that can be gained from focus groups and face-to-face interviews for example cannot be matched by any other method.

Additionally, some more technological forms of market research, such as eye tracking or monitoring biological responses clearly cannot be carried out online.

When this level of detail is necessary, it is often advisable to do an online survey to gather a large number of opinions, and then supplement this with more detailed insight from personal interviews or focus groups.

Nonetheless, online market research is continuously innovating and we have seen the development of new qual-quant fusions as well as the migration of focus groups online.

As online research depends on technology it continuously reinvents itself with newer applications that make respondents' experiences more engaging.

Online research enables marketers to make smart decisions quicker and quick decisions smarter.

It has changed the dynamic of how marketers and researchers interact with people to extract knowledge and data.

More research can be done in a shorter time and for a lower cost than in the past, and the quality of the data gathered is on a par with that collected using traditional methods.

Statistics have shown that marketers plan to use market research more often in the coming years, and within that they intend to increase their spend on online surveys even more.

All evidence points to the fact that online data collection is here to stay.

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