1. Research Techniques
By Lacey Limby

2. Qualitative Research is…
Research that is written in words and goes into the
depth of it and has meaning. It gives more details than
quantitative research and is more useful if you want to
know the opinions and feedback about your product.

3. Quantitative Research is…
Research that is made up of numbers, facts and
figures. There is only one way to look at it and the
information it gives is simple and numerical. This is
useful if you want to know the quantity of something or
the rating etc.

4. Primary Research is…
• Information that comes directly from
the source, i.e. the target audience.
• You must have collected it yourself
and it must be original.
• When conducting primary market
research, you can use two basic
techniques: exploratory or specific.

5. Exploratory research is…
Open-ended, helps you define a specific
problem, and usually involves
detailed, unstructured interviews in which
lengthy answers are solicited from a small
group of respondents.

6. Specific Research is…
Precise in scope and is used to solve a
problem that exploratory research has
identified.

7. Methods of(paper) – e.g. customer
• Questionnaires
Primary Research
feedback.
• Surveys (online) – e.g. email, internet. – less
costly.
• Face-to-face interviews –on the street, on
doorstep.
• Telephone interviews –similar as face to face,
only shorter.
• Focus groups and Consumer panels –a group
of people who get together to examine a

8. Secondary Research is…
Information that is collected from research
that other people have conducted. It must
have come from another person’s research
or other sources. It is also known as desk
research as it is possible to collect it without
leaving your desk.

9. Methods of
Secondary Research
• Data from other consumer
groups –e.g. which?
Magazine survey of
consumer products.
• Reports from marketing
research companies.
• Internal business records –
e.g. sales reports.
• Internet –e.g. Wikipedia
• Books.

10. Audience Research is…
• When you research into the
people that you want to use
your product.
• Your product may vary from
a type of bubble gum to a
television program.
• Either way it will be aimed at
a particular group of people,
that is your target audience.
• The idea is to get inside your
target audience’s head to
find out what they want to
see.

11. Market Research is…
• When you investigate into the target market.
• This is the particular field that you want to launch your
product into.
• For example, if you were researching to create a sci-fi
drama, you would look into various sci-fi dramas that
already exist in the market, to find out if your idea has
already been done.
• This will also give you an idea of what is popular with your
target audience, so you can alter your product more to suit
them.