As market researchers, we are often asked to recommend methodologies that answer specific business needs. In the old days, we would often default to the tried and true: surveys, focus groups and in-depth interviews (IDIs). And in the old days, business executive clients were often satisfied with those options.
Times have changed.
Today’s business executives are very data savvy. CEOs, CMOs, Brand Managers, Product Managers, and other traditional users of market research data now have experience using various data sources—and service providers—to help them be customer-centric and data-driven.
The challenge for this of us in Market Research & Insights? If a business executive asks us for a methodology recommendation to address a specific business need, we need to be aware of all the relevant options such that we can recommend the right ones (or optimum combination). If we come back with a methodology recommendation that has a relevant option missing, it will be a glaring omission…and we lose credibility as a trusted advisor.
Are your ready to make current methodology recommendation?
In our latest episode of Conversations for Research Rockstars, Research Rockstar president Kathryn Korostoff sheds light on the topic of consulting on methodologies with business decision makers. Kathryn explains, “You don’t have to be an expert in every single kind of data source out there, frankly that’d be impossible. But you should be fluent enough that you know what the key options are, what methodologies are available.” To explore these various methodologies and data sources further, a categorized chart of data options available to business makers is discussed in detail.
In this episode, Kathryn also defines key terms—some classic, some newer. For example, as she discusses primary and secondary research, Kathryn explains, “a common mistake people make is they assume primary research is survey research: not necessarily. Primary research could be qualitative data, observational data…” After covering secondary research, Kathryn additionally discusses structured and unstructured data, prescriptive, predictive and descriptive data, self-reported and transactional data, cross-sectional and longitudinal data, and more.
More from the video podcast:
- “These days we’re seeing a trend in which a lot of projects are not about one data source. I increasingly see projects where clients blend data and analysis from multiple sources… We need be sure if our client is integrating our data with other sources, we know the pros and cons and are the best advisor we can be.”
Curious about different sources of data and “talking data” with business decision makers? Check out the whole video on the Research Rockstar YouTube channel.
