Here’s another excerpt from my Marketing Magazine series on Qualitative Research…

Within a qualitative research context, there’s no right way to ask a question per se. There are actually many right ways to ask a question. And there are also many wrong ways to ask a question.

The wrong ways

You may have heard about some of the following heinous qualitative research crimes:

• Asking leading questions
• Asking closed ended questions
• Asking vague questions

Why are these ‘wrong’?

Because leading questions ‘lead’ people to a particular answer, closed ended questions can end the discussion prematurely, and vague questions elicit vague answers that have little grounding for interpretation.

Well, theoretically. But all is not what it seems. An experienced moderator might use any of these types of questions purposefully, and with excellent effect:

• A leading question often works well to test a hypothesis, or as stimulus in itself, to get the conversation going
• A closed ended, or vague question can provide a foundation to open the discussion in interesting and new ways

They’re all part of the qualitative researcher’s toolkit and used in a timely and purposeful way, can add tremendous depth to the discussion.

How exciting –  The Age of Conversation 3 will be out in April!

In the meantime, a list of the authors;

Here’s a post I wrote for Marketing Magazine about the ROI on qualitative research;

The value of market research – whether we’re talking about qualitative or quantitative research – is difficult, if not impossible, to quantify.

That’s because market research rarely, if ever, works alone in shaping strategy. It’s just one of many tools in a marketer’s tool bag.

In addition to this, market research is only ever:

• As good as the research brief and the questions it asks
• As good as the analysis and the debrief
• As useful as its end users make it; it’s what they do with the output that can determine success or otherwise

Given the variables listed above (so called because they vary), it’s pretty much impossible to put a figure on its value per se.

Relevance

Let’s look at it in another way.

If a particular product or service or piece of communication is relevant, it’s far more likely to end up in the shopping basket (so to speak). So the absolutely fundamental, most basic question for marketers should be:

“How can we make our products/services/communications more relevant to our customers/potential customers?”

And there are two ways marketers can go about answering this question:

1. They can ask their customers/potential customers
2. They can guess

Ask them

If marketers ask their customers/potential customers (and listen to them), they’ll be in an excellent position to create relevant products, services, communications etc.

The value of qualitative research here is obvious; it’s a very good way of asking, and listening, to your customers/potential customers to find out what’s relevant to them.

By being relevant, you’re optimising the chance of collecting the sale. Therein lies the return on your investment.

Guess work

If marketers decide not to ask and, in effect, guess what the market wants, they run the risk of getting it wrong.

Consider the time, resources and money wasted when bad guesswork delivers a dud. Go one step further; cost it out. And add the opportunity cost.

When you have that figure, my work here is done. Because that figure gives you a very good estimate of the ROI for good qualitative research.

Nothing to sneeze at, is it?

Anyone working/playing in, or pondering the online research space would benefit from reading this excellent book.

To date it is, by far, the most erudite, interesting and useful book about online qualitative research methods I’ve come across.

As the editors note; “It’s not a ‘how-to’ guide. It is, rather, an exploration and explanation of vantage points, a project meant to stimulate thinking”.

Which it really does.

And you can never have too much of that.