As was briefly mentioned in module 4, qualitative research is exploratory in nature and aims to learn what prospective customers think and feel about a particular topic. While quantitative research provides hard data to support these hypotheses, qualitative research helps identify potential ones. The most common methods used by market research for qualitative research are focus groups, participant observation, and informational interviews.

Informational interviews typically consist of a few general questions or prompts that allow participants to talk about what interests them. They can be structured, meaning that the interviewer follows a strict script, or semi-structured interviews, where the researcher has a few consistent questions and can follow up by asking more detailed questions about the topics that do come up. Such interviews can be lengthy and detailed, but they are usually conducted with a relatively small sample. Informational interviews have two advantages: one is that the researcher can establish a connection and trust with the research participant and ask probing questions to obtain a single opinion; on the other hand, the data are time-consuming and reflect a single person.

The basic justification for participant observation is that there may be important information that is only accessible to, or can be interpreted only by, someone who is an active participant in the group or situation. One of the main drawbacks to participant observation is observation bias, which means that the participant knows that they are being monitored or studied, which can significantly change their behaviour and the data that researchers collect. Participant observation is another approach to data collection in qualitative research. In this method, researchers become active participants in the group or situation they are studying.

Conducting focus groups—small groups of people who participate together in interviews focused on a particular topic or issue—is one of the most popular qualitative methods, especially for market research. Because focus groups can sometimes elicit more information than one-on-one interviews, we will go into greater detail about focus groups in this resource because they are the most frequently used qualitative method.

Professor Wolters shares the benefits of qualitative market research in this video.

Market Research in Action: Maya

Maya is a graphic designer living in downtown Vancouver and has recently taken some market research courses so she can add this as part of a skill set to clients. Most of Maya’s clients are smaller, not-for-profit organizations who don’t have the budget to have a full marketing team on staff. One of Maya’s clients, GreenTree, is a charitable organization who is interested in stopping some long-standing tree planting programs in some rural parts of British Columbia and creating some new programs that they think would have a bigger impact. They have asked Maya to do a logo for the new program, but Maya thinks that doing some market research before any decisions are made would help make a data-informed approach.

Maya suggested qualitative research would be a good way to understand the impact of the existing tree planting program on participants in rural areas. Since this is a program in a rural area, some of the follow factors need to be considered:

• Is there budget for a professional facilitator for the focus groups, or would Maya have the skills to facilitate them?
• If this is an online focus group, will the internet be able to support it?
• Are the potential participants in the focus group comfortable with computers?
• If some of the potential participants don’t speak English as their first language, will they be able to participate equally?
• If the focus group is in person, is there a facility that would be physically accessible so anyone can participate? Would child care be available on site?

What other questions should Maya and the GreenTree team consider before moving ahead with a focus group?

References

Burnett, J. (Ed.). (2011). Introducing Marketing. Global Text Project. CC BY 3.0

Chiang, I.-C. A., Jhangiani, R. S., & Price, P. C. (2015, October 13). Research methods in psychology – 2nd Canadian edition. Research Methods in Psychology 2nd Canadian Edition. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Professor Wolters. (2020, July 20). The Goal of Qualitative Research. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zFirre-DPE&list=PLuAz-nxZVHKAz79GqMYXYERBY9qL0HmN3