Seven Steps for Managing Successful Market Research Projects
NCCI's Market Research Process Receives Raves from Customers
Managing as many as 70 primary marketing research data collection initiatives a year, including customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, communication and training evaluations, could seem daunting for many marketing research departments. But for Joyce Valley, market research director for NCCI Holdings, Inc., a clearly defined process delivers quality data and has earned her department a 9.6 (out of 10) satisfaction score from her internal clients.
When she began working for NCCI ten years ago, she stepped into a paper-based environment, with loosely defined marketing research processes. Soon she transitioned much of the data collection process online and created a framework for managing market research projects on behalf NCCI. NCCI has over 1000 employees and manages the nation's largest database of workers compensation insurance information.
The combination of a disciplined marketing research process and the Inquisite Survey System enables Joyce and her team to successfully manage her department's numerous research projects. She cites Inquisite's analysis tools, customer training program and customer support team (which also earns high satisfaction scores, most recently 96.4%) as key reasons for using Inquisite as her online data collection system.
"A clearly defined marketing research process with established checkpoints at different stages in the process helps ensure our research delivers value to our clients and meets their requirements."
Here, Joyce shares NCCI's Seven Steps for managing successful market research projects:
1. Project Planning and Design
Taking time to clearly determine why the research project is being undertaken, what the study will measure, and what decisions will be made from the research findings is perhaps the most important part of a research study. Meeting with the client/decision maker comprises shared understanding about client's problem or opportunity, and clarifies client needs.
2. Sample Generation
Targeting your sample is extremely important to ensure that you are surveying the right people (decision makers, influencers, users, or a combination). A detailed screener should fulfill this purpose. Don't assume that the sample your client gives you is accurate.
Sample size must be appropriate. If it is too small, you take the risk of not getting significant results. If the sample is too big, you will waste time and money—because a smaller sample would have been sufficient. Statistically speaking, if your sample selection is random, or if your population is small and everyone in your sample is a qualified participant, a sample of 30 respondents is statistically sound. For surveys requiring analysis of subgroups, 30 respondents for each subgroup is ideal.
3. Data Collection and Field Work
An initial step in data collection is to pre-test your survey. Pre-testing the questions with a small group of respondents is a good method to determine if the questions will yield answers that meet the survey objectives. Pre-testing also ensures that the questions are easily understood by your respondents. Tabulating this subsample helps to ensure that the analysis plan will work to translate findings into results that will answer business decisions.
During the data collection process, give your client an update or status report on how the survey is going, and a general knowledge of how the results are coming in (positive, neutral, or negative). During data collection, if there are any sensitive issues that arise, or areas that need timely attention, it is extremely important to give that information to your client immediately.
4. Data Processing and Analysis
Data processing includes editing and coding the data.
The purpose of editing is to identify omissions, ambiguities, or errors in the responses. Data editing is conducted by the interviewer as well as the analyst/project manager prior to data analysis. It is typically only needed when a survey is self-administered. When interviews are conducted in person or by phone, an experienced, professional interviewer can identify any errors during the interview. Data editing identifies:
- Omissions when the respondents fail to answer a single question or a section of a questionnaire, either deliberately or inadvertently
- Ambiguity when a response may be unclear
- Inconsistencies between the answers given to two different questions
- Lack of cooperation when a respondent checks the same response (e.g., in a agree-disagree scale) in a lengthy survey
5. Conclusions and Report Preparation
The results of marketing research are often intangible. Very important decisions are usually made as a result of the research, but there is often little physical evidence of all the time, money, and effort that goes into a research project. The written report is often the only documentation of the study; however, it has immediate use in making decisions. While there can be many different styles for writing reports, consistency in report writing and look and feel is important. It is also important to write the report in a way that the client will understand—don't use technical research jargon. The report usually includes four sections.
- Executive summary, which condenses the survey findings so they can be read quickly; and explains why the project was undertaken, how it was conducted, and what was learned from the study.
- Detailed findings are written for the client directly responsible for the results to guide in their decision making.
- Exhibits, including tabulations, graphs, and charts which help explain and give a visual picture of the conclusions.
- Background, objectives, and methodology state why and how the study was conducted.
6. Report Review
While clients are always anxious to receive the research findings, it is important to take the time to quality check the numbers, interpretation, and recommendations. Quality checks of the interpretation and recommendations should be done by both the analyst and the marketing research director. The report then goes through editorial and legal reviews.
7. Research Deployment
Sitting down with the client to discuss the results of the research in detail is important to ensure that he/she understands the findings, to point out any underlying observations you may have experienced during the interviews, and to ensure that your work product meets the client's satisfaction.
It is the client's decision as to whom else to share the report with. However, the report should generally be shared with senior management. Research that has an impact on others in the company, company products, or customer satisfaction should generally be shared internally with those impacted, so that they may take appropriate improvement measures.
Short summaries of research findings that are of general interest to employees are created on a quarterly basis for communication on the company's Intranet. All research reports are housed on the Marketing Research database, which can be accessed by senior management and others as appropriate.
Whether your company has a market research department or you are the sole point person for managing surveys, a structured process can increase the effectiveness of your data gathering and data sharing. What challenges have you faced in your data collection process? What did you do to solve them?
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