Conduct Effective and Efficient Primary Research in 07 Easy Steps!

Primary research refers to information that is gathered by the researcher themselves. A wide range of methods was used to gather this raw material, including surveys, focus groups, data analysis, and observation and interview sessions. Brands have been intimidated by this idea in the past since they don’t know where to begin or how to deal with massive amounts of data.

This difficulty has been solved because of the rise of technology that provides brands with simple and straightforward tools to employ. This has resulted in brands becoming more confident in their own projects while benefiting from real-time data insights.

In addition, because the data in this study is new and unused, it gives you an up-to-date perspective or possibly more confidence in validating theories you already have. It can also be tailored to meet your specific requirements. An abundance of primary data can be quite useful.

1 — To begin, pick a topic of study.

Certain research topics may be controlled differently by brands depending on the size and structure of the business. To illustrate this point, a small marketing team may be responsible for everything, but a larger company may break out the many departments into smaller groups. Any of the following might fall within this category:

• Product features
• Product launch
• Understanding a new target audience (or updating an existing audience)
• Brand identity
• Marketing campaign concepts
• Customer experience

2 — Defining a hypothesis for your research.

Do you know what you want to find out from the information? To what extent can your customers’ responses assist you to learn more about them and achieve your company’s business objectives? If so, what demographics are you interested in?

Your audience’s motivations, feelings about a new feature, and even the amount of money they’re likely to spend on a given product may be of interest to you.

3 — Determine which methods of research are most effective.

Starting out, you may want to use questionnaires, interviews, and focus groups to gather a combination of qualitative and quantitative data to gain a feel for the research process. You’ll have to take into account additional considerations, such as your budget and the time frame in which you need to complete the study.

4 — Create a strategy for completing your research

You’ll have to figure out the following things:

• What is the timeframe?
• What is your required sample size?
• Who is your target audience for this research? These will be your consumers.

If you’ve never done primary research before, this is where you could get stopped because it’s hard to know where to begin. Which is understandable, given how intimidating it has always seemed.

5 — Decide how you’re going to go about gathering and analyzing your data.

It might be tough to know where to begin or what to pay attention to when conducting primary research, especially if the goal is to uncover actionable insights.

As technology has improved, more and more companies are conducting their own market research and data analysis in-house. To make the best judgments, use these tools to sift through massive amounts of data and identify the most relevant information.

6 — Execute your research

There are 04 essential steps to conducting your research:

1. It’s important to make sure that the survey and other research methods you use meet the project’s specifications (what you want to accomplish/study) before the project goes live.
2. Collect a modest percentage of the overall data before launching your product. Everything should be working as expected, and any data quality issues can be fixed.
3. You’ve put forth a lot of effort to get here. If you’re utilizing a tool, you can relax and let your mind wander, or you can check your account’s data if you get intrigued.
4. Analyze your data to look for any errors or responses of subpar quality. Remove this if you don’t want it to interfere with the data analysis.

7 — Evaluate and Act

There is still a lot of work to be done here. After a thorough investigation and evaluation, it is time to put your findings into action. What do the numbers have to say? Your behaviour and decision-making will be affected by what you can see in the future. What are your immediate plans now?

Your team members should be able to use the data to improve their business outcomes by distributing insights and assigning actions. Your primary research may need the use of secondary research.

It might seem overwhelming but in action, it’s a fruitful and eye-opening process. IBI can help you execute and design this process precision-driven to the core.