Making Professional Research Affordable
Market Research Secrets
John Poole MBA, MMRS, MCIM, DipM
Managing Director - Oakham Research
October 2014
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Making Professional Research Affordable
Agenda
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Why Undertake Research
Secret #1
Types of Research
Secret #2
Planning
Secret #3
Sampling
Secret #4
Reporting
Secret #5
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Why Undertake Research?
> How does market research help?
Assessment of USP’s
New Product development
Avoid costly mistakes
Understand your audience / market
Measure effectiveness
Support PR activity
Determine pricing strategy
Customer satisfaction and retention
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Why Undertake Research?
 Large corporations have an unfair advantage!
- Ford, Renault, VW Audi, GM, Honda, BMW etc
- Understanding customers behaviour
- Identifying changes in habits
- Proactive rather than reactive
- BT, National Express, Johnson & Johnson, Tesco etc
- PR activity
- New product development
- New market opportunities
- Customer Testimonials
“I believe in innovation and that the way you
get innovation is you fund research and you
learn the basic facts.” - Bill Gates
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Secret #1
 Customer Satisfaction?
“Make your customer your best sales
person” – Audi Academy
 A dissatisfied customer will tell between 9-15 people about their
experience. Around 13% of dissatisfied customers tell more than 20
people – White House Office of Consumer Affairs
 Price is not the main reason for customer churn, it is actually due to the
overall poor quality of customer service – Accenture global customer
satisfaction report 2008
 Asking your customers how you performed, actually leads to increased
sales – Oakham Research
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Types of Research
Quantitative (Questionnaire) – The What
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Numerical / statistical
Yes / No
Scales
Options
Qualitative (Focus Groups / Workshops / Depth Interviews) – The Why
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Feelings
Reasons
Open ended
Coded
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Secret #2
 Ask the right audience?
 Ask the audience are right 90% of the time – US version of Who
Wants to be a Millionaire (2011)
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56% of the audience thought the sun revolved around the earth French version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire (2011)
 Make sure your respondents are the right profile and don’t have a
reason to deceive you – Oakham Research
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Planning
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The need / scenario
Objectives
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I
will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
Target audience
― Abraham Lincoln
Methodology
Research design (questionnaire / topic guide)
Fieldwork plan (where / who / when / how)
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Secret #3
 Creating Insight
 Don’t look at research results in isolation – link them to facts
you know about your business / market
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Analysis of research results leads to new ways of looking at your
product or service / explains buyer behaviour
 The sum is greater than the parts
The capacity to gain an accurate and deep
understanding of someone or something –
Oxford English Dictionary definition of Insight
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Sampling
 Who is eligible?
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Free found
Client database
Respondent profile
Anyone
 Quotas and Sampling?
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Random sampling
Universal sampling
Quota based on profile
Statistical Reliability
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Secret #4
 Sampling – The “Magic” Numbers
 How to predict a general election result by asking only 1,000 people
 384 people give you +/-5% confidence interval at the 95% level
 Sampling theory is very similar to probability theory. The more people
you ask the more accurate but not a straight line calculation
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Reporting
 Written Report
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Includes copies of questionnaires and tabulations
Executive summary
Research findings
How the findings relate to the brief
Additional insight
 Presentation of results
• Interactive report back of the findings
• Demonstration of understanding the issues
• Recommendations for change / improvement
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Secret #5
 Questionnaires
 Pay peanuts – get Survey Monkeys
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Understand human nature – the desire to please – leading questions
 Secret approach – don’t tell them what you want to hear
Sherlock Holmes: I never did ask, Dr Franklyn.
What is it exactly that you do here?
Dr Franklyn: Mr. Holmes, I would love to tell
you. But then I'd have to kill you.
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Making Professional Research Affordable
Questions
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