The Importance of Qualitative Research

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In our last discussion we spoke about the importance of an organization discovering their brand promise. Today we talk about the importance of qualitative research relating to discovering a true and believable brand promise. Let’s start by stating the obvious and not so obvious:  the pathway and foundation to any disciplined strategy, whether it’s a football game or marketing strategy, is research!  It’s also the most fundamental and often overlooked principal in marketing.

Top tier brands know the importance of research and go great lengths to understand the minds and behaviors of their target markets.  In fact, they spend millions of dollars on everything from retina scans to see how our eyes react to a certain color, to Metaphor Elicitation (how we process objects), to CAT Scans to see how our minds react to certain images.  Do you think Coca Cola came up with their pretty red cans by accident?  No.  They invested an obscene amount of money to absolutely KNOW that we pick their red can over any other on the grocery store shelf.

Since our marketing objective is to succeed, we seek to understand the minds, emotions, needs, wants and problems in need of solving from our target market.  How do we do this?  We talk to them.  Recent studies from Harvard Business Review show that a handful of qualitative (personal) surveys are far more valuable than quantitative (check boxes).  When we connect with someone one-on-one personally we’re apt to obtain unbiased answers unlike a focus group setting.  Focus groups can easily be biased by others sitting in a room.  But don’t get me wrong.  Focus groups are of great value depending on their format and who’s running the exercise.  The focus of our articles will aim specifically at executing qualitative one-on-one personal interviews.

Stay tuned!  Our next post we discuss creating a quality survey instrument to capture your target market’s needs and wants.  We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in the commitment to unwavering strategic marketing.

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