AN Explanation of Your Market Research

Hopefully you should have successfully completed some market research, in fact you have conducted research known has primary research or field research. The information you have collected, was first hand information, it was not collected or published by someone else, if it had been it would have been secondary research.

You should have also completed some simple data analysis and worked out the range of the CD prices, this is known as a measure of dispersion or the spread of the data. You should have also calculated the average price, or to be more precise we should call it the arithmetic mean.

This numerical data is known as quantitative data, but you also conducted some research that was not measured numerically, when you looked at which website were easy to use which were difficult. This non-numerical data is known as qualitative data. Try the following to see if you understand the difference:

Quantitative or Qualitative?

Did you notice that one of the websites offered a narrow choice of music? It specialised in Scottish music, this is an example of a company operating in a niche market and even if you never visit the website again you should remember what a niche market is!

• Take Part in Some Market Research

You have now conducted some primary or field research, so how do businesses get their primary research?
The Times 100 is an educational website for business students and has a 100 case studies that will show how business are actually run. However, like many businesses using the internet, they are conducting some market research, so once you have had a look around their site have a look at the questionnaire. Whilst looking at or completing the questionnaire think about whether the questions obtain quantitative or qualitative information and how they might use the information.

• How is Primary Research Collected?

For more details of the different collection techniques visit The British Market Research Association and for an explanation of marketing terms try the Chartered Institute of marketing -Glossary.

To see how well you understand the advantages and disadvantages of the various techniques try the following exercises:

• Interviews
• Consumer Panels
• Collecting Primary Data

When collecting information you have to decide from whom to collect it. Try the following to learn about the process.

Who do we ask?