Blueboxfish | Research & Marketing

Insights and strategy to excel in a changing world.

Home » 2 Tips for Designing a Research Project

2 Tips for Designing a Research Project

Research can uncover valuable insights and help your organization in numerous ways. However, in a world where we are literally swimming in data, the value of insights is bounded by its relevance, timeliness and accuracy. The next time you need to conduct research, here are a couple of key points to keep in mind so that you can get the most relevant, timely and accurate answers to support your organization’s decisions.

What is your question exactly?

It sounds simple but it’s critical to clearly define the questions you are trying to answer. These questions should also be tied into the larger business objective.

For example, let’s say you were trying to if you wanted to get a better understanding of customer satisfaction for your organization. You could ask many questions about customer satisfaction:

  1. How satisfied are customers with your product/service?
  2. How satisfied are customers with your product/service vs. your competitor?
  3. Why are they satisfied/dissatisfied with your product/service?
  4. Has their satisfaction changed over time?
  5. What does satisfaction mean to your customers?

As you can see, these are all distinct questions that will yield very different results, some of which may or may not be relevant to your business objective.

However, suppose we contextualize the question:

Company A, recently launched a redesigned version of their product and wishes to understand how the new features have impacted customer satisfaction.

In this case, we may wish to examine these questions:

  1. Which dimensions of satisfaction are most important for customers of this product?
  2. How did they rate these dimensions prior to the product redesign?
  3. How do they rate these dimensions after the product redesign?
  4. What factors have impacted satisfaction?
  5. What can be improved to increase satisfaction?

Clearly defining the questions based on the business context and objective guides the development of the entire research project and is critical for ensuring that you end up with actionable insights.

Balancing the Timeline, Budget and Accuracy

Insights are of little value if they are delivered after the window of opportunity for action has closed. It is therefore critical to design research projects that provide the most accurate insights possible within the time constraints of a given situation and respecting the allotted budget.

Here is a crude example to illustrates this.

To answer a certain question, we could simply Google an answer. It would take about 5 minutes and be minimal in cost. However, the answer may not be relevant, accurate or reliable (depending on the source). On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, we could design an extensive research project that would deliver highly accurate insights but would take too long to deliver and be cost prohibitive.

This is where leverage different research methods to design research projects that provide the necessary accuracy within the required timeframe and budget.

For example, suppose we would like to perform a competitive product analysis within a short timeframe. We may decide to conduct an analysis exclusively using secondary data from online product reviews and forgo primary data collection from in-depth interviews or surveys. While relying exclusively on secondary data may not yield as accurate or relevant results as when combined with primary data, it may provide an acceptable level of relevance and accuracy to meet the business objective.

So the next time, you are looking for answers, be sure to clearly define the questions so you can select the appropriate research methods that enables you to get the necessary level of accuracy within your given timeline and budget.

Designing a new product? Need insights to support a strategic move? Need answers and data? Schedule a call with us to see how the Blueboxfish team can support your market research needs.

by

Other Articles

Market Research: A Strategic Tool for Business Growth and Innovation

In this highly competitive and rapidly changing business world, market research can give you the edge you need. Market research is the process of systematically gathering data about your market, competitors and customers to guide your organization’s decisions. Whether you are just starting out or have an established business, here are some of the ways…

Continue Reading Market Research: A Strategic Tool for Business Growth and Innovation

Genetic Data in Marketing: Is this the next frontier?

With the rise of direct-to-consumer genetic testing such as 23andMe and AncestryDNA resulting in the availability of large genetic data sets, we’ve started to see companies engage in marketing activities targeting specific genetic segments (see Aeroméxico’s DNA Discount campaign). On the surface, genetic marketing can appear to be a gold mine for marketers, however, before…

Continue Reading Genetic Data in Marketing: Is this the next frontier?

The Lighting Agora Partners with Blueboxfish

We are absolutely thrilled to announce our partnership with The Lighting Agora. Founded by Tom Butters, LC, The Lighting Agora is a consortium of lighting industry experts providing the highest quality educational, lighting design, market research, marketing and website design services to the global lighting community. Blueboxfish’s founder, Meiling Fong, brings to the table over…

Continue Reading The Lighting Agora Partners with Blueboxfish