Whether you’re into social media monitoring or not, learning the difference between traditional and
non-traditional research marketing can increase the chances of a successful
campaign. Your intuition and good instincts have certainly played a role in
knowing what your customers want. Unfortunately, your gut feelings about your
customers’ preferences and needs are not always on track. Failed or minimally
successful marketing campaigns happen to every business professional.

Whether you’re into social media monitoring or not, learning the difference between traditional and
non-traditional research marketing can increase the chances of a successful
campaign. Your intuition and good instincts have certainly played a role in
knowing what your customers want. Unfortunately, your gut feelings about your
customers’ preferences and needs are not always on track. Failed or minimally
successful marketing campaigns happen to every business professional.

You always want to improve and maximize your
chances for a successful campaign. That’s why market research is so important.
You probably already know enough about market research to make your eyes glaze
over. For instance market research involves analyzing and collecting
information about what your customers—and potential customers—want and need.

This research can help you launch a service or
product, redefine your brand or develop and advertising campaign. Understanding
the basic market research term is great for business. However, market research,
like your business, has changed a lot with the increase use of the Internet.
That’s why knowing the difference between traditional and non-traditional
market research is also vital.

Market research consists of five basic methods. You have:

Each traditional method has its advantages.
With a focus group, you hire a moderate to ask a group of people questions and
lead a discussion about your product. You’re able to glean more information
than you would from observations because of the various discussions.

Surveys are simple, straightforward
questionnaires from a sample population of your target audience. The larger
your population sample, the better, more reliable results. The type of survey
you choose depends on your budget. In-person surveys are the most expensive.

You conduct them in high traffic areas like
shopping malls. You let people sample products and give instant feedback.
Telephone surveys cost less money, but you run the risk of a low-to-moderate
response rate because of consumer resistance. The least expensive are mail
surveys. However, they generate a lower response rate than telephone surveys.

Non-traditional market research goes beyond
the back office services. Typically, it offers real-time data in a way that
traditional marketing does not. For example, ethnography provide a detailed
look into your consumers’ world using online conversations and video, among
others. This method allows you to observe consumers in their typical setting
without intruding.

Non-traditional market research includes
online surveys. Non-traditional market research takes the research one step
further. It provides you a greater flexibility to talk and gain insight than a
focus group ever could. Online non-traditional market research includes:

Bulletin boards and social networking sites
give you a way to conduct research on sensitive topics, consumer behavior or
brand issues more deeply than you could face-to-face.

Another non-traditional market method is using
one or more tools like texting, in-store, blogging, group or online research.
For example, you can use what’s called at-shelf inspiration to find out
customer behavior when they are deciding what product or brand to purchase.

Regardless if you intend to consider social
media outsourcing or not, consider both types of market research. There’s no
reason you should pick traditional market research over non-traditional or vice
versa. You can use them together to achieve your goal of finding about more
about your target audience. You never want to limit yourself with market
research because you want to reach your target audience and learn what their
sentiments are.

Marketing Research Photo

By typographyimages from Pixabay