The first question to ask when trying to gather insights from market research data involves how you are displaying the data. When data usually starts as a spreadsheet of numbers, it can be difficult to see what the numbers really mean or to recognize patterns that exist. Therefore, start by organizing your quantitative data into graphs to see trends over time (ex. line graph or bar graph) or percentages of response frequencies (ex. pie chart).
Once you’ve identified interesting trends from your quantitative data, dive deeper into support qualitative data. For example, if you see that 70% customers find the support feature of your website difficult to use yet all other features only have 5% of customers struggling to use them, this needs further analysis! Through reading comments and follow-up written questions, you may find problems such as a repeated error messages, a certain feature being too slow, too many fields need to be filled out before they can submit a ticket, etc.
It’s important to remember that confirmation bias, looking for what you want to see, is a real and prevalent threat to usable market research insights. If your market research has a particular goal in mind, be sure you’re not cherry picking data that confirms the particular goal.
You should also be wary of market research data that seems “too good to be true” because often times, it is! Checking your sample size and statistical confidence are two good ways to start determining whether your research findings are simply up to chance or whether they are real.
When doing market research, it can be easy to do more analysis than necessary because the analysis process is what you’re focused on, not the results. While we do support meticulous analysis of market research data, you have to remember that experience, common sense and logic also play a huge part in data analysis.
So think through the graphs you’re creating and the in-depth analysis focus you choose to decide whether it is really necessary or whether you are just doing this analysis because you’ve been asked to analyze the results.
With your business goals in mind, Communications for Research (CFR) analyzes data collections to uncover answers to your research questions so you can make informed business decisions. In the end, our goal is to see the research project succeed. This means going beyond data collection services and providing data processing, analysis, and reporting services that deliver output that is usable for our customers.
Contact us today to speak with co-CEO Colson Steber and get a quote based on your timeline and budget! For more information on the value of market research, download our FREE eBook: