Welcome back, let's start by looking at qualitative research in the context of the larger market research process. Now, all of you out there come from many different industries and backgrounds, different cultures and different countries. I imagine that you have one thing in common. You probably want to find the best approach or strategy to conduct market research for your project or product. You may be thinking of your own project or product, or one your boss has assigned to you. You might just have your own basic idea or invention in mind. Your company may want you to explore a different angle on an already existing project. Perhaps you have found that your competitor is gaining your market share and you´re hoping to do something about it. Wherever you find yourself, you can benefit by having someone show you the ropes. You can become more effective by focusing on the various qualitative research methods. In this lesson, I will explain when to choose them and how to use them. And after this lesson, you'll be able to decide when to use qualitative research in the market research process. Let's get started. Here I will give you a little history of one of the reasons I continue to realize the importance of market research. I was working for a large medical device company in India as their Head of Emerging Markets Marketing. My boss asked me to find Key Opinion Leaders, sometimes called KOLs in industry jargon, who would be willing to start spine clinics in hospitals to screen patients about spine disease. These were spine surgeons and orthopedic surgeons. Now many companies make the mistake of putting a large investment into a new business venture without researching it. So I knew I had to do my homework. I hoped to save the company money, so they wouldn't chase a wild idea that may not be based on a true need. In this case I had no idea where to begin, being that I didn't know any surgeons. I first wanted to see how other established spine clinics operate. I needed to find a couple of surgeons willing to be interviewed, but wasn't quite sure how to approach them. What would be the hook? How could I get a surgeon of that stature to spend time with me? What was the gain in doing this? I decided to approach the situation as an educational learning experience, using my naivety and being a new employee in India. Thus began my qualitative research in the context of the market research process. First, let me share the process I would use to choose when and how to use qualitative research methods. When given a problem or prospective project, I ask myself, what does the client want to find out? Do they want to know how many, what type, why, or how? Do they wish to study a particular phenomenon in depth? Or do they want to make a standardized comparison? For example, if they want to find out how many people would use a product, they would need to do quantitative research. If they want to find out how, why, when, or where a customer would use a product, I would ask in depth questions in either an in-person interview or focus group. You need to sit down with your client and ask them about their goals for the project. In the proposal, you would reiterate what they said to you and then define back the objective of the research. Here's an example that came up during immunization focus groups I conducted. The inquiry emphasized the cultural differences seen in immunization practices. My client wanted to find out why certain ethnic groups avoid getting immunizations. They also wanted to find out how to increase the likelihood that they would be immunized in the future. They wanted to know the practices of African American, Hispanic, Russian, Lao, and Hmong populations in Sacramento. I knew from the project definition that they didn't want a random survey or quantitative results. They needed to know the why or how. They wanted to get a deeper understanding of the hurdles and objections people had about going to the doctor and getting shots to prevent disease. This research involved probing deeply into the thought processes parents make about important decisions for their children. This called for qualitative methods with ample probing. Another time I had a client who wanted to find out what people thought about a new behind the ear hearing aid. The research needed detailed experiences from individuals who either had hearing aids already or needed to get hearing aids. The client was considering ways to publicize and advertise this product. Therefore, he wanted to hear firsthand feedback from current and potential patients. He wanted to learn about their decision making process when it came to deciding to get a hearing aid. He wanted to know what criteria were important in deciding which type of device to get. I found out loud and clear, that men were much more vain about wearing hearing aids than women. They definitely had a problem acknowledging that they needed a hearing aid and were very vocal and loud about stating their opinions. They even denied being hard of hearing. [LAUGH] This research needed the personal touch of a focus group, since the responses were telling stories and not quantifiable. This called for qualitative research. If my client asks me to find out how many children in a school district would attend a mobile healthcare clinic, the focus group or in-person interview would not allow me to quantify or generalize the results. In this case, I would need to consider the entire population of parents and obtain a random sample of the population. Therefore I would want people to respond to a survey that has definitive choices rather than open ended responses. For instance, I would need to say something like a children's mobile clinic will be opening in your neighborhood next March. Please tell me how likely you would be to send your child to this clinic for healthcare services. And the responses would be, not at all likely, somewhat likely, likely or very likely. If your task were to find out how many, that would not call for qualitative research approach. If how many is in the question, quantitative would be best. If you want to be able to realize results that will be generalizable to an entire population, it's best to conduct a random quantitative survey. For instance, if a business wants to make a large cash investment in opening a restaurant or a mobile health clinic, or a spine clinic, they would want to know with great confidence that people would frequent it. That, too, would not call for qualitative research. I hope these real business cases demonstrate my process to choose when and how to use qualitative research methods. Qualitative research isn't black and white. It reaches into gray areas of beliefs, motivation, and personal behavior. Knowing what lies behind your target market's choices can help you address these needs later in a quantitative survey. This will lead to making your marketing and advertising campaigns more successful in the end. We will consider how to use qualitative research for our business case further on, when we address various methods for qualitative research. For now, that concludes our lesson on choosing qualitative research and the market research process.
