Marketing Your Internet Based Business

With an increase in technology, it has become easier for businesses to conduct remote market research. There are various types of remote market research you can use depending on the information you are trying to obtain.

Surveys

The easiest and most common way of doing remote market research is through online surveys. Since the market research company will recruit participants and handle the design of the survey and data collection, it is the least expensive way of acquiring data. Most surveys include multiple-choice questions, but more information can be gathered by including open-ended questions. The survey will likely be geared to a specific demographic, so the earlier questions should be used to ask demographic questions and determine whether the person should proceed with the rest of the survey. It is only appropriate to do this part early in the survey to avoid having a participant answer a bunch of unnecessary questions only to be disqualified from the survey later because they do not fit your target demographic.

Focus Groups

Market research companies make it easy to offer focus groups to conduct remote research. The researchers leading the focus group will be trained regarding how to ask the appropriate questions in a neutral way. One method of having an online focus group is asking people to log in at a specific time and answer questions in real time. The advantage of this type of focus group is the researcher will receive information in real-time and the participants can see the answers of other group members, but they are not on camera or speaking, which can make participants more likely to feel comfortable answering questions, especially those of a sensitive nature.

Another version of a remote focus group involves using virtual meeting software. Everyone in the focus group is on camera and will verbally answer questions. The people you recruit will need to be comfortable with the lack of anonymity, but these types of focus groups are more engaging and provide more information to the researchers. As an alternative, participants can answer questions or do activities in an online community or message board so the participants can answer questions in an asynchronous manner.

One-On-One Interviews

One-on-one interviews work similarly to focus groups, but the researcher questions participants individually. Although using meeting software for the session is most common, sometimes these interviews are conducted via telephone. Interviews are more time-consuming because you are gathering answers from one participant at a time, but they can be more informative because the participant may be more inclined to answer questions truthfully when talking to a single researcher.

Market research companies offer a range of study types so your business can collect important information. The best type of data collection will depend on the type of questions you want to ask. 

For more info about market research project management, contact a local company.