Market research and market reports

Field research, also known as primary research, can be quantitative or qualitative:

• Qualitative field research examines people's feelings and attitudes towards your product or service. It looks into what motivates them to make a purchase. 
• Quantitative field research provides statistical information. For example, how many potential customers there are and what their average incomes are.

• test customers' reactions to a new product, and adapt it if necessary
• investigate the attitudes of customers and potential customers
• find information specific to your business or a local market, rather than the market as a whole

What are the methods of qualitative field research?

The research normally involves recording and transcribing the interviews or focus groups. The researcher can then analyse the transcriptions. They will look for themes that reveal the participants':

• underlying views
• behaviour triggers and barriers

You can use qualitative research can be used to discover consumers':

• motivations
• needs
• reactions to message and new products

You can also use qualitative research to come up with new concepts. 

Examples of qualitative research for gathering marketing information include:

• focus groups
• in-depth interviews

What are the methods of quantitative field research?

Quantitative research is statistical. Therefore, it's important to use a large enough sample size so your results are meaningful. The larger your sample, the more reliable your data will be.

This type of research is useful for finding trends in:

• consumer preferences
• feelings of importance and satisfaction
• patterns in behaviour
• demographics 

Examples of quantitative field research may include:

• questionnaires with closed questions
• online surveys
• telephone, on-street or postal surveys