pros and cons of interviews for market research

Advantages and Disadvantages of Interview in Research

Approaching the Respondent- according to the Interviewer’s Manual, the introductory tasks of the interviewer are: tell the interviewer is and whom he or she represents; telling him about what the study is, in a way to stimulate his interest. The interviewer has also ensured at this stage that his answers are confidential; tell the respondent how he was chosen; use letters and clippings of surveys in order to show the importance of the study to the respondent. The interviewer must be adaptable, friendly, responsive, and should make the interviewer feel at ease to say anything, even if it is irrelevant.

Dealing with Refusal- there can be plenty of reasons for refusing for an interview, for example, a respondent may feel that surveys are a waste of time, or may express anti-government feeling. It is the interviewer’s job to determine the reason for the refusal of the interview and attempt to overcome it.

Conducting the Interview- the questions should be asked as worded for all respondents in order to avoid misinterpretation of the question. Clarification of the question should also be avoided for the same reason. However, the questions can be repeated in case of misunderstanding. The questions should be asked in the same order as mentioned in the questionnaire, as a particular question might not make sense if the questions before they are skipped. The interviewers must be very careful to be neutral before starting the interview so as not to lead the respondent, hence minimizing bias.

listing out the advantages of interview studies, which are noted below:

• It provides flexibility to the interviewers
• The interview has a better response rate than mailed questions, and the people who cannot read and write can also answer the questions.
• The interviewer can judge the non-verbal behavior of the respondent.
• The interviewer can decide the place for an interview in a private and silent place, unlike the ones conducted through emails which can have a completely different environment.
• The interviewer can control over the order of the question, as in the questionnaire, and can judge the spontaneity of the respondent as well.

There are certain disadvantages of interview studies as well which are:

• Conducting interview studies can be very costly as well as very time-consuming.
• An interview can cause biases. For example, the respondent’s answers can be affected by his reaction to the interviewer’s race, class, age or physical appearance.
• Interview studies provide less anonymity, which is a big concern for many respondents.
• There is a lack of accessibility to respondents (unlike conducting mailed questionnaire study) since the respondents can be in around any corner of the world or country.

INTERVIEW AS SOCIAL INTERACTION

The interview subjects to the same rules and regulations of other instances of social interaction. It is believed that conducting interview studies has possibilities for all sorts of bias, inconsistency, and inaccuracies and hence many researchers are critical of the surveys and interviews. T.R. William says that in certain societies there may be patterns of people saying one thing, but doing another. He also believes that the responses should be interpreted in context and two social contexts should not be compared to each other. Derek L. Phillips says that the survey method itself can manipulate the data, and show the results that actually does not exist in the population in real. Social research becomes very difficult due to the variability in human behavior and attitude. Other errors that can be caused in social research include-

• deliberate lying, because the respondent does not want to give a socially undesirable answer;
• unconscious mistakes, which mostly occurs when the respondent has socially undesirable traits that he does not want to accept;
• when the respondent accidentally misunderstands the question and responds incorrectly;
• when the respondent is unable to remember certain details.

Apart from the errors caused by the responder, there are also certain errors made by the interviewers that may include-

• errors made by altering the questionnaire, through changing some words or omitting certain questions;
• biased, irrelevant, inadequate or unnecessary probing;
• recording errors, or consciously making errors in recording.

Bailey, K. (1994). Interview Studies in Methods of social research. Simonand Schuster, 4th ed. The Free Press, New York NY 10020.Ch8. Pp.173-213.

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interviews in research advantages and disadvantages

Interviews are a widely used research method that allows researchers to gather valuable information directly from participants. This article explores the advantages and disadvantages of conducting interviews in research, providing insights into the strengths and weaknesses of this approach.

Advantages of Interviews in Research

1. rich and in-depth data:.

Interviews provide researchers with the opportunity to delve deep into a topic and obtain detailed information from participants. Through open-ended questions, researchers can explore various aspects and gain a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter.

2. Flexibility:

Interviews offer flexibility in terms of location, timing, and format. Researchers can choose to conduct interviews face-to-face, over the phone, or even through video conferencing. This flexibility allows for convenience and increases the likelihood of participation.

3. Probing and Clarification:

Unlike other research methods, interviews allow for immediate clarification and probing. Researchers can ask follow-up questions, seek elaboration, or request examples during the interview, ensuring a clearer understanding of the participant’s responses.

4. Personal Connection:

Interviews foster a personal connection between the researcher and the participant. This connection often leads to a greater level of trust, resulting in participants sharing more detailed and honest responses. It also provides an opportunity to observe non-verbal cues, gestures, and emotions that may contribute to the research findings.

5. Adaptability:

Researchers can adapt their interviews based on the participant’s background, knowledge, or cultural context. This adaptability allows for a tailored approach that enhances the quality and relevance of the data obtained.

Disadvantages of Interviews in Research

1. potential for bias:.

Interviews may introduce bias as the researcher’s personal presence and interaction can influence the participant’s responses. Researchers must remain impartial and minimize any potential bias or leading questions.

2. Time-consuming:

Conducting interviews can be time-consuming as it requires scheduling, preparation, execution, and transcription of the recorded data. Researchers must allocate ample time and resources to ensure thorough data collection and analysis.

3. Difficulty in Generalizing Findings:

While interviews provide rich and detailed data, it can be challenging to generalize the findings to a larger population. The sample size is often limited, making it difficult to draw broad conclusions from interview-based research.

4. Interviewer Influence:

The presence and behavior of the interviewer may impact the participant’s responses. Participants might alter their answers based on their perception of the researcher’s expectations, potentially leading to skewed or inaccurate data.

5. Resource-Intensive:

Conducting interviews requires significant resources, including time, manpower, and financial investment. Expenses may include travel costs, transcription services, and compensation for participants, making interviews a more resource-intensive research method.

Benefits of Knowing the Interviews in Research Advantages and Disadvantages

Understanding the advantages and disadvantages of interviews in research can significantly benefit researchers in several ways:

• Improved Research Design: Knowledge of the strengths and limitations of interviews helps researchers design studies that leverage the advantages while mitigating potential drawbacks.
• Informed Decision-Making: Researchers can make informed choices about when to use interviews as a research method and when to employ other techniques better suited to their objectives.
• Data Quality Enhancement: Awareness of the disadvantages allows researchers to implement strategies to minimize bias and increase the reliability and validity of the data collected through interviews.
• Ethical Considerations: Understanding the advantages and disadvantages helps researchers navigate potential ethical dilemmas during the interview process and ensures the protection of participants’ rights and well-being.

In conclusion, interviews offer valuable advantages in research, including rich and in-depth data, flexibility, probing capabilities, personal connection, and adaptability. However, there are also disadvantages to consider, such as the potential for bias, time consumption, difficulty in generalizing findings, interviewer influence, and resource intensiveness. By understanding these advantages and disadvantages, researchers can make more informed decisions, enhance their research methodologies, and ensure the validity and integrity of their findings.

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How to carry out great interviews in qualitative research.

11 min read An interview is one of the most versatile methods used in qualitative research. Here’s what you need to know about conducting great qualitative interviews.

What is a qualitative research interview?

Qualitative research interviews are a mainstay among q ualitative research techniques, and have been in use for decades either as a primary data collection method or as an adjunct to a wider research process. A qualitative research interview is a one-to-one data collection session between a researcher and a participant. Interviews may be carried out face-to-face, over the phone or via video call using a service like Skype or Zoom.

There are three main types of qualitative research interview – structured, unstructured or semi-structured.

• Structured interviews Structured interviews are based around a schedule of predetermined questions and talking points that the researcher has developed. At their most rigid, structured interviews may have a precise wording and question order, meaning that they can be replicated across many different interviewers and participants with relatively consistent results.
• Unstructured interviews Unstructured interviews have no predetermined format, although that doesn’t mean they’re ad hoc or unplanned. An unstructured interview may outwardly resemble a normal conversation, but the interviewer will in fact be working carefully to make sure the right topics are addressed during the interaction while putting the participant at ease with a natural manner.
• Semi-structured interviews Semi-structured interviews are the most common type of qualitative research interview, combining the informality and rapport of an unstructured interview with the consistency and replicability of a structured interview. The researcher will come prepared with questions and topics, but will not need to stick to precise wording. This blended approach can work well for in-depth interviews.

Free eBook: The qualitative research design handbook

What are the pros and cons of interviews in qualitative research?

As a qualitative research method interviewing is hard to beat, with applications in social research, market research, and even basic and clinical pharmacy. But like any aspect of the research process, it’s not without its limitations. Before choosing qualitative interviewing as your research method, it’s worth weighing up the pros and cons.

Pros of qualitative interviews:

• provide in-depth information and context
• can be used effectively when their are low numbers of participants
• provide an opportunity to discuss and explain questions
• useful for complex topics
• rich in data – in the case of in-person or video interviews , the researcher can observe body language and facial expression as well as the answers to questions

Cons of qualitative interviews:

• can be time-consuming to carry out
• costly when compared to some other research methods
• because of time and cost constraints, they often limit you to a small number of participants
• difficult to standardize your data across different researchers and participants unless the interviews are very tightly structured
• As the Open University of Hong Kong notes, qualitative interviews may take an emotional toll on interviewers

Qualitative interview guides

Semi-structured interviews are based on a qualitative interview guide, which acts as a road map for the researcher. While conducting interviews, the researcher can use the interview guide to help them stay focused on their research questions and make sure they cover all the topics they intend to.

An interview guide may include a list of questions written out in full, or it may be a set of bullet points grouped around particular topics. It can prompt the interviewer to dig deeper and ask probing questions during the interview if appropriate.

Consider writing out the project’s research question at the top of your interview guide, ahead of the interview questions. This may help you steer the interview in the right direction if it threatens to head off on a tangent.

Avoid bias in qualitative research interviews

According to Duke University , bias can create significant problems in your qualitative interview.

• Acquiescence bias is common to many qualitative methods, including focus groups. It occurs when the participant feels obliged to say what they think the researcher wants to hear. This can be especially problematic when there is a perceived power imbalance between participant and interviewer. To counteract this, Duke University’s experts recommend emphasizing the participant’s expertise in the subject being discussed, and the value of their contributions.
• Interviewer bias is when the interviewer’s own feelings about the topic come to light through hand gestures, facial expressions or turns of phrase. Duke’s recommendation is to stick to scripted phrases where this is an issue, and to make sure researchers become very familiar with the interview guide or script before conducting interviews, so that they can hone their delivery.

What kinds of questions should you ask in a qualitative interview?

The interview questions you ask need to be carefully considered both before and during the data collection process. As well as considering the topics you’ll cover, you will need to think carefully about the way you ask questions.

Open-ended interview questions – which cannot be answered with a ‘yes’ ‘no’ or ‘maybe’ – are recommended by many researchers as a way to pursue in depth information.

An example of an open-ended question is “What made you want to move to the East Coast?” This will prompt the participant to consider different factors and select at least one. Having thought about it carefully, they may give you more detailed information about their reasoning.

A closed-ended question , such as “Would you recommend your neighborhood to a friend?” can be answered without too much deliberation, and without giving much information about personal thoughts, opinions and feelings.

Follow-up questions can be used to delve deeper into the research topic and to get more detail from open-ended questions. Examples of follow-up questions include:

• What makes you say that?
• What do you mean by that?
• Can you tell me more about X?
• What did/does that mean to you?

As well as avoiding closed-ended questions, be wary of leading questions. As with other qualitative research techniques such as surveys or focus groups, these can introduce bias in your data. Leading questions presume a certain point of view shared by the interviewer and participant, and may even suggest a foregone conclusion.

An example of a leading question might be: “You moved to New York in 1990, didn’t you?” In answering the question, the participant is much more likely to agree than disagree. This may be down to acquiescence bias or a belief that the interviewer has checked the information and already knows the correct answer.

Other leading questions involve adjectival phrases or other wording that introduces negative or positive connotations about a particular topic. An example of this kind of leading question is: “Many employees dislike wearing masks to work. How do you feel about this?” It presumes a positive opinion and the participant may be swayed by it, or not want to contradict the interviewer.

Harvard University’s guidelines for qualitative interview research add that you shouldn’t be afraid to ask embarrassing questions – “if you don’t ask, they won’t tell.” Bear in mind though that too much probing around sensitive topics may cause the interview participant to withdraw. The Harvard guidelines recommend leaving sensitive questions til the later stages of the interview when a rapport has been established.

More tips for conducting qualitative interviews

Observing a participant’s body language can give you important data about their thoughts and feelings. It can also help you decide when to broach a topic, and whether to use a follow-up question or return to the subject later in the interview.

Be conscious that the participant may regard you as the expert, not themselves. In order to make sure they express their opinions openly, use active listening skills like verbal encouragement and paraphrasing and clarifying their meaning to show how much you value what they are saying.

Remember that part of the goal is to leave the interview participant feeling good about volunteering their time and their thought process to your research. Aim to make them feel empowered , respected and heard.

Unstructured interviews can demand a lot of a researcher, both cognitively and emotionally. Be sure to leave time in between in-depth interviews when scheduling your data collection to make sure you maintain the quality of your data, as well as your own well-being .

Recording and transcribing interviews

Historically, recording qualitative research interviews and then transcribing the conversation manually would have represented a significant part of the cost and time involved in research projects that collect qualitative data.

Fortunately, researchers now have access to digital recording tools, and even speech-to-text technology that can automatically transcribe interview data using AI and machine learning. This type of tool can also be used to capture qualitative data from qualitative research (focus groups,ect.) making this kind of social research or market research much less time consuming.

Data analysis

Qualitative interview data is unstructured, rich in content and difficult to analyze without the appropriate tools. Fortunately, machine learning and AI can once again make things faster and easier when you use qualitative methods like the research interview.

Text analysis tools and natural language processing software can ‘read’ your transcripts and voice data and identify patterns and trends across large volumes of text or speech. They can also perform khttps://www.qualtrics.com/experience-management/research/sentiment-analysis/

which assesses overall trends in opinion and provides an unbiased overall summary of how participants are feeling.

Another feature of text analysis tools is their ability to categorize information by topic, sorting it into groupings that help you organize your data according to the topic discussed.

All in all, interviews are a valuable technique for qualitative research in business, yielding rich and detailed unstructured data. Historically, they have only been limited by the human capacity to interpret and communicate results and conclusions, which demands considerable time and skill.

When you combine this data with AI tools that can interpret it quickly and automatically, it becomes easy to analyze and structure, dovetailing perfectly with your other business data. An additional benefit of natural language analysis tools is that they are free of subjective biases, and can replicate the same approach across as much data as you choose. By combining human research skills with machine analysis, qualitative research methods such as interviews are more valuable than ever to your business.

Related resources

Market intelligence 10 min read, marketing insights 11 min read, ethnographic research 11 min read, qualitative vs quantitative research 13 min read, qualitative research questions 11 min read, qualitative research design 12 min read, primary vs secondary research 14 min read, request demo.

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Interviews in Social Research: Advantages and Disadvantages

The strengths of unstructured interviews are that they are respondent led, flexible, allow empathy and can be empowering, the limitations are poor reliability due to interviewer characteristics and bias, time, and low representativeness.

Table of Contents

Last Updated on September 11, 2023 by Karl Thompson

An interview involves an interviewer asking questions verbally to a respondent. Interviews involve a more direct interaction between the researcher and the respondent than questionnaires. Interviews can either be conducted face to face, via phone, video link or social media.

This post has primarily been written for students studying the Research Methods aspect of A-level sociology, but it should also be useful for students studying methods for psychology, business studies and maybe other subjects too!

Types of interview

Structured or formal interviews are those in which the interviewer asks the interviewee the same questions in the same way to different respondents. This will typically involve reading out questions from a pre-written and pre-coded structured questionnaire, which forms the interview schedule. The most familiar form of this is with market research, where you may have been stopped on the street with a researcher ticking boxes based on your responses.

Unstructured or Informal interviews (also called discovery interviews) are more like a guided conversation. Here the interviewer has a list of topics they want the respondent to talk about, but the interviewer has complete freedom to vary the specific questions from respondent to respondent, so they can follow whatever lines of enquiry they think are most appropriated, depending on the responses given by each respondent.

Semi-Structured interviews are those in which respondents have a list of questions, but they are free to ask further, differentiated questions based on the responses given. This allows more flexibility that the structured interview yet more structure than the informal interview.

Group interviews – Interviews can be conducted either one to one (individual interviews) or in a a group, in which the interviewer interviews two or more respondents at a time. Group discussions among respondents may lead to deeper insight than just interviewing people along, as respondents ‘encourage’ each other.

Focus groups are a type of group interview in which respondents are asked to discuss certain topics.

Interviews: key terms

The Interview Schedule – A list of questions or topic areas the interviewer wishes to ask or cover in the course of the interview. The more structured the interview, the more rigid the interiew schedule will be. Before conducting an interview it is usual for the reseracher to know something about the topic area and the respondents themselves, and so they will have at least some idea of the questions they are likely to ask: even if they are doing ‘unstructred interviews’ an interviewer will have some kind of interview schedule, even if it is just a list of broad topic areas to discuss, or an opening question.

Transcription of interviews -Transcription is the process of writing down (or typing up) what respondents say in an interview. In order to be able to transcribe effectively interviews will need to be recorded.

The problem of Leading Questions – In Unstructured Interviews, the interviewer should aim to avoid asking leading questions.

The Strengths and Limitations of Unstructured Interviews 

The strengths of unstructured interviews

The key strength of unstructured interviews is good validity , but for this to happen questioning should be as open ended as possible to gain genuine, spontaneous information rather than ‘rehearsed responses’ and questioning needs to be sufficient enough to elicit in-depth answers rather than glib, easy answers.

Respondent led – unstructured interviews are ‘respondent led’ – this is because the researcher listens to what the respondent says and then asks further questions based on what the respondent says. This should allow respondents to express themselves and explain their views more fully than with structured interviews.

Flexibility – the researcher can change his or her mind about what the most important questions are as the interview develops. Unstructured Interviews thus avoid the imposition problem – respondents are less constrained than with structured interviews or questionnaires in which the questions are written in advance by the researcher. This is especially advantageous in group interviews, where interaction between respondents can spark conversations that the interviewer hadn’t thought would of happened in advance, which could then be probed further with an unstructured methodology.

Rapport and empathy – unstructured interviews encourage a good rapport between interviewee and interviewer. Because of their informal nature, like guided conversations, unstructured interviews are more likely to make respondents feel at ease than with the more formal setting of a structured questionnaire or experiment. This should encourage openness, trust and empathy.

Checking understanding – unstructured interviews also allow the interviewer to check understanding. If an interviewee doesn’t understand a question, the interviewer is free to rephrase it, or to ask follow up questions to clarify aspects of answers that were not clear in the first instance.

Unstructured interviews are good for sensitive topics because they are more likely to make respondents feel at ease with the interviewer. They also allow the interviewer to show more sympathy (if required) than with the colder more mechanical quantitative methods.

They are good for finding out why respondents do not do certain things . For example postal surveys asking why people do not claim benefits have very low response rates, but informal interviews are perfect for researching people who may have low literacy skills.

Empowerment for respondents – the researcher and respondents are on a more equal footing than with more quantitative methods. The researcher doesn’t assume they know best. This empowers the respondents. Feminists researchers in particular believe that the unstructured interview can neutralise the hierarchical, exploitative power relations that they believe to be inherent in the more traditional interview structure. They see the traditional interview as a site for the exploitation and subordination of women, with the interviewers potentially creating outcomes against their interviewees’ interests. In traditional interview formats the interviewer directs the questioning and takes ownership of the material; in the feminist (unstructured) interview method the woman would recount her experiences in her own words with the interviewer serving only as a guide to the account.

Practical advantages – there are few practical advantages with this method, but compared to full-blown participant observation, they are a relatively quick method for gaining in-depth data. They are also a good method to combine with overt participant observation in order to get respondents to further explain the meanings behind their actions. So in short, they are impractical, unless you’re in the middle of a year long Participant Observation study (it’s all relative!).

The Limitations of unstructured interviews

The main theoretical disadvantage is the lack of reliability – unstructured Interviews lack reliability because each interview is unique – a variety of different questions are asked and phrased in a variety of different ways to different respondents.

They are also difficult to repeat, because the s uccess of the interview depends on the bond of trust between the researcher and the respondent – another researcher who does not relate to the respondent may thus get different answers. Group interviews are especially difficult to repeat, given that the dynamics of the interview are influenced not just by the values of the researcher, but also by group dynamics. One person can change the dynamic of a group of three or four people enormously.

Validity can be undermined in several ways:

• respondents might prefer to give rational responses rather than fuller emotional ones (it’s harder to talk frankly about emotions with strangers)
• respondents may not reveal their true thoughts and feelings because they do not coincide with their own self-image, so they simply withhold information
• respondents may give answers they think the interviewer wants to hear, in attempt to please them!

We also need to keep in mind that interviews can only tap into what people SAY about their values, beliefs and actions, we don’t actually get to see these in action, like we would do with observational studies such as Participant Observation. This has been a particular problem with self-report studies of criminal behaviour. These have been tested using polygraphs, and follow up studies of school and criminal records and responses found to be lacking in validity, so much so that victim-surveys have become the standard method for measuring crime rather than self-report studies.

Interviewer bias might undermine the validity of unstructured interviews – this is where the values of the researcher interfere with the results. The researcher may give away whether they approve or disapprove of certain responses in their body language or tone of voice (or wording of probing questions) and this in turn might encourage or discourage respondents from being honest.

The characteristics of the interviewer might also bias the results and undermine the validity – how honest the respondent is in the course of an hour long interview might depend on the class, gender, or ethnicity of the interviewer.

Sudman and Bradburn (1974) conducted a review of literature and found that responses varied depending on the relative demographics of the interviewer and respondent. For example white interviewers received more socially acceptable responses from black respondents than they did from white respondents. Similar findings have been found with different ethnicities, age, social class and religion.

Unstructured interviews also lack representativeness – because they are time consuming, it is difficult to get a large enough sample to be representative of large populations.

It is difficult to quantify data , compare answers and find stats and trends because the data gained is qualitative.

Practical disadvantages – unstructured Interviews may take a relatively long time to conduct. Some interviews can take hours. They also need to be taped and transcribed, and in the analysis phase there may be a lot of information that is not directly relevant to one’s research topic that needs to be sifted through.

Interpersonal skills and training – A further practical problem is that some researchers may lack the interpersonal skills required to conduct informal unstructured interviews. Training might need to be more thorough for researchers undertaking unstructured interviews – to avoid the problem of interviewer bias.

Shapiro and Eberhart (1947) showed that interviewers who were more prepared to probe received fuller answers, and both response rate and extensiveness of response are greater for more experienced interviewers.

There are few ethical problems , assuming that informed consent is gained and confidentially ensured. Although having said this, the fact that the researcher is getting more in-depth data, more of an insight into who the person really is, does offer the potential for the information to do more harm to the respondent if it got into the wrong hands (but this in turn depends on the topics discussed and the exact content of the interviews.

Sociological perspectives on interviews

Interviews of any kind are not a preferred method for positivists because there is no guarantee that responses aren’t artefacts of the interview situation, rather than a reflection of underlying social reality.

If interviews must be used, Positivists prefer structured interviews that follow a standardised schedule, with each question asked to each respondent in the same way. Interviewers should be neutral, show no emotion, avoid suggesting replies, and not skip questions.

Fo r Interactionists , interviews are based on mutual participant observation. The context of the interview is intrinsic to understanding responses and no distinction between research interviews and other social interaction is recognised. Data are valid when mutual understanding between interviewer and respondent is agreed.

Interactionists prefer non-standardised interviews because they allow respondents to shape the interview according to their own world view.

Denzin (2009) goes as far as to argue that what positivists might perceive as problems with interviews are not problems, just part of the process and thus as valid as the data collected. Thus issues of self-presentation, the power relations between interviewer and respondent and opportunities for fabrication are all part of the context and part of the valid-reality that we are trying to get to.

Related Posts

For more posts on research methods please see my research methods page.

Examples of studies using interviews – Using Interviews to research education .

Participant Observation  –   A related qualitative research method – detailed class notes on overt and covert participant observation. 

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Recommended further reading: Gilbert and Stoneman (2016) Researching Social Life

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• Quick Reads
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• Using In-Depth Interviews and Focus Groups for Your Market Research

• Introduction to Market Research: What It Is and Why You Need It
• Introduction to Market Research: When and How to Start
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• Using Your SWOT Analysis to Drive Your Market Research
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• Best Practices for Moderating and Analyzing Interviews and Focus Groups
• Conducting Observational Research for Your Business

In the last section, we tackled the market research survey —that fixed set of questions you send out to a segment of your market for feedback on some aspect of your business. While surveys do pose qualitative (open-ended) questions, they’re used primarily for quantitative research. That is, they’re great for arriving at a consensus through loads of consumer data… but they won’t necessarily get you the deepest of insights.

Because let’s be honest: No one pours their heart out in a survey—no matter how many lines you offer them to fill in.

Enter the in-depth interview and the focus group for that information. Both market research techniques give you the opportunity to be in two-way communication with consumers—in a form unrestricted by question limits—and to establish a rapport with them. That sets the stage for deep and rewarding insights.

The Advantages of Direct Communication in Primary Market Research

“Direct contact” can mean many things, including conversations mediated by telephone, video conferencing , and chat platforms . Indeed, two great advantages of using these technologies for your market research are their expediency and their cost-effectiveness: You can cover a broad geographic area without anyone having to travel anywhere; and consecutive interviews can be conducted from the comfort of your own office. If you’re working within a budget, telephone interviews can be as insightful as in-person interviews… and the recommendations we offer below are just as applicable to that form of primary research.

Of course, in-person interviews and focus groups have their distinct advantages. In the first place, once you’ve got someone in a room, they can’t “hang up” on you: Both (or all) parties have signaled their commitment by arriving. What’s more, because you’re looking them directly in the eye, you’ll know your interviewees aren’t distracted by anything… and fully present participants are naturally going to give you the most sincere insights.

In the second place, when you get someone from your target market in a room, you have access to additional sources of information: body language, facial expressions, gestures, and so on. These non-verbal cues can sometimes reveal more about interviewees’ sentiments than they’d be willing to admit (or than they can even acknowledge to themselves ).

When the interviewer is adept at reading such non-verbal cues and putting interviewees at ease, these conversations lead to honest insights about emotions, opinions, and attitudes: Why did they really leave your business? How do they really use your product? What were they actually feeling when they moved through your purchasing funnel? What were the real psychic/emotional barriers?

As you can imagine, if you can get past the costs (travel, compensation, venue, moderator payment) and logistics of getting two or more people in a room for an hour or more, it’ll be well worth it. Not only will you get terrific qualitative insights to pair with your quantitative data; you’ll also gain a richer understanding of your customer personas , their journeys, motivations, and the language they use. (Of course, you’ll be looking out for “sticky” messages that you can use for future website or ad copy).

In-depth interviews and focus groups will fill in the emotional context for the numbers your surveys and secondary research give you. But remember that these are supplements —not substitutes —for those more quantitative research methods. While they’ll give you rich insights into unique individuals, be careful about generalizing from the information you get from these conversations. Your interviewees are representative of your target population, but they’re too small a sample size to draw statistical conclusions about your larger target market from. That’s what quantitative research is for.

But for now ? We’re talking quality over quantity.

In-Depth Interviews vs. Focus Groups: Which to Use?

In-depth interviews are often described as “focus groups of one,” and focus groups as “large-scale interviews.” In some ways, these are fair comparisons: Both methodologies revolve around semi-structured discussions whose core questions are designed to go deep , to help the business understand some problem. In both cases, respondents are respectfully treated as “experts” who can “teach” the business about its market’s feelings, perceptions, opinions, and hesitations.

But to state the obvious, dynamics change the moment a party of two becomes a party of three or more: Suddenly there are new interpersonal negotiations, sociocultural categorizings, hierarchies, and contentions. From a business perspective, you’ll have cost, time, and possibly location to account for. These may very well be factors in your decision, but so should the following:

When to use in-depth interviews

In-depth, one-on-one interviews can happen just about anywhere: at your business, at their home, or at a neutral location such as a rented venue. They can happen on the street while people are exiting a physical space—on their way out of a retail establishment, for example. They can happen in “captive audience” situations—during a conference, a workshop, or a public event.

This locational flexibility is one of the reasons in-depth interviews are among the most prevalent forms of primary research. Here are some of the reasons why you’d choose one over a focus group:

• When you’re gathering sensitive feedback . “Sensitive” might mean anything from disclosing personal information (finances or health issues) to more generally uncomfortable topics (birth control or personal hygiene products). If your research concerns topics that people might not feel comfortable discussing in a group, in-depth interviews should be your choice. (What’s more, if you’re looking for critique in a culture that tends to be more “polite” or less prone to debate, you might get more honest responses in a one-on-one inquiry.)
• When participants are competitors . Can you imagine hosting a focus group made up of competitors who are reluctant to share information for fear of losing whatever competitive advantage they might have? Unsurprisingly, these sorts of environments don’t foster open communication. You want participants who are willing to disclose information; so if they’re from the same vertical industry, you’d do best to meet with them separately.
• When you’re concerned about group hierarchy . Any time a focus group might present an inherent imbalance of power (bringing both workers and their supervisors into the same room, for example) you risk making some participants feel less at ease about sharing their views. Choose the one-on-one strategy for these situations.
• When you want feedback on isolated user experiences . Knowing how users perform individual activities, or what their individual experiences with products are, doesn’t require groupthink. Indeed, anytime you want to know anything about individual user experience (usability testing, decision processes, personal responses to ad campaigns, how much progress a client has made toward a goal, etc), one-on-one interviews are your best bet. They’ll get you honest, insightful feedback untainted by other participants’ responses.

When to use focus groups

There are plenty of advantages to getting a number of people (typically 6-10) together in a room so they can discuss a topic relevant to your business. More minds means more insight, information, and ideas. Memories get jogged; comments from one end of the table trigger ideas on the other end; solutions get fully developed through energetic collaboration. And since no one is required to answer every question, participants jump into the conversation spontaneously, when they have something insightful to say on that topic.

Here are some circumstances in which it makes sense to choose a focus group:

• When you need to brainstorm ideas . Focus groups are a terrific strategy for broad, exploratory topics, such as imagining new product features or working through ideas for your next ad campaign. Anytime you’re early on in the exploratory phase of a concept or topic (the what if…? phase), choose a focus group to assist with idea-generation and discovery.
• When you’re about to go live . This might mean just before you launch that ad campaign, or before that concept goes to market, or before you turn that prototype into The Real Deal and release it into the world. This is especially the case if you relied on secondary research to create that ad, concept, or prototype. The numbers might back you up… but you also want subjective, affective “data” describing why those numbers work. Refine before you release.
• When you want multiple perspectives, or to explore disparate views . You might be at a point in your decision-making process where two very different options seem feasible, and you want to hear representatives from your target market debate the pros and cons of each. Let your market generate the arguments for you. They might make a case for something you’d never considered before.
• When you want to better understand the complexities of your target market . While a single interviewee might give you great insights, they won’t be representative of your target market. Granted, focus groups won’t be either … but they will offer a broader range of representation. Collectively, the group can also help you understand the motivations behind more complex behaviors. Did your market say they wanted a product—but now they’re not buying? Focus groups can help you explore the apparent disconnect between declared desire and action.
• When you want to know more about your brand perception . Focus groups are great for brand insights. After all, it’s consumers who create your brand perception through shared experience (what they imagine about your business and how they speak about it); it’s not something your business makes . So go directly to the source for this intelligence.
• When you want to evaluate reactions . Have a new campaign ad to run by consumers? A new food product to test? These aren’t the “isolated user experiences” we discussed above; and the feedback is best collected through group discussion.

If you’re still unsure which method is best for your market research question, ask yourself: “How (or what ) will group dynamics contribute to my findings?”

Preparing for Your In-Depth Interview or Focus Group

Whichever method you choose, the event will take some pre-planning. Here’s what to consider:

Clarify your goal and structure

Never go into market research without a clear idea of your question, and what its answer will mean for your business. A SWOT analysis can help you home in on your business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats so you can narrow down your research to a single topic. Remember: You’re going for depth—not breadth—here. What’s the problem you’re gathering information on? The clearer your answer, the more useful your questions will ultimately be.

Your goal will also help you decide whether a structured or unstructured interview will be more effective. Granted, if you’re hosting a focus group, your “interviewer” will be more a moderator than anything: They’re there to get participants discussing amongst themselves, rather than to adhere to a predefined list of questions. Focus groups are, by nature, more unstructured.

With in-depth interviews, however, you’ll make a conscious choice between these two types. In unstructured interviews, the interviewer arrives with a series of well-thought-out issues to address; but the questions take shape during the conversation. Structured interviews, on the other hand, are a bit like verbal surveys. Standardizing the Q&A in this way—asking the same questions in the same order, every time—ensures more consistent data between interviews.

Choose an appropriate location and time

You’ve got a nearly unlimited range of possibilities (including online “locations”) here. Consider your needs: A facility with access to cameras so you can record the interview? One-way mirrors for observers? The location you choose should be easy to get to, easy to park near, and the room should feel intimate and provide as few distractions as possible. If you’re hosting a focus group, all participants should be able to sit facing each other.

Then consider your participants. If you’re a B2B company, you might hold your focus group at a downtown location during work hours, setting the space up board-room style. If you’re hosting consumers, evening may work best, you may choose a more suburban venue, and the setup might look less formal. If your demographic involves consumers of a lower socio-economic status, consider a venue along public transportation routes. Consider religious holidays. You get the point. You know your personas better than we do. Imagine the venue they’d want.

Plan your documentation strategy

Tape recording? Video recording? Note-taking by the moderator or a third-party observer? Each of these strategies will affect the dynamics of the conversation differently, and will give you access to different information after the fact. (For instance, a tape recording won’t help you recall who said what, or what their facial expression was when they said it. But it will get you a full transcript.) Of course, you’ll need all participants’ permission before hitting a “Record” button of any kind.

While we’d recommend digital recording, note-taking is a useful backup plan in case of malfunction, dead batteries, or static on the recording. If your interviewer is your note-taker, ensure that they can take notes and listen simultaneously, and record in a low-key manner. Participants who see moderators jumping to the notebook and writing furiously might be influenced to answer subsequent questions similarly (or very differently!)

Select your interviewer or moderator

Of course, anyone in theory could take on this role: the business owner, an associate, or someone else in your organization. But remember that the best interviewer is an unbiased one; and the more that’s at stake for your interviewer in the outcome, the less impartial they’re likely to be. This will affect group dynamics, and it won’t get you the data you need. The same goes for a moderator who knows the participants: Where there’s an established relationship, participants are less likely to be critical.

That said, you might decide to hire an experienced moderator—for example, someone trained in psychology who can better observe and understand complex behaviors. Trained moderators can quickly create a permissive and nurturing environment and keep an active conversation going for the time allotted (typically 30 minutes to an hour for an in-depth interview, and 1-2 hours for a focus group), with the study’s objectives always at the forefront. Which isn’t quite as easy as it sounds.

Well-seasoned moderators can monitor the conversation and change course on the fly. They can recognize when participants are speaking out of a psychological pressure to respond in a particular way. They’re trained in drawing quieter participants out of their shells, giving time to slower thinkers, tamping down heated discussions, and tactfully curbing participants who are monopolizing the conversation. They can visualize how key pieces of information fit together, clearly identify when a topic has been sufficiently covered, and know when to skip questions that earlier comments have suggested are irrelevant to the person or group at hand. They can interpret body language, gestures, hesitations, and facial expressions. And they can do all this without being an expert on the subject.

If you have this person in your organization, that’s remarkable: Use them ! If not, you can find trained moderators through an online search, referrals, or by posting a query in an industry forum.

Select your participants

Your sample size will be a matter of how clear a picture you want of your target market. Naturally, the more participants you have, the stronger your sense of the segment will be. You’ll probably want to conduct more than one in-depth interview, and you may also want to hold more than one focus group to ensure consistency across gatherings. At some point, you’ll see common themes emerging in responses. That’s when you’ll know you’re moving toward sounder conclusions.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the participants you select should be in a position to answer all of your questions. Remember, they’re the “experts”: maybe because they fit a persona with particular buying habits, or because they have relevant experience with a product (“new mothers in their ’30s who live in Western Massachusetts” or “males between the ages of 18-25 who play at least 15 hours of video games a week”).

Due to their commonality of experience, your focus groups will necessarily have some degree of homogeneity. That said, consider that first example: If you’re looking to target all new mothers, maybe you’d split your groups by income (new mothers who make less than and more than $100k), education (new mothers with and without a college degree), or relationship status (single mothers versus partnered mothers). Different demographics may provide different responses. If you foresee this, split your groups along these lines.

Participants may already be your customers or followers, in which case you can contact them through your CRM or by putting a call out on social media platforms. You can also find them through Facebook groups, advertisements, social events that your target audience attends, or market research companies who can find focus groups that match the target demographic you want to reach.

If you want to ensure that these prospects really do meet your criteria, set up a screening process before you officially invite them as an interviewee or focus group member. Try to ensure that participants aren’t familiar with each other. (Familiarity affects group dynamics.) Finally, recruit more participants than you need: You’ll almost inevitably get “no-shows.”

Standardize your proceedings

There are a few other things you’ll want to determine early on to ensure uniformity across interviews. Decide whether participants will be told who’s sponsoring the study, what the purpose of the interview or focus group is, and how the data will be used to make decisions after the fact. Choosing to offer this information to one group or participant and not to another may lead to different responses and variations in data.

You’ll should also create a guide—or at least a list of questions—that the interviewer or moderator will use to guide the discussion and ensure all topics are covered. (We’ve got some recommendations on the questions and the structure of the interview or focus group in the next section.) If you’re hosting a focus group, establish clear session guidelines in writing. You’ll share these with participants so they know what’s expected of them.

And before The Big Day, you might even consider running a pilot test to ensure your guide is a viable support.

You’ve got your interviewee or focus group in the room… now what? In the next section, we cover best practices for these forms of primary research to follow on the day itself.

Lauren Shufran

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The Pros and Cons of Face-to-Face Interviews for Market Research

Yet with this in mind, there are advantages and disadvantages of face-to-face interviews that businesses should know before they implement or authorize this market research method. Below is a high-level look at the pros and cons:

Face-to-Face Interview Pro #1: Empathy & Personal Interaction

In face-to-face interviews, a great moderator can make a world of difference, especially when it comes to empathy & personal interaction. While conducting these interviews, moderators can connect with participants by showing that they understand what the participant is feeling. When your participants feel safe and understood, they can more easily let their guard down, open up and share emotions. Online surveys don’t capture emotions nor do they have the ability to adjust based on answers or give the participant any empathetic feedback.

In the case of specific studies such as ethnographies, moderators can actually observe how an individual is performing specific tasks and interact with them about the experience. It also gives the moderator a chance to ask the participant further questions about unexpected results.

Face-to-Face Interview Pro #2: Capturing Non-Verbal Cues

As noted by Psychology Today , body language is “communication without words.” While scientifically designed online and mobile surveys can improve data quality (i.e. certain questions can be asked in a specific order, or with certain response options, to more accurately collect what a respondent is conveying), the fact remains that there are some non-verbal cues that can only be captured in a face-to-face interview.  

By having a moderator there to record emotions and non-verbal cues, face-to-face interviews capture a more holistic answer to a question than an online survey question would. For example, if your market research participants interacts with a product, a moderator could detect confusion, moments of clarity, discuss mental models they’re using to solve a problem and more.

Face-to-Face Interview Pro #3: Experiencing Products in Real Life

When doing market research for products, there is definitely an advantage to seeing them, touching them, feeling them and interacting with them in real life. In a face-to-face interview, participants can see products and play around with them in order to answer your questions or complete necessary tasks. In online surveys, pictures are normally substituted in lieu of the real product and in some cases, the ability to experience a product with your own senses can make a huge difference in depth of feedback.

Face-to-Face Interview Con #1: Relatively Higher Cost

Naturally, face-to-face interviews are going to cost relatively more than online or mobile surveys. This is both because of labor costs (whether in-house or partnering with a market research firm), and overhead costs (interview rooms, administration, possibly paying travel expenses for respondents, etc.).

So while investing in face-to-face interviews does come with more costs, the investment can be well worth it. With the three pros of face-to-face interviews in mind, there are situations where this methodology is the best way to achieve the research outcome. Therefore, if the information gleaned from face-to-face interviews can be very profitable, then this cost is more of an investment rather than an expense.

Face-to-Face Interview Con #2: Data Processing

When beginning face-to-face interviews, you need to start with a plan for data collection and data processing. While the data collection plan might seem obvious, the data processing plan is commonly overlooked but should be thought of early in the planning process. In this processing plan, you should know what information you need to collect (audio, video, notes, etc.) and how you’ll process it for meaningful analysis.

Because there are typically multiple information sources, data processing for face-to-face interviews can be overwhelming and expensive. Plus you can’t simply go back and re-do your market research because your data processing plan wasn’t comprehensive. If you need quotes, you’ll need to record your sessions and invest in transcriptions. If you need visuals, you’ll need to have pictures or video then be able to sort through the footage to find the snippets you want.

Face-to-Face Interview Con #3: Making Analysis Actionable

Face-to-face interviews are a rich qualitative methodology to utilize in market research, but that doesn’t mean you should use a face-to-face interview to base all your decisions upon. Many decision makers will want to marry qualitative data from face-to-face interviews with quantitative findings in order to see a more robust analysis.

Therefore before any action or decisions can take place, you should plan on utilizing another follow-up study to see how representative your face-to-face interactions are.

At Communicate For Research, we are experts on research logistics and recruitment of face-to-face interviews, which supports many top-notch researchers to get the most out of their work. To learn more, contact us today to get feedback on existing research goals or to discuss how we can help you answer new research questions.

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Market Research Interviews: 7 Strategies for Success

Julia Kolomiiets

Aug 29, 2023

Customers are a valuable source of knowledge for any marketer. To learn what they think, how they feel, and how they behave, we can use Market Research Interviews. This tool of market research can help you collect valuable quantitative or qualitative information about your potential or existing customers.

Market research interviews are helpful for making right marketing decisions on expanding to new markets, launching new products, or changing the way a product or service is promoted.

Marketing research process identifies a set of practices used by a company to study its target market.

Market research process can help you with the following activities:

Study your competitors

Understand your current customers

Identify and study potential customers

Learn about new niches or markets

Keeping up with trends

Developing and introducing new products/services

Rebranding & changing marketing strategies

Altering the existing products/services

Creating or changing your positioning

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Types of market research, primary market research.

A business studies market, its trends, and TA, using surveys, interviews, etc. It requires a large budget, time and dedicated specialists.

Secondary market research 

A business uses existing market research (from several sources) to compile one document. It is usually conducted when the budget for research is tight.

Methods of market research

Roundtables

Focus Groups

Observation

Goals of marketing research process

Make marketing decisions, like launching a new product, targeting a new market, etc.

Identify new opportunities for business

Provide information for potential investors

Mitigate business risks and avoid mistakes

Benefits of marketing research process

Data-driven marketing

Better understanding of your competitors, products, and TA.

The ability to cater your marketing activities to meet the customer needs.

Better planning and ability to improve ROI of marketing activities.

Steps in marketing research process

Outline the subject you’re going to research. For example, we need to study the features that the competing tools provide.

Develop the playbook for your research. It will contain the subject of research and the type of data you need to gather, the methods (e.g., interview), the necessary resources (time, budget), the timeline, and the step-by-step plan.

Approve the plan with top management and allocate the necessary resources.

Implement the research plan and gather the data.

Analyze the data and develop your recommendations for the business.

Present the marketing research to the management.

Market research interview is one of the tools of market research that enables you to learn the feelings, opinions, and behavioral patterns of your chosen target audience.

Types of market research interviews:

Market research interviews are categorized in several ways.

By the level of interviewee’s personal involvement:

Face-to-face 

The interviewee and the interviewer have a face-to-face appointment in real life. It’s a great method as it enables the researcher to build rapport and analyze the non-verbal cues. The main disadvantages is the budget, the location limitations, and general unwillingness of people to go somewhere to participate in an interview.

Online video conferencing

This method has most of the advantages of a face-to-face appointment. However, it’s cheaper. You’re not limited by geography and your participants are more willing as they do not need to spend their time on the trip to your office and back. Similar to the previous method, it’s perfect for open-ended questions and qualitative research.

Telephone interviews are a relatively cheap and fast method. However, the possibilities for building rapport and listening to non-verbal cues are limited. It’s best for close-ended questions.

Form fill-out

The interviewee fills out a questionnaire and submits it to the interviewer. This method requires least time and engagement from the interviewee. It’s the cheapest method. And it’s generally good for quantitative research.

However, there’s no opportunity to build a rapport with the interviewee, and no space for insights. Sometimes this method is categorized as a separate method of market research process.

By the data:

Qualitative - you learn how interviewee feel and what they think (e.g., which services people consider the most important).

Quantitative - you only learn data in numbers (e.g., how many times per week a person uses the application).

Mixed - you learn moth qualitative and quantitative data

By organization:

Structured - all questions are premeditated and close-ended.

Unstructured - questions are open-ended and the interview relies on spontaneity.

Semi-structured - the middle ground between unstructured and structured interviews.

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Pros and cons of market research interviews.

Interview as a method of market research has several benefits:

1. It enables you to obtain in-depth information about your target audience, their feelings, ideas, and behaviors.

2. It can give you unexpected insights into your product/service or separate features, especially if you have one-on-one interviews and use semi-structured or unstructured surveys.

3. You can ask the interviewee to test the product /service right on spot.

4. You can observe non-verbal cues if you conduct face-to-face or video interviews.

5. You can build rapport and turn an occasional customer into a loyal one.

The disadvantages of an interview as a method of market research include:

It provides subjective data

The interviews are self-reporting surveys. And we know from psychological research that the results of a self-reporting survey can change with time and is influenced by multiple factors that researchers cannot control.

To mitigate this risk, try to create a neutral environment for your interviewees and build a rapport with them. If you have a team of researchers, try to find the researcher that fits the target group. For example, ask a teammate with children to conduct interviews if you specifically research parents.

The obtained data might not be relevant to your target group

To obtain correct data, the researchers must form the researched group according to certain rules (e.g., have a certain age representation). To provide a statistically correct result you need at least 100 participants.

Obviously, many business researchers are limited in their resources and 100 participants is an unattainable number. It might happen so that most of the research participants turn out to be uncommon to your TA. 

For example, you want to research the users of XBox consoles. According to this research , most users are 25-44 years old and do not own Playstation 4. However, the participants of your research are predominantly 44 years-old owners of both competing consoles. As you can see, your group is not representative of your target audience unless you want to find out how to make more owners of Playstation 4 buy your console.

To mitigate this risk, analyze your demographics and come up with different incentives for participation. You should also try to word your request differently for every group. 

Interviewer’s bias and interpretation error

Many researchers have their hypotheses and expectations. And sometimes it’s hard to abandon them even if the data proves you’re wrong. When you’re in a position of power, the temptation of breaking rules and tweaking the results is great. To the point when we can do it subconsciously.

This is especially critical for open-ended questions and qualitative research, when the answer is subject to wide interpretation. To minimize the bias we suggest recording and transcribing the interviews. We also suggest asking an opinion of other team members.

Preparation for the market research interview is a critical step in the market research process.

Identifying the market research objectives

This step will create a solid foundation for your market research interview. You will use it for all the next steps in the process. It will impact the format of the interview, the audience, the guide and the tools you will use.

The objective of the research is the answer to one or several questions about your customers, product, service or brand.

For example, a company is launching a new product. They need to understand how to promote it in their target market. The questions can be: “What are the three criteria for choosing the product?” “What do you use this product for” “What associations do you have with this product?”

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Choose the format of your market research interview.

At this stage you choose the type of interview you want to conduct. Will it be one-on-one meeting in real life or an online call or will a survey be enough? What types of questions do you want to ask, close-ended or open-ended?

The format also will depend on the available budget that you have.

Outline the market research target audience

As mentioned above, the target audience (TA) for your research is critical to get a correct result and correct predictions. 

First, identify the demographics of your TA (age, gender, income, geography, etc.). You might have more than one homogeneous group. 

Second, identify how many people you can interview. It will depend on the format of interview you chose. The reply rate for the request to participate in marketing research is quite low.

You need to remember that you’ll have to request at least 10 times as many potential participants. Generate a list of potential participants to whom you will send the request. Compile the request message that you will use to ask people to participate in your market research process.

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Create market research interview guide.

You know how they say that the best improvisation is the one prepared and rehearsed in advance. You might be a natural communicator. Still it’s best to have a clear plan and understand what to say and when. 

That’s why you need a Market Research Interview Guide. Think of it as your playbook for conducting the interview. If you have a truly interesting interlocutor, bright and knowledgeable, the guide will help you not to get carried away and achieve your points. If you have a bad day and your memory plays tricks, it will remind you of the next question. All in all, it’s a must have for a good market researcher.

The Market Research Interview usually consists of four parts:

1. Intro & Warm up

This is the part where you build rapport with your interviewee. Generally, you present yourself, thank them for their time and effort and remind them of the reward. You need to explain shortly how the interview will go. Next, you ask some neutral questions about themselves. This way they will feel valued and seen. The questions will also make them more open up and relax.

2. General Questions

Once you feel that your interviewee feels comfortable and at ease around you, you can start asking questions relative to your market research. Remember these are not the questions that serve your objective. 

Examples of general questions are “Do you know the brand ABC?” “Which brands of this product do you know?” 

We suggest preparing 10-20 of these questions. It’s not necessary to ask all of them. Usually, you’ll be able to ask up to 6. But sometimes you’ll need more to get a person to talk. These questions can be unique to each of the subgroups that you have.

3. Core Questions

The core questions are the questions that serve the objective of your marketing research. It’s critical to ask all of them to each interviewee. The number of core questions should be limited to up to 5. 

It’s important to end the interview on a positive note. Ask them what they think about the topic of the interview. Ask if they have anything else to add to what has already been said. Give them a reward if it is immediately available or explain how the reward will be delivered (ask address or other relative information if necessary).

Thank them for the interview and express hope (e.g., that they will continue to use your product).

Prepare the Tools

Many market researchers omit this step or do not pay enough attention. In the end, lack of good toolkit can harm your market research overall. Let’s take a quick look at the tools that can help you in your work.

General tools for market research interview

First thing first, the reward for participating in the survey is your major interview tool. Many people would only participate in hope of getting something in return. You need to communicate it clearly. You also need to think about the ways to deliver the reward to the participants.

It is also critical to get management’s approval for the award beforehand. Finally, you need to understand if the award is deliverable at all. This is especially critical for IT companies. Marketers love to come up with ideas on how to lure potential customers with freemium. However, in practice the development team is not able to implement all of their ideas.

Next, you will need the printed-out survey for one-on-one interviews and working pens. You will have to prepare at least two copies per person just in case (e.g., a coffee spills over). Remember that some people tend to take the pens they used for writing with them. They do not do it on purpose. But by the end of the day you might find yourself without a critical tool.

You will also need the online communication solutions, if you conduct a survey online. Most likely it will be email. However, you can also reach out to people via LinkedIn or Facebook, or via messengers.

If you plan a mass send out with a request to participate in your marketing research interview, make sure you use appropriate tools. For example, CRMs will spread out your emails in time so that email providers do not mark them as spam.

If you don’t have or do not want to use a CRM, no worries. In 2023, Gmail launched functionality for mass send outs. It enables you to send the same email to multiple people and they won’t see other senders. Gmail will automatically insert their names in the necessary slots in your email.

Quantitative market research

Quantitative market research requires several additional tools:

1. The online survey form. Most quantitative surveys have closed questions with several answer options to choose from. Tools like Google Forms enable you to automate your survey with drop-down lists, check boxes, etc. It will ease the market research process both for your interviewee (easy fill-out) and for you (easy data gathering).

2. The tool for processing the data. Depending on the research it can be Google Sheets / Excel or more complex SAS.

Qualitative market research

The additional tools for quantitative market research are:

1. Recording device and text-to-speech program for offline interviews. You’ll need a recording device to capture the interview information precisely. Simple note-taking can change the meaning of the original speech. As a result, you might come to the wrong conclusions and it can cost a lot for your company.

The text to speech program will help you transcribe your recorded interview. We suggest using it because text format has multiple advantages over audio recording. First, you can easily find any piece of information you like using the search function or just scanning the text with your eyes. Second, you can copy the key phrases to a separate document or highlight them in the text. And you won’t need to return to the audio recording and listen to them over and over. Third, most people perceive visual information better than audio.

2. Video-conferencing tools for online interviews. When choosing a video-conferencing tool, several aspects need to be considered:

The ability to record the call

The limitations (e.g., 40-minute limit in Zoom free version).

The possibility to add a person who isn’t registered in the application (without the necessity to do it).

3. Meeting transcription tool for online surveys. Tools like Noty integrate with video-conferencing tools and enable you to transcribe your interviews in real time. As a result you get a full transcription of your interview with speakers and time-stamps along with all the benefits of a text over audio recording. 

Furthermore, you can pin important parts of your interview and type quick notes right in the Noty widget in Google Meet.

Additionally, they have AI capabilities to summarize the call. You can use custom prompts to get the data you need from the interview in a couple of seconds.

Unleash the Potential of Your Market Research with Noty.ai

Maximize the effectiveness of your market research interviews with Noty.ai. From transcription to analysis, let Noty.ai do the heavy lifting. Discover trends and insights faster and more accurately.

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What is the first step in the marketing research process.

The first step in the marketing research process is outlining the subject of your research.

What type of interview is commonly used for market research?

Most common type of interview used for market research is semi-structures, open-end question online interview.

How do I prepare for a market research interview?

You need to understand the key objective of the research, choose the interview format, outline target audience, create the Market Research Interview Guide, and prepare the tools.

What to expect in a market research interview?

You can expect that your hypothesis might be wrong and you need to accept it. You can expect that an interviewee can be interrupted or the conversation will go into the wrong direction. You need to prepare for these scenarios in order to mitigate the risks.

How can I improve my market research skills?

It depends on the skills you need to improve. Market research process requires strong analytical and strong communication skills as well as a profound knowledge of data analysis tools. Not all people have both. One of the great ways to boost your communication skills is to take theater classes. They teach you how to read non-verbal cues, how to interact with a partner as one, and how to control your body language, facial expressions, and voice. Analytical skills can be boosted through solving logic puzzles and mathematical problems. You can also take courses in marketing analysis. Finally, to get a good grip of data analysis tools you can either take online courses or use YouTube videos.

What are the main questions in a market research interview?

There are three types of questions you will need to ask during the market research interview. Start with icebreaker questions that will help you establish your rapport with the interviewee. Next, ask general questions related to the market, their experience with brands and products, etc. Finally, ask the core questions related to the market research objectives.

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Market Research: 8 Pros and Cons (Plus Definition and Methods)

Many businesses, especially small ones, frequently struggle with a lack of funding and personnel. Budgets for research are frequently the first to suffer from the need to make cuts. But these days, a lack of resources and expertise is no longer an acceptable justification for subpar market research. Tools for conducting your own market research at home are more common and accessible. It implies that even small businesses can now carry out independent research. Everything is automated and accessible online, including survey templates and visual data reports. Let’s examine the benefits and drawbacks of doing your own market research in more detail.

There’s no need to pay for research firms, hire them, and then wait months for the results. With online research platforms, all tools are at your fingertips. All you require is time and patience to learn them and conduct your own research. Additionally, since only you will be accountable for the outcomes, you will have complete control over the research’s caliber and timeline.

On the one hand, limited budgets constrain the company’s development. However, it encourages teams to look for more original solutions. DIY market research is inexpensive and offers a ton of creative freedom. So, just conduct your own research, and you might be pleasantly surprised by the caliber of your findings.

You already have a better understanding of your company, its requirements, and its priorities than any external research firm. By conducting your own research, you can experiment with any method and use any tool or technology that is available, including biometric technologies (like eye tracking, EEG, emotion measurement, and implicit tests). Even a small startup can increase its capacity and competence while discovering new avenues for growth by learning how to use the DIY research platform to obtain in-depth and priceless insights from customers.

DIY market research is for you if you’re willing to put in the time to learn and practice new, exciting skills that will help your business. DIY neuromarketing research will be useful if you want to start your own research department, are passionate about new technology, or want to diversify the tools you use to test websites and design layouts. Of course, the choice is entirely yours, but if you asked us, we’d say without a doubt that doing your own research is worthwhile. For our part, we’ll make sure that your entry into the field of neuromarketing is both easy and exciting.

Market research pros

Here are the advantages of conducting market research:

1. Managing risks

The first significant benefit of market research is that it will help you to develop a better risk management plan. Understanding consumer behavior patterns will help you determine the likelihood that your goods and services will be successful with your target market. You can decide on future investments more effectively if you know how your key customers are likely to interact with new goods and services. You can conduct research to get the basic information you need to make wise business decisions. When preparing to grow your business, market research gives you the information you need to make decisions while minimizing your risks.

2. Increasing sales

Effective market research frequently serves as the basis for growing your company’s sales. You can learn more about the needs and preferences of your target market thanks to market research. You can more effectively plan and implement services that satisfy your customers’ needs when you are aware of what they anticipate from an exceptional customer service experience. Researching your target market can help you spot emerging trends so you can put strategies in place to take advantage of these opportunities. You can create business strategies that boost your sales by being aware of both general consumer trends and the specific patterns of buying behaviors of your target customers.

3. Improving brand recognition

Enhancing brand recognition is another use for market research. Your marketing and advertising strategy can be improved by researching your target market. You can create advertising strategies that connect with your key market by being aware of the channels your target customers use the most. Knowing which social media platforms your customers use the most, for instance, can help you create a marketing plan to promote your products on those networks. You can use more targeted advertising tactics when you know what types of marketing materials are most effective for grabbing your target audience’s attention.

4. Measuring brand reputation

Finally, market research can give you understanding of the public perception of your brand. Having a good reputation can assist you in retaining current clients and attracting new ones. When people have a positive opinion of your company, you might get more customers and be able to get the attention of important customers. Market research enables you to comprehend how the public currently feels about your company and how to enhance its reputation. Understanding your reputation and your areas for development will help you create strategies for successful public outreach that raise brand awareness and favorability.

What is market research?

A company conducts market research to learn crucial information about its target market and consumer behavior. It entails a number of steps, including formulating a research plan, selecting a target market for analysis, carrying it out, collecting data, processing and interpreting it, and reporting it. Businesses can learn about specific markets, the likelihood that a service or product will succeed, and patterns of consumer behavior that may help them achieve their sales objectives by conducting market research. Businesses use research findings to guide their strategic planning.

Market research cons

Following are some drawbacks of market research and ideas for overcoming them:

1. Can be expensive

It can be expensive to implement a market research strategy, especially for smaller businesses. Employing an outside firm to conduct research on behalf of a business can be very resource-intensive due to the lengthy process. Market research can be expensive for businesses up front, but it has a big impact on growing sales and making money. You might think about limiting your research to the most important market issues in order to save money. For instance, to save money on a more expensive research study, you might focus your research on customer marketing strategies.

2. Requires significant time investment

Along with financial costs, market research frequently takes time to complete. Finding the most crucial research questions to ask, creating a plan to collect data for each, and then processing the data to find results can all be time-consuming steps in the research process. Businesses might not see an immediate benefit from putting a research strategy in place because it can take time to conduct this research.

Concentrating on one aspect at a time can help market researchers produce results more quickly. It may be quicker to start with a single area of interest rather than conducting a comprehensive study. You can more quickly implement strategies to start enhancing your sales strategies based on the findings of this smaller study.

3. May only target a small population

How accurately it can represent your target customers is another potential drawback of market research. Accessing sample populations that fairly reflect the majority of a target market is a challenge for researchers frequently. For instance, researchers are likely to only receive responses from a small sample of participants if they send surveys to a large portion of your current customers. Although this criticism can be useful, it might not accurately reflect the opinions of your clients. Consider any potential biases in the sample respondents as a way to get around this These participants’ feedback can suggest additional areas for future research.

4. Need personnel to conduct research

Businesses must also hire qualified individuals to conduct market research. Many businesses opt to employ outside firms to carry out their research for them, but some larger businesses may have their own internal research team. Both options can be costly for businesses, so knowing how much money you have to spend on hiring experts can help you decide which is best for your requirements. Finding out what kind of market research is most advantageous to your company is a good first step toward figuring out your needs for research personnel. Some companies might require a larger research department than others.

Market research methods

Here are four common methods of market research:

Surveys are a common method for consumer research. Businesses regularly distribute surveys to gain insight into customer satisfaction. Customers may be polled at crucial points during their interactions with the business, such as when browsing its website or right after making a purchase. It’s typical for surveys to include a number of quick questions asking the respondent to rate their overall experience on a numbered scale as well as open-ended inquiries asking for written feedback. Consumer demographic data may also be gathered through surveys so that companies can create useful profiles of their typical customers. Direct customer feedback can give businesses quick, actionable insight.

Surveys are a great way to gather information from many participants quickly. Despite the fact that surveys only allow for general inquiries and may not be able to detect nonverbal cues, they are frequently crucial to market research. You can reach a wide audience and get immediate feedback by regularly sending electronic surveys to customers who interact with your business.

2. Interviews

Individual interviews with important clients are another research technique. An in-person interview with a customer can be a great way to learn more about their intentions, behaviors, and attitudes toward your business. A personal interview may yield more in-depth insight than a survey because it allows you to observe the subject’s verbal and nonverbal cues. Compared to a more generalized survey, you can ask more inquisitive questions and conduct a more thorough analysis of the respondents’ responses when conducting an in-person interview.

Although interviews are a great way to learn about a subject’s attitudes toward a company, it may be challenging to generalize the findings. Individual interviews take time to complete, and it can be more difficult to locate participants for a formal interview than for a more casual survey. Interviews can be excellent for niche or small businesses with a relatively small customer base despite these drawbacks. Since these customers are more likely to have common interests and objectives, conducting individual interviews could provide insightful information about the strengths and weaknesses of your company.

3. Focus groups

Focus groups are conducted to gather information about your target market’s experiences with your company. Participants are chosen from among those who represent your target market. This can be a great way to get opinions from a group of people who are similar to your main target market. Compared to a general survey, having a face-to-face meeting with a group of participants lets you ask more in-depth questions that reveal deeper insights into customer opinions.

The participants in this type of research should be carefully chosen, and the conversation should be framed by neutral questions. A participant with a more dominant personality may sway the opinions of the group in some focus group dynamics, which can bias your results. Similarly, it’s crucial to craft your inquiries in a way that reduces the likelihood of skewed responses. Focus groups can be an excellent way to learn more about the requirements of your core customers by inviting a balanced group of participants and using questions that produce unbiased insights.

4. Observations

An excellent way to comprehend your customers’ interactions with various aspects of your business is through observational studies. For instance, you could invite real customers to take part in an observational study where you watch and record them using your website in order to understand how users interact with it. You can infer from this observation which elements of your site’s design are most functional and which you can improve.

Observational research is crucial for gaining a thorough understanding of how your customers interact with your business, but incorporating it into your research process can be time-consuming and expensive. You must invite subjects to participate in your study and create official structures to conduct it in order to conduct observational research successfully. For instance, you might set up a series of tasks that visitors to your site must complete. You could devise a method for keeping track of how long it takes each participant to finish the tasks, and you could also conduct a follow-up interview.

Primary Research Data Explained: The Pros & Cons of Marketing Research

What are the advantages and disadvantages of market research?

• Managing risks. …
• Increasing sales. …
• Improving brand recognition. …
• Measuring brand reputation. …
• Can be expensive. …
• Requires significant time investment. …
• May only target a small population. …
• Need personnel to conduct research.

What is the disadvantage of market research?

The time needed to conduct the research, complete questionnaires, and conduct interviews is another drawback of market research. Costs and time are directly correlated, with longer research periods potentially costing the company more money.

What are the pros and cons of methods of marketing research?

By conducting market research, you can target the preferences and problems of your customers more precisely. It’s a win-win for your customers and your business. Using a segmentation-targeting-positioning (STP) model in your market research is one of the best ways to focus on the needs of your customers.

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CAPI, CATI, and CAWI Research Methods

Roxana elliott | apr. 20, 2021 | 4 min. read, what are capi, cati, and cawi.

Three common research methodologies are CAPI, CATI, and CAWI , which stand for Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing , Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing , and Computer Assisted Web Interviewing . While these three methods have similar names and are often mentioned together, in practice they are very different methods, and each has unique characteristics which should be taken into account when deciding on a data collection method. Below we outline the major differences of CATI, CAPI, and CAWI, along with pros and cons of each method.

Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI)

Because CAPI is an in-person research mode, it can reach anyone, even populations who do not have internet or phone access, which makes it a good solution for gathering data from low-income populations. However, CAPI requires interviewers to be trained in survey administration and for them to travel to each household they will interview. In emerging regions and rural areas where houses can be dispersed over a large area, this can make administering CAPI surveys time-consuming.

Pros of Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing:  

• Can reach any household or respondent, even those without internet or phone access
• Allows for interviewers to collect detailed data through follow-up questions and probing
• Improves on paper and pen survey administration by reducing the chance of interviewer error or data loss

Cons of Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing:  

• Requires interviewers to be recruited and trained in survey administration
• Can be time-consuming for interviewers to travel from household to household, especially in rural areas
• Can be costly due to the need for trained interviewers and the length of time it takes to collect data  

Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI)

Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing or CATI is a voice call interview method in which trained interviewers call respondents’ phone numbers, usually working from a central call center. CATI interviews are similar to CAPI interviews in that they are interviewer-administered, so interviewers can conduct similar probing and clarification of survey questions, and CATI software also allows interviewers to securely record responses and save data. CATI interviews support both qualitative and quantitative survey questions and can utilize audio aids as part of a questionnaire design.

Pros of Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing:

• Securely stores data and enables simple survey administration through CATI software
• Reaches wide segments of the population without having to overcome logistical hurdles associated with in-person research
• Interviews can be administered at the respondent’s convenience by scheduling a call-back time

Cons of Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing:

• May not reach the lowest-income populations who do not have access to a mobile phone or landline

Computer Assisted Web Interviewing (CAWI)

CAWI surveys are useful for gathering quick insights from large sample sizes as they do not require interviewers to be trained and can be distributed very widely, but they are limited to populations who have internet access and are comfortable using computers or internet-enabled phones or tablets. CAWI surveys are also self-administered, meaning you rely on the respondent to fill in a survey accurately without the guidance of an interviewer, and that questionnaires generally need to be shorter for respondents to complete them.    

Pros of Computer Assisted Web Interviewing

• Simple to set-up and administer to large sample sizes
• Do not require the hiring and training of interviewers
• Can be a fast and low-cost method of data collection

Cons of Computer Assisted Web Interviewing

• Only reach literate populations and those with access to the internet and a computer or mobile device
• Qualitative data collection can be more limited than with interviewer-administered modes
• Questionnaires should be shorter to encourage higher completion rates

Choosing between CAPI, CATI, and CAWI

As outlined above, there are significant differences between CAPI, CATI, and CAWI survey modes. Generally, if you are looking to get the most representative survey possible, CAPI and CATI are the best options, but CAWI can be useful for quickly gathering insights on a consumer population or in countries which have high levels of internet access. When choosing a research mode , you must take into account the population you are trying to reach, questionnaire length and complexity, budget, and timeline. Use GeoPoll’s interactive research mode picker to get a quick view of what modes may be feasible for the project you are working on.

Depending on the country you are looking to research in, some modes may be more feasible than others, and talking to a research expert can help you narrow down your mode options. In addition to the three research modes mentioned here, there are other options such as SMS and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) which some research firms, such as GeoPoll, offer in addition to CAPI, CATI, and CAWI.

To speak to the GeoPoll team about which research mode is right for you, please contact us today .

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• Tags computer assisted personal interviewing , computer assisted telephone interview , computer assisted web interviewing , mobile survey modes , Mobile Web