Have you ever sent out a feedback survey to a customer or anyone else involved with your organization, one that looks something like this:
Source: SoGoSurvey
If you have, you’ve conducted quantitative market research.
But quantitative research is not limited to feedback surveys. Regardless of the industry, you can get so much more out of it. It can give you an idea of:
- Industry trends and patterns.
- Your strengths and weaknesses.
- Change in your target audience’s opinions or behavior.
Collectively, these insights help you make informed decisions about your organization’s objectives, operations, marketing, etc.
So how exactly do you go about conducting quantitative market research? This post shows you. First, we start by understanding a little more about what this type of market research is.
What is meant by quantitative market research?
Quantitative research entails collecting answers and opinions from a target audience on different subjects. This data is usually quantifiable or numerical.
Typically, the questionnaire is designed with close-ended questions and multiple options to choose from.
This data is collated and analyzed using computational, mathematical, or statistical techniques, and the results are presented as numerical data. These results are then used to:
- Understand market trends, opinions, and predictions to ensure your relevance.
- Validate assumptions of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges.
- Inform operational, product, or positioning decisions.
- Test your relationship with your audience.
Let’s walk through an example to understand this better.
A market research company, Tallwave, worked with a leading food distribution company to help them during the pandemic.
The objective was to identify the changes in the needs and values of their restaurant clients and look for opportunities to help them become more valuable partners.
Tallwave created a survey and emailed it to the clients. The survey consisted of questions like:
- The percentage of their weekly spend with the food distribution company.
- Percentage change in the amount of food they were ordering now.
- A satisfaction rating of the food distribution company.
The results showed how the pandemic changed:
- Their weekly orders and demand.
- Customer count.
- Operations and purchase behavior.
These findings helped the food distributor align with customer needs and changes while regulating their procurements based on demands.
Advantages and disadvantages of quantitative market research
Having quantifiable insights has a few distinct advantages but a few drawbacks too. These are as follows.
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
| Larger sample sizes: Since quantitative research surveys are smaller and easier to fill, you can distribute them to a larger audience in a given time. | Lack of specific data: Since the focus is on numbers, you could end up with inconclusive results. For example, the number of unsatisfied customers but no clue why. |
| Easy analysis: Since the data is numerical, it’s easy and efficient to analyze using available tools. | Difficulty in following up: It’s hard to follow up with respondents and ask them more questions based on their responses. |
| Faster insights: Given that analysis is more straightforward; you get these insights immediately. | No control over the environment: You don’t know when and how respondents fill out the survey. You also can’t judge their emotions, so you could get skewed data. |
| Generalized findings: Since the research typically finds trends, the results can be safely generalized beyond the participants. |
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Next, let’s look at some of the most common quantitative market research methods.
Quantitative market research methods
Some of the most popular ways to distribute surveys for quantitative market research are:
- Face to face
- Postal surveys
- Online surveys
- Text surveys
- Telephone surveys
Let’s take a closer look at what the process for each entails.
Face to face surveys
Face to face or in-person surveys are generally conducted either by:
- Going door-to-door or
- Approaching gatherings like an event or assembly.
The process for both is pretty straightforward. The steps include the following:
- Surveyors prepare their questionnaires. Some print them out, while some may use tablets and surveying tools like QuickTapSurveys.
- They approach the target audience, collect their details, and note the responses.
- Once they’re back to their organization, they enter the responses and details in a shared sheet or tool for analysis. This step, however, only applies to people using printed sheets to collect data.
While in-person surveys give you some control over the environment (typically a disadvantage with these surveys), it involves a lot of grunt work and can be expensive and inefficient.
Postal surveys
Postal surveys are letters sent out to either:
- Existing lists of respondents.
- Lists procured from list selling organizations.
They were created as an alternative for in-person surveys to avoid the hassle of going door-to-door.
The process for these surveys is as follows:
- Prepare the questionnaire with the necessary fields to collect responses. For example, options to tick for MCQ questions, text boxes for subjective answers.
- Print out the letter body and addresses for mailing. A direct mailing tool like Sendoso might be handy here.
- Add a response device to all letters. This return letter includes all the relevant details (like the return address, stamps). So survey respondents only have to fill out the survey, put it back in the envelope, and drop it in a postbox.
- Collect the responses, enter them into your sheet or tool for analysis.
Postal surveys do take away some effort in going around collecting responses. But the difficulty in tracking responses and manual data entry can still be quite challenging.
Online surveys
The internet age provided surveyors with another survey distribution channel for quantitative market research. Organizations could leverage the following to put their questionnaires out:
- Social media (via ads and organically)
- Search engine ads
- Emails
- Their website
- Third-party survey websites
The process is also straightforward:
- Prepare a questionnaire using a hosted tool like Google Forms or a self-hosted one like LimeSurvey. Get a shareable link to the survey.
- Promote the link via ads, publish it organically, or leverage other marketing efforts to get it in front of the right people.
- Collect responses, and since everything happens online, all data is automatically transferred to your CRM for analysis.
However, deliverability is a challenge with online surveys. It is often hard to get the right people to see the questionnaire, and there is also no way to validate who’s taking the survey.
Plus, pushing out the survey too can be challenging. It always has to be accompanied by alternative efforts like ads and SEO to get it to rank higher in search engines, social media marketing, etc.
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Text surveys
With over 97% of the population owning a cell phone and an open rate of 98%, text surveys overcome the challenge of deliverability.
There are two ways you can leverage text surveys for quantitative market research:
- SMS Opt-in for inbound surveys.
- Peer-to-peer texts and text blasts for outbound surveys.
Here’s how they work.
SMS Opt-in (inbound text survey)
SMS opt-in surveys are used when you don’t have a contact list of your own. So instead of promoting the survey, you advertise a keyword and number and get people to opt-in to your list and take the survey. Generally, there’s an incentive involved to compel people to opt-in.
- Select a number to receive incoming messages. It could be a shortcode or a 10 digit long code (or 10DLC). Recent regulatory changes have made 10DLC numbers more favorable and efficient. Learn more about the challenges 10DLC solves.
- Assign a keyword that interested respondents text you. Make sure it’s related to the campaign and easy to remember—for example, FEEDBACK for a feedback survey.
- Create an auto-response flow. You can either send the survey questions on the same text chain or share a link to the survey form (as shown). The former is suitable for quick surveys with two to three questions, whereas the latter is better for longer ones.
Peer-to-peer text (outbound survey)
Peer-to-peer texts allow you to have full conversations over text at scale, making them perfect for long and dynamic surveys for quantitative market research.
- Select a number to send messages from and upload the target contact list in your SMS tool.
- Draft your initial message that asks your contacts to participate in the survey. You can’t just start asking questions. People may not respond to it without some encouragement. It may also annoy them since you’re asking them for something without asking for their permission or giving them a reason.
- Draft follow-up templates that consist of the questions you wish to ask them. You can also craft a few saved replies to common questions contacts may have.
- Send out the initial message and the follow-up questions based on the responses.
The integration of your SMS tool and your CRM ensures that the data is automatically exported to your CRM and ready for analysis. It eliminates the manual effort of entering data.
Text broadcasts (outbound survey)
Text broadcasts (or blasts) are an alternative outbound survey methodology that lets you send out the survey link to a large audience in one go. Here’s what the process entails:
- Select a number to send messages from and upload the target contact list.
- Draft your message. This message consists of the survey link and a compelling copy asking recipients to fill it out.
- Schedule the message and send it out to your contact list.
All responses are available in the survey form tool (in a hosted solution) or your CRM (in a self-hosted solution).
To learn more about setting up a text survey campaign and its benefits, check out our guide on Text surveys.
Telephone surveys
Telephone surveys bring the personal nature of face-to-face surveys and the reach of online surveys together while eliminating the need for manual data entry.
The dynamic conversations that phone calls let you have make them perfect for qualitative research. But they also work really well for quantitative market research.
The process is pretty simple:
- Set up a calling campaign in your call center software and upload your contact list. You can either import this list from your CRM or upload a CSV file.
- Select a number/s to make calls from. Having a dynamic caller ID feature comes in handy here. If you’re making calls across regions, the feature automatically rents out local numbers to make calls from. This helps improve pick-up rates as studies have shown that people are 4X more likely to pick up calls from local numbers.
- Draft your survey script. For quantitative market research, a calling tool that lets you craft a script with selectable options would be perfect. Here’s an example of this from CallHub’s dashboard:
- Schedule your campaign and start making calls. As your surveyors collect responses, they are automatically exported to your CRM.
Learn more about setting up a telephone survey campaign in our guide on Phone Survey Software.
To summarize
Quantitative market research helps you collect quantifiable data to inform business decisions from your audience.
While the results can sometimes be a little inconclusive, it does provide you with a plethora of quick insights and trends that tell you where an organization stands and how it should move forward.
In-person, direct mail and online are a few ways to conduct surveys for quantitative market research. But in recent times, text and telephone surveys are taking over, given how they overcome some complex challenges associated with former methods.
That means if you’re not conducting surveys over text or calls, you should start immediately. And the journey for that starts from finding the right communication software to help you.
CallHub is a communication platform that offers calling and texting solutions with the perfect set of features that make quantitative market research a breeze. Sign up and try it out for free.
But, if you have already been conducting text and telephone surveys, maybe you could make a quick comparison of CallHub’s features against your existing tool—just to ensure that you have all the right features that are helping you operate with maximum efficiency. 😉
Featured image source: Photo by Tara Winstead from Pexels
Categories:
- Market Research
FAQs
What is quantitative research method in marketing? ›
Quantitative Market Research is a technique to ask questions to the target audience in an organized manner using surveys, polls or questionnaires. Received responses can be analyzed to make well-thought decisions for improving products and services, that will in turn help increase respondent satisfaction levels.
What are the 4 types of quantitative research methods? ›There are four main types of Quantitative research: Descriptive, Correlational, Causal-Comparative/Quasi-Experimental, and Experimental Research. attempts to establish cause- effect relationships among the variables. These types of design are very similar to true experiments, but with some key differences.
What is the importance of quantitative research in marketing? ›Quantitative research is a powerful tool for anyone looking to learn more about their market and customers. It allows you to gain reliable, objective insights from data and clearly understand trends and patterns. Where quantitative research falls short is in explaining the 'why'.
What are examples of the most common quantitative marketing research? ›The most common quantitative research methods are customer surveys and questionnaires. If you have questions that drill down into specifics about your company, your market, or your target customer population, you're looking for quantitative research.
How can the research that is quantitative by nature be best used in marketing research? ›Quantitative market research asks individuals for their opinions in a more structured way than that of qualitative research.. This is done so that the data produced will provide solid and definitive results. The most common forms of quantitative research used in marketing are customer surveys and questionnaires.
What is an example of quantitative research? ›An example of quantitative research is the survey conducted to understand the amount of time a doctor takes to tend to a patient when the patient walks into the hospital.
What is the importance of quantitative research in your daily life explain it in not more than five sentences? ›The purpose of quantitative research is to attain greater knowledge and understanding of the social world. Researchers use quantitative methods to observe situations or events that affect people. Quantitative research produces objective data that can be clearly communicated through statistics and numbers.
What is quantitative research in your own words? ›Quantitative research is the process of collecting and analyzing numerical data. It can be used to find patterns and averages, make predictions, test causal relationships, and generalize results to wider populations.
What is the benefits of quantitative research? ›The benefits of quantitative research
You get objectivity and accuracy: There are far fewer variables involved with quantitative research. The data you're collecting is often 'close-ended', which means people are choosing clear-cut multiple choice answers, such as yes/no, or Instagram/Facebook/TikTok.
Although there are many other methods to collect quantitative data, those mentioned above probability sampling, interviews, questionnaire observation, and document review are the most common and widely used methods either offline or for online data collection.
What is qualitative research and provide an example when marketing would benefit from this method? ›
Qualitative market research is the study of the factors that influence people's behavior within a specific market. For example, in a commercial market, the aim of qualitative research might be to understand shoppers' motivations when they buy things, such as what they think of a product and why they think that way.
What is the best type of marketing research qualitative or quantitative? ›To measure opinions, quantitative research is the right choice. If an in-depth understanding of perceptions revealing conscious, or even unconscious ways individuals reason through and come to their conclusions on a matter, then qualitative research is the best bet.
What is the best research design for quantitative research? ›Good quantitative research design usually involves a customized mix of data gathering methods, such as online surveys (web, mobile and email), direct (postal) mail surveys, point-of-purchase surveys, and in some cases telephone surveys as well.
What market research method can you do to gather data How will you do it? ›There are lots of different ways you could conduct market research and collect customer data, but you don't have to limit yourself to just one research method. Four common types of market research techniques include surveys, interviews, focus groups, and customer observation.
What is the role of quantitative research in modern marketing research and data analysis? ›Quantitative research is a powerful tool for anyone looking to learn more about their market and customers. It allows you to gain reliable, objective insights from data and clearly understand trends and patterns.
What methods would you use to research potential new markets? ›...
Quantitative research
- surveys on customer return frequency.
- sales figures.
- industry product sales numbers.
- online or phone questionnaires.
- financial trends.
Weight in pounds. Length in inches. Distance in miles. Number of days in a year.
How is quantitative research applied to business? ›Quantitative research is all about numbers. It uses mathematical analysis and data to shed light on important statistics about your business and market. This type of data, found via tactics such as multiple-choice questionnaires, can help you gauge interest in your company and its offerings.
When should you use quantitative research? ›A rule of thumb for deciding whether to use qualitative or quantitative data is: Use quantitative research if you want to confirm or test something (a theory or hypothesis) Use qualitative research if you want to understand something (concepts, thoughts, experiences)
What is the importance of research in our everyday life you can give a specific situation or example write 3 5 sentences for your answer? ›Research empowers us with knowledge
We get to know the way of nature, and how our actions affect it. We gain a deeper understanding of people, and why they do the things they do. Best of all, we get to enrich our lives with the latest knowledge of health, nutrition, technology, and business, among others.
What is the importance of research in our daily life as a student essay? ›
Studies reveal that research helps restore and protect memory and enhances mathematic and problem-solving skills. Therefore, it prepares the mind for a better understanding of concepts and theories. A person's learning capacity is improved and they can perform better in comparison who is reluctant to research.
How quantitative research is important or different field of discipline Brainly? ›Answer: Quantitative research aims to be generalizable to large populations by using specific sampling methods and large data sets. It can provide important descriptive statistics about a population or location, allowing us to grasp key characteristics of the object(s) of study.
What is the most important thing in quantitative research? ›Data collection is one of the most important aspects of the quantitative research process. Data collection involves having the researcher to prepare and obtain the required information from the target audience.
What is the main focus of quantitative research? ›Quantitative research is a way to learn about a particular group of people, known as a sample population. Using scientific inquiry, quantitative research relies on data that are observed or measured to examine questions about the sample population.
How important is quantitative research in our society? ›The strength of quantitative methods is that they can provide vital information about a society or community, through surveys, examinations, records or censuses, that no individual could obtain by observation.
What is the importance of quantitative analysis? ›Quantitative analysis provides analysts with tools to examine and analyze past, current, and anticipated future events. Any subject involving numbers can be quantified; thus, QA is used in many fields including analytical chemistry, financial analysis, social science, and organized sports.
How quantitative Analyses make the best decisions? ›The quantitative approach is to make an optimal decision by using mathematical and statistical models in a situation when the probability of all outcomes is uncertain. In so many words, in decision-making it helps managers solve complex problems.
Why is research methods important? ›Why is a research methodology important? A research methodology gives research legitimacy and provides scientifically sound findings. It also provides a detailed plan that helps to keep researchers on track, making the process smooth, effective and manageable.
How do you collect data in quantitative research? ›- Experiments.
- Controlled observations.
- Surveys: paper, kiosk, mobile, questionnaires.
- Longitudinal studies.
- Polls.
- Telephone interviews.
- Face-to-face interviews.
The two most commonly used quantitative data analysis methods are descriptive statistics and inferential statistics.
What is more effective in making a market research qualitative or quantitative and why? ›
They choose quantitative research over qualitative marketing research because it is: More scientific and unbiased. Easier to control the data. More focused because it is often used to test a theory.
What are the best title for quantitative research about business? ›- Current trends in consumer behavior.
- Innovative management.
- Company rituals and corporate culture.
- Negotiation and diplomacy.
- Effective advertising.
- International trade trends in the USA.
- Geo-arbitrage and business success.
- Advantages of increasing brand awareness.
It enables businesses to understand their target customers' preferences better, purchasing patterns, pain concerns, and demographics. Business Research also gives companies a complete understanding of their target markets, trending, and market demand.
What is the importance of quantitative research in marketing? ›Quantitative research is a powerful tool for anyone looking to learn more about their market and customers. It allows you to gain reliable, objective insights from data and clearly understand trends and patterns. Where quantitative research falls short is in explaining the 'why'.
What is an example of quantitative research in marketing? ›The most common quantitative research methods are customer surveys and questionnaires. If you have questions that drill down into specifics about your company, your market, or your target customer population, you're looking for quantitative research.
How can the research that is quantitative by nature be best used in marketing research? ›Quantitative market research asks individuals for their opinions in a more structured way than that of qualitative research.. This is done so that the data produced will provide solid and definitive results. The most common forms of quantitative research used in marketing are customer surveys and questionnaires.
What is qualitative and quantitative research in marketing? ›In brief, quantitative market research refers to the process of collecting large amounts of data through surveys, questionnaires, and polling methods. Conversely, qualitative market research involves determining customer motivation through close observation –– typically in a small group or face-to-face encounter.
What are marketing research methods? ›Four common types of market research techniques include surveys, interviews, focus groups, and customer observation.
What is qualitative research and provide an example when marketing would benefit from this method? ›Qualitative market research is the study of the factors that influence people's behavior within a specific market. For example, in a commercial market, the aim of qualitative research might be to understand shoppers' motivations when they buy things, such as what they think of a product and why they think that way.
What is marketing research explain the types of qualitative research methods? ›Qualitative research is defined as a market research method that focuses on obtaining data through open-ended and conversational communication. This method is not only about “what” people think but also “why” they think so. For example, consider a convenience store looking to improve its patronage.
What is the best type of marketing research quantitative or qualitative? ›
They choose quantitative research over qualitative marketing research because it is: More scientific and unbiased. Easier to control the data. More focused because it is often used to test a theory.
What is the best type of market research? ›Face-to-face Interviews
This approach is perhaps the most effective source of data for professional services firms. Face-to-face interviews, however, do come with a couple of important limitations. First, they are the most expensive interviews to conduct.
It enables businesses to understand their target customers' preferences better, purchasing patterns, pain concerns, and demographics. Business Research also gives companies a complete understanding of their target markets, trending, and market demand.
What is market research in your own opinion? ›Market research consists of systematically gathering data about people or companies – a market – and then analyzing it to better understand what that group of people needs.
What marketing research methods will you use and why? ›While there are many ways to perform market research, most businesses use one or more of five basic methods: surveys, focus groups, personal interviews, observation, and field trials. The type of data you need and how much money you're willing to spend will determine which techniques you choose for your business.
What is research in your own understanding? ›Research is a process of systematic inquiry that entails collection of data; documentation of critical information; and analysis and interpretation of that data/information, in accordance with suitable methodologies set by specific professional fields and academic disciplines.
How can quantitative research help in solving problems about businesses? ›Quantitative research is all about numbers. It uses mathematical analysis and data to shed light on important statistics about your business and market. This type of data, found via tactics such as multiple-choice questionnaires, can help you gauge interest in your company and its offerings.
What is the role of quantitative research in modern marketing research and data analysis? ›Quantitative research is a powerful tool for anyone looking to learn more about their market and customers. It allows you to gain reliable, objective insights from data and clearly understand trends and patterns.
How can the concept of quantitative research help you in your chosen strand and career in the future? ›The purpose of quantitative research is to attain greater knowledge and understanding of the social world. Researchers use quantitative methods to observe situations or events that affect people. Quantitative research produces objective data that can be clearly communicated through statistics and numbers.
What is quantitative research in your own words? ›Quantitative research is the process of collecting and analyzing numerical data. It can be used to find patterns and averages, make predictions, test causal relationships, and generalize results to wider populations.
What is characteristics of quantitative research? ›
Quantitative research deals in numbers, logic, and an objective stance. Quantitative research focuses on numeric and unchanging data and detailed, convergent reasoning rather than divergent reasoning [i.e., the generation of a variety of ideas about a research problem in a spontaneous, free-flowing manner].
Why is it important that a researcher has to have in-depth understanding of research designs? ›A well-planned research design helps ensure that your methods match your research aims, that you collect high-quality data, and that you use the right kind of analysis to answer your questions, utilizing credible sources. This allows you to draw valid, trustworthy conclusions.