: Market research plays a vital role in the success of business. It provides decision maker insights to market, competitors, products, marketing strategy and customers. Quantitative research focuses on numerical analytic, allowing marketers to answer such question like “how many” and “How much” while qualitative research gets behind the facts and figures to find out what would target customers do, or how would target customers do in such situation

1. Qualitative research & Quantitative research
Market research plays a vital role in the success of business. It provides decision maker insights
to market, competitors, products, marketing strategy and customers. By such insights,
marketing research allow decision maker to create successful marketing strategy to adapt for
different marketing issues.
Thanks for marketing research activity, a business may minimize its risk when release new
product through well understanding target customer profile. Besides that, there a many other
business strategic issues such as re-position product, pricing strategy or brand health need
marketing research to minimize risk of failure.
In order to answer the question: “How to minimize risk of failure?” it is essential for marketer to
have deep knowledge about marketing research definition, applied marketing research,
marketing research process etc. so that they can effectively apply marketing research for
different marketing issues.
Two main types of marketing research are qualitative research and quantitative research. Each
of them has its own advantages and disadvantages to explore a specific data, and answer
different type of questions to marketers.
Quantitative research:
Quantitative research focuses on numerical analytic, allowing marketers to answer such
question like “how many” and “How much”. Marketers may apply quantitative marketing
research by themselves, through gathering data from questionnaire and surveys, collected from
talking to target customers. Sometimes, a deeper quantitative research is applied to learn more
about the market and customer profile.
For instance, marketers apply marketing research to answer: “what percentage of population
buy the product / have the same opinion about a particular product”. A highlighted research that
applies quantitative research method is product testing, where marketer is aiming at launching
new product to market.
Some questions that a quantitative research is going to answer market researchers:
 How many people think, feel or behave in a certain way?

2.  How many people like / dislike new concept of advertisement / product?
Quantitative research uses structured questionnaire with mostly closed questions. The
respondents select their answers from given lists of possible responses. A range of question
types may be used. For example, rating questions can measure strength of feeling such as
importance or satisfaction, ranking questions can determine preferences, and so on.
Qualitative research:
Different to quantitative research, qualitative research gets behind the facts and figures to find
out what would target customers do, or how would target customers do in such situation.
Qualitative research data is collected from experts and high skilled people by questionnaires,
focus group discussion, in-depth interview. Through getting people to expand on their answers
so that you can get more insight into their attitudes and behavior. It’s all about getting
underneath people’s response to find out what is driving their decisions.
Some specific industry requires more qualitative research is pharmaceutical industry, mechanic
industry because it requires deep technical knowledge from experts to answer marketing issues
to marketers.
A qualitative research allow marketing researchers be aware of customers perceptions to a
product or service, which support marketers in design appropriate marketing strategy to meet
the need of target audience.
Some questions that a qualitative research is going to answer market researchers:
 Is the concept easy to use?
 Does the product meet customers’ expectations?
 Does the product do what it is supposed to do?
 Is the concept appealing to customers?
 Is the price is correct?
Desk research:
Desk research is research action based on existing surveys and business reports. This
information can be easily accessed through internet, business associations, and industry
organizations or publicized market report. These data (customer profile, competitor profile,

3. market trend etc.) may cost some fee to obtain, or sometimes, it is free of charge. Desk
research is essential for marketer to briefly update current market trend and activities of
competitors.
Marketing issues:
Each business has its own issues, that narrower business opportunity, or even worse that
eliminate all business opportunity. Therefore, business owner should be aware of some popular
marketing issues to effectively resolve them.
Product Pre-Launch Issues:
 Feasibility of product concept
 Core target market identification
 Crystalizing brand positioning platform & strategic indications
 Forecasting marketing mix performance
Product Post-Launch Issues
 Brand health tracking
 Brand equity building
 Future brand strategy
 Repositioning of under-performing or aging brands
Compiled by AMR Group (Marketing Research in Vietnam-Nghien Cuu Thi Truong Viet
Nam) on 2014
Source: Strategic Initatives
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For enquiries, email Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tung (CEO of AMR Group)
research@vinamr.com.vn

4. This article is compiled by AMR Group to provide updated information on markets. AMR Group
puts the best effort to obtain the most accurate and timely information available from various
reliable sources. The article should be best considered a reference and indicative only. It is not
an offer or advice for any actions related to any assets. AMR Group provides no warranty or
undertaking of any kind in respect to the information and materials found with, or linked to the
report and no obligation to update the information after the report was released. AMR Group
does not bear any responsibility for the compiled information, or any consequences arising from
its use.