When Skimping on Market Research Fails: 5 Cheap Moves That Will Ruin Your Research
1. When Skimping on Market Research Backfires
Never skimp on budget for:
• Quality sample. Having quality sample is critical. Avoid sources that can’t talk
credibly about their recruitment tactics or list sources. You don’t want to bake a
cake with spoiled eggs.
• Sufficient sample quantity. If you are purchasing outside sample, be sure you
have access to enough—or at least have a fallback strategy in place in case your
incidence rates are tragically low. I have seen many otherwise brilliantly
managed projects experience dramatic schedule slips because of poor sample
quantity planning.
• Expert research design. Don’t sabotage a project by fielding a poorly constructed
questionnaire or applying an innnapaprirote methodology for the given objective.
Even if you intend to do a project in-house, getting help in this area will pay for
itself by avoiding wasted time and money.
• Competent data analysis. If you spend the time and money to collect beautiful
data, don’t skimp on the analysis. This can be harder than it sounds, especially for
projects that have had data collection problems. In these cases, you can become so
exhausted with the project that by the time data analysis is due, you are just ready
to be done with it. Resist the temptation or get help. Skimping on data analysis
can backfire in 2 ways. First, someone else will look at the data and find an
important result that you missed. Ouch. Second, you won’t get a good return on
the research investment—leaving a bad impression that may derail you the next
time you try to get budget for a market research study.
• Decent reporting. Rushing to get the research delivered is understandable—but
unfortunate typos, mislabeled charts or poor writing can turn off the audience and
damage the research’s credibility. Yes, really.
If you have people with these skills in-house—great, do it in-house. If you want to
augment with outside expertise for discrete tasks, there are many boutique agencies and
market research freelancers available for such work. And if you want an experienced
expert to run the project for you, by all means hire a market research agency. But don’t
skimp—it always backfires.
For more information, please contact Kathryn Korostoff at
KKorostoff@ResearchRockstar.com or visit us online at www.ResearchRockstar.com.
