Market Research Primer

To Truly reap the benefits of market research, you must know when each method will be most productive

Giving an overview of marketing research, Brianna Sylver gives a preliminary understanding of four methods currently utilized: ethnographic research, listening labs, focus groups, and surveys.

As a preliminary or rough draft, this is a good start. Marketing is a complex field and as a designer it is beneficial to know to conduct the various marketing research methods.

The good of the article is the overview aspects. She offers insight into each of the methodologies while assessing each methods strengths and weaknesses. She give Use, Cost, and average Time needed to conduct each method. In the end she gives a matrix of method versus use which can be used as a tool to quickly assess how to use each method.

But this "primer" for marketing research does not take into account the stated target reader, which would be someone who is unfamiliar with any of the market's terminology. She consistently uses undefined terminology and sometime does not fully explain how a method is actually conducted. One example is she explains Listening Labs by comparison to Usability Tests, but does not define a context for the comparison.

In the comments section many ambiguities are flushed out by the readers which balances out many of the inconsistencies in this primer and as a whole offers a fuller understanding of Market Research.

Published on Core77 on May 2, 2009 by Brianna Sylver

http://www.core77.com/blog/featured_items/spend_it_wisely_a_market_research_primer_for_designers_by_brianna_sylver_13355.asp