No need to outsource! Tasks you can easily do yourself
And what you should hand over to specially trained people.
So you’ve decided that you need to run a consumer study. Are you tempted to do it yourself? Sometimes this is reasonable, sometimes it is not. Let’s take a look at the tasks that you can do yourself and the ways to do them.
The main thing is to understand what you are doing and why you are doing it in a particular way. You need to clearly understand what results you will get from the research and how you will use them to make business decisions.
You should do the research yourself if: a) you understand how to do it and b) you understand what you want to learn
Ask yourself how well you know the following:
A) how to conduct this particular study,
B) how to analyze the results. Your knowledge can be measured using the following scale:
— Have done this in the past and the results were useful = 90%.
— I haven’t done it but I read a lot on this topic or have undertaken courses = 50%.
— I heard something (I read something online, in one book, the speaker at the conference told eloquently, that…) = 10%.
A) how to conduct this particular study,
B) how to analyze the results. Your knowledge can be measured using the following scale:
— Have done this in the past and the results were useful = 90%.
— I haven’t done it but I read a lot on this topic or have undertaken courses = 50%.
— I heard something (I read something online, in one book, the speaker at the conference told eloquently, that…) = 10%.
DIY Success Rate = % know how to conduct * % know how to analyze
Moreover, errors in both the fieldwork and analysis of research results can lead not only to a decrease in the research effectiveness, but also to completely erroneous (and costly) conclusions. So you’d better know what you are doing!
Leaving aside data analysis and other AB tests, we have 3 main ways to research:
1) observation, 2) interviews, 3) surveys. In the next three chapters, we’ll cover each of these methods enough to get you started and conduct simple tasks yourself. This information will be useful to you both when you do research yourself and when you commission a research agency to do it for you enabling you to work effectively with them.
1) observation, 2) interviews, 3) surveys. In the next three chapters, we’ll cover each of these methods enough to get you started and conduct simple tasks yourself. This information will be useful to you both when you do research yourself and when you commission a research agency to do it for you enabling you to work effectively with them.
It is useful to keep in mind the general logic of the research cycle:
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