What is DIY market research?
DIY market research or do-it-yourself market research means personnel, customer, or marketing research using online research techniques that any organization or individual carries out with online survey tools or research software. DIY market research can be conducted by either professional researchers or persons that are relatively new to research.
Today with a user-friendly do it yourself survey creator tool, anyone can design, launch, and analyze online market research surveys. More importantly, with a survey audience panel like QuestionPro Audience, users are empowered to reach their ideal survey respondents and obtain an aggregation of the results’ in real-time.’
Designing a survey for DIY research
Is conducting DIY market research easy? How do I begin researching my market? Where will I find my target respondents? Is, do it yourself research cheaper? And most importantly, will I be able to conduct successful research on my own? If you think only a professional research agency will help you solve these problems, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to know that the internet has helped change this business model.
The thought process of why worry about asking somebody else when I can do it myself has sneaked into the marketing field. Thanks to the option of low-cost, sophisticated online survey platforms, DIY market research has entered the marketing world. These tools provide templates for a wide range of market research to do it yourself. If you are less interested in building a survey from scratch, ready-to-use survey templates can assist you in survey creation.
LEARN ABOUT: Online Survey Panels
Important points to remember for DIY market research
Here are some important points to remember while designing your research survey.
- Mode of data collection: The data collection mode dramatically influences your final data. When gathering data through phone surveys or in-person interviews, the interviewer’s actions and words significantly impact your research data. On the other hand, online surveys rely massively on the wordings of the question and its design. If you get your mode of collection right, your survey results will be useful for data analysis and informed decision-making.
- The drawback of survey fatigue: Some survey questions contain big grids of radio buttons. Complicated research questions burden your respondents and boost their mental fatigue. Keep the survey simple, easy to understand, and respondent-friendly to gather accurate feedback
- Order of questions: Every question must follow a logical flow. Hopping around topics may confuse your respondents and lead them to skip questions, answer blindly or worse, and abandon the survey.
- Multiple question formats: Each question type serves different survey goals and has its limitations. Having a variation in the format of the questions will help the respondents not lose interest in the study. On the other hand, too many question types can also confuse the audience. It makes sense to find an optimum balance of different question types based on the audience and the survey’s objective.
- Clear question structure: The question structure must be clear to the respondents. Don’t place the questions in a manner that respondents lose track of what is happening in the study.
- Visual design: Make sure to use a pleasing design for the questionnaire. A survey design that appeals to a respondent will guarantee to fetch great responses within a limited time. Handing respondents with a clean and user-friendly survey will maintain the quality of the responses.
- Final analysis plan: Base the type of information requested and the question format on the objective of the research. You may also need to consider if you wish to replicate the survey results, track events, or run an ad-hoc one-time analysis.
LEARN ABOUT: Panel Respondents
How to target the right survey audience through DIY market research
Why is your research audience important – primarily when you conduct DIY market research? Designing your survey is just one part of the research activity. The real challenge arrives while deploying the study. Choosing the right target audience decides whether the survey will turn out to be successful or not. You must know well in advance who the survey goes out to. Note that this does not mean making assumptions about the people you want to reach—but instead, doing in-depth research to find out who they are, where they’re from, and how they behave. Determining the correct target market means shrinking your audience to a group of people with similar characteristics, shared traits, and even niche hobbies and interests.
Using online panels to target the right survey respondents in DIY market research
Panels are secure, smart, and professional. They guarantee you’ll get a statistically valid group of respondents who meet your survey’s demographic requirements. No matter how well the study is designed, all the effort becomes useless if you cannot target the right group of people. Online panels supply insightful information through surveys, mobile behavior, purchase data, social media, health screenings, and profile data. Your digital data collection is a summation of consumer feedback – laying the foundation for better decision-making with reduced risk.
LEARN ABOUT: What Is A Panel Survey?
The group size will differ quite often, but that doesn’t necessarily influence the reliability of the research results. If the right people are recruited for your panel research, you will likely get responses that will lead you onwards. Plus, you will also receive a dedicated group of people who can compare and adjust their responses.
QuestionPro’s optimized online consumer research panels to help you do better market research
QuestionPro Audience offers research panels to those who require instant answers. These answers pertain to complex questions related to clientele, brand, and the market you cater to. We offer expertized and responsive personal support to launch surveys even at short notice. Use the online analytics dashboard to observe responses and make changes accordingly.
