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Discussion on: The best marketing research is quantitative or qualitative in nature?

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Sushant

A market is full of uncertainties due to its dynamic nature so, an effort to understand it, by studying or analyzing the factor prominent in market decision making, is called Marketing Research. Marketing Research is defined as the "Systematic design, collection, analysis and reporting of data and finding relevant to a specific marketing situation facing the company" (Kotler, Keller, Koshy, & Jha, 2009). To make a marketing decision, different kind of data is required to be collected from the customer and the methods used are: Qualitative Research and Quantitative Research.

Qualitative research tries to get detailed information on the consumer behavior. It tries to figure out the image of a product/brand perceived by individuals and further tries to understand the underlying motivation behind such perceived image/purchase decision. Bellenger, Bernhardt and Goldstucker (2011, pp. 2-6) tries to support Qualitative research to be accurate, because this type of research being derieved from the branch of Behavioral science, and can understand customers more clearly. Qualitative research is subjective in nature, mostly including open end questions, or the researcher studies under a natural setting. So, it is called to be "as accurate as possible in verbal terms" not just giving some number or measurement (Nevid & Maria, 1999). For example, the company asks about their product or service; may be they ask for aspirations regarding the products, or what part of the product is fascinating? Or which color do they want to see? Or which flavor they would like to taste? Etc. Facebook, Gmail or some product often asks us suggestions for upgrading. These can be called as an example of Qualitative research.

Quantitative research on the other hand tries to quantify the research outcomes and systematically analyze the numbers. Generally this type of research is carefully prepared and executed over some set number of participants. According to Creswell (2003, p. 18), in quantitative research, the researcher tries to test a theory by forming one hypothesis and testing it by collection of data, either to support or reject the hypothesis . For e.g.: the researcher has a hypothesis that "90%people know about Dove shampoo", then develops survey tools and goes to ask people if they know something about it. His findings are presented on a systematic form and checked if the preconceived hypothesis was correct or not. This type of approach is appropriate to understand the actual market by numbers/volume, i.e. say in the survey 90% of people didn’t know about Dove but responded desire of having a Shampoo with moisturizer than this survey shows the need of product like Dove in market. Similarly, this approach is appropriate for cause and effect relationship.

The preference of Qualitative Vs Quantitative depends purely upon the nature of the survey and resource limits. Depending upon the situation, I would prefer both approaches. Quantitative resource needs time for planning and execution. It is often the expensive research. So, given the economic and time limits, I would prefer Qualitative approach but if the resource and time permits, I would prefer quantitative research as it gives real facts and figures.

On other hand, the data given on qualitative approach is very personalized and extracted through a personal approach. Hence they bear more credibility than quantitative approach. “Whereas quantitatively data deals with numbers, qualitative data deals with meanings. Meanings are mediated mainly through language and action” (Dey, 1993, p. 11). I need to find the reasons behind buying, what changes might motivate the customers to change buying decision, how does they perceive of the product etc subjective aspect regarding the product’s value and innovation, I would again choose qualitative approach.

But, for the figurative estimates of demand, or any internal estimates demanding figures, Quantitative approach is preferable. For example, survey on percentage of people knowing a brand/ using a product or information/awareness regarding a market segment or the demand assessment of any product. Quantitative approach provides quantitative assessment (mostly on percentage) of a sample segment, which helps in estimating the overall quantitative demand of the population or target market.

References

Bellenger, D. K., Bernhardt, K. L., & Goldstucker, J. L. (2011). Qualitative Research in Marketing. Chicago: Marketing Classic Press.

Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research Design: Qualitative, quantitative and mixed method approaches (Second ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, Inc.

Dey, I. (1993). Qualitative Data Analysis. London: Taylor and Fransis group.

Kotler, P., Keller, K. L., Koshy, A., & Jha, M. (2009). Marketing Management: A South Asian Perspective (13 ed.). Noida: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Nevid, J. S., & Maria, N. L. (1999). Multicultural issues in qualitative research. ProQuest Psychology Journals , 16(4) , 305-325.