Quantitative Market Research

 Definition: The Quantitative Market Research deals with the hard facts and statistical data rather than the opinions, feelings, and attitudes of the individuals. Here, the data are quantified to draw inferences about the customer’s behavior, attitude and preferences in numerical terms that can be easily interpreted and compared with other data facts.

The quantitative market research is often used to determine what proportion of the population possesses certain characteristics, attitudes, behaviors, knowledge and then its significance level is checked using the statistical analysis method. The quantitative research is based on large samples and addresses questions as:

• How often customer buys the product?
• What proportion of the population makes job searches online?
• How many customers will buy a product if a certain promotional strategy is introduced?
• How many customers rated the ambiance of the restaurant as ‘outstanding’.

Following quantitative market research techniques are used to collect data from the respondents:

1. Telephone Surveys: Under this method, the researcher first-of-all identifies the representative sample that reflects the similar characteristics or traits as that of the entire population. Then, the sample members are called via telephone and asked questions related to the problem under study.

   Generally, the closed-ended answers, including responses like ‘yes’ or ‘no’ are considered ideal as respondents are often reluctant to talk much on the telephones. The telephone surveys can be conducted to find out the solution to the problem such as what proportion of customers are willing to buy the products and services? And what will be the approximate annual sales?

2. Personal Interviews: Often, the companies select the potential buyers and conduct a one-on-one interview with them to gain insights of the problem under study. The interviewer can either ask the respondent to come to a central location for the interview or conduct interview at his home by fixing an appointment. Here, the interviewer can include both the open-ended and closed-ended questions depending on the nature of the research objective.
3. Web Surveys: Here, the researcher randomly selects the group of respondents and then send the questionnaires through e-mails to gather information about the problem concerned. Now a days, the web surveys are being extensively used by the organizations as it helps to gather information from a large group of people anytime and anywhere.
4. Hybrid Survey Methods: Here two or more methods of quantitative research are used simultaneously to obtain a relevant and measurable data from the target audience. For example, the researcher can randomly select the respondents from a specific geographical area and then can use telephone survey to collect information from the female respondents and conduct personal interviews with male candidates.

Thus, the researcher can use either of the quantitative methods depending on the research objective and the kind of data generated which can be used for statistically analyzing the results.