Exploratory Research Design

In the context of marketing research, every research problem is unique in its own way, but almost all research problems and objectives can be matched to one of three types of research designs—exploratory, descriptive, or causal. The researcher’s choice of design depends on available information such as nature of the problem, scope of the problem, objectives, and known information. Exploratory research design is chosen to gain background information and to define the terms of the research problem. This is used to clarify research problems and hypotheses and to establish research priorities. A hypothesis is a statement based on limited evidence which can be proved or disproved and leads to further investigation. It helps organizations to formulate their problems clearly.

Exploratory research design is conducted for a research problem when the researcher has no past data or only a few studies for reference. Sometimes this research is informal and unstructured. It serves as a tool for initial research that provides a hypothetical or theoretical idea of the research problem. It will not offer concrete solutions for the research problem. This research is conducted in order to determine the nature of the problem and helps the researcher to develop a better understanding of the problem. Exploratory research is flexible and provides the initial groundwork for future research. Exploratory research requires the researcher to investigate different sources such as published secondary data, data from other surveys, observation of research items, and opinions about a company, product, or service.

Example of Exploratory Research Design:

Freshbite is a one and half year old e-commerce start-up company delivering fresh foods as per the order to customer’s doorstep through its delivery partners. The company operates in multiple cities. Since its inception, the company achieved a high sales growth rate. However, after completion of the first year, the sales started declining at brisk rate. Due to lack of historical data, the sales director was confused about the reasons for this decline in sales. He prefer to appoint a marketing research consultant to conduct an exploratory research study in order to discern the possible reasons rather than making assumptions. The prime objective of this research was not to figure out a solution to the declining sales problem, but rather to identify the possible reasons, such as poor quality of products and services, competition, or ineffective marketing, and to better understand the factors affecting sales. Once these potential causes are identified, the strength of each reason can be tested using causal research.

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Content Marketing Pt.1: Marketings New Weapon of Choice

It’s official! Traditional “interruptive” advertising (both online and television) isn’t so hot nowadays. On the other hand, content marketing is emerging as the weapon of choice for brands who are in it to win it. Over a series of posts, we will explore the ins-and-outs of smart story-driven marketing, what it looks like when it’s done right and its importance in the social media landscape.

First, let’s mull some basic statistics that will illustrate how bad it really is for interruptive advertising. For television, the prospects are grim: one third of millennials already report not watching broadcast TV (originally reported by the New York Times in October 2013) with the numbers of people willing to break up with television at an astonishing high rate of 16 percent year over year (YOY).

And then there’s digital. Recent data show that online (and mobile) advertising isn’t on fire, either. According to the Contently Playbook, banner ad click- through rates (CTR) come in between .10 and .04 percent, some of which most likely represents some bot activity. They also state that ad recall (banner ads specifically) is abysmal with 86 percent of consumers unable to recall the last ad they saw. 

To drive the sorry state of digital ads home, Contently states, “You're more likely to survive a plane crash or join the Navy SEALs than click on a banner ad.”

Ouch. So much for the bad news.

Ready for the good news? Content marketing is a very attractive alternative to interruptive advertising and recent findings offers the numbers to back up its current lofty status in the marketing community. Business2Community reported content marketing driving traffic with 68% of consumers. In addition, they noted that “up to 55% of consumers are not only attracted to custom content but most would buy the products or services of the content provider.”

If these numbers persist, the future of content marketing looks quite rosy, indeed. There are, however, a few things to be aware of when venturing into a content marketing strategy.

One important issue with content marketing is the emergence of Peak Content, a phenomenon we reported on in February. At the time, we quoted author Kevin Anderson’s 2014 definition: “Peak Content is ‘the point at which this glut of things to read, watch and listen to becomes completely unsustainable.’” As of March 2016, we are still noting the trend.

The unprecedented rate at which people are posting content online is one quick example of Peak Content. Taken from the infographic, 24 Hours on the Internet, it’s reported (and this was in 2012) that 2 million blog posts are published every day. That’s 720,000,000 blog posts a year. With numbers like these we quickly see why quality is paramount to rise to the top of the content pile.

Additional evidence comes from the marketing data company TrackMaven that reported social media channels are suffering from lower engagement. They acknowledge low quality content is contributing to the decline.

The report states, “Most content fails at the content creation stage. Smart content can overcome bad distribution, but smart distribution cannot save bad content.”

Marketers either already know, or are catching on quickly, that high-quality content is the way to achieving greater engagement, including increased CTR, sales and all the other good stuff a company or brand likes to see.

In a nutshell, all signs point to the need to bring your A game when embarking on content marketing. 

Now that we know it’s working, how is it being done? More to the point, how is it being done well? In regards to content creation, options vary. A company may decide to use experts in a given field, hire freelancers, create an in-house team or create a unique cocktail of creation options that work with the brand’s needs and resources.

In our next post we’ll explore the growing “virtual newsroom” where content marketing is “beat” based and provides the space and structure for the highest-quality journalism-style content marketing…and the growing relationship between journalists and content marketing.

Stay tuned…

For more articles on sales and marketing, visit smstudy.com/articles.

Photo courtesy of Florian Klauer, Unsplash.

Sources:

“Third of Millennials Watch Mostly Online Video or no Broadcast TV” Andrew Beaujon, Oct. 10, 2013, Poynter. http://www.poynter.org/2013/third-of-millennials-watch-no-broadcast-tv/225528/

“24 Hours on the Internet,” digtalbuzz blog, March 13, 2012 http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/infographic-24-hours-on-the-internet/

“Marketers Are Creating More Content, but They’re Not Sure Why,” Natalie Burg, March 8, 2016, Contently https://contently.com/strategist/2016/03/08/marketers-creating-more-content-not-sure-why/

“The Ultimate Content Strategist Playbook No. 1: Evangelizing Content and Setting Yourself Up for Success,” Contently, https://contently.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/150303_Playbook.pdf

“Your Social Content is Failing. So now what?” Kara Burney, Feb. 5, 2015. http://trackmaven.com/blog/2015/02/data-backed-proof-that-social-media-content-is-failing-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/

“8 Hard-to-Ignore Content Marketing Benefits (Infographic),” Jomer Gregorio, Oct. 20, 2014, Business 2 Community. http://www.business2community.com/infographics/8-hard-ignore-content-marketing-benefits-infographic

The Stuff Nightmares Are Made Of... and SMstudy

Were you ever required to write a research paper in one of your classes in school?

One of our editors here at SMstudy used to be a public school English teacher. He remembers the anxiety that the traditional research paper assignment caused some of his students. They complained of stomachaches, headaches and sleep deprivation due to nightmares.

He recalls telling them that they still had to do the paper and do it on time, and they didn’t have to like it. He could have been nicer, but that was “back in the day,” and we all know how bad it was “back in the day.”

That experience is not very different from what some marketing professionals undergo when facing a marketing research project. Like the rare students that loved (cough cough) doing research papers, there are professionals who relish marketing research. Yet, a significant number of professionals prefer jumping directly to the creative aspects of getting a product or service to market without all the number crunching and bean counting that often accompanies market research.

The first obstacle our colleague’s students had to hurdle was understanding what a research paper is. That is also true for marketers. Simply put, “Marketing Research is the systematic process of collecting, processing, and analyzing data to provide required information to decision makers,” according to Digital Marketing, a book in the SMstudy Guide to the Sales and Marketing Body of Knowledge series (SMstudy® Guide). When this is understood, the marketer can begin the project.

The first step for the students was to answer the question, “Is my topic researchable?” To answer this, they had to determine if others had written about their topic and if those writings were in a form that the students could understand. Even though they are on similar topics, a doctoral level paper on the precipitation characteristics of hydrocarbon molecules in aerosols doesn’t help a high school student researching air pollution.

“In marketing research, the first step is to define the research problem and objectives of the research,” says Digital Marketing. Like the students checking to see if others had written about their subjects, the marketing professional will use background information to evaluate the research problem and move forward, “Background information puts the research objectives into context, helping the researcher understand why certain research objectives are being pursued… The background information provides hints to the researcher regarding what information he or she should be looking for and where to look for it.”

“Once the research problem is properly defined, the next step is to choose a research design that can address the problem and objectives,” says the SMstudy® Guide. Choosing a research design—“a set of guidelines or a blueprint that specifies the methods and procedures for obtaining and analyzing the required information”—involves many of the same concerns the students had determining if their topics were researchable. The marketing researcher checks to see if his or her own company, industry associations, educational research institutions, competitors or others have already compiled and published the needed research.  Using these resources, called secondary data sources, is also the least expensive method to provide appropriate and accurate information and data.

At times a marketing researcher may be faced with no previously published research. In this situation, primary research must be done and the researching team develops and utilizes tools for gaining data directly from the marketplace. These can be surveys, questionnaires, pilot programs, test marketing campaigns and many more. Primary research is more time extensive and dollar expensive than secondary research.

Not every marketing professional enjoys marketing research, and that’s why research companies exist. After all, research projects aren’t really scary enough to give professionals nightmares and they are easier with a bit of understanding and help.

For information on how to get a copy of Digital Marketing by SMstudy, please visit SMstudy® Guide.

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