15-A

Market Research Process: 6 Steps to Project

Success
While this process speaks directly to marketing
research professionals, the process applies to
HR, customer or education surveys as well:

1. Identify and define the problem. Before

you start any web survey project, you should
 identify the key issues you hope to be able
to solve.  This step should also include
clearly defined objectives.
2. Develop the approach.  In this step, you

need to establish a budget, understand

influencing factors such as the environment
or economy, decide on sampling and survey
methods, and formulating hypotheses.
3. Research design. Designing a survey or
questionnaire is considered the most
important step in any survey process. 
Question design takes a lot of thought and
time.  We like to say, "If you put garbage in,
you'll get garbage out."  This means that if
the questions are bad, the data will be bad as
well.  During the survey research design,
keep in mind sampling methods and data
analysis factors you intend to use.
4. Collect the data. Don't forget to test
your survey before to ensure you're fielding
the correct data.  Thankfully, with the help
of an online survey tool, this step is
relatively painless.
 5. Analyze the Data. The types of analysis
you planned to perform on the collected
survey data should have been decided in
earlier steps, but after collecting the data you
have to actually perform the survey
analysis.  Analysis can be performed using
survey analysis tools like office programs,
such as Excel, or more advanced programs
such as SPSS - the complexity of the
questions will determine this.
6. Report, Present, Take Action. The
final step in the market research process is to
present your survey research findings and
draw conclusions.  While Step 3 is the most
important because it defines the outcome of
your survey, if you fail to complete this last
step and act on the findings in some way, the
previous steps don't matter.
As I mentioned in the beginning, this same
process can be applied to any type of project:
product evaluations, customer satisfaction
questionnaires, public relation surveys, etc.  If
you give each step the attention it deserves, each
of your online surveys should be a success.