Research Techniques

When entering into the initial stages of creating a product, research into areas like the market, the target audience, and the product of said product, are important in order to collect the relevant information that will lead to an understanding of what to create. There are many ways to collect these pieces of information, and choosing the method appropriate to the data you're aiming to collect can make the investigation easier and more effective and accurate.

Types of Research in the Creative Media Industry

 

Audience research investigates information around who is going to be buying or viewing your product (your target audience). For example, knowing the gender, age and cultural background of the consumer you want to target can help to direct the ways in which you can get their attention and sell your product. Knowing where to raise awareness of your product, and times it will be seen, can ensure the right people see your advertisement.

Research into the market can show what is already selling well in the industry you are looking at, and having awareness of possible competition your product might face can highlight weak areas in their campaigns, and show you where you could better them to gain more profit. Many existing products and companies in the market also have additional merchandising, social networking partnerships and expansions that may indicate how follow-ons can benefit a campaign.

Production research can explain many questions surrounding cost, content and methods of creating your product. It can be useful to know the price of the production of your product, as well as possible ways to be efficient and possibly decrease the initial cost. Research into this area can also show you how to make your actual product better (e.g. what materials are high-quality and durable if your product is a physical object), and indicate the ways in which you can gain the most effective profit from its sales.

Investigation into research methods themselves can highlight the most effective ways of gathering information, and show you which type is most effective for what you're trying to find out.

Quantitative and Qualitative Research

 

Quantitative data is often shown through numbers and graphs, as it can be measured and counted. This sort of information can be collected in online surveys (see below) when asking someone to rate a subject on a scale of 1 to 10; the quantitive values can then be collected in numerical form and used. This can be useful when trying to track easy patterns in people's reactions, or have a solid ideas of an audience's preferences (e.g. through a bar graph or pie chart), however it does not show what people's personal opinions are, and so cannot be overly detailed when it comes to tailoring your product.

Qualitative data is the opposite: although it cannot be used to clearly map trends, it can provide in-depth information about specific questions. For example, focus groups (see below) will produce qualitative data through their verbal or sometimes written responses to questions asked to them in person. This sort of data can be very useful in the later stages of research, as it can give very specific and detailed information about a small area - often once you already know the subject you need to gain data about. However, it can sometimes be hard to see an overview of the results collected as each one will be unique.

Primary and Secondary Research

Interviews allow you to directly talk and find out the opinions of the general public, or specific people from your target audience. These can take place in public places by asking passersby to take part in your research, or in more controlled circumstances like private appointments. The strengths of this method include the fact that an interviewer can latch onto something the subject has said, and choose to question them further on it, and a range of results can often be found. However, the method is limited later into a project, when a more selective audience of people need to be targeted, as opposed to a mix of the general public.

Online Surveys are a method which uses the internet or email to get a large number of responses is potentially a very short amount of time. This has become increasingly popular with the growth of social media, as a small link can instantly send people to a comprehensive or even simple survey from anywhere with an internet connection. A benefit of this method is that it is less costly than most other methods, and very quick and easy to get out to a lot of people. However, it does mean that it becomes harder to monitor the types of people answering your questions and therefore potentially misleading for a close analysis of an audience.

Similarly, questionnaires can be sent out to a large number of people to collect varied results. While traditionally on paper, questionnaires are very like online surveys, but usually are more flexible in the answers that can be provided. Open-ended questions are more common in this method, and they can be useful for receiving unexpected responses. Again, like surveys, it can be hard to control who answers your questionnaires, and the flexibility of the method means that it can be hard to gain clear averages and patterns.

Focus Groups are selective interviews with multiple people taken directly from your target audience. These people meet with a facilitator from the company selling the product, and are often asked to examine or try the product and give feedback either through their own comments, or in response to -in-depth questions. The strengths of focus groups include the fact that everyone involved is from the audience you are trying to appeal to, and so their detailed responses are more likely to be useful. However, the smaller a focus the group the more niche the product and potentially the less appeal to people outside that audience.

 

Secondary research can include excerpts or whole sections of information from sources such as books, newspaper or journal articles, websites, archives, visual photographs or videos etc. Often secondary sources are used as the foundation of research in order to get a general idea of a subject, and give a direction for what sort of things can be asked later in primary research. The benefit of secondary research is that it is relatively easy to come by, and can potentially be incredibly helpful, however as the research is completed by someone uninvolved in your personal project it can often be too general, or specific to another topic. The reliability can also be called into question in some cases, for example when using the internet and videos; and interpretation of sources like photographs can be misleading.