When commissioning a Market Research Survey it is important to give your agency as much information as possible. It may be tempting to hold back on some of the political issues, diverging corporate views and other contentious issues but unless the agency is fully in the picture, they cannot do the best job for you. The agency should be working ‘with you’ rather than ‘for you’ as part of your Marketing team.  Give the agency the following information as a minimum.

What has triggered the decision to conduct this research?

Why is it being done now?

What is the hypothesis that they want to test?

What level of accuracy do you need e.g. is it insight or figures?

What decisions will be made based on the research?

Markets in which you want to research

Profile of consumers / purchasers

Budget and Timing

Whilst you may be reluctant to give the agency an idea of budget in the belief that they’ll spend the maximum for you, this is counterproductive. Quantitative Research is significantly more expensive then Qualitative so if your research objectives indicate Quantitative e.g. you have mentioned Brand awareness, they will have to do this quantitatively. You will therefore get a high quote when perhaps Brand Awareness was not a key objective.

It is also important to send them samples of the product and competitive product, as this will enable the agency to get a better picture of the market for the product and your brand position in it.

Background information they should also have would include:

Company brand and product portfolio

Corporate ethos

Brand history and past research findings

Detailed information about your consumers and purchasers e.g. what is there about this product that appeals to them and why

Brand personality

Channels of distribution

Pricing

Competitive scene

 

Once the agency has been selected, costs and timing agreed, there would be a detailed briefing meeting to fully brief the agency on the project. You should insist that the moderator or researcher conducting the project be at this meeting. Important aspects to cover at the briefing meeting are:

            Recruitment criteria (sample)

            Stimuli (products or product concepts)

 

It is not possible to provide a DVD of the groups after the research unless this has been agreed at recruitment due to data protection laws protecting the confidentiality of the respondents so this should be clarified at the briefing and appropriate forms prepared for them to sign.

The agency will invoice you on commission usually 50% of the value of the contract, as they will immediately begin working on your project. The agency will keep you informed on progress and you can attend fieldwork and encourage your team to do so too. Increasingly clients are involved in the focus groups and will be asked at the end whether they have any specific questions not already covered. 

For Quantitative surveys there will probably be several drafts of the questionnaire for each market and sometimes this can result in mistakes and typos being missed as client teams concentrate on content. It is therefore important that the agency pilot (test it out on a small sample first) the questionnaire before fieldwork starts to ensure that any mistakes are picked up.

Before the first day of fieldwork, whether Qualitative or Quantitative it is your responsibility to ensure your team is fully briefed on what is taking place and given the opportunity to add any issues they feel have been omitted from the checklist agreed between you and the agency.

It is essential in multi country projects that you decide who will project manage. This is an additional cost and tends to be incurred when the company commissioning the research does not have a Research Manager. To ensure consistency of methodology and analysis and therefore usability of the end research, a project manager needs to ensure the needs of all markets are considered, that terminology is correct, language versions of discussion guide/checklist / questionnaires are correct, competitive products and pricing is correct in each market and that samples and stimuli are distributed in time for fieldwork. Ideally the project manager should visit each market to watch at least the first group in each set or hall day. Nowadays this is facilitated by web streaming which is available in most viewing facilities and enables the team to watch the groups live online and ask questions which are then relayed to the moderator.

Clients often feel that having attended a few groups or hall days they know what the findings are. However, an experienced Researcher will be able to effectively feed what they hear and see through a filter of experience and interpret the findings based on this.

The output from research should be

            Debrief to the team with PowerPoint presentation (bullet points possibly also with some video clips)

            Full report (usually also PowerPoint) shortly afterwards

You can learn more about Market Research by reading 'Screts of Success in Brand Licensing' in which there is a chapter on Market Research . Buy it here