How to solicit views of Opinion leaders

Soliciting views of opinion leaders and high net worth individuals has always been a big challenge to both companies and market research practitioners. This group of people is very busy, and very difficult to get them to commit to an interview.

People in this group include business owners, high-level executives, community and business leaders, key opinion influencers, technicians, specialists, politicians and other professionals. In order to solicit views of such people, a market research technique called in-depth interviewing is used.

In-depth interviews are a marketing research interviewing technique used to gather expert opinions or detailed information from customers or users of competing products or services. It is a one on one interview conducted by a qualified moderator, using a semi-structured questionnaire to solicit views of the respondent in an informal setting. The goal of the interview is to deeply explore the respondent’s point of view, feelings and perspectives on a topic of discussion.

Interviewing Process

The actual interview consists of three main parts. The first part involves personal introduction and the survey. It is critical for the moderator to establish a good rapport with the respondent. The moderator should endeavor to put the respondent at ease. The moderator’s main responsibility is to listen and observe as he/she guides the respondent through a conversation until all the important issues on the interview guide are explored. This, of course, is one of the most difficult aspects of an in-depth interviewing process. However, there are some strategies that have been used by researchers to improve the quality of the in-depth interview experience for both the moderator and the respondent. The actual interview consists of three main parts.

• Active listening. This entails listening and rephrasing what is said to insure that you are on the same page with the respondent.
• Patience. The moderator must not rush the respondent; allow him/her to speak freely while guiding the conversation to cover important issues.
• Flexibility. Moderator must be open to slight deviations from the topic, which may require rearranging/reordering the questions or coming up with new questions. If the respondent deviates too far from the topic, then carefully return him or her to the topic at hand.

Before commencing the interview, always ask permission of the interviewee before audio/video recording the interview for later reference and increased accuracy.

Market Research Methods – An Overview

Market research as a discipline is made up of two facets namely, qualitative and quantitative research. Qualitative research is mainly concerned with understanding in-depth human behaviour and reasons that drive these behaviors.

Qualitative

Qualitative research is mainly concerned in finding out the whys, hows, and why not and their knowledge, attitudes and fears. In essence it tries to delve deeper into the respondent’s psyche to bring to the core underlying respondent behavioral traits.  There are a number of methods used to collect data under qualitative research, namely: Focus Group Discussions, In-depth Interviews, and Observations. Qualitative research is subjective, meaning it describes a problem or condition from the point of view of those experiencing it i.e. the respondent.

The advantage of using qualitative methods is that they generate rich, detailed data that leave the participants’ perspectives intact. The focus upon processes and “reasons why” differs from that of quantitative research, which addresses correlations between variables.

Quantitative

On the other hand Quantitative research as the name implies is a numbers game. In other words, quantitative research is employed when you want to know ‘how many’ and ‘how often’. If you want to profile a target audience by determining what proportion of the audience has certain behaviors, behavioral intentions, attitudes, and knowledge related to your subject matter, and whether specific determinants predict behaviors at a statistically significant level. It quantifies an opinion, on how prevalent the issues are among a given sample size. This methodology is used if you want to survey a group of people usually on a large scale like Opinion polls. A structured questionnaire is used to obtain feedback from respondents. Quantitative research uses methods adopted from the physical sciences that are designed to ensure objectivity, generalizability and reliability.

These techniques cover the ways research participants are selected randomly from the study population in an unbiased manner, the standardized questionnaire or intervention they receive and the statistical methods used to test predetermined hypotheses regarding the relationships between specific variables.

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