Simple steps to launching a market research Survey

Today I will be sharing with you simple steps you can follow to commission or start a market research project .These simple steps will ensure you get credible results from the survey if you follow them step by step.

State the objectives of the survey

It is important you fully understand and know what you intend to achieve with the from the survey. In other words, If you cannot spell out the objectives of the survey you are unlikely to generate useable results. Clarifying the aims of the survey is critical to it’s ultimate success.

Define the target population

Defining the target population can be relatively simple, especially for finite populations (for example, ‘all female students enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine). For some finite populations, however, it may be more difficult to define what constitutes ‘natural’ membership of the population; in that case, arbitrary decisions have to be made. Thus we might define the population for a survey of voter attitudes in a particular town as ‘all men or women currently on the electoral roll’ or ‘all people old enough to vote, whether they are enrolled or not’ or ‘all current voters (on the electoral roll) and those who will be old enough to vote at the next election’. Each of these definitions might be acceptable but, depending on the aims of the survey, one might be preferable.

Define the data to be collected

If we are studying, for example, the effect of forest clearance on the breeding process of a particular animal species, we obviously want to collect information about the actual changes in population size, but we will also want to know other things about the survey sample: how is the male/female ratio affected, is the breeding period changed, how are litter sizes affected, and so on.

Define the required precision and accuracy

The most subjective stage is defining the precision with which the data should be collected. Strictly speaking, the precision can only be correctly estimated if we conduct a census. The precision provided by a sample survey is an estimate the ‘tightness’ of the range of estimates of the population characteristics provided by various samples.

Define the measurement `instrument’

The measurement instrument is the method – interview, observation, questionnaire – by which the survey data is generated. Define the sample frame, sample size and sampling method. The sample frame is the list of people (‘objects’ for inanimate populations) that make up the target population; it is a list of the individuals who meet the ‘requirements’ to be a member of that population. The sample is selected from the sample frame by specifying the sample size (either as a finite number, or as a proportion of the population) and the sampling method (the process by which we choose the members of the sample).

After all these steps, it is important to make sure the interviewing process is also foolproof, that is all interviewers follow set guidelines for collecting the data. Strict quality control measures must be adhered to inorder to ensure sampling procedures are followed to the book. If all these measures are followed, there is guarantee useable data will be gathered from the field. With good data analysis and interpretation, set objectives will be clearly answered.