The Secret to Great Marketing Research: Ask the Right Questions

After conducting thousands of marketing research studies and asking hundreds of thousands of questions, I have come to understand one thing: There are no bad questions, only irrelevant ones.

In other words, the majority of questions asked are irrelevant. That is, they don't result in answers that lead to actions.

Marketing research has only one purpose: to provide marketers with information that leads to actions that, in turn, lead to making more money. While interesting information might be food for the intellect, it is usually a brutal waste of money unless it leads to action.

The challenge in getting the absolute most out your marketing research dollars, therefore, is in asking questions relating to areas where action is possible. The trick, of course, is knowing what questions to ask.

Here are six steps to take that will put you on track to finding the right questions:

1. Don't be lazy. Marketers are amazingly lazy when it comes to marketing research. They find it less mind-numbing to ask lots and lots of questions, in the hope that at least some will be the right ones, than to struggle through a winnowing process to determine which ones are pivotal. Long, rambling, expensive questionnaires feed the common wisdom that asking every possible question means asking at least some that are relevant.

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Bob Kaden is president of The Kaden Company and author of Guerrilla Marketing Research. He can be reached at thekadencompany@sbcglobal.net.