How To Choose a Qualitative Research Market

Qualitative research, whether individual interviews, in-homes, focus groups, ethnographies and the like are conducted all over the world, as everyone knows. But how are the markets to be studied selected in the first place?

New York, London, Paris, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Boston and Dallas are all great places to see first rate entertainment, dine out and by their size, must be great places in which to conduct qualitative research or so the common thinking goes.

A little research into the demographics of a market can save researchers more than a little money, and get better research. Take for instance?The State with the most Dentists per capita - If you said Arkansas, you would be right. The City with the most new homes built in the last year - If you said Las Vegas you would be right. The City with the highest incidence of coupon clippers - If you said Buffalo you would be right. The City with the most new Volkswagens sold per capita - If you said Minneapolis you would be right. But how do you know?

Let's take Las Vegas; bright lights and a City that truly never sleeps. Most focus groups are conducted there in concert with the world class convention center. It's a great idea. Go where folks from all over the country or even the world converge for days of meetings, walking aisles and of course dining, shows and gambling. But Las Vegas is not usually considered for testing the folks that live there, outside of occasional television show tests for new programming. In fact, in recent interviews with several QRCA (Qualitative Research Consultants Association, 888 - 674 - 7722) researchers, not one had been to Las Vegas other than to conduct research in conjunction with a show or convention.

This is not a promotion for Las Vegas, as the City does enough of that on its own, but let's look back at those homeowners. Who are they? Retirees - Right - well some yes, but not so fast. The greater metropolitan area is building schools like crazy. So it may not be as you or your client suspected. This is the point. Are we in a location rut?

According to the website of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce:

* More than 5,000 people move to Las Vegas each month

* 69.9% have lived there more than 6 years

* 10% of the residents are over the age of 65

* 62% of the Households have incomes in excess of $35,000

Depending on the topic, Las Vegas might just be a selection for a market in which to conduct a qualitative project involving children, new homeowners, health issues, food, beverages and more.

The other argument for selecting a City is the ability to get a direct airplane flight from the client or moderator residence City. If one lives in a hub city like Chicago, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh or other hub town, direct flights are a breeze. Higher airfares to go anywhere direct, especially if there is no competition on the same leg prevail.

Many times a less populated City / area has more diet soft drink drinkers, cancer survivors, remodeling contractors, hog farmers, children ages 8 to 12 per capita than a major city with direct flights. What happened to the old "If it'll play in Des Moines, it'll play anywhere?" That is not an endorsement for Des Moines either.

Okay, so how does one determine where to go to conduct qualitative research? The answer can be simple in many cases. All one needs is a search engine connection from a computer to visit websites of Chambers of Commerce, International Trade Offices, Federal, State and local Government offices and more. There are also companies who assist researchers determining markets such as the Qualitative Research Network - 800-601-0834.

John Cashmore, President of Market Resource Associates, Inc.and member of the Qualitative Reseach Consultants Association specializes in qualitative as well as quantitative market research techniques. Mr. Cashmore is based in Minneapolis, MN and consults with many Fortune 500 companies in a variety of industries.