Task 5 – Methods of Research

It is important to conduct research before doing an advert as you would want to know if an advert of a similar product has been made, so that you do not make the same or similar advert to what has already been made as of copyright issues. Also you will need to do some research to see what the public wants, as they are going to be the ones that will actually buy your product.

When conducting research there are three types you can do, which are:

• audience research - Is when you target people who are an audience of something, such as people who listen to a specific radio station, a specific tv program / channel.
• market research - This is when you gather information about what consumers want / prefer and the prices they realistically want to buy them at. Also do research on their competitors product and see how well it is selling for them, to give them a rough idea of how well it will sell for you.
• production research - This is when you do research on products that are very similar to that of which you wish to make / start selling. This is useful as you will know roughly how much you would sell as you will know how other companies have done selling similar if not the same product.

The four main styles of research are: 

• Primary research - This is when the research you have performed is all your own work and is completely original and there is no other company's / person's research involved in yours. This is a good type to use as you can aim the questions to what you specifically want to know, instead of using someone else's that's just similar. The bad thing about this method is that is is very time consuming as you have to create the best questions to ask and then go out and get the feed back, it can also be costly as you will have to pay the people to go and do all of that.
• Secondary research - This is the research that is done by someone else that you have gathered, this research can also be used alongside yours to maybe prove your point even more if it matches your results. This can be a good method as it will save you a lot of time as you don't have to do the research yourself, you just have to buy the research other people have done. The bad thing about this method is that you cannot ask the questions you specifically want to know, you just have to use the questions similar that other people / companies have asked the public.
• Quantitative research - This is when all the information you have gathered involves either figures, charts or a graph. The good thing about this method is that it is easily read and compared as if it is in a graph / chart form you can see the differences as it is in an image form. The bad thing about this method is that if you miss a figure or write it out wrong, it could ruin your whole research as your going on false information.
• Qualitative research - This type of research is when you try and get peoples more personal opinion, so you can find out how they really feel. The advantage of using this style of research is that you can see how people feel about your product personally, not just generally. The disadvantage with this is that you cannot measure the answer easily as everyone thinks differently and has their own opinion so it will be really hard to find two exactly the same.