How to Know What Type of Research to Leverage

“We need to do research.”

We often hear this phrase during brainstorming sessions or before big launches. As a researcher, it tickles my heart that more brands and teams see the significance of research-led campaigns and strategies. However, it also highlights the importance of knowing the different research methodologies and the insights they can yield.

Of course, as we know, resources are not infinite. While research ideally aims to cover all aspects and address every potential question, this is rarely achievable. We often face constraints such as cost, time, and the availability of the correct data.

What Type of Research Should You Leverage?

The research journey begins with clearly defining our aim and identifying the target audience we intend to reach. Establishing a focused research objective—the primary reason for conducting the research—is essential. It helps maintain scope, ensures relevant questions are asked, and guides selecting the most suitable approach.

Qualitative Research

Unlocking consumer’s emotions and experiences

What better way to uncover consumer sentiments, opinions, and specific experiences that drive their behaviours than through qualitative insights? While quantitative studies focus on numbers and measurement, qualitative studies are exploratory and can deep-dive into human experiences, perceptions, behaviours, social contexts, and cultural patterns. This approach uncovers the “hows,” “whys,” and everything in between, making it the ideal methodology for ideation, testing content, concepts, or messaging, or exploring niche or entirely new topics.

Researchers engage relevant audience groups, usually with 5-8 respondents per group, through dynamic focus group discussions led by an experienced moderator. Instead of a rigid questionnaire, they use a flexible discussion guide that sparks open dialogue, inviting participants to share their insights, perspectives and experiences freely. However, in-depth interviews are often more effective for engaging higher-level management, experts in niche sectors, or hard-to-reach profiles. Both approaches can be conducted online or offline, depending on respondents’ availability, the project timeline, and the specific situation.

While qualitative insights can stand independently, they are also highly effective when paired with quantitative methods. Qualitative insights can initially help to understand situations and formulate hypotheses, which quantitative studies can later test and quantify with a larger sample size. Conversely, after conducting a survey, qualitative research can provide the context and emotional depth behind the complex numbers.

In APAC, emotional storytelling is a powerful tool for B2C and B2B brands to engage audiences to cut through the noise. By connecting stories and campaigns with real-life personal experiences, brands can evoke strong positive emotions—such as nostalgia, playfulness and aspiration—toward their products or services, influencing purchase decisions and building loyalty. Qualitative research provides valuable insights into which experiences resonate most and should be highlighted in the brand’s communications.

Quantitative Research

Letting the Numbers Speak

Whether sizing an emerging segment or tracking shifts in consumer behaviours, numbers tell incredible stories, and this is precisely what quantitative research—like surveys and statistical analysis—offers. It helps answer essential questions such as ‘How many?’ or ‘How much?’, making it invaluable for informed decision-making, strategy development, and even scoring media coverage for your brands or products.

According to Cision’s State of the 2024 Media report, 61% of APAC journalists are most interested in covering stories grounded in original research and trend insights. Additionally, 63% indicate that access to data and research insights takes priority over simply understanding target audiences. This highlights the importance of data-driven content and timely insights in capturing journalist interest and shaping compelling headlines that resonate with readers.

Quantitative research, as the name suggests, focuses on quantifying data. It primarily uses close-ended questions, giving respondents a predetermined set of answer options to choose, rank, or rate. This structured approach supports statistical analysis and leads to clear, actionable insights. Starting with a hypothesis when designing a survey helps maintain focus, ensuring that questions are relevant and aligned with research goals. Effective survey design includes determining a statistically valid sample size and incorporating questions for segmenting results by demographics, regions, or specific behaviours, allowing for deeper analysis across key audience segments.

Secondary Research

Preparing to be second to none

Both the quantitative and qualitative approaches described earlier pertain to primary data, which is conducted to address specific brand questions. On the other hand, secondary research comes from readily available sources, including government statistics, industry-specific reports and whitepapers, news and press coverage, and other internal reports previously conducted outside the current scope.

When cost, timeline, and resources are tight, secondary research—desk research or online database sources—can be the first solution to explore background insights. For a brand, conducting secondary research can provide a macro view of the industry, markets, competitors, and consumers, highlight gaps in the available data, and outline the next steps. With enough resources, secondary research is best combined with primary data to provide a 360-degree evaluation leading to strategic insights.

A helpful tip is always prioritising the most recent reports, preferably those from the last 12 months. Ensure the data is sourced from credible and reputable sources, cite them, and cross-verify the information you gather to confirm its validity and relevance (not to fake news).

Media Measurement

Monitoring the Media’s POV

In today’s fast-moving media landscape, aligning with company goals and values is crucial for a positive organisational image. As part of a broader marketing and public relations strategy, some companies prioritise achieving high volumes of news coverage. In contrast, others focus more specifically on securing positive coverage as their key performance indicator (KPI). Yet, many still grapple with challenges in measuring media presence, selecting the right KPIs, setting up effective Boolean searches to track their brands, competitors, and industry trends, and maintaining an optimal cadence for monitoring and reporting.

Researchers can track media and social media coverage over a set period, pinpointing key newsworthy announcements, identifying the publications covering specific companies, and analysing the topics and trends generating high engagement. They can also uncover the factors driving peaks in coverage. By tapping into trending topics, brands can “trendjack” to position themselves as industry leaders, offering expert insights on hot issues. These insights help identify data-driven pitch angles but also help refine a more focused and strategic media relations approach.

Getting Started

Sometimes, a project may only require one type of market research, while others may call for multiple market research methods. It is important to talk to a market research team to understand better priorities, timing, and budget for a research design that best suits the project’s needs. With market research, strictly adhering to all data privacy laws is crucial. Brands should work closely with vendors to implement data quality measures in their projects. Research is only valuable if it can be used to help guide your business. Selecting the proper research method enables your brand to receive beneficial results, foster consistent communication, and have fun.