List of market research terms and methods

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Central terms and methods of market research are:

  • Acceptance test : Test of a new product, concept or advertising material with a focus on the criterion of acceptance by the target group.
  • Association procedure
  • Utilization: The (percentage) share of the elements of a sample that can be obtained from a survey for an interview.
  • Surveys
  • observation
  • Cluster analysis
  • CAPI ( Computer Assisted Personal Interview ): Face-to-face survey method in which the interviewer enters the respondents' answers directly into the computer. There is special software for this.
  • CATI ( Computer Assisted Telephone Interview ): Telephone interview method in which the interviewer enters the respondents' answers directly into the computer. There is special software for this.
  • CAWI ( Computer Assisted Web Interview ): Stands for: computer-assisted web interviews (or "Computer Aided Web Interviews"). The answers are entered directly in encrypted form online, and the interview is managed by a special program.
  • Coding : Assignment of numerical codes to answers recorded in text form. This typically concerns the answers to open questions (see there)
  • Conjoint Measurement
  • Degustation test : "Tasting test", ie a product test in which the test persons try the product and are then asked about it.
  • Delphi method
  • Discriminant analysis : A multivariate procedure in which, for example, based on the buying behavior of the customer, one would like to conclude whether the buyer is a typical brand or a no-name buyer.
  • experiment
  • Eye tracking : recording the eye movements of test subjects
  • Face-to-face interview: Interview in which the interviewer and the respondent sit in the same room, as opposed to telephone or online interviews.
  • Factor analysis : A multivariate procedure in which one examines, for example, whether the purchasing behavior of a customer depends on underlying latent factors.
  • Closed question : question that offers the respondent certain answer options to choose from (e.g. yes / no, scale from 1 to 5, brands on a list). See also open question below.
  • Population : Set of all potential objects to be examined for a specific question, e. B. “All smokers”, “All television viewers”, “Voters aged 18–50 years”, “Cell phone owners from 25 years of age” etc. In order to be able to reliably question the relevant population, criteria are normally used tofilter outa meaningful sample (including RLD process , last birthday bowl, etc.)
  • Group discussions / focus groups
  • Half-open question: Question with a few fixed answers and an additional option "Other, namely ...". If no fixed answer applies, the answer is recorded as free text under "Other, namely ...". This "other thing, namely ..." is the half-open end of the question.
  • Household panel
  • Home use test : Product test in which the test subjects use the product at home for a period of time. Then the actual survey takes place, possibly in several waves, in order to consider a development over time.
  • In-Hall test: Study in which the respondents or test persons are invited to a test studio .
  • Incidence: Frequency of a certain socio-demographic characteristic in the population (approximately: percentage of academics). Applied to consumption habits, incidence is synonymous with the term penetration (see there).
  • In-home survey : Survey that takes place at home with the respondents.
  • Item : Part of a question in the questionnaire. The individual setting statements or image attributes of a corresponding list are typically called this. For example, a typical “item” could be “This product is for people like me”. In the interview, the respondent would then be asked, for example, to indicate the degree of his / her approval of this item and to use a five-point scale for this.
  • Map : See column
  • Consumer panel
  • Concept, product and packaging tests : Similar objectives to the advertising pre-test, only that the object of investigation is a preliminary advertising communication text, a newly developed or newly launched product or its packaging.
  • Customer satisfaction
  • Longitudinal study or longitudinal study: Study in which questions on the same topic are repeatedly asked over a longer period of time. The survey events over time are also called (survey) waves.
  • Likert scale
  • Mafo: Abbreviation for market research
  • Marcom : Marketing Communication
  • Market test
  • Mystery shopping
  • Multiple regression analysis
  • Demand network
  • Open question : question that makes the respondent no concrete guidelines about possible answers, typically so "W" questions such as " W as falls to you to XY one?", " W hy would you not want to buy brand Z?". Usually the answers are written down in text form and later coded (see also Coding ). Another possibility is to specify a number of answer categories in the questionnaire so that the interviewer only has to write down those answers that do not fit into the given categories. The latter technique, which is also referred to as half-open questions, is particularly useful when only a limited range of different answers is to be expected. It saves time and money because the coding step is no longer necessary, but it is less accurate and can therefore lead to less meaningful results. As a third variant, it happens that the answers are not coded or statistically recorded at all, for example if only very few respondents have answers.
  • Omnibus survey
  • Panel research
  • Paper-pencil survey : Survey in which the interviewer records the respondents' answers by hand, typically in a standardized questionnaire.
  • Penetration : Can be roughly translated as “market penetration”. One says, for example: “Washing-up liquid brand XY has a penetration of 3.5%”, meaning that 3.5% of the population describe themselves as users of this brand in response to a question that has to be defined in more detail.
  • Price test, pricing study: Investigation of the influence of pricing on the perception and attractiveness of a product / brand.
  • Primary research
  • Profile: Collection of typical characteristics and preferences of a consumer or a target group
  • Punching: data acquisition, i.e. typing in questionnaire data.
  • Qualitative research
  • Quantitative research
  • Rating scale
  • Range
  • Reliability
  • Representativeness
  • Sweden key : Procedure for the randomization of target persons with several potential test persons in a household.
  • Screening : The filtering out of those people in a sample who have the properties sought for the survey by asking the people about them themselves. This is best done at the beginning of an interview. If the properties you are looking for are not available, the conversation is ended; there is no interview. The screening becomes more extensive and expensive, the lower the incidence (see there) of the properties sought.
  • Desk research
  • significance
  • Column: In relation to the format of a specific ( ASCII or Quantum) survey file, column numbers indicate the location of the individual variables. Consecutive column numbers from 1 to x are used in ASCII files; This is different in the traditional punch card format: only column numbers from ten to 80 are possible, then you start on the next so-called "card". These virtual “cards” are a relic from the era of punch cards .
  • sample
  • Studio test: s. In-Hall test
  • Scenario technique
  • Test market simulation
  • Tracking studies: Continuous surveys in which information about brand awareness, usage and image is collected over a longer period of time. For this purpose, surveys with the same content are repeated at regular intervals, but with different respondents in each case. The results are used to create time series in order to be able to determine changes over time. In contrast to the panel, in which the same people are always interviewed per survey wave and the questionnaire can differ in principle, a new sample is drawn from the population for each survey wave in tracking. So-called advertising tracking represents a specific form of tracking studies. They check the subjective effects of advertising during the campaign and are therefore among the post-tests of advertising impact research. Central advertising impact indicators are measured, which can be used as success criteria for the advertising campaign (e.g. advertising recall , brand awareness, attitude, image, preferences). This also makes it clear why different people have to be interviewed on the same topic: This is the only way to ensure that changes (success of the campaign: e.g. brand awareness increases) over time are not generated by individual learning effects among the respondents.
  • In-depth interviews / guided interviews / individual explorations
  • validity
  • Consumer type
  • Advertising impact research
  • Advertising pre-test : Studies in which commercials or “stills” (print advertisements / posters, etc.) are tested under controlled conditions. Important criteria examined are consumer acceptance, memorability (especially in connection with the name of the advertised brand), emotional tone, arousing interest in buying and image communication.
  • Advertising mail test : Studies in which the success of an advertising campaign is examined, such as B. in recall or recognition tests
  • Target person : person who should be interviewed according to the definition. Example of a fictitious study: "The one in the household who has been to the cinema at least once in the last twelve months and is between twelve and 40 years old."