Useful Guide to Creating a Brief for Your Market Research Needs

No matter how good the market research company you have chosen to help you gain valuable audience insight, they cannot do their best work if their parameters are not clearly defined. After all, market researchers are not magicians or psychics – they can only work according to the desired outcome and requirements that you provide.

The following guide by respected UK market research company Redshift Research offers a helpful guide to help you define a clear brief. Do note that you can be completely candid in your brief, since any good market research company will give you complete confidentiality.

Step 1 – Background

To begin with, outline a short introduction to your business, an About Us blurb that defines who you are, what you do (including industry sector and how you fit into it), how long you’ve been in business and what you strive towards (your aspirations). This will help the market research company understand your needs and tailor their services accordingly.

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Step 2 – Objectives

Define as best as possible what you are looking to achieve though market research. Bear in mind that your research objectives could be different from your business goals. For example, you obviously want to understand what your market thinks of your product or service, but your business objective could be to find out whether your existing products or services should be modified.

Step 3 – Target Market

Explain who you would like the market research agency to reach i.e. the respondents for a survey. The clearer you are on this, the more targeted the research can be, which in turn yields better audience insight. Here are some considerations to help you define this:

Are you aiming to reach businesses or individual consumers?

Do you want to talk to current, potential or lapsed customers?

Are demographics (age, occupation, location, economic group and religion etc.) relevant to your products / services?

Can you provide a contact list or will the market research agency need to tackle this?

Do you have an idea of how many people you want to reach (sample size) and the volume of questions you want answers to, or do you need the market research company to help you with this?

Step 4 – Type of Research

There are a number of methodologies that can be used to gain audience insight, and sometimes the type of audience you want to tap into will determine the approach. Examples are online surveys, telephone surveys, face-to-face interviews and consumer panels.

Another important factor is to figure out whether you want quantitative (volume of consumers) research, qualitative research (more in-depth opinions) or a combination of the two. If you’re unsure, a good agency will be able to steer you in the best direction, however it’s always good to give it some thought.

Step 5 – Turnaround Time

Audience research should always be planned well ahead of marketing or R&D, to enable your business to act accordingly. To do this however, it’s important to consider the milestones that will be needed during the process, such as meetings and decision-making signoff. An experienced market research agency should be able to give you full transparency on the timescales involved, but they need to know the parameters of how soon do you ideally want the research to start and when you need the findings by.

Step 6 – Expectations

Define how you would like the research deliverables to be presented by your chosen market research agency. For example, do you want to receive consistent initial drafts reports on findings or are you only after the final results? Do you want a face-to-face presentation or a written document or both? If a document, what format would you like it in, such as PowerPoint, hard copy or electronic?

Step 7 – Research Budget

It’s important to define how much money you are willing to spend on the research, even just an approximate, since this will allow the agency to create an effective strategy accordingly as well as explain to you, if they are a quality company, how they can maximise your budget. Also detail your preferred invoicing schedule if you have one.

Step 8 – Points of Contact

At the end of your brief, be sure to detail exactly who the point(s) of contact are for the agency to liaise with in order for the project to run smoothly.

Conclusion

If you’re struggling to get to grips with a clear brief explaining the points mentioned above, bear in mind that an experienced and respected market research agency such as Redshift Research will also have the expertise to define the brief until you are happy with the project to go ahead.