Marketing research - primary methods

Qualitative research

Crimp states the generally accepted position of marketers, i.e. that they have more confidence in quantitative methods - that there is comfort in numbers. But qualitative research is more than just gathering an impression about something from a group of people. Even when used on an exploratory basis the results will guide the rest of the research.

Qualititive research differs from Quantitative research in 2 broad methodological ways:

1. Unstructured or semi-structured data collection methods. Response rather than question oriented.
2. Relatively small samples. And even when carefully selected, cannot be assumed to be representative of the population.