Audience Profiling finding out the profile of your audience before hand so that you can put across your message to the right people in the most effective way to produce the best result. It might include details like age, sex, educational qualification, work experience, financial background, field of work, interests, mood, orientation, bias, food habits, religious background, physique, health condition.
Qualitative Research
Qualitative research seeks out the ‘why’, not the ‘how’ of its topic through the analysis of unstructured information – things like interview transcripts, open ended survey responses, emails, notes, feedback forms, photos and videos. It doesn’t just rely on statistics or numbers, which are the domain of quantitative researchers.
Qualitative research is used to gain insight into people's attitudes, behaviours, value systems, concerns, motivations, aspirations, culture or lifestyles. It’s used to inform business decisions, policy formation, communication and research. Focus groups, in-depth interviews, content analysis, ethnography, evaluation and semiotics are among the many formal approaches that are used, but qualitative research also involves the analysis of any unstructured material, including customer feedback forms, reports or media clips.
Collecting and analyzing this unstructured information can be messy and time consuming using manual methods. When faced with volumes of materials, finding themes and extracting meaning can be a daunting task.
Quantitative Research
Qualitative research is a set of methods, techniques and approaches that attempts to arrive at an in-depth understanding of an issue, often in a real-life setting and without constraints imposed by standardized and controlled methods used in quantitative research. Qualitative research analyzes unstructured data that consist of notes, audio and video recordings, written texts, images and objects.
Social sciences, marketing and political research use qualitative methods to explore new topics, understand reasons for behavior and people's values, beliefs, thought processes and subconscious dynamics.
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Qualitative researchers use a variety of research models and various approaches. The most popular approaches are: ethnography (study of culture, often by observation), phenomenology (which focuses on subjective experience) and grounded theory (a dynamic approach that focuses on development of theory from participant observation data). All those approaches may employ more than one form of data collection.
Participant ObservationParticipant observation is the main method of qualitative research, especially common in sociology, ethnography, anthropology and derived disciplines. The level of participation varies. In some instances, the researcher stays on the margin and attempts to be as unobtrusive as possible; in other studies the researcher actually joins in the activities. Participant observation has roots in ethnography, and it differs from other research forms as it approaches the subjects in the natural environment rather than putting them in an environment constructed by the researcher. The researchers take notes and sometimes recordings of their observations.
In-Depth InterviewsIn-depth interviews use a semi-structured guide to lead the interviewing process. The answers are usually audio and sometimes video-recorded, and the interviewer is an active and important part of the process. The questions are flexible and adjusted to the specific respondent. In-depth interviewers often use additional techniques, such as laddering or methods derived from clinical interviews to obtain credible and in-depth answers. In-depth interviews are commonly used in social sciences as well as market research.
Focus Group InterviewsFocus groups consist of a small number of respondents, usually between eight and 12, interviewed as a group. The interview is conducted by a trained researcher called the moderator, whose role is to guide and facilitate the conversation using a prepared guide and any stimulus material that might be appropriate to the topic. The focus group is usually recorded, and sometimes other researchers and clients can observe the discussion from behind a one-way mirror or via a video link.
Focus groups are among the most common and best-known forms of qualitative research. Market and opinion researchers use this method frequently, as it is faster and allows for a greater variety of respondents to be interviewed than individual interviews.
Case StudiesCase studies are both a higher-level approach and a specific method of data collection and analysis. Case studies concentrate on a detailed, comprehensive analysis of individuals, groups or organizations in real-life situations. Researchers who perform case studies use many data collection methods and multiple sources but concentrate on a single or a limited number of cases. Case studies are not representative but afford a depth of insight that few other forms of research can provide.
Content AnalysisContent analysis uses existing texts, often literary ones, feedback forms or diaries, to immerse the researcher in somebody else's reality. Content analysis looks at what is being said as well as how it's being expressed to achieve in-depth understanding.
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