Doing research right!

Hey!

I’m going to spend a few moments today sharing how to do proper market research.

Big Ideas:

• Don’t take data at face value.

• Look for the story the data tells.

• Push to come up with your own ideas from any research you read.

This is a pretty big survey of the performing arts in the UK.

From my POV, this would be what we call secondary research because the Audience Agency has put this together. And, I’m using it to highlight some ideas that I think are important to you.

Let’s take a look at three big ideas this morning so you can have a better grasp on looking at market research in a way that is more similar to the way I read these reports.

First up, we don’t take the data we receive at face value.

Why?

We need to know the parameters and the context of the research to understand how well it was designed. Plus, we need to get an understanding of the survey’s strengths and weaknesses.

Three things to notice here:

• We can’t readily find how large the surveyed audience is.

• We don’t know the representation of the audience meaning demographically, location, or economically. So it is tough to know what is driving behaviors or whether or not demographic data might be an effective way of looking at this survey.

• There is very little baseline data to draw declines or uptakes from.

What does all this mean?

It means that you’ll be able to use the data, it might be interesting, but you’ll still be in the dark about what the survey really means.

You just don’t have enough information to establish a baseline.

Second, look for the story or the throughline of the research.

In this survey, the throughline of the research is trying to establish what the new world of performing arts attendance looks like. The bad side of this effort is that we really lack enough context to make this data help us as much as we might initially think from the percentages, comparisons, and conclusions.

Finally, the magic of any research is that you should be able to formulate your own observations, questions, and ideas from the data.

Here’s what that might look like using my analysis of the situation as an example:

• Without knowing the breakdown of the audience, can I test this research in my market to see if their research compares favorably to my area?

• Looking at this 66% of people giving a donation number, am I asking for donations enough? Do I know my numbers? How can I improve the number of donations I am receiving?

• If I were to survey a representative sample of the population, would that change some of the observations from the survey?

• Do I know or can I find out why people are going to performances more or less often?

In this regard, you can use any survey or piece of data to help you focus your thinking, your ideas, and your questions.

The big thing when you are looking at a survey of any kind is to understand the context, look at the strengths and weaknesses, and analyze it.

Even the most poorly designed surveys can provide you with something of value if you flip the ideas around enough.

Action Items:

• Find some secondary data to help you think about your market differently.

• Check to see what the context of the information is. Is it representative of the audience? Is it well put together? What kinds of questions were used?

• Analyze the research and use that to create insights, questions, and ideas of your own. Challenge yourself to come up with 5 or 10 so you get in the habit of going beyond the first level thinking into deeper areas of thought.