Research Analysis
You may be thinking, ‘our company literally has binder upon binder of research summaries; who has the time to review it all, distill it into manageable chunks, and make it usable?’
Research Analysis: Because the toughest part of the research process is the review and analysis of all the data you’ve gathered. Years and years of it. It’s likely filed away in a room that people never visit. Or on a series of CD-ROMs that no one has seen. And it just may hold the key to brand relevance.
Effective research analysis will involve the comprehensive review of all available primary and secondary research. To be clear, while primary research is largely about generating data and the methods used, secondary research uses that data (and other) as a source and summarizes, collates and synthesizes it. Examples of other information sources might include published articles, books, online reviews, featured stories and the like.
Other methods of analysis and possible deliverables:
- Cross Tabulation: a statistical tool used for categorical data tabulation. Categorical data involves values that are mutually exclusive to each other.
- Gap Analysis: measures actual performance rather than desired performance, and addresses key questions about actions required to achieve a more desired position.
- MaxDiff Analysis: used to better understand consumer preference across different attributes. MaxDiff is relatively simple to implement and easy to use.
- Convergent Cluster & Ensemble Analysis (CCEA): Creates a cluster analysis of many independent cluster analysis types (hierarchical, k-means, neural networks, etc.)
- SWOT: looks at the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats that exist within the brand. As a top-down view, SWOT analysis guides areas of emphasis to filter out or focus on to achieve desired performance.
- Trend Analysis: studies data over time to identify trends and relationships to (and as) data changes. Based on how the data changes, these existing trends may inform and predict future trends.
- Data analysis across all methods
- Language translation, if necessary
- Formal report and recommendations