How to Evaluate Market Research Reports

Judging Research Quality

Determining whether a market research report is quality work based on sound research principles is a relatively easy task for those trained in research methods.  Most market research professionals can tell within a few minutes whether a report was conducted in the right way.  But what about the non-researcher who is often the target market for most research reports?  How can they distinguish between research done right and research done wrong?

To address the needs of marketers who lack a strong research background we offer seven questions worth asking when reading a research report.  How a research report stands up to these questions gives the reader some clues as to the quality of the information contained in the report.  If concerns arise when answering one or more of these questions, the marketer may want to seek additional information either from the research provider or from a research specialist so they can better gauge the quality of the report. 

The questions to be answered include:
1. What was the purpose for doing the research?
2. Who conducted the research?
3. What was used to measure responses?
4. Who were the respondents in the research?
5. What method was used to obtain the responses?
6. Are differences between groups meaningful?
7. How were results presented?

For this analysis we focus only on one type of research - surveying (i.e., where people respond to questions).  For other types of research, such as experiments or observational research, other issues will have to be considered.