Consumer Market Research Consumer Behavior

¶ … Consumer Market Research

Consumer behavior surveys are a tremendously valuable research tool for commercial product manufacturers and commercial business ventures. They allow market researchers to understand the specific needs, preferences, and purchasing trends of their potential customers (Belch & Belch, 2006). While many different types of market research are important within the framework of business marketing, consumer surveys can often provide much more insight into consumer behavior and a much more detailed understanding of why they make the decisions that they make than other types of market research.

Other types of research are very useful for collecting data about what consumers may choose to do, but survey-based research provides extremely valuable information detailing exactly why consumers (and people in general) choose to do what they do (Belch & Belch, 2006; Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2008). In addition to the fact that consumer behavior survey techniques and instruments allow market researchers to collect much more comprehensive information that many other types of market research, there are other advantages to using surveys.

Specifically, other types of research such as statistical analyses and observational studies rely on the researcher's interpretation to draw inferences and meaning from the data (Belch & Belch, 2006). Even in-person focus groups have their comparative shortcomings in that they present an entirely artificial environment that often changes the way people act and behave and make choices; that is generally true of all forms of laboratory or other controlled research environments (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2008).

Generally, the primary methods of conducting consumer behavior (and other types of social research) surveys are questionnaires and interviews (Belch & Belch, 2006; Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2008). Another advantage of survey-based market research is that the researcher can formulate the research instrument (i.e. questionnaires and interview questions) in a manner that allows the researcher to explore specific areas of interest. For example, if the researcher wants to know what aspects of their products or services are most valuable to consumers, the survey instruments can focus on comparisons of value perception or ask consumers directly which variables are more important to them than others (Belch & Belch, 2006). Likewise, if market researchers want to know how important their corporate reputation or values are to consumer choice, they can ask specific questions about those issues. Finally, market researchers can also use survey-based research to determine how effective or ineffective their advertising and promotional efforts are (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2008).

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