Qualitative vs. Quantitative Market Research: The Complete Guide

Quantifying how your products or services perform in the market is the primary focus of market research outsourcing. Besides, understanding how business competitors plan to attract more customers is vital if an organization wants to surpass them. Companies will require multiple categories of market research solutions. So, this post will elaborate on the difference between qualitative and quantitative market research.  What is Market Research?    Market research (MR) includes direct interviews, public polls, anonymized feedback collection, and social listening. Enterprises benefit from market research outsourcing since they get valuable insights into consumer behavior. Simultaneously, the modern competitive landscape highlights the necessity for integrating artificial intelligence (AI) to automate intelligence-gathering operations.    Managers leverage MR databases to accelerate product innovation. Moreover, they can modify customer service processes to address consumer concerns more efficiently.    Remember, market research solutions can employ primary or secondary data acquisition techniques. The former creates unique databases while allowing the client company exclusive ownership, access, and publication rights. However, the secondary market research methodology relies upon publicly available data sources below.   

1. Social media platforms,  News publications,  Research journals,  Industry magazines,  E-commerce reviews, 
2. Consumer discussion forums. 

Likewise, all market research outsourcing methods belong to the following two categories:    - Qualitative MR practices,    - Quantitative market research services.    The Difference Between Qualitative and Quantitative Market Research    1| Characteristics of Qualitative vs. Quantitative Market Research    Qualitative market research solutions process descriptive and unstructured data. For example, online consumer surveys collect feedback comprising detailed elaboration on what customers consider a strength or a flaw in the company’s products they use.    Yet, quantitative MR techniques find strategically beneficial insights into numerical data. It can include product ratings on an e-commerce store website or company ratings on employment portals. Similarly, performance metrics like conversion rates, monthly active users (MAUs), or return on ad spend (ROAS) have their place in the structured data category.    Therefore, these characteristics demonstrate the difference between quantitative market research and qualitative MR outsourcing. All the other unique attributes discussed below originate from this fundamental distinction.    2| Data Analytics Solutions in Qualitative vs. Quantitative Market Research    Quantitative analysis is a technique that uses statistical modeling, measurement, and insight exploration using structured data. Meanwhile, qualitative market research solutions require artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to recognize the sentiments in descriptive texts and audiovisual files.    Analytical techniques are unique in qualitative and quantitative market research. Besides, they influence costs associated with insight extraction programs and human resources possessing the required skills.    3| Financial Requirements in Qualitative vs. Quantitative Market Research    The challenges in handling unstructured data make qualitative MR tools more expensive. However, advanced analytical capabilities justify the increased financial liabilities since the remarkably improved return on investment (ROI) counterbalances the initial costs.    Simultaneously, standard statistical solutions are sufficient for small enterprises because they more often rely on numerical performance metrics. How you must allocate capital resources will depend on the market research outsourcing services your organization selects.    4| Reporting Scope of Market Research Solutions    There is a significant difference between the report creation and communication scope in quantitative and qualitative market research. After all, the simplicity of insight extraction helps quantitative researchers develop reports fast.    Likewise, using semantic intelligence facilities requires a responsible implementation of AI and ML. Remember, automated data analytics still benefits from human supervision because strategic relevance comes from domain knowledge and fieldwork experiences. These factors explain why the reporting scope of qualitative MR is more extensive.    5| Ambiguity Risks in Quantitative vs. Qualitative Market Research    All the performance metrics quantified through standardized quality management guidelines are reliable and mathematically accurate. While human risks might threaten reporting integrity in some industries, quantitative market research outsourcing has fewer ambiguity risks.    However, qualitative analytics used for contextual MR encounter difficulties due to the limitations of existing technologies. The good news is that novel tools like ChatGPT and OpenAI can assist enterprises in eliminating ambiguous results in semantic interpretations.    6| Progress Evaluations in Quantitative or Qualitative MR    Demonstrating how your sales have increased relies on standard calculations. However, estimating improvements or declines in positive brand perception, loyalty, and consumer satisfaction will be challenging. Therefore, monitoring, quantifying, and rectifying progress issues are often more straightforward in quantitative market research.    This difference also explains why reporting formats vary between quantitative and qualitative market research solutions. Remember, you can perform stress tests to analyze why customers complain about device heating issues. Yet, you cannot “calculate” whether they are unhappy about a product being unavailable in their favorite color.    The Components of Market Research Outsourcing    Quantitative and qualitative market research share the following standard elements affecting intelligence development, reporting, and business risk assessment.    1| Data Aggregation    Collecting data from social media platforms or news resources generates extensive databases. So, data aggregation consolidates the stored intelligence for summary creation. Summarized data patterns save time, simplify report sharing, and accelerate decision-making.    Data aggregation for market research solutions also determines the authority and freshness of acquired intelligence. If a record becomes obsolete or exhibits statistical anomalies, you can configure the data collection options to rectify these issues automatically.    2| Machine Learning (ML) Models    ML applications used by market researchers streamline feedback gathering and contextual attribution. Besides, their accuracy increases with repetitive utilization. So, organizations can optimize machine learning algorithms for a target industry instead of employing a generic program across all verticals.    Qualitative market research employs ML models for sentiment inspection and complaint categorization and quantitate MR solutions use machine learning to avoid time lost in number-crunching and report formatting.    3| Competitor Strategy Analysis    Corporations want data on competitors’ business expansion plans, but corporate espionage is an unethical and illegal tactic that illegitimate organizations utilize. So, what are the legal, ethical, and transparent methodologies to estimate your competitors’ behavior?    Data-driven solutions, like the ones leveraged in modern market research outsourcing, extract insights into business rivals’ press releases, whitepapers, and public profiles. Therefore, you can get authentic competitive intelligence without increasing your legal compliance risks.    4| Product Reception Surveys    When a company launches a product, different consumer profiles respond to this event uniquely. This principle highlights the importance of quantitative and qualitative market research to study why such a difference in consumer reaction exists in the first place.    Consumer surveys can be online or face-to-face, allowing the customers the facility to choose a feedback submission mechanism they consider the most comfortable. Meanwhile, popups appearing when consumers leave your website or exit forms requesting why they have stopped using your offerings might help you conduct qualitative analytics.    5| Statistical Error Corrections    Utilizing statistical data does not include immediately converting a column in the Excel workbooks into line graphs. After all, data obtained from multiple resources like online platforms or volunteering members in a focus group contains biased records.    Reliable market research outsourcing will filter statistically problematic components. So, the client organization can skip inspecting biases or data quality errors in the MR databases or reports. Likewise, market researchers will support dynamic corrections in demanding operations like big data analytics, where the core datasets continuously become more extensive.    6| Customer Service Enhancements    Market research solutions reveal why clients feel a product or service fails to meet their expectations. Therefore, organizations must leverage the data patterns discovered by MR professionals to explore how to improve their customer service.    For example, the primary and secondary market research outsourcing might indicate that only 2% of customers use two product features that require more expensive resources. So, the company must launch experimental products to assess whether removing those two features will allow price rationalization and make production more economical.    Conclusion    You have learned about the difference between qualitative and quantitative market research solutions. Therefore, you can maintain an optimal combination of both strategies to conduct MR operations financially responsibly. Also, you can benefit from partnering with reputable data processing experts since doing so redistributes risks and frees up the company’s resources for other activities.    SG Analytics, a leader in market research outsourcing, empowers corporations to acquire holistic intelligence on consumers, competitors, and market trends. Contact us today if you seek advanced automation capabilities for MR that let you upgrade your business strategy for performance optimizations.