Market research online communities are continuing to grow in popularity, with 82% of market researchers either currently using them or thinking about doing so in the near future. It’s pretty easy to see why they are so popular: they’re cost effective, efficient and deliver in-depth insights in a safe and secure online setting. However, the secret to a truly successful online community lies in the tasks. Your chosen tasks will set the tone of your community in terms of participant engagement and creativity - so you need to make sure you offer up a good range of activities to keep your respondents engaged and encourage them to open up. Stuck for ideas? Read on for our top five task tips…

User experience testing (also known as UX testing or usability testing) is when a product or service is evaluated by testing it with representative users in order to improve its usability. It’s become increasingly important in recent years as more and more brands understand the importance of improving their digital user experience - especially as most people’s everyday lives now depend on technology. Today’s customers know exactly what they want - and that’s exactly why UX testing is so valuable: it allows you to understand your customer's’ journey and access deep shopper insights so you can be completely confident you are nailing your offering and not losing out to competitors.

In-home interviews are a qualitative market research methodology whereby one-to-one interviews are carried out with participants in the comfort of their own home. They’re a really great way of gathering high quality data: you can ask specific questions, build a rapport and all the while keep an eye out for actions and nonverbal clues too, making it a fully-rounded research method that can offer great insights. However, there is quite a bit to organise to make sure they are a success, and as a result scheduling can sometimes be a bit of a nightmare. Don’t worry though - the secret to success is all in the preparation, which is why we’ve put together our top tips to ensure your in-home interviews aren’t a logistical nightmare. Read on to find out more…

Qualitative market research with children and young people is an area that is growing in popularity across the market research world.There are a number of reasons for this: firstly, children tend to be more open and honest than adults which means more insightful results, and they also have their own unique and important perspectives on products and services as well. Not only that, but children’s power to influence their parents’ purchases has increased over time too, making them an important target audience for brands - and as technology continues to take over the world, their opinion is set to become even more important. With 85% of mums admitting to using technology to keep the kids occupied¹ whilst they get on with other activities and a recent study finding that 38% of two to five years olds own a tablet², children are a key audience for brands because they are both heavy media users and early adopters of new technologies.

The GRIT (Greenbook Research Industry Trends) report is undoubtedly one of the leading and most comprehensive surveys of the market research industry, showing where the industry is now, where it’s going in the future and how you can adapt to these changes. Published annually since 2011, this latest version looks at Q3-4 of 2017 and gives a meaningful and reliable snapshot of the global market research industry that you can use as a strategic planning tool for the year ahead. Here we look at some of this year’s biggest industry trends for qualitative market research according to the latest report.

In-home interviews do exactly what you’d expect them to: they consist of asking your participants questions from the comfort of their own homes. They remain a firm favourite in the world of qualitative market research because they’re a fantastic way of asking specific questions whilst at the same time being able to monitor non-verbal cues - but due to their very nature, they can take a fair bit of time to organise. That’s why it’s so important to make sure your in-home interviews are worth the effort.

Below are our top tips for making the most out of this methodology and ensuring your next interview isn’t just good - it’s great.

We’re starting to see more and more qualitative research being carried out with children and young people across the market research industry. It’s easy to see why – not only do young people bring a fresh and honest perspective to the table, but as this generation continue to become a key research demographic, children and young people's opinions are becoming more important than ever before. That being said, conducting qualitative market research with children remains to be a sensitive area and as such any research must be carried out in accordance with the Market Research Society guidelines to ensure that children aren’t exploited, disturbed or harmed by the experience.

Online qualitative market research interviews – whether conducted in individual or group settings - are a great all-round research method that has become increasingly popular in recent years. They’re fast, cost effective and because respondents can take part remotely, they don’t have the geographical limitations of traditional research.

In recent years there’s been a shift in the market research world with more and more qualitative market research being carried out with children and young people. We’re now starting to move away from more traditional opinions that children and young people are solely objects of enquiry, towards the view that they have their own unique thoughts and insights that are important in their own right. And quite rightly so – after all, children and young people tend to bring a more fresh and honest perspective than adults, meaning that they don’t just have a right to be involved; they need to be involved in order to improve the quality of research, especially as millennials are becoming an increasingly important demographic in market research and as a result brands are becoming increasingly keen to reach out to them.

A social grade is a demographic, socio-economic classification that assigns every household to a certain grade based on the employment status of the chief income earner. Or, to put it more simply, it’s a way of classifying people based on income. Created by the ONS (UK Office for National Statistics), it’s used throughout the marketing, advertising and market research industries to organise audiences into six categories – A, B, C1, C2, D and E – ranging from higher professional occupations through to unskilled manual occupations.