Audience research: collecting audience data

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OVERVIEW

This article is an extract from A Concise Guide to Researching Audiences. The Guide forms part of the Audience Research Toolkit produced Curtis+Cartwright Consulting Ltd on behalf of the Strategic Content Alliance and links to all the elements in the toolkit can be found at the end of this page.

The article is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

Undertaking research: in-house or third party?

Technological advances make it increasingly tempting to conduct research on a ‘DIY’ basis, rather than commissioning an independent market research agency to undertake it on your behalf. However, it is worth considering a number of factors before deciding if the in-house or commissioned research route is most appropriate.

In-house research

Pros

Can often be the least expensive option – especially if expert in-house resources are available.

Knowledge of the audience: expert knowledge and/or experience can help in planning and conducting research.

Greater level of control: a market research agency might have different ideas about how to research an audience.

Cons

Lack of experience in conducting research can lead to poor research design and other problems that an experienced research agency would have anticipated and planned for.

Questionnaire design is surprisingly difficult to get right. Poorly designed questions result in ambiguous or misleading data. Experience of questionnaire design is important.

Similarly, unless knowledge of statistical and sampling techniques is available in-house, mistakes can be made – both at the planning and at the analysis stages.

Commission market research company

Pros

If carefully selected, a research agency will bring expertise and experience to bear, resulting in a more efficient (possibly even more cost-effective) survey and greater clarity of understanding.

The involvement of a respected, independent third-party brings credibility to the research.

Respondents are generally more likely to respond openly and honestly to a third party.

Market research agencies have access to the specialist resources required to conduct research (eg recruiters and survey tools).

Cons

Commissioned research can be expensive.

The process of identifying potential research agencies, writing a research brief and briefing the selected agency takes time.

Even market research agencies experienced in your sector will lack your detailed knowledge. Be prepared to spend time ensuring that the agency understands the nature of your audience and what you are trying to find out about it.

If you do decide to use a market research company, ‘The Research Buyer’s Guide’ published by the Market Research Society has some useful information both on the type of market research company to choose from and also on the questions to bear in mind when selecting a company. It includes advice on whether to sub-contract some elements of a research project to consultants (eg quantitative interviewing or recruitment of focus groups), or buy in the full service (where professionals will help to design the research and collect, analyse and evaluate data).

Overview of data collection methods

Information and a critique on different methods of collecting audience data is summarised below. More practical guidance for using these methods is provided in the | full-version of the Guide. The set of methods covered is not intended to be definitive and detailed information on how to implement each method is not provided.

Most audience analysis methods can be used or adapted successfully by non-specialists; however, there are some circumstances under which it may be appropriate to consider outsourcing one or more elements of an audience research project.

Focus groups

Description: Focus groups can be organised in many ways and in many formats. However, all formats are based on the premise of a small group of respondents discussing issues and being guided by an experienced facilitator (sometimes called a moderator).

Uses: For exploring attitudes and motivations and for generating new ideas. Focus groups are often used as the precursor to some form of quantitative survey research.

Pros: Useful for creative discussion and new ideas, relatively short timescales, well-suited to introducing and gaining reactions to stimulus materials.

Cons: Relies on sufficient numbers of audience being clustered in a geographical area, respondents might not be prepared to discuss personally, commercially or academically sensitive subjects with others, requires experienced facilitators.

One-to-one in-depth interviews

Description: In-depth interviews conducted on a one-to-one basis, by telephone or in person.

Uses: For understanding the range of attitudes and motivations which might exist within an audience.

Pros: Can be used to collect qualitative or quantitative data, good quality data, more in-depth information can be collected, stimulus material can be shown.

Cons: Relatively expensive, require a high level of respondent cooperation and commitment, time-consuming.

Quantitative surveys

Description: Quantitative surveys involve using a sample of an audience/population as the basis for producing a statistically reliable picture of the whole. Includes postal, email, telephone, and internet surveys.

Uses: For providing quantifiable information about an audience. For example, its profile and its patterns of usage and behaviour.

Pros: Vary depending on method. In general: cost-effective, offer a large proportion of relevant audience a chance to respond, low level of commitment from respondents, internet and email surveys can provide very immediate feedback.

Cons: Vary depending on method. In general: sample is often self-selecting, no guarantees of response rates, method should be chosen carefully (ie not all potential respondents will have internet access or will be comfortable using it), interpretation of questions can be subjective.

'Traditional’ web statistics

Description: Web servers generate log files when they serve a request, which is typically directly from a ‘user agent’ – usually a browser such as Internet Explorer or Firefox. These log files record the request which was made, the status of the response (success, failure etc) and some basic information about the user agent. This method considers relatively simple ways in which these log files can be processed to generate quantitative information (web statistics) regarding the use of the service.

Uses: For understanding, on aggregate, the ways in which an online resource (or collection of resources) is used, for example the relative usage of different parts of a site, and how the usage varies over time.

Pros: Low cost in time and effort, information can be available immediately, provides an ‘at-a-glance’ view of how busy a site is, and which sections of the site are most used.

Cons: Limited insight into user behaviour, very crude measures of demographic of audience, tempting to infer too much from the information which is available.

Web analytics

Description: Web analytics is a more advanced method for investigating the actions of users. Web analytics will include the information available from traditional web statistics, but whereas web statistics is focused on the resource, web analytics is focused on individual users. The actions of these users can be combined to provide bulk information on a service, but at a far higher level of detail than that available from traditional web statistics.

Uses: Web analytics can be particularly helpful to support site design decisions, by understanding the decisions that users take when using a resource.

Pros: Information can be available immediately, provides extensive information on user behaviour, can be used to segment users based on a range of behaviours and possibly on demographics.

Cons: Commercial web analytics packages are expensive, setting up reporting is time-consuming and demands good business and technical knowledge, insight into user behaviour from web statistics must be validated.

User observation techniques (ethnography)

Description: Ethnography is a term used to encompass a wide range of techniques and approaches. At its core is a desire to understand human culture by observing behaviour, but this broad principle is increasingly used in commercial, public and social research contexts. It includes user tracking studies (eg shadowing, diary studies) and use testing (eg task-focused activity sessions).

Uses: Ethnography and observational techniques can offer an insight into how audiences use and interact with services and resources. For digital services very detailed data about usage can often be captured unobtrusively by computer logging techniques.

Pros: Vary depending on method. Example – use testing is an excellent way of identifying problems with usability.

Cons: Vary depending on method. Generally time-consuming and resource intensive.

Sources of advice and guidance

The Strategic Content Alliance Audience Analysis Toolkit

This toolkit for public sector bodies, commission by the Strategic Content Alliance from Curtis and Cartwright Consulting provides a range of resources about how to undertake successful audience analysis. All may be found on the Audience pages of the Alliance blog. They include the following:

Guides

These offer an in-depth study of how to define your target audience, planning audience research, the various methods which are available for collecting research data, then analysing that data to obtain a useful model of your likely audience and continuing to use audience research to make sure your service responds to their needs effectively.

The Guide to Researching Audiences
A Concise Guide to Researching Audiences
Audience research: a visualisation chart

Case studies

The case studies offer in-depth studies of the audience analysis activities undertaken by ten public sector institutions to inform the service they provide. The case studies cover a diverse range of initiatives including the development of the BBC i-player, the Europeana project, the digitisation of the John Johnson collection and the JISC national e-books observatory project.

The Guide to Researching Audiences: Case Studies
The Guide to Researching Audiences: Illustrative Case Study

Presentations

These presentations are taken from a workshop held in July 2009 presenting the audience analysis work done for the Alliance by Curtis and Cartwright.

Audience research for practitioners
Audience research: why you should be doing it

Briefing papers

The briefing papers provide valuable summaries on audience research for different domains in the public sector, recognising that different audiences have different needs and expectations and summarising the key sources of support for each area.

Audience research for cultural sector practitioners
Audience research for people experimenting with digital media
Briefing paper: Audience research for education and research practitioners
Audience research for library and knowledge practitioners
Audience research for programme, service and research practitioners
Briefing paper: Audience research for senior managers

Harvested links to other resources

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