January 2024 | Strategy Research

The Strategic Value of Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is a powerful set of techniques that can lead to a deeper understanding of business issues and opportunities from every perspective (consumers, the trade, employees, investors, management, and shareholders). Qualitative helps identify the key variables, reveals the language and vocabulary of target audiences and, most importantly, uncovers the “unknown unknowns” that can then be addressed with survey-based research. Combined with quantitative research, qualitative helps create a broad-based, integrated story to guide your team toward effective marketing plans with the greatest potential for strategic success. This is especially true for strategic research initiatives that are highly visible.

Qualitative Applications

The types of strategy topics that can be addressed by qualitative investigations include:

• Consumer motivations and brand-choice decisions
• Customer journey discovery and mapping
• Communication and messaging exploration
• New product concept development and refinement
• Brand strategy and brand perceptions
• Employee relations and insights
• Customer satisfaction analyses
• Persona development for segmentation
• Shopping and in-store research (including shop-alongs)
• User interface refinement for websites, apps, and software
• Customer experience studies

StrategicImpact™

Decision Analyst’s StrategicImpact™ process combines qualitative with quantitative research to develop and refine a brand’s strategy from inception to in-market success. The primary steps in this process are:

1. Align: Kickoff workshop with your cross-functional team to thoroughly discuss your business need(s) and establish success criteria.
2. Explore: In-depth qualitative exploration of attitudes, needs, habits, and motivations of target-market audiences (often includes internal or external business stakeholder interviews).
3. Quantify: Rigorous survey research among key target audiences, to precisely measure where the brand is today in the minds of consumers, and where the brand has permission to play in the future.
4. Analyze: Dig deeper into the intricacies of the survey outcomes and associated consumer needs, desires, mindsets, and emotions.
5. Activate: An activation workshop takes the ideas, insights, and learnings from the research to develop “go ahead” strategies that fit with your goals, capabilities, and overall strategy.
6. Monitor: Following strategy activation, key performance metrics should be measured via tracking surveys to ensure successful strategic outcomes.

Jerry W. Thomas

CEO

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Bonnie Janzen

President

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Felicia Rogers

Corporate Executive Vice President

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Elizabeth Horn, Ph.D.

SVP, Advanced Analytics

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Clay Dethloff

SVP, Qualitative Research & Innovation

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Decision Analyst Qualitative Resources

• Becoming A Qual Champion: A Short Guide For The Quant-Focused Researcher
• Meet Our Moderators
• Qualitative Package Design Research
• Qualitative Analytics
• Qualitative Research Services
• StrategicImact™