• Which new product ideas should you develop?
• What features should you include?
• What positioning messages should you use?
• What marketing programs will be effective?
• How do you raise chances for success and reduce risk?

These questions continually challenge product, marketing, and research managers. And the stakes are big. New product failure rates run as high as 90%. Lack of information and faulty assumptions are often culprits.

The good news is that qualitative marketing research can help you make better new product and marketing decisions. Qualitative marketing research makes managers smarter.

Researchers use focus groups and depth interviews before and after quantitative surveys. They use results to explore and discover topics, and their dimensions, and develop questions for quantitative surveys; they also us it to understand the reasons behind the numbers. Qualitative research describes what, why and how people think, while quantitative research answers how many think that way.

This paper's objective is to guide you in applying qualitative marketing research to develop new products and services.

Qualitative marketing research explores, discovers, describes, and clarifies. It provides direction. It supports quantitative research, by identifying important topics, dimensions and ranges. Managers use qualitative research to guide develop quantitative research. Qualitative research helps managers,

• Explore
• Discover
• Describe
• Understand
• Raise questions
• Develop theories
• Create new ideas
• Gain knowledge
• Assess new product entry and marketing plans

1. Discovery
2. Development
3. Commercialization

1. Discovery Phase (pre quantitative surveys)
   1. Expert interviews
   2. Exploratory groups
2. Development Phase (pre and post quantitative surveys)
   1. New product screening groups
   2. Positioning groups
   3. Marketing program screening groups
   4. Competitors' customer groups
   5. Post-quantitative groups
3. Commercialization Phase (post quantitative surveys)
   1. Diagnostic groups and interviews
   2. Channel interviews

Use focus groups and interviews before and after quantitative surveys to,

• Develop questions for quantitative surveys
• Draw up theories to test
• Produce new ideas
• Understand the meanings behind the numbers

In expert interviews, moderators interview industry executives, editors, writers, analysts, consultants, trade association heads, financial analysts, and management. Experts guide you through unfamiliar territory.

Expert interviews help you,

• Discover opportunities and issues
• Identify trends
• Form theories
• Create ideas
• Develop questions
• Focus inquiry

Conduct exploratory expert interviews during the discovery stage, to establish a source for innovation.

In exploratory focus groups, moderators interview groups of users about an existing product or service. Users reveal how they use existing products and services, and their attitudes towards them.

Use exploratory groups to,

• Identify attitudes and behaviors
• Identify satisfactions and dissatisfactions
• Discover opportunities and issues
• Spark ideas
• Develop theories
• Frame questions for quantitative inquiry

Conduct exploratory groups during the discovery stage. The findings set up a baseline for ideation, innovation, and improvement.

The full Paper is available in PDF format

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