If you’re in marketing, you are no stranger to the question, “How can we get this done faster?” The need for speed in bringing a product or service to market trickles down to every part of the marketing development pipeline, including market research.
In response to how to arrive at insights faster, researchers have considered all sorts of strategies to compress research timelines: shorter recruiting windows, less stringent recruiting parameters, more consolidated methodologies, collaborative workshopping, and new types of reporting deliverables.
Agile research is generally good: it’s nimble and adaptive; it prevents overthinking and over-immersion into the weeds of data; it capitalizes on the recency of consumer response; and it inspires creative strategies based on the momentum coming out of research.
But, there are times when faster isn’t better. To recognize when it’s best to implement quick-turn research, it is important to know the converse: when it’s better to take your time.
Here are five situations for which to consider longitudinal research – that is, research which is conducted with the same participants over an extended period of time:
Understanding brand relationships: While a lot can be gleaned from a discussion with a consumer about one’s relationship with a product or brand, many more insights can be uncovered by studying how the consumer interacts with a product or brand over time.
Understanding behavior: Similarly, an interview about a consumer’s behavior can be revealing, but to examine how that behavior is impacted over time will reveal a more holistic, contextualized and nuanced view on why one behaves in a particular way.
Identifying patterns and trends: by their nature, patterns and trends are defined by their presence over time, and thus, should be studied over the long term.
Testing engagement or longevity: to understand how long, and to what extent, a consumer is going to engage with a product or service, it is most effective to observe consumer behavior in real time. Consumers are unreliable at predicting future behavior, so to ask them to project about the frequency and depth in which they will engage with a product or service is a recipe for potentially misguided conclusions.
Measuring change: while it’s possible to test whether a stimulus changes attitudes upon immediate exposure, that stimulus has usually been presented in an artificial context. To measure true attitudinal (and especially behavioral) change, respondents should be studied over a period of time.
Traditional definitions of longitudinal research suggest that these studies should be conducted over a period of many months or years. While this can be true in some cases, often, longitudinal research participants are most simply defined as consumers who are studied on an ongoing basis (timing TBD), not just in isolation at one particular moment in time.
Fast or slow, research design should be primarily and absolutely based on what you’re trying to learn. Start with your research objectives, and let them – not the timeline – shape your research plan.