There are several types of surveys, but the main are - CATI, CAPI, CAWI, face-to-face interviews.
Lately telephone surveys CATI (CATI - Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing) are mainly used for qualitative research. Today it is the most popular research method in the US. Telephone interviewing is used for: - Monitoring research - Media preferences research - Omnibus researches - evaluating of advertising campaign efficiency - Express-surveys on relevant topics Method advantages: - Fast speed of conducting the survey and getting results - Low price - Possibility of interviewing difficult of access people - Expanded possibilities of interviewers’ work control Usage of automatic telephone interviewing while conducting sociological or marketing surveys allows getting more qualified information from a large number of natural and juridical persons really fast. Usage of call-center infrastructure allows not only performing telephone interviewing in maximum under time, but it also gives an opportunity to get the results as a ready-to-use database. Results can also be in SPSS format. CAPI is a computer assisted multimedia system of personal interviewing. Respondent is answering survey questions with a keyboard, mouse or touch display. This method has convenient and functional means for interviewing and data collection control. CAPI researches are not very frequent in Russian research companies’ practice. According to some calculations only a few thousand CAPI interviews are taken in Russia. This ratio is hundreds of times lower than the one in Europe or in the USA. Mainly it is connected with the cost of realization of such projects. The fastest, the most modern and price efficient method of data collecting is surveying the on-line panels participants (or CAWI - Computer Assisted Web Interviewing). CAWI interviews are taken through Internet. Main advantages of this method: - Decrease of time consumption and price 25-50% in comparison with traditional research methods - Convenience for respondents, survey infill takes less time - Possibility of getting well though-out and full answers - Reports in real-time through web-interface, available any time in browser through login and password - Data safety system F-2F - face-to-face interviews - are the most widespread method of researching any particular topic, based on direct communication of interviewer and respondent. The purpose of face-to-face interview is to further narrow the initial group of applicants by learning as much about them as you can in a relatively limited time. It is a fact-finding mission for both parties. It is needed to ensure a successful outcome. Face-to-face interviewing allows not only answering difficult survey questions, but also using vivid materials (photos, logos, cards etc.). To sum up we would like to mention that it is pretty hard to compare these methods, because they are quite all-sufficient systems. They proved themselves as the best marketing research structures, which have better interaction with respondents, which provides maximum trustworthiness of received data.
Data collecting methods during marketing research are divided into two groups: quantitative and qualitative. Qualitative research is often identified with different surveys, based on usage of closed structured questions, which are answered by a large number of respondents. The main characteristics of this research are particular data format and ways to get data; processing of collected data is performed through well-ordered procedures, mainly qualitative.
