It can be tempting to forgo in-person qualitative research in favor of online methods. Digital tools can reduce some of the up-front costs of research, while still providing access to a national sample of participants; however, there are many important use cases for in-person research.
In a digital world with everything at our fingertips, we can sometimes forget the prevalence of real-world interactions. For example, think about the simple activity of shopping. Just about every major retailer has an online store, but of the $1.825 trillion Americans spent on retail items in the third quarter of 2023, only 15.6% came from e-commerce. And experts project that 72% of retail sales will occur in brick-and-mortar stores in 2024 (CapitalOne Shopping Research).
To deeply understand IRL (In Real Life) behaviors and motivators, there are many benefits for brands – both in terms of relevance and financial performance – that choose to balance online research with in-person methods.
If you’re not currently leveraging in-person research, here are a few use cases to consider implementing this year…
Market Exploration
Only so much can be learned through reading reports and articles about consumers. At some point, it will be necessary to get out in the world and share life experiences with your target audience in their marketplace.
Brand, product, creative, and marketing teams all benefit from regularly spending time together with consumers in the cities where they live, work, and play. This practice of getting out into the marketplace helps teams develop a sixth sense about what consumers really want from their brand…and how competitive brands stack up.
In this way, engaging in market exploration experiences as a team helps spark new ideas while building both campaigns and products that are truly consumer-centric.
IRL Experiential [Shop, Ride, Eat, etc.]–Alongs
Similar to Market Exploration, engaging with consumers as they shop, consume, or use your product is invaluable. For brands that prioritize accuracy of detailed consumer feedback, there’s no better way to understand habits and preferences than observing and speaking directly with consumers in situ.
Shop-alongs, Ride-alongs, Eat-alongs, and other similar observational techniques really help bridge knowledge gaps for teams while at the same time building empathy for the consumer’s in-context experience.
This method of research can be highly useful for things like developing new products, creating new promotions, improving service design, or even informing in-store signage.
In-Home Observation
On the other side of the coin, spending time in a consumer’s home can also reveal new opportunities for brands. This is perhaps one of the best ways to understand the interplay between what consumers say and what they actually do.
For example, during an exploratory study for a beverage brand, we conducted a series of ethnographies to better understand perceptions related to health and wellness. While in a consumer’s home, she told us that she was opposed to artificially-colored beverages for her children. But when we later saw the interior of her garage fridge, we noticed that it was filled with neon-colored children’s drinks.
This contradiction led to a revealing line of conversation, and it is something that we would have never discovered unless we had conducted the research in home.
Large Group and Iterative Collaboration
Of the many reasons why it is useful to conduct research at a facility, one of the most obvious and most frequently overlooked is that they are purpose-built for research and collaboration.
When a large team needs to observe interviews or groups as they’re taking place live, hosting research at a facility is the best way to go. Behind the mirror in the observation area, there is plenty of comfortable space to set up laptops, connect to Wi-Fi, and sit back with a beverage as the research unfolds in the front room.
After each group concludes, there is ample space and time to debrief while collaboratively making sense of what everyone thought was relevant to the challenge at hand. For a large group of stakeholders working together, in-person conversation can’t be beat when compared with the inevitable delays and other challenges that remote, video-conferencing platforms typically present.
There are a lot of considerations when deciding to conduct research either in-person or online. If you’d like to toss some ideas around and discuss the possibilities, we love to talk about this stuff, so drop us a line!