Market researchers tended to gravitate towards quantitative methods over qualitative ones during 2012, according to [PDF] the Winter 2013 GreenBook Research Industry Trends Report. Respondents were more likely to report strong growth in their use of quantitative rather than qualitative methods (10% vs. 8%), and less likely to report a decline (12% vs. 17%). Areas seeing the most amount of growth, though, were social media research (64% reporting some degree of growth) and market research online communities (59%).
In terms of qualitative research, the traditional in-person focus group remained the most popular methodology, used by 60% of respondents, followed by traditional in-person in-depth interviews, used by 45%. Among quantitative research types, online surveys (78%) were easily the most popular method, ahead of computer-assisted telephone interviews (44%) and face-to-face surveys (38%). Read the rest at MarketingCharts.
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