Not doing market research is like driving blindfolded: You don't know where you're going, you're not sure when you've gotten there – and you can get into a lot of trouble along the way. But just throwing together any old kind of research can be a big waste of money and effort.

Getting the most out of focus groups:

• Internal brainstorming will help you create ideas to be evaluated in focus groups
• Never base a marketing strategy on an opinion expressed by a few people in a focus group. To confirm strategies, use large-scale telephone or direct-mail research.
• Present concepts to focus group attendees as simplified ads on boards, with a short, factual headline and sample illustration. It's important to evaluate the idea, not the quality of the ad.
• Figure an average cost of $3,500-4,000 per focus group. To save money, some business-to-business marketers bring in clients or prospects for an informal gathering; while not a true focus group, such a meeting can provide you with some good insights on which to base future decisions.
• It's important to let focus groups bring up negative comments, since they will often highlight a problem that can be fixed before it become a bigger threat.

• To properly evaluage a marketing idea or new product, use large-scale research, using telemarketers or direct mail. For maximum results, offer each decision-maker who agrees to take the survey a substantial $$ reward.
• The easiest way to do research is with existing customers, although prospects are more likely to speak the truth.
• Quantitative reearch should be limited to multiple-choice questions if possible (and give four choices instead of five so respondents won't be tempted to check too many threes).
• Well done market research can prevent marketing disasters of fix problems that may be depressing your revenues.
• Business-to-business marketers may find quantitative research particularly helpful because the decision-makers responding to the survey are professionals in their field – so the results will carry more weight than data derived from consumers.