ABSTRACT

The basic techniques for research are postal questionnaires, telephone interviews, and personal interviews of the question and answer type, personal interviews using depth techniques, personal interviews in groups using depth techniques, and observation. There are three types of questions which can be asked they are Dichotomous questions, multiple choice questions, and 'open-end' questions. In terms of cost, the telephone interviewing technique falls between the simple question-and-answer personal interview and the postal questionnaire. The non-technical interviewer can maintain a detachment and objectivity that frequently escapes the technical interviewer. The use of unstructured interview techniques inevitably brings the researcher into that section of research which involves the use of motivation research techniques. The use of motivation research techniques in industrial marketing is a very recent development in both Britain and America. Experimentation in marketing research has been applied largely in the consumer field and here it is mostly confined to 'test marketing'.