When I hear the phrase do-it-yourself attached to the marketing research process, I usually cringe. Countless articles and books over the years have argued that marketers don’t need to listen to the so-called research experts and their fancy talk about response biases and sample sizes. Nor do they have to wait weeks for survey results or pay outrageous consultant fees. These sentiments have grown increasingly common with the arrival of the Internet and the advent of things like surveymonkey.com.

I don’t begrudge anyone wanting to save a little money. What I worry about most with DIY research is the broader impact of poorly-done research on respondent cooperation. There’s no doubt that plenty of rotten research is perpetrated by the experts. But my fear is that DIY researchers will over-survey their audiences and/or subject them to poorly-designed questionnaires, thereby poisoning the well for researchers of a more prudent and judicious ilk.

With that backdrop, I approached with great trepidation the reading of two of the three new books that are the focus of this month’s column. The respective subtitles of both The Snapshot Survey and Guerrilla Marketing Research raise red flags: “Quick, Affordable Marketing Research For Every Organization” and “Marketing Research Techniques That Can Help Any Business Make More Money.” But I was pleased to find that each book is well-written, well-informed and properly aware of the value of conducting quality research, even as they argue that doing so doesn’t always have to entail picking up the phone to call an outside vendor.

Part of Jay Levinson’s Guerrilla Marketing series, Robert Kaden’s book Guerrilla Marketing Research is an odd but effective hybrid. Kaden - who has his own research firm - spends the bulk of the book passing along tips and advice on how to conduct your own marketing research, giving the do-it-yourselfer a crash course in qualitative and quantitative research. Aiming primarily at readers at small- and medium-sized businesses, he covers questionnaire writing, sampling, analyzing results, statistical techniques and also includes a chapter on brainstorming.

At the same time, the early chapters function as kind of a buyer’s guide to research services for those who’d rather hire a pro, including some of the most detailed price breakdowns of qualitative research and phone studies I’ve ever seen in print. These sections have a refreshing feistiness and candor.

To my mind, the book works best not as a guide to the DIYer but as a reference for the research buyer who wants to be more knowledgeable about the research services he or she purchases. But if organizational budgets (and/or management prejudices) don’t allow for the hiring of outside suppliers, the motivated in-house researcher will find Kaden’s book a helpful and valuable resource.

Readers at small- and medium-sized businesses will also find a lot to like in The Snapshot Survey by Lloyd Corder. Rather than always mounting a large-scale survey, which could be expensive and take a long time to field and analyze, Corder argues firms can benefit from doing what he calls snapshot surveys, which entail asking a “limited sample of a target audience” 10 to 15 highly focused questions, including two or three open-ends.

He explores the methodology through applications such as analyzing competitors, generating names for products and services, and measuring satisfaction. Some of the best chapters focus on topics not often covered in research-related texts, namely conducting surveys to garner news coverage and/or publicity, using information-gathering to add impact to sales presentations, and surveys of internal audiences (employee satisfaction, compensation, etc.).

Setting aside the whole snapshot survey context, Corder’s book has a lot of solid information for any researcher on the many uses of research, from tons of specific mini-case histories to tips that will make any research process - “snapshot” or otherwise - more effective.

And readers at smaller firms or organizations will also glean a wealth of marketing information from Corder, such as guidelines for crafting an e-newsletter or improving a corporate Web site. A chapter on measuring marketing ROI is quite good, especially for B2B firms and smaller organizations that are working with limited budgets.

The third book, Don’t Get Fooled Again , also aims to educate the reader but doesn’t assume he or she is the one conducting the research. Rather, using a fictional case study format and a lighthearted tone, author Walter Zultowski dispenses basic guidelines for working with and understanding market research results in a quick 100 pages.

Sample chapter titles include “Watch Those Open Ends” and “What About the 90 Percent Who Didn’t Respond?” There are no revelations - one chapter’s aim is to remind the reader that focus group findings aren’t projectable - but all of the points he makes are worth re/learning and repeating.

Seasoned researchers won’t find much of interest here but for anyone with a research-challenged marketer to whom they must report, the book may be of help as an easy-to-read educational tool. Just make sure they aren’t allergic to groan-inducing wordplay (sample characters in the book’s numerous hypothetical examples include Hugo Phishing and Carol Nummerkruncher)!

 

Guerrilla Marketing Research (234 pages; $29.95), by Robert Kaden, is published by Kogan Page (www.koganpage.com ).

The Snapshot Survey (272 pages; $22.95), by Lloyd Corder, is published by Kaplan Publishing (www.kaplanpublishing.com ).

Don’t Get Fooled Again (100 pages; $19.95), by Walter Zultowski, is published by Integrity Graphics, Inc. (for more information call 860-673-0089).