Back in February I reviewed "State of the Art Market ing Research" by Al Blankenship and George Breen, a weighty tome written to bring readers up to date on the latest techniques used in the research field. While the book did that quite well, I felt its real strength was its practical bent. The authors dispensed advice based on real world experiences that researchers could identify with and understand.

Jeff Pope does the same thing - in fewer pages - in an updated edition of his book "Practical Marketing Research." Pope, co-founder and partner of Custom Research, Inc., Minneapolis, gives readers the benefit of his years of working with clients on all manner of research projects. As a research provider, he's no doubt been hammered by clients to keep costs down. Thus the book contains several tips on how to make your research more cost- and time-efficient. Most are of the common sense variety but good ideas can always stand repeating. Here's an example from a chapter on how to develop a data processing plan:

"There is nearly always the temptation in working up a data processing plan to want to run 'everything by everything,' to cross-tab every question by the responses to nearly every other question. The computer makes this feasible, and it often seems like a good precaution 'just in case.' This is nearly always the wrong approach. It wastes money, of course; but more important, it buries you under piles of tables that become an obstacle to thorough analysis. It's usually impossible to get an overview and understanding of the results when you're slogging through hundreds of computer tables."

After brief sections on the role of research in business and choosing an interviewing method, Pope walks through the research process step by step, dispensing suggestions on ways to cut costs, develop a questionnaire, and handle the task of coding. The best entries in this section are the chapters on writing a readable research report, estimating research costs, and picking the right kind of question.

Common pitfalls

The next section, titled "Solving Specific Marketing Problems," includes of overviews of many types of research, from ad research and package testing to international research. Each of these chapters is brief and to the point, summarizing the most popular methods used and the kinds of information researchers can expect to obtain from them. Pope frequently adds helpful advice on avoiding common pitfalls in the various research areas. The book closes with some equally helpful chapters, including "Ten Tips on Being a Savvy Research Client" and "How to Work with a Research Company."

These and other chapters offer researchers a nice side benefit because they may serve as good primers for people you work with who aren't familiar with how, for example, ad research is done. Pope explains things with very little jargon, so non-researchers can understand what he's talking about. If you need to justify the decision to use or not to use a technique or to explain to management what ROD and CATI are, "Practical Marketing Research" will come in handy.

Competitive intelligence

This month's second book is about research of a different kind, albeit one that some market researchers know very well: competitive intelligence. "Analyzing Your Competition" is published by FIND/SVP, a New York consulting and research firm that specializes in information research.

Part of almost any research project is finding out what your competition is doing and measuring the opinions of its customers - especially if they also happen to be your customers. That's where competitive intelligence (CI) comes in. In conjunction with marketing research, a comprehensive CI effort can tell you a great deal about the other players in your industry. As author Tim Powell states in the preface: "...95 percent of competitive business information comes from publicly available sources. The companies who really excel at CI are not the ones with secret CI techniques, or even those who practice corporate espionage. The companies who are most successful at CI are those who are able to use this information to see trends and anticipate future moves and who are able to act on this information. Integrating CI findings into the decision-making fabric of the organization is key for success."

Many sources

While there are firms, such as FIND/SVP, that will do the searching for you, if you have access to a good library, you have access to many sources of CI. The bulk of "Analyzing Your Competition" is made up of listings of these sources and of the names, addresses and phone numbers of hundreds of other information sources you can write or call, from the State of Texas Patent Depository to the Office of Thrift Supervision.

The book's nearly 300 pages are divided into chapters and subsections focusing on information types (e.g., securities information, products, management, advertising and promotion) and various private, federal, state and international sources. Fortunately, Powell gives some guidance, both in introductory chapters and throughout the book, on how to use the information once you get your hands on it.

"Practical Marketing Research" ($32.95, hardcover, 314 pages), by Jeffrey L. Pope, is published by AMACOM Books, New York (800-538-4761).

"Analyzing Your Competition" ($95, hardcover, 293 pages) by Tim Powell, is published by FIND/SVP (212-645-4500).