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Glossary

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Prefix Definition

The first three digits of a phone number. Also known as an exchange. It represents the town, community or neighborhood in which a telephone number is located.

In marketing research, a prefix typically refers to a series of digits at the beginning of a telephone number used to identify a geographic area or calling region. It can also refer to standardized codes or identifiers at the start of data entries used for classification and tracking purposes in large datasets.

What are key aspects of a prefix in marketing research?

• Used in telephone surveys to identify geographic regions.
• Helps segment and target respondents by location.
• Acts as a data sorting or classification tool.
• May vary by country, state or city in telecommunications.
• Can be applied to codes in databases for grouping variables

Why are prefixes important in market research?

Prefixes help researchers manage large datasets more efficiently and ensure proper regional targeting in telephone-based studies. They also aid in organizing responses, detecting regional patterns and reducing data processing errors.

Who relies on prefixes in marketing research?

• Call center teams conducting telephone interviews.
• Survey programmers creating logic based on location.
• Data analysts cleaning or sorting datasets.
• Field managers assigning sample by region.
• Market segmentation teams using geo-tagged data.

How do market researchers use prefixes?

Market researchers use prefixes primarily in telephone-based research to identify and target respondents by region. For example, area code prefixes can guide sample design, ensuring balanced geographic representation. Prefixes also help organize and classify large volumes of data, such as assigning a set of codes to track product categories or respondent groups. During data processing and analysis, these prefixes streamline sorting, filtering and regional comparisons, making them essential tools for both fieldwork operations and post-survey analytics.