Conducting your own research

Carrying out your own study into your audience or market can help deliver the information you require to take planning further.

Research doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming, and if properly designed can deliver clear answers to some key questions and problems. It may be important to understand your audience’s attendance patterns, to identify potential barriers to attendance, or to discover problems with your customer service. Alternatively, the research may go wider than your visitors and audiences, and may look at funders’ and sponsors’ perceptions and motivations, staff capabilities and skills, or the wider public’s attitude towards your organisation.

There are various research methods available to you. This covers secondary research, looking at research and reports that have already been compiled, and primary research, including surveys, interviews, focus groups and database analysis. Each of these methods has its own purpose and advantages, and it is possible that you might need a combination to gather the information you require.

As always, Arts About Manchester is on hand to provide you with advice and support in any area of audience or market research. The following are areas in which we have considerable experience:

Surveys and questionnaires

Qualitative research

Audience profiling

Data analysis

We have developed the following useful guides to help you plan your research:

• Developing a Research Plan
  
• Preparing a Research Brief

To find out how to access these guides please email research@aam.org.uk