Researching possibilities in marketing

Contrasts prospecting research with in-depth qualitative research and statistical survey research. Presents a simple model – in mathematical terms, and as a numerical table – to relate the size of a sample to its power in terms of exploring the diversity of possibilities in a market. One implication of this model is that effective prospecting samples tend to be larger than those that are often taken for qualitative research: smaller samples may be surprisingly likely to exclude important possibilities and underestimate the degree of diversity in a population. By implication, qualitative researchers will often benefit from an initial prospecting survey of the market in which they are conducting in-depth research.