For a business owner interested in finding out what is customer base is thinking, the magic number is 384.
384?
That is the number of responses needed to accurately predict the behavior of populations of 100,000 or more people. It is the cornerstone of survey analysis – a key component of good market research.
Many business owners mistakenly think survey analysis is either too hard to conduct properly or simply too expensive.
The truth is, neither view is correct. However it isn’t as simple as picking up the phone and dialing 400 people.
The first question for a business owner is whether they really need a scientific survey. There are other ways to gather market research, such as a focus group or content analysis, but these methods do not necessarily provide an accurate view of the general population.