Qual and quant research with London renters

We were excited to receive a brief from our client, a developer of co-living spaces, who were looking to gauge the opinions of Londoners on their latest development plans in an up-and-coming borough of London. We’ve successfully delivered focus groups on participants’ experiences renting in London previously. It is a topic that often uncovers strong opinions in a group setting.

The core aim of the research was to evaluate materials on a new type of shared accommodation, and how much our client’s planned development resonated with various segments. They wished to approach the topic using a variety of methods, to obtain as much comparable data as possible. Their aim was to hold focus groups in London including people of various ages, with a variety of different economic backgrounds, living situations and marital status. We were also asked to include students, the client’s current target demographic, to compare their engagement with the proposed materials to that of potential new audiences for our client.

Our client had minimal experience conducting research at this scale, so required a consultative approach from the FieldworkHub team to put together an appropriate timeline. We recommended running types of research, six in-person focus groups, each containing a mix of participant segments (such as digital nomads, keyworkers and graduates), and an online survey with 500 people who were renting and open to renting, with at least 25% of the sample already living in London.

We recruited participants that met our client’s brief, and arranged for the in-person focus group sessions to take place in a central London location so client representatives could observe. Our client commented on how engaged our recruits were when reviewing the facilities, price points, and what they liked and disliked about the proposal. When our client mentioned in passing that they would miss a scheduled focus group they wished to observe, our team arranged for the session to be recorded, so that none of the valuable insights would be missed.

We programmed the a 40-question quantitative survey in-house, integrating multiple question types (e.g., Likert scale, ranking questions, open-ended questions) and delivered the results of the survey as raw data. Alongside this, we delivered a full report, including charts that compared the results of the qualitative sessions with the quantitative surveys, verbatim quotes from participants, and recommendations for our client’s marketing strategy based on feedback from their target audience, about who would be the best targets for the proposed development. We received feedback that they were very pleased with the final outcome, and surprised at some learnings, which greatly assisted them in refining their final marketing strategy.