A Market Researcher’s Guide to Verbatim Coding

So, you’re a market researcher looking into verbatim coding as a way to find hidden insights. Clearly, you’re on the right path. Verbatim coding is an intuitive process that can allow you to visualize and interpret your qualitative data in a way that provides you with valuable information you may not have found otherwise.

Upon researching this buzzword, you’ve become confused about the differences between Content Analysis and Thematic Analysis. Fair enough – both are valuable for survey analysis and use terms such as ‘Coding’ and ‘Themes’.

This ultimate guide will introduce you to verbatim coding, break down their differences, and help you consider which one is right for you.

What is Verbatim Coding

Let’s begin with verbatims. These are market researcher jargon for open-ended survey responses. Therefore, verbatim coding is a method in market research where open-ended qualitative data is broken up into “codes” which can then be categorized further so that researchers may gain actionable insights. This further categorization frequently happens through the processes of thematic and content analysis.

Verbatims can be coded manually, or with AI

How Generative AI Has Changed Verbatim Coding

Verbatim coding hasn’t always been the same. With the rise of AI such as ChatGPT and Displayr, that can help code verbatims for us, the techniques used for it and meaning of it has changed.

Braun and Clarke’s method of Thematic Analysis is one example of manual verbatim coding – slow, tedious, susceptible to human bias, but generally very effective. In verbatim coding, accuracy and therefore EQ (Emotional Intelligence) are crucial. For this reason, the innately nuanced nature of human thought has always been what made coding verbatims a successful form of analysis amongst market researchers.

With the rise of AI, and more importantly the EQ of AI, coding has become more accessible from the perspective of human time and energy. For instance, ChatGPT can now take a block of verbatims and organize them into codes and themes. However, even the paid version of ChatGPT (GPT-4) lacks the in-depth nuance of a human. So, what does this mean for you?

It means, that when verbatim coding, of course you should use AI as a personal assistant to initially code your report. More advanced AI text analysis tools such as Displayr can do an excellent job. However, you should still be taking AI’s work with a grain of salt and reassessing it. Think of it this way – you wouldn’t send out a company-wide email written by ChatGPT without reading it first. It goes the same way with your verbatims.

How to Approach Verbatim Coding as a Market Researcher Assisted by AI

The rest of this blog covers the two main techniques used for analyzing coded verbatims: Thematic and content analysis. However, in light of the AI-induced evolution of verbatim coding, you should approach these slightly differently.

When using AI for either of these techniques, you could do well to expand the code-generating phases into the following steps. (Don’t worry, you’re not losing time because AI is saving you so much already!)

Useful steps to follow when verbatim coding with AI.

What is Thematic Analysis

The process of thematic analysis is simply, taking the themes and codes found through verbatim coding and interpreting what they showcase about the general sentiment of the text – often the opinions of multiple surveyed individuals.

In this vein, the process of verbatim coding as intended for thematic analysis can be either inductive (wherein codes and themes are found within the data) or deductive (where a pre-existing structure is used to guide coding).

This is usually a 6-phase process.

Phase 1: Familiarizing yourself with the verbatims

Phase 2: Generating codes from the verbatims

Phase 3: Sorting these into themes

Phase 4: Reviewing the themes

Phase 5: Defining the themes

Phase 6: Reporting on the thematic analysis.

In contrast to content analysis, in Phase 6 you will focus on comparing the relationship between themes and interpreting their underlying meanings, to read into the subtext of responses. Generally leading you to gain more nuanced insight.

You can click here for our step-by-step guide with examples on this method of verbatim coding in thematic analysis.

What is Content Analysis

The primary objective of content analysis is to discover patterns in data, both qualitative and quantitative. Since we are comparing these for text coding, we’ll only consider the former. This is done by taking the codes found through verbatim coding and instead plotting their frequency. For instance, so you, a market researcher, can understand how common a specific customer opinion is, and understand how it changes over time.

The process of verbatim coding to be used for content analysis is similar to that of thematic analysis – although shorter.

Phase 1: Familiarizing Yourself with the Data

Even if a researcher is using AI and/or only looking at the frequency of their codes, it’s essential they become immersed in their data to best interpret the insights it has to offer.

Phase 2: Generating Codes

This is exactly how it sounds. By one method or another, you analyze the text data into codes.

Phase 3: Plotting and Interpreting

This final phase is the most different from thematic analysis. You now consider and plot the frequency of codes. You could do this in a program such as Excel or on a more user-friendly dashboard, depending on your exact skillset and needs.

From this, you can analyze the patterns in your codes or group these codes into themes based off frequency as opposed to meaning. Ultimately leading you to transparent and consistent insights.

Should You Use Content or Thematic Analysis

Both content and thematic analysis can come to the same conclusion (Although not always). However, they each have their own pros, cons and best uses.

Benefits & Uses of Thematic Analysis

Thematic analysis is generally used for more open-ended qualitative data, such as surveys and interviews that ask about overall experience. As the frequency of a theme is not necessarily representative of its importance when analyzing data.

Benefits & Uses of Content Analysis

Content analysis can be much more reliable and consistent, not to mention quicker than thematic analysis. This can make it far easier to find insights through verbatim coding for certain data sets. For instance, when trying to track how much social media users interacted with trending phrases, you wouldn’t care the context in which they used these phrases, only the frequency of their use.

A Comparative Example

Let’s say a pair of running shoes have gained popularity due to the increased trendiness of run clubs on Tiktok. The shoe company, interested by the increase in sales, has every new customer write a review 6 weeks after purchase.

These verbatims are coded and analyzed both through content and thematic analysis.

When content analysis was used, the company noticed a high frequency in the following words:

• Aesthetic
• Comfortable
• Flat Sole
• Short lasting
• Trendy
• Uncomfortable

Confused, their market researchers re-analyzed the verbatims using thematic analysis. This time, it became evident that ‘Aesthetic”, “Trendy” and “Comfortable” were often expressed together. As were “Flat sole”, “Uncomfortable” and “Short lasting”. From this, the company interpreted that many of their positive reviews were influenced by buyers’ need to fit in with the latest Tiktok trends, and that buyers looking for a longer-lasting more staple shoe, were unhappy.

Best Tools For Verbatim Coding

You can do the verbatim coding for your thematic and content analysis manually, however this is a long and tedious process.

Chat GPT

If you remain below the dreaded character limit, once you learn how to prompt, Chat GPT can be valuable tool for quickly coding verbatims.

The more and better you prompt AI, the more it will learn to be better next time

Displayr

Displayr’s intuitive text analytics software has more sophisticated AI and NLP (Natural Language Processing). It can, in just a few clicks, perform your verbatim coding for you. Our tool can then either sort these codes further – into themes – or assist with plotting and visualizing their frequency for content analysis. Therefore, allowing you to entirely perform and interpret your verbatim coding and either thematic or content analysis all in the same app!

For instance, choose from our selection of over 100 different styles to build an aesthetic, automatically updating dashboard that visualizes your data.

Here's an example of a Displayr dashboard that's aesthetically pleasing, interactive & intuitive

Now that you’re an expert in the nuanced differences between content analysis and thematic analysis as ways to interpret coded verbatims, why not try our excellent solution for market researchers looking to do all this, in one place.

Try it free today.