March 4th, 2010
Nearly every survey begins with screening questions to ensure that only the people you are trying to reach are included in the survey. For example, if you are conducting a survey of women, you need to ask about gender and kick out the men. And because every question costs money, you want to qualify respondents quickly and terminate those who do not belong.
Here is a helpful hint: Do not actually terminate respondents until after you have asked all screening questions. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Data Collection, demographics, Survey Design, survey respondents
Posted in Data Collection, Market Research, Methods & Tools, Survey Design, Survey Tips | No Comments »
February 25th, 2010
Telephone surveys are still considered the gold standard for rigorous public opinion polling and market research. The reason is that virtually every household in the U.S. can be reached by telephone, and therefore we have careful methods of determining the probability that any individual person is included in a sample to be surveyed. Knowing this probability is at the core of statistical inference, which makes mathematical purists very happy.
Here are the steps involved in conducting a rigorous “gold standard” telephone survey of the U.S. population: Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Data Collection, Internet, Market Research, population, public opinion, Public Polls, Sampling
Posted in Data Collection, Future Trends, Market Research, Methods & Tools, Public Polls, Sampling | No Comments »
February 24th, 2010
One problem with new survey technologies that make it easy (and inexpensive) to design and field surveys is that we now have an explosion of poorly done and ill-intentioned surveys. Have you ever suspected that a survey isn’t quite legit?
Keeping your survey efforts honest is critical. Sincere efforts to document issues through rigorous surveys succeed, and when done correctly, people are influenced by numbers. But trying to shock or manipulate with sensationalist, biased, and phony data gets you only so far. For a great survey, keep it honest, rigorous, and valid, and carefully control for bias. We, at Versta, can help you succeed with this.
-Joe Hopper, Ph.D.
Tags: bias, survey, trust
Posted in Funnies, Presenting Research | No Comments »
February 18th, 2010
An article in the most recent issue of the Harvard Business Review (“Rethinking Marketing”) argues that marketing is shifting from being product-centric to being customer-centric. The old method was to develop a portfolio of products, build a team around each product, find the customers who need that product and market it to them. The emerging method is to build teams around customer relationships, continually learn about what those customers need, then design and deliver solutions to them.
Not only will this shift from product marketing to customer marketing enhance the ability of businesses to deliver value to their customers and shareholders, but it will likely help market researchers bring higher levels of value to the work they do for their clients. Why? Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: brand equity, brand tracking, Market Research, product marketing, research, social science, Survey Design
Posted in Future Trends, Market Research, New Products and Innovation | No Comments »
February 11th, 2010
Getting your research findings heard, understood, and used should always be your goal. That means more than putting findings into a report deck, presenting results to the marketing team, writing up press releases, or getting media placement for a PR story. It means having your audience engage with it by thinking, sharing, and taking action.
What do we know about the kinds of stories and research reports that can achieve this? A recent study reported in The New York Times provides some clues. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: communication, Market Research, media, news, research, stories
Posted in Market Research, Presenting Research, Public Relations, Turning Data into Stories | No Comments »
February 5th, 2010
A research article the Winter 2009 issue of Public Opinion Quarterly provided some useful comparisons of data quality between phone surveys and various types of online surveys. The findings are based on an experiment that fielded identical questionnaires via three survey modes, and, not surprisingly, there are strengths and weaknesses to each type of survey.
Phone vs. Online Surveys: Strengths & Weaknesses
As reflected in the table above, the article is rather technical. But there are two key summary points worth learning from the study: Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: bias, data quality, Internet, Online Surveys, phone surveys, population, Sampling, survey, survey respondents
Posted in Data Collection, Methods & Tools, Online Surveys, Sampling | No Comments »
January 29th, 2010
Data visualization will likely be one the biggest areas of innovation and development over the next several years. This is a good. A chart that clearly and succinctly displays detailed data in a way that captures the viewer’s attention and helps interpret the data can be incredibly powerful. Edward Tufte, a pioneer in this area, has been making that case for years. Of course a lot of Tufte’s examples have required sophisticated graphics and professional designers, which have put the “ideal” out of reach for most.
As fancy charts and graphics become more accessible to everyday users, we think it is critical to revisit the basics of charts. Many charts, even easy ones, are poorly conceptualized and poorly executed, which is even worse than showing your manager no chart at all. It is critical to understand what kinds of charts best display different types of data and highlight specific kinds of relationships you are trying to show. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: charts, communication, data, visualizing data
Posted in Charts and Data Visualization, Methods & Tools, Presenting Research, Turning Data into Stories | No Comments »
January 26th, 2010
It hurts, but when your customers hate you, you should be listening all the more carefully:
You need to find out the who, what, where, when, and why they hate you. Probe deeply with focus groups, in-depth interviews, social media monitoring, and survey research. Rigorous research done right (our specialty) will give you valuable insight. And if it is communicated expertly to management (our specialty) you can probably fix the problems. Then, the next time you listen to your customers, you won’t need to duck and cover.
-Joe Hopper, Ph.D.
Tags: communication, customer satisfaction, Focus Groups, insight, qualitative research., satisfaction research
Posted in Focus Groups, Funnies | No Comments »
January 25th, 2010
Omnibus surveys evolved as a way to share costs by combining survey questions from multiple clients. Because the biggest cost in conducting a survey is getting it set up and then finding a statistically representative sample of respondents to answer the questions, for some surveys it makes sense to pool resources and conduct a larger, shared survey.
But new technologies have made data collection more efficient and less expensive, so omnibus surveys are not always the best option. For many clients, a fully customized survey might be less expensive than an omnibus survey. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: omnibus
Posted in Data Collection, Methods & Tools, Omnibus Surveys | No Comments »
January 20th, 2010
Years ago I watched a film that documented how a new product developed. The idea was to create a pre-packaged sandwich for quick and easy lunches. As the idea made its way to the final product launch, it became something entirely different: a round tubular pretzel with a soft gooey interior – now a snack food instead of lunch. What happened? The existing machinery could not extrude and package a workable sandwich, so in effect, the machine forced them to create a “new product” rather similar (but with a new twist) to all the other products it was creating. So much for the sandwich.
Something like this happens in the market research industry. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: benchmarking, concept testing, Market Research, new product development, product innovation
Posted in Market Research, New Products and Innovation | No Comments »
