This past week the American Marketing Association in Chicago held its 2011 annual BrandSmart conference, bringing together top-level marketers from companies such as Groupon, Motorola, Allscripts, Cars.com, Deloitte, Coldwell Banker, Accenture, Hospira, Walgreens, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Grainger, Morningstar, and many others, all of whom shared the newest strategies and case studies for brand building and successful marketing. (more…)
Archive for the ‘Market Research’ Category
Fifteen Basics of “Brand Smart” Research
Saturday, June 25th, 2011Entrepreneurial Advice: Rethink Your Research
Thursday, June 16th, 2011Executives who lead entrepreneurial firms have dramatically different attitudes about market research from their counterparts at larger established firms, according to a recent study from Saras Sarasvathy, an associate professor of business administration at the University of Virginia.
The study suggests that entrepreneurs are more focused on immediate and practical questions that will help them get their products into the hands of customers, and that traditional market research may not be the best way to get the right data and answers. That makes sense.
But according to an article in the February issue of Inc. magazine, “when asked what kind of market research they would conduct for [a] hypothetical start-up, most of Sarasvathy’s subjects responded with variations on the following: (more…)
An Interactive Graph for Choosing Sample Size
Thursday, June 9th, 2011A good chart is the best way to understand the law of diminishing returns when it comes to sample size. So for our June 2011 newsletter we built an interactive graph for choosing sample size. It’s cool, educational, and useful. Moreover, it will show you just how mind boggling the numbers behind sampling can be. It may even give you more sympathy for the majority of people who just don’t “get it” or believe it when it comes to statistical sampling.
Avoiding the Pitfalls of Nutty Net Promoter Scores
Thursday, June 2nd, 2011We have always been big fans of the Net Promoter Score (NPS) metric because it has convinced many firms to begin using customer satisfaction measurement scales that work better and that are tied to what people do rather than what people think. Eleven point scales (with points zero to ten) allow for optimal variation. They are intuitive and appealing: people quickly grasp the idea of rating something on a zero to ten scale, and are familiar with the idea from grade school. They also have a neutral mid-point, which is important for many customer satisfaction and loyalty studies.
But NPS questions do not make sense in many situations. Here’s one we saw last week—it’s a survey sent by Amazon to sellers who call regarding complicated issues with how their products are being displayed on the website or how payments are being transferred:
A Poor Use of the Net Promoter Question
Lessons from Dilbert on the Perils of Research
Saturday, May 21st, 2011We like this cartoon because it highlights the unrealized potential of really smart research, but also the potential perils of research gone bad.
The cartoon brings to mind three lessons worth pondering:
- Customer satisfaction research is often “not fun”—but it can be
- Internal data can be a goldmine of insight and there is often a lot of it lying around
- Ethical considerations dictate that just because research can be done does not mean it should be done (more…)
Don’t Be the ‘Me’ Generation with Your Surveys
Wednesday, May 4th, 2011One reason that some people dislike surveys (okay, I may be projecting) is that too many surveys have the Me Generation attitude:
Enough about you, the customer, and what you need. What about ME? Do you like me? How much do you like me? Would you recommend me to your friend? Please let me know, because we need to track our satisfaction scores. It helps us build our metrics and our dashboards. And if you like me enough, I get a big bonus. Hurray for me!
Who are your customer satisfaction surveys really about?
The Myth of Too Many Choices
Thursday, April 21st, 2011Ever since the well-publicized “jam” experiments published ten years ago, product managers have been cautious about assuming that more choices generate higher sales. The investigators of the research found that more consumers purchased a jar of jam if the sampling table offered six varieties instead of 24. And there has been a healthy literature and many new experiments since that time exploring what has come to be known as “the paradox of choice.”
How Many Choices Are Too Many?
But there have been a number of studies and a good deal of retail research documenting the opposite as well. Indeed, it makes sense to think that offering more choice will maximize the chance of meeting individual consumers’ needs.
A recent article published in the Journal of Consumer Research suggests that idea of choice overload may be overblown. The authors analyzed results from fifty published and unpublished experiments on the topic. They concluded: (more…)
Reasons to Avoid Grid-Format Questions
Saturday, April 16th, 2011Among the many sources of potential error that can affect surveys are respondents themselves. They sometimes misinterpret questions, respond in socially acceptable ways, or give “easy” answers in hopes that a more interesting question is just around the corner.
This is not to say they are bad or fraudulent respondents. Research shows that the vast majority of survey respondents are careful, thoughtful, and truthful in how they answer survey questions. The problem with respondent error, it turns out, is poor survey design, which may involve biased or ambiguous questions, tasks that are too complicated or boring, surveys that are too long, and so on.
Recent research shows that grid-style questions that look like this:
or this: (more…)
What People Think of Surveys
Wednesday, March 30th, 2011One resource that we give far too little thought in market research are the people who offer their time and thoughts about the stuff we are researching. They are truly the lifeblood of market research.
An article in the spring 2011 issue of Public Opinion Quarterly looks at trends over the last thirty years in Americans’ view of polling and market research surveys. The news is mixed. While the vast majority feel that public opinion polling is generally a good thing, fewer feel that market research surveys serve a useful purpose, and trust in the industry is not so great. The most worrisome news (but not surprising, given the number of truly bad surveys flooding our lives nowadays) is the steady decline in people saying that participating in research is interesting and in their best interest:
Declining Satisfaction with Surveys
In addition to the chart above, key statistics outlined in the article include: (more…)