Posts Tagged ‘insight’
Thursday, March 24th, 2011
One of the most powerful pieces of advice our clients sometimes hear is to stop researching and start marketing. In fact, a client told us yesterday that our presentation of findings last year was good, useful, impressive . . . all that. But it was when we said, “Stop worrying about the next level of precision and rigor that you could get with this data if you had more money and time to invest. These data are strong. They’re based on sound methods. We have good answers to your questions. Go put it to use.” They did, and their business is blossoming.
It’s an oddly common situation we find ourselves in these days: advising our client against more research. For advocates of information and fact-based strategies (including us), the increasingly central role for market research is gratifying. But too many surveys and research-for-research’s-sake can’t sustain itself, nor should it. Market research only matters if it is acted upon and used in smart and strategic ways.
How do you know if, instead of research, you should focus on a full-force marketing effort or at least a better strategic plan before launching research? Here are three situations we typically see: (more…)
Tags: insight, Market Research, satisfaction research, stories
Posted in Market Research, Turning Data into Stories, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 16th, 2011
After spending $65 million and previewing the show over sixty times since the end of last year, the producers of the new Spider-Man musical in New York are turning to focus groups and surveys in hopes that market research can do something…anything…to save the amazing Spider-Man from destruction.
Last week, theater critics roundly panned the show, calling it among the worst Broadway shows ever. The New York Times described is as “so grievously broken in every respect that it is beyond repair.” But days after these negative reviews, a market research firm was brought in, soliciting volunteers to help fix the show: (more…)
Tags: concept testing, Focus Groups, insight, Market Research, media, qualitative research., survey
Posted in Focus Groups, Market Research, New Products and Innovation, Survey Design, Survey Tips | No Comments »
Saturday, January 22nd, 2011
Unless your company has a department dedicated to it, market research can be a hard sell because higher level executives may not believe in the value of research. At Versta, we have a certain sympathy with these executives. In our view, market research in and of itself has little value; it is the outcomes of research—the answers to questions—that can have value.
It is important to distinguish the two because unfortunately there is plenty of research not designed to answer important questions. Research is frequently done because someone has a nagging feeling that they need more information to make better decisions or because doing research is considered a “best practice.” Such research generates lots of data that marketing managers wonder what to do with. Not surprisingly, they and their bosses start to question the value of research.
Our advice is to do market research only after formulating specific questions and information needs and only after you have a clear idea (in writing) of what you will do with the answers to those questions. We have produced a whitepaper entitled The Art of Asking Questions (you can download it by clicking on the image) that outlines a useful process to help you formulate those questions.
The Art of Asking Questions: A White Paper from Versta Research
The key is to articulate five types of questions, including: (more…)
Tags: insight, Market Research, research, Survey Design, value
Posted in Market Research, Presenting Research, Survey Design | No Comments »
Thursday, November 18th, 2010
A pet-peeve of mine is that many (way too many) market research professionals talk about “actionable insights” and I almost never know what they are talking about. I suspect most of them don’t either. The more our clients complain that research reports are sitting on shelves collecting dust, the louder every research firm starts proclaiming that it delivers actionable insights. Some even claim to have tools that, with the click of a button, deliver actionable insights right to your desktop.
Besides the ugliness of taking a verb (to act) and turning it into a noun (action) and then forcing that into an adjective (actionable), “actionable insight” just doesn’t mean much in our industry. Now we have clients with reports full of “actionable insights” collecting dust on their shelves.
In our view, the problem is that few research professionals make an explicit link in the design phase of their research between the data that will be generated, and the specific decisions that need to be made. If that link is not specified, then even if the report is rich, detailed, and full of insight, chances are it will not be used. And if it is not used, it probably was not “actionable” to begin with. (more…)
Tags: data, insight, research, research design, satisfaction research, Survey Design
Posted in Data Analysis & Analytics, Future Trends, Market Research, Survey Design, Turning Data into Stories | No Comments »
Friday, July 23rd, 2010
Early this month, David Blackwell, a prominent statistician and mathematician died at the age of 91. For many he is well known because he was the first African American to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences. For others, he is well known because he wrote an important and early book about Bayesian statistics, a type of statistics that is becoming central to market research.
For those of us at Versta Research, he is well known for his focus on understanding versus research:
“Basically, I’m not interested in doing research and I never have been,” he said. “I’m interested in understanding, which is quite a different thing. And often to understand something you have to work it out yourself because no one else has done it.” (From an interview cited in the New York Times) (more…)
Tags: insight, Market Research, research, statistics
Posted in Market Research, Methods & Tools, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Friday, May 28th, 2010
We saw an ad today for a downloadable survey app similar to Survey Monkey or Zoomerang that was pitched as a tool for actionable insights. Wow! Download, install, run . . . click again, and there they are, sitting on your desktop or smart phone: actionable insights. (more…)
Tags: Data Collection, insight, Market Research, survey, survey technology, tools
Posted in Data Collection, Methods & Tools, Turning Data into Stories | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010
Today, an industry colleague (another owner of a market research firm) said to me, “We all lust after those big tracking studies.” For most market research firms, tracking studies are attractive because they involve big samples, multiple ongoing deliverables, and multi-year commitments, all of which means predictable, ongoing (and usually substantial) revenue.
At Versta Research, we lust after them for a different reason: they are the true test of whether our key personnel can really add value and insight to the work that we do. How do you take something routine and predictable, and turn it into an effort that delivers an “Aha” every week? Here’s how we do it: (more…)
Tags: insight, tracking studies, value
Posted in Market Research, Turning Data into Stories | No Comments »
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010
A colleague in market research once complained to me that he felt bored and unchallenged by all the client satisfaction and loyalty research he was doing, claiming he had mastered it to the point that he could do satisfaction and loyalty research in his sleep. I was struck because I could not think of any market research that I found boring or unchallenging, and certainly none that I could do in my sleep. On the contrary, my experience is that doing great research requires intellectual work and waking thoughtfulness no matter how many times it is done and for how many clients. (more…)
Tags: insight, Market Research, satisfaction research, tracking studies
Posted in Market Research, Methods & Tools, Turning Data into Stories | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
When multiple surveys about the same topic give different results, consider yourself lucky. It provides an opportunity to dissect and understand the question you are trying to answer in a way you might not get otherwise. A recent New York Times article provides a nice example when it comes to polls about health care. (more…)
Tags: insight, survey, Survey Design
Posted in Survey Design, Turning Data into Stories | No Comments »
Tuesday, 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 »