Merging market research data streams
By Greg Timpany
As a trend watcher in the IT space, I have noticed a consistent drumbeat over the last few years. CIOs and their interest in analytics and business intelligence have been consistent if not increasing. This makes perfect sense as companies realize they need to leverage both internal and external data sources to better compete in […]
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Hey there…have you heard of me?
By Greg Timpany
In consumer and B2B market research circles we are often asked to assess market awareness and/or familiarity with brands, products and spokespeople or causes. These two related, but separate constructs, represent the first steps on the pathway from prospect to customer. Awareness should be measured in two ways – unaided and aided. Unaided awareness is […]
Census Regions – What it means for Hispanic Sample

Census regions are probably the last thing you think about when procuring Hispanic sample. Language, acculturation, and country of origin are likely at the top of your list. However, census regions are linked to all of the above. The Hispanic population distribution in the U.S. is considerably different than the rest of the population. For […]
Sampling and Other Considerations for Mobile Research
By Greg Timpany
In a prior post I highlighted an interesting statistic – for any given project market researchers can now expect up to 40% response on smartphones. This percentage will continue to increase. The question then becomes one of what do we know about mobile responders and can this be applied to our sampling plans? First and […]
Three keys for designing effective mobile surveys
By Greg Timpany

At the recent MRA Corporate Researchers Conference the training organization Research Rockstar presented a course on designing device agnostic surveys. The trend is clear that more and more surveys are being taken on smartphones and tablets. Desktop computers still account for the majority of responses, but for any given project market researchers can now expect […]
Top 2 Box Score – Avoid the Pitfall
By Greg Timpany
Recently when giving my desk a much needed cleaning I came across an article by Jerry Thomas with the firm Decision Analyst. His whitepaper focused on the use of the top two box score as a measure for conveying scores to survey scales. The top box score is the sum of percentages for the top […]
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“How To” Posts

Digital Qual Activities that Explore ‘Brand’ as a Relationship
By Steve August
Prophet’s David Aaker, who has dedicated his career to understanding the phenomenon of brands, stated, “Brand is typically the most important driver of customer purchase in both B2C and B2B.” Going with Aaker’s argument, it follows that the first step at assessing brand as a driver of purchase is to come to an agreement on what […]

10 Tips for Optimizing Market Research within Your Organization
By Chris Holt
Now more than ever, with many companies decentralizing marketing research, sharing information and insights is crucial to getting the best return on your marketing research investments. I have worked with numerous organizations that live by the value of their market insights, and there are commonalities in how they encourage a consumer focus throughout their companies. […]

How to Do Proper Strategic Planning With Market Research
By Chris Holt
Are you looking to improve your business runs on a day-to-day basis? Then it may be time for you to focus on strategic planning with market research. Identifying how and by whom strategic decisions are made, what information is used to inform those decisions, and how to better use the data you have on your […]

Use Data Imputation When Modularizing Mobile Surveys
By Chris Neal
The Problem The market research industry is at a crossroads as client demands push survey length longer while respondents increasingly take survey from smartphones (see Brian Jones’ previous blog on mobile market research trends and best practices). Many advanced analytical techniques require ~15-25 minutes (or more) worth of questioning to function, but many smartphone survey […]

Kano Surveys Explained
By Tim O'Connor
Looking for a way to identify must haves, delighters and don’t need to do requirements – and are Likert scales just not doing it for you? Try a Kano survey. There is a scene in the movie Fiddler on the Roof, when the Rabbi is asked who’s right about an argument between two villagers. One […]

Customer Journey Mapping and How to Keep Customers on the Purchase Path
How the Customer’s Path to Purchase Has Become More of a Winding Road For years now, the customer journey has been discussed via the model of a funnel, through which customers would travel through various stages (awareness, consideration, evaluation, and purchase, generally). Using a funnel model meant that marketers accepted that customers traveled in a […]

QR Code-Enabled Mobile Surveys: An Example
[Editor’s Note: this post was originally published on the Survey Analytics Blog.] My friend Scott Liang from Parametric keeps telling me – the quicker you collect feedback from the Point-of-Transaction, the better the recall and quality is. While I have absolutely no way of […]

Is the Ideal Survey Length 20 Minutes?
We’re counting down our Top 10 blog posts of 2013. Coming in at #8 is this webinar recap originally published August 8. As part of the CASRO webinar series, Inna Burdein, Ph.D., director of panel analytics with the NPD Group, discussed her research into survey length and effort. The session moderator – John Bremer, the […]

How to Write a Market Research Plan
By Ivana Taylor
In the past, we BUDGETED for market research. This usually included our annual customer satisfaction survey and then we simply looked at our marketing plan an set aside a budget for the new product research we were going to do in the next year. These days things are a little different. I find myself recommending […]

5 Critical Success Factors When Offshoring Market Research
As project timelines and budgets shrink, outsourcing some research operations to lower cost providers becomes more and more attractive. I experienced this first hand a few years ago as I developed a relationship with Annik in India. What I learned from that experience is that creating a successful outsourcing relationship takes time, as there can […]

What to Consider When Selecting Markets for Qualitative Research
By Ron Sellers
Originally published in Alert!, the magazine of the Marketing Research Association. Pittsburgh or Portland? Los Angeles or Las Vegas? San Antonio or San Diego? Where should you hold your next focus groups? If you’re a local car dealer in Omaha, the answer is pretty obvious. But what if you’re doing research for a national organization? […]