Latest Articles
Hey there…have you heard of me?
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
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
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
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 […]
More from Research Access
“How To” Posts
Survey Fail
We’re counting down our Top 10 blog posts of 2013. Coming in at #1 is this Buzzfeed-inspired piece originally published August 10. A friendly reminder that you should always have someone else review your questionnaire. You don’t want to commit the great acts of survey fail that these survey authors did. 10. Make sure your […]
Recruit Your Own Survey Panel
Sometimes a survey panel is exactly what you need — and for that, you can use any number of panel providers such as Peanut Labs or EMI. But sometimes, a panel can be overkill and just too expensive for your project, in which case, it’s a good idea to have recruited a panel of your very own. […]
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 […]
Global Mobile: It’s Here, But Are Your Surveys Ready?
The ubiquity of mobile devices has opened up new opportunities for market researchers on a global scale. Think: biometrics, geo-location, presence sensing, etc. The emerging possibilities enabled by mobile market research are exciting and worth exploring, but we can’t ignore the impact that small screens are already having on market research. For example, unintended mobile respondents make up about […]
Determining Price: The van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter
Determining the best price for a product or service is a common marketing research question. I usually start my conversation with a client asking whether their product has all of its features set or if they also need to test a range of features other than price. If they are testing variable features in addition […]
Econometrics for Dummies
The following is an excerpt from Econometrics for Dummies. Published under license from John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Econometric techniques help you make estimates about economic relationships. For example, you can use your knowledge of economic theory to predict that having more disposable income leads to increased consumption for normal goods, but you need econometrics […]
Data Visualization Lesson 5: Ninth Grade Algebra Wasn’t Worthless After All
There are many things of which teenagers are “sure”: that they will never be like their parents; that the greatest artist of all time is (insert name of band of the moment); that pretty much any clothing is appropriate to wear in public (I’m talking to you, leggings-as-pants). Thankfully, with age comes wisdom. It would […]
Data Visualization Lesson 2: Think of Grandma
As the old composition adage goes, if it doesn’t make sense to the reader, it’s usually the author’s fault. The same applies to data visualization. Much like written or spoken communication, visuals invite the audience to extrapolate information, draw inferences, and make judgments or decisions. If a picture is indeed worth a thousand words, it […]
The ABCs of CSAT
Later this week I’ll be attending the Net Promoter Conference in San Francisco. I’m really looking covering this event for Research Access. Customer satisfaction (or CSAT) measurement is a highly specialized, but vitally important, part of the research world. Yet I think there are many researchers and marketers who aren’t terribly familiar with the ins and outs […]
MR 101: Validity and Reliability in Surveys
Confession: I don’t have formal training as a market researcher. I came to market research late in life by way of my training in information technology and computer science, and it’s something I’ve had to study – and continue to study today. And trust me: I’ve studied a lot in my life, and learning about […]
The Advantages of Cell vs. Column Comparisons in Crosstabs
Consider the following table, which shows the relationship between preference for different brands of cola and age: Which cells on this table are worth examining more closely? The first answer to this question is that we should look at any cells that relate to existing hypotheses. However, more often than not, we have no hypotheses. […]
