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
How to Use Polls as Part of Your Market Research Plan
Polls are an outstanding way to collect feedback and engage with your audience. Polls have become more popular for two specific attributes: first — they don’t take much time. You can read a poll and answer a poll in less than 10 seconds and that increases response rates. The second reason is that polls often […]
How Not to Get Market Research Clients
I’ve worked in many roles in market research, but never as an in-house market researcher in a corporation. I’ve always felt bad for them in that I know they get a constant stream of suitors among would-be market research suppliers. In particular, at conferences as it appears they’re being accosted left and right by hungry supply-side […]
3 Phases of Collaboration Throughout the Innovation Lifecycle
When companies or individuals consider crowdsourcing as a component of ongoing innovation for their organization, they often think that their network is only involved in the initial phase: ideation or idea gathering. This phase of crowdsourcing is often referred to as open innovation. And although numerous innovation software solutions provide this base level of functionality, […]
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 […]
Use Multiple Text Boxes for More Productive Respondents
A perennial problem with open-ended survey questions is that respondents are lazy. It takes time and effort to think of good answers. And if the survey is self-administered online or on paper, it takes time and effort to write them out. But there are several things a savvy researcher can do. One of them is […]
Think Beyond iPad for Tablet Surveys
Researchers, when you read about companies equipping their employees with iPads, I know you’re dreaming about beautiful, feature-rich, touch-based surveys for the B2B market. In fact, this type of tablet-based survey is already being done today by the likes of SurveyPocket and others. You need to start thinking beyond just the iPad, though. The corporate […]
How to Write a Market Research Plan
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 […]
How to Collect Competitive Intelligence
At last week’s Insights & Strategies Conference of the Marketing Research Association, Sean Campbell of Cascade Insights discussed competitive intelligence in the age of search engines. Cascade Insights provides competitive research and market intelligence to B2B hardware, software, and high-tech services companies. Too often, companies obsess about their own customers. This blinds them to potential […]
Excerpts from David F. Harris’s New Book
Portions of the following are excerpted from, The Complete Guide to Writing Questionnaires: How to Get Better Information for Better Decisions, by David F. Harris. The Framework for Writing Questionnaires My purpose in writing this book is to provide a user-friendly, comprehensive guide for planning and writing questionnaires. This book offers a framework for writing […]
Asking Questions When You Should Know the Answers
One of the best ways to have respondents (e.g., customers, students, employees, members or others whose feedback you need) ignore and delete your surveys is asking questions for which you should already know the answers. Here are excerpts from a survey a friend received some months ago (with her approximate thoughts noted): “Dear Alumna/Alumnus:”… Gee, that’s […]
Use Data Imputation When Modularizing Mobile Surveys
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 […]
