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 Choose Market Research Conferences
Market Research Conferences are Proliferating It used to be there were just a few major market research conferences every year. The decision about which ones to attend was pretty easy. Not anymore. Market research conferences have proliferated in a big way. Why? In a word – money. The conference business is big business. Well run, […]
How to Set Marketing Research Goals and Objectives
In a previous post, I laid out a marketing research plan. The first steps of the marketing research plan was setting goals and objectives. You might think that this is a same-old, same-old process. But it isn’t. I’m going to approach this in a different way that will get you better results. Begin with the END […]
What to Consider When Selecting Markets for Qualitative Research
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? […]
Projectable, Innovative or Simple? Pick Two
We asked some of our favorite bloggers to provide us a “lost gem” – a great article that deserved wider response than it received the first time it was published. This piece by Kathryn Korostoff was originally published April 15 on her Research Rockstar blog. “Cheap, fast or good. Pick two.” It’s a bit of dogma […]
Conjoint Analysis Myths
The use of conjoint analysis methods has increased over the years in different industries, and as Chris Chapman, from Google, indicated in his presentation at the 2013 Sawtooth Software Conference, this family of techniques has been successfully used to: Determine feature preference Predict market share Find unmet needs in product portfolios Determine likely response from […]
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 […]
All Hail the Humble Median
At the 2013 Inbound Marketing conference, Nate Silver said, “The average is still the most useful mathematical tool ever invented.” I agree that it is powerful, but I would argue that in fact it is the median that is the most useful mathematical tool ever invented. This lesson was brought home to me as I […]
An Interview with Howard Fienberg About Sugging
One of the pleasures of volunteering on the Board of the Marketing Research Association (MRA) has been the opportunity to get to know Howard better. Howard Fienberg, PLC is the director of government affairs for the MRA and champions the needs of the industry to federal and state agencies and departments. I recently had the […]
A Primer on the 4 Data Types You Can Collect in Your Market Research
Making a business research questionnaire is no big deal, but making one that successfully derives the information that is actually required by the business to improve its practices is something not every person can do. One of the things that help make an online survey more effective is the understanding of the different types of […]
Now We Have Smartphones; Shouldn’t We Try to Be Smarter about Surveys?
This is a presentation from Survey Analytics‘ President, Andrew Jeavons, from the Market Research in the Mobile World Conference in Atlanta in July 2011. (By the way, it’s pronounced JEH-vons, not JEE-vons, as Andrew explains in the video…) Andrew presented guidelines for conducting mobile surveys, and he made suggestions for adapting Net Promoter Scores (NPS) […]
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 […]
