“Jennifer Dale at InsideHeads is a top notch professional who has a great online focus group software application.”
Great Online Focus Group Software
Author: InsideHeads
Best Online Focus Group Tools
“Check with Jennifer Dale at InsideHeads for the best online focus group tools that provide quality insights quickly and cost-effectively. We’ve used her for several online focus group projects over the last year. Her online platform is very easy to use, and she’s a terrific moderator.”
Online Focus Groups Since 1998
“Jennifer Dale has been conducting online focus groups since 1998. She has done it all — recruitment, moderating, reports, etc. She has vast knowledge and experience. Taking that experience, she developed her own focus group technology (VFF), automating many of the functions that she used to do by hand. The VFF has great features, including easy access to de-identified screener data, a “back room” where clients can observe and send messages during the group, pre-loading of all exhibits and URLs for ease of showing them to participants, the ability to display the responses on a full screen, and an instant transcript. Her reports show her analytical skills. Also, she rents the VFF to other moderators, and provides them with step-by-step tools to help them recruit, manage and distribute incentives to participants. I recommend her highly.”
5 Business Trends to Watch
Originally published June 19, 2015
Business behavior can be very telling. InsideHeads identified these 5 business trends to watch that will affect market research.
1. Crowdsourcing
If it’s not clear yet, social media is here to stay. The human desire to socialize and engage with others online gives savvy businesses the chance to collect feedback that is immediate, trusted, and free. Lengthy questionnaires have given way to quick polls, as attention spans of respondents wither down to seconds. Gone with consumer attention is the long term strategic planning that traditionally accompanies good marketing research. With the immediate feedback mechanism of today’s social media, businesses can (and do) post questions and problems to receive rich, real-time results. Smart brands looking towards the future are designing their virtual space with an eye on conducting more marketing research via social media.
2. BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)
Choice is everywhere these days and showing no signs of going away. Each of us uses a device (or multiple devices) that best meets our needs. As the lines between personal and business hours blur, businesses are realizing the advantages, and challenges (e.g., security), of implementing BYOD in the workplace. Present obstacles aside, solutions are on the horizon. Because BYOD is not a trend, today it’s a right. Successful businesses will accommodate choice and offer customized solutions across all of their marketing. Lenovo’s recent decision to issue logo options for multimedia marketing is just one example of a business bending their approach to fit the mobile world. We expect to see a lot more accommodating.
3. Access Ubiquity
Access ubiquity refers to having global, high-speed broadband available to all. Just a few years ago this would have felt like a pipe dream (pun intended), but today it’s not only feasible, it’s happening. As smartphone usage continues to rise around the globe, access ubiquity is the best thing to happen to market researchers since the pencil. Researchers who are keen to know what online research tools are available and when to use them will be well poised for future success.
4. Loyalty Metrics
Marketers today are finding the ROI of existing customers is far less than acquiring new ones. Loyalty rewards build organic (read: cheap) word-of-mouth, as customers eagerly share their joy with others online. The strategies of Walgreens and JCPenney seem right on target for future success, as we anticipate the demand for assessing the effectiveness and user experience (UX) of reward programs to rise.
5. Goodbye Voicemail
Big companies like JP Morgan Chase and Coke have taken voicemail out of their communication mix. While businesses may be driving this boat, it is in direct response to a changing culture. We may not fully understand all our aversions to leaving a voice message, it’s clear text messaging and email are tangible, trackable, and preferred. If your stock portfolio happens to be heavy in automated telemarketing, you may want to give those investments a second thought. Do not leave a message at the beep.
Mobile Internet Access on the Move
(Originally posted June 2015)
Today’s consumer is choosing to travel light and keep their access devices within arms reach at all times. According to the Pew Research Center, approximately 2/3 of US adults use their mobile phones to access the internet and one in three (34%) go online mostly using their cell phones. This statistic is even higher among Millennial, Hispanic and African American population segments. Mobile internet access is on the move.
While businesses may be hanging on to their computer infrastructure, consumers have clearly settled into their communication comfort zone. At quitting time, even business folks who are wired to their walls at work are grabbing their mobile devices and heading out the door.
Unless (until?) a better option comes along, people are opting to travel light and keep their devices close at hand. For a growing many, mobile-ready with full featured apps are eliminating the need for a desktop computer. It’s no wonder tablets, phablets, and smartphones are in such high demand.
Experience With Online Focus Groups
“Jennifer Dale, from Inside Heads, has a lot of experience with online focus groups and is as smart, strategic and as quick as they come. She’s even developed a platform for other moderators to use. Highly recommend her.”
Online Chat Focus Groups, Limiting?
(Originally published June, 2015)
I’ve heard more than one respected professional tell me that online chat focus groups do not allow for a significant depth of response and that respondents provide short, top of mind answers of limited value.
With thousands of notches on our online focus group belt, we can soundly report that participants provide as much detail and depth as requested. The critcal elements of success lie with a skilled interviewer and a well designed discussion guide.
When the moderator asks a question to a group responding only via text, some respondents will answer right away, then follow that up with detail in a separate comment, while others will type the whole answer before hitting send. However they answer, it is surprisingly intuitive to follow the collective conversation as it scrolls on the screen, and even easier on the back-end to pull what you need from the transcripts.
When pulling key quotes for your report, simply combine any “choppy” answers from a single respondent so you have the full picture of what the participant actually conveyed.
For example, a discussion about a new plastic storage container prompted a multitude of separate responses from a single participant over the course of several minutes. When pulled together, the brevity builds and begins to tell the full story:
“The containers are great… the attached lids… we have an office full of the old lids, no bottoms… the new containers stack well… labels don’t fall off… [I use the new containers for] storing everything here and at home that fits… [before I discovered these containers] I struggled with cardboard boxes we assembled ourselves… we can’t use the cardboard for long term storage… falls apart.”
-Kim, 35, male, IL
If you’re curious what a synchronous online focus group via text is like, look no further than this recorded InsideHeads session here.
Online Focus Groups Have Really Helped Our Clients
“I really like the advance thinking and post-thinking of InsideHeads in their market research – and their quick thinking in the middle of their online focus group studies. Online focus groups have really helped our clients understand what is inside the heads of their customers – and it has helped create better websites and branding programs.”
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Custom Courses in Online Qualitative Research
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Qualitative Research Consultant? You can do this!
From preparing a proposal to finishing the report, InsideHeads specialists provide custom online qualitative research training for moderators at your convenience.
Work one-on-one with an experienced online moderator who will design and execute a custom course that meets your goals and experience.
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InsideHeads is Willing to Go the Extra Mile
“Working with InsideHeads was a relief in comparison to other companies we have worked with in the past. InsideHeads was professional and willing to go the extra mile to produce an exceptional product.”
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