“Jennifer knew her business and was incredible to work with. After LiveWorld tried for awhile to offer online market research it really became a robust offering once Jennifer and Amy Yoffie at Research Connections became involved. Jennifer is truly one of the pioneers of online research!!”
(Originally Published May, 2015)
As businesses big and small plod through a slow economy, there’s a tacit sense of urgency to survive. “We must increase sales! Where can we find new customers?!” This natural, albeit knee-jerk, reaction to tough times seems sensible. If sales are slowing down, clearly customers are not holding up their end of the agreement. Rejection hurts!
There’s the inevitable mourning period, but hopefully survival instincts kick-in and businesses get out of bed, into shape, and back out there in search of better customers.
That’s one way to handle it. There’s also begging for forgiveness.
Whichever approach you choose, breaking up with customers is hard to do. Walgreens recently presented their new strategy at the Loyalty Expo a few weeks ago in Orlando and highlighted two main reasons they’re opting to coddle current customers before marketing for more:
Acceptance is the first step to recovery.
Rather than run away in search of greener pastures, Walgreens accepted their inability to keep patrons happy and worked to identify and repair the “leaky bucket”. From learning from their past mistakes, Walgreens is able to mature into a better brand.
Reconciliation is cheaper than divorce.
Before seeking separation, Walgreens’ accountants crunched the digits and determined current customers held more value once all the efforts and expenses were factored in. Ultimately, marketing to current customer provides greater ROI – a language everyone speaks.
As Walgreens moves to ramp-up loyal customer rewards, they’re not leaving prospects at the door. How much “strategy seep” Walgreens will reap remains to be seen, but my money is on Walgreens for making happy customers who will surely spread and share the good news about Walgreens.
(Originally Posted May, 2015)
The votes are in! Out of nearly a hundred exhibitors, InsideHeads received an honorable mention for Best Event Experience at the first annual Quirk’s Event earlier this year at the Brooklyn Marriott in NY. The Best in Show awards came from responses collected in the event app and the post-event survey to attendees.
With the 2nd Quirk’s Event already scheduled for the same bat time, same bat channel, InsideHeads is doing some advanced planning as well. Stay tuned for more fun and fabulousness from InsideHeads at the 2016 event February 23-24!
“InsideHeads brings solid experience, creative solutions and focused execution to all of their projects. Jennifer Dale a pure joy to work with and her insights and fresh ideas make any project more effective than you can imagine. InsideHeads has added an entirely new level to our offering.”
“I worked directly with InsideHeads on a focus group that we recently executed with the non-profit organization where I am employed. InsideHeads was very responsive, detailed, and easy to work with throughout the entire process. We had a very tight turnaround time that was met without issue. The execution of the project, from securing participants to developing the questions, to leading the group discussion occurred in a quick and efficient manner. This would not have happened without InsideHeads’s help. I would highly recommend InsideHeads!”
“Back in the day, I soon grew dissatisfied with real-time online chat groups as superficial. Like many I preferred bulletin board groups as deeper and more productive. I have just had an experience conducting four two-hour real-time chat groups with complicated stimuli on the white board, and am enthusiastically reporting a resounding success. Jennifer Dale at InsideHeads has a great platform, incredibly moderator friendly, with exceptional tech support. My clients were thrilled with her recruiting and with the experience itself, as well as with the remarkable insights gained.”
“Jennifer makes it very easy to do online focus groups. The InsideHeads platform is easy to use and Jennifer and her staff go way over and above the call of duty to be sure that every aspect of your project goes smoothly. If it’s your first time moderating live online groups, she’ll walk you through step by step to be sure it is a success. Nothing falls through the cracks. I am sure I will use InsideHeads’ services many more times and highly recommend them.”
A hot topic in industry articles, white papers, and webinars today is conducting a strategic combination of quantitative and qualitative research online. While intimidating labels like multimethod research, hybrid approaches, mixed methods research, multimethodology, and even methodological pluralism (seriously?) may be flooding the airwaves, at its core the concept has always been a good one for online market research.
Quantitative studies require a significant sample size and qualitative studies require a few who freely speak. While that fundamental difference may seem to put the quant and qual fields at odds, in practice the two have always been more complementary than contradictory.
Increasing the richness of the data you collect and the insights you can elicit is just one reason to create a healthy mix of quant and qual. And it need not be a double-whammy to your research budget. At InsideHeads we consider small budgets to be a healthy challenge!
Here are 6 simple, cost effective quant/qual add-ons to consider when designing your next market research study:
1. Give your screener a boost
While you have prospective recruits completing your online screening questionnaire, consider directing qualified respondents to complete additional questions for an added incentive prior to their selection for an interview. Not only is it a good way to further qualify recruits, you’ll also collect a sizeable amount of quantifiable information. The added incentive cost is a small price to pay for getting valuable data in advance of an in-depth interview (IDI) or online focus group.
2. Invite participants to engage in other ways
Working a multimedia reply into your online questionnaire is crazy simple. Regardless which platform you’re using to create your survey, consider branching respondents based on their answers to a page that instructs them to do something else that will bring clarity or depth to their answer. Ask respondents to call a designated phone number and leave a detailed audio explanation, or ask them to email a photo or video before continuing. All viable requests you can layer into your survey and track files received by name, email, or a preassigned ID number.
3. Not all homework is bad 
Converse to the idea of working qualitative responses into your quantitative study, consider incorporating activities before or after a single or group interview. Whether it’s a shopping assignment, a diary, collage, video request, or some other activity, research participants are quite good at meeting whatever expectations you set in the recruiting process. Pay recruits appropriately for any homework time and you’ll be pleased how much the added information will enrich your discussions.
4. Think ahead to future research efforts
Whether you’re running an online questionnaire or screener, it’s always a good idea at the end to ask respondents if they’re interested in participating in future research, should they not qualify for the study at hand. Having a list of willing and eligible partipants at the ready will prove handy the next time you have questions that need answering. Even a small sample size can offer valuable insights. More than once I’ve seen a website halt release of a feature based on a few usability studies done using a free screenshare platform.
5. Get a little social
It’s difficult to ignore the impact the internet has had on our social lives. The sheer volume of information, valuable or not, is enough to make any budding Data Scientists drool. The good news is that you don’t need an expensive tool to find good stuff in this vast space. The key is to have a working knowledge of boolean search methods, and some insight into Google’s research gold mines, including public data, scholarly publications, and consumer surveys . Marketers are even using social media sites like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest and others for crowdsourced feedback to burning questions.
6. Design before device
Probably the most important tip for saving money on your next research study and keeping your objective in clear sight is to design your study first before you pick a tool or platform. Begin with the desired end result and work backwards and you’ll not only understand the best path to success, you’ll also find the best device for the job. Always fabulous, sometimes even free!
For more information on creative research approaches that deliver, contact the nice folks at InsideHeads.
(Originally posted March, 2015)
Since launching Google Glass in April 2012, there has been much debate over the value and ethics of having a smartphone on your head.
The battle between the Glassed and the Glassless officially began in April 2013, when the Google goggles first landed in the hands of eager early adopters. Throughout the launch, Google had their marketing and PR departments in overdrive, coddling these new Glass “Explorers”.
As non-users began encountering Explorers in real life, they began asking questions. Lots and lots of questions. A privacy debate like no other began to rage and Google even published an embarrassing list of Do’s and Don’ts for Glass wearers. The Google guide dumbs it down to playtime rules at the park, actually espousing that Explorers not “be creepy or rude”.
While Google expanded Glass into the UK and Canada, an increasing number of developers began abandoning the Glass ship and the Glasshole sentiment began picking up some serious social media speed.
When Google announced the end of the Glass Explorer program earlier this year, it was a supposed regrouping to improve “appearance, price, and functionality.” Dare I say, I am Glassless for none of those reasons, but I digress.
Google’s spin on the shutdown? Glass has “graduated” from experimental to operational, and will now have its own department at the company.
Even at this early stage, I have to wonder if Google’s tireless marketing efforts to promote Glass as mainstream these past few years moved the needle of acceptance even a little. Google’s clever product placement on athletes, television, fashion shows, sporting events, and magazine covers – did it work?
Unfortunately, Jerry Seinfeld sporting Glass on the cover of Wired doesn’t change the fact that Google provides Glassholes a tacit method for covertly peering and recording a non-consenting audience.
Perhaps Google filed that problem under “functionality.”
Meet Ed O’Bannon, a talented college athlete whose likeness was used in a NCAA-licensed video game without his consent or compensation. Reports claim there are thousands” of student athletes in the same situation. None too pleased, Ed and others filed an antitrust class action lawsuit against the NCAA, challenging the organization’s use of images of former student athletes for commercial purposes. While the group recently won a landmark case last August, the NCAA appealed and litigation continues.
In all this brouhaha, one clever charcoal company fired off a brilliant David + Goliath like marketing campaign, positioning a brave and popular underdog against the big bad NCAA behemoth.
This month Kingsford Charcoal bags tout a picture of Ed O’Bannon and the company’s familiar tagline, with a searing twist:
“Lights 25% faster, doesn’t burn athletes.”
At the hub of the Kingsford Charcoal campaign is notably the hashtag #PayEd, which when tweeted on March 19th paid Ed O’Bannon $1 each time it was used.
I can’t help but consider the brilliance of this campaign. Clearly Kingsford is burning NCAA bridges, but their choice to ride the “right a wrong” rocket on social media during a month of madness is a keen one. And with #PayEd going viral and the limit set at $25,000, the cost of the promotion, including the new printing on all the bags, must have been… darn appealing, to say the least. All in all, a pretty clear smoke signal showing us the red hot marketing trends of tomorrow.
