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Who Provides the Best Marketing Research Platforms?

When conducting marketing research online, it’s important to understand and implement the technology required for your target market. So who do you tap for the best research platforms: a company who knows technology, or a company who knows research?

Let’s look closer at what makes the best online marketing research platforms successful:

Mobile Friendly

Today, online research studies need to be mobile responsive, while also accommodating older technology (some people still use desktop computers, it’s true.) While reported estimates vary, it’s safe to say that most of your online survey respondents will see it first on a smartphone.

Seamless Access

Platforms also need to be easy for all possible respondents to understand and use. With so much invested in recruiting, why send prospects to a survey that might not work? The best data collection, whether quantitative (surveys) or qualitative (online focus groups & IDIs), comes from research platforms that work seamlessly on any device, O/S, or browser.

Affordable

If you have to blow your entire budget on technology, we’ll just call that misdirected funds. The most expensive technology comes from fat tech firms who hang their hat on staying relevant and being “agile”. The best technology comes from companies who understand the market and custom design robust platforms with stable, time-tested code that eliminates the need for expensive user support. Tools like these are the secret weapons of seasoned researchers.

For your next online marketing research study, consider a company that understands technology and research. InsideHeads conducts marketing research and designs & develops the best marketing research platforms to do it correctly. From programming to presentations, InsideHeads has been conducting successful online marketing research studies since 1998.

Give us a call, you’ll like what you hear. +1(877)-IN-HEADS

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Great Ideas Gone Wrong

When you hear a great idea, how do you know? The idea may sound great, but just because it has good intentions doesn’t mean it will work. At the very least, a great idea should be feasible and harmless to others.

Good Intentions

Not long ago a group of dedicated volunteers in my town got together to raise money for the local rescue squad. Their idea was to print and sell drink cards that offered a free drink at each of 6 local restaurants. The drinks were valued at $36 and the cards were priced at $20, and all the local restaurants agreed to accept them. Our town is a heavy tourist destination, so cards were given as gifts to visitors to encourage them to check-out local establishments.

Lasting Damage

People bought lots of drink cards and loads of money went to the rescue squad. Success, right? Wrong. Visitors who received the gifted drink card and attempted to use it encountered restrictions and ignorance from uninformed seasonal bar staff. So while the money was made in the moment, the damage of dissing tourists is immeasurable. Vacationers not only recount bad experiences to friends and family members, today their comments on social media reach further and linger longer. Ouch.

The drink card debacle is just one small example in the shadow of a far more substantial bad idea that occurred in Flint, Michigan. Town officials saved money in the moment, but gave way to irreversible damage down the line. Hindsight… you know what they say. So what’s the takeaway?

No Repeat

I can’t help but wonder: We all learn from our own mistakes, so why can’t we also learn from the mistakes of others? Sure, big gaffes get the news, but most mistakes only enlighten the bumbler. In today’s connected world, where is the portal to deposit our lessons learned? Facebook and Instagram are filled with accomplishments, carefully selected ‘selfies’, and emotional, envy-inducing posts. Wikipedia offers us our collectively edited facts, and millions of websites push products and self-serving information. Where is the hub for all things that went horribly wrong? All the lessons of war. Of life. A virtual library of bittersweet warnings, filled with evidence of what not to do. Or perhaps a way to tag those bits of learning amidst all that worldly web content.

With today’s technology and our tendency to share, a blunder blog sure sounds like great idea…

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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.

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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.

Custom Courses in Online Qualitative Research

Learn what you want and do it on your schedule

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.

Schedule your training today and receive a free copy of Qual-Online, the Essential Guide.

Sign-up for Online Moderator Training

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Breaking Up With Customers Is Hard to Do

(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.

6 Ways to Boost Your Online Market Research

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.

To Glass or Not to Glass

(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.”

Decision is done. Take the cannoli.

Before you seal that deal, pop that proposal, or make that big career move, leave the cannoli until your task is done.

According to researchers, hunger is associated with advantageous decision making. Participants fasted overnight and in the morning, scientists served some of them breakfast, and others were forced to wait. All of the participants took the Iowa Gambling Task, a psychological test based on gambling that simulates real-life decision making. When the results were in, stomach rumblers performed better overall. You can even take the test yourself, because there’s an app for that.