Low Levels Of Trust In Facebook Over Privacy

Groundbreaking Market Research

Delegates at Globalpark’s forthcoming Mobile Research Conference in London will be among the first to hear findings from a groundbreaking research project that could be the answer to problems that have previously challenged market researchers.

Heval Ceylan, Experience Director at MESH Planning, will take to the stage with Linda Neville, Portfolio Planner at Coca-Cola, to share findings from a mobile research project they worked on last year.

Using a three-stage approach they set out to elicit responses in real-time.

The project used the mobile as one research platform to help Coca-Cola understand the various touch points respondents – who had been recruited through an online panel – had with a short list of specific brands. The first stage of research involved an online questionnaire to understand people’s relationships to the brands.

Then using their mobile phones for the second stage of the project, respondents were asked to text whenever they came into contact with one of these brands over a period of a week and reply to a text containing a code frame using four simple characters.

These texts provided information including where they saw the brand, how they felt about the touch point and how likely that made them to choose the brand next time.

The mobile approach met a number of the key objectives: it provided research findings in real time, allowing Coca-Cola quickly to make changes in their ongoing “topical” campaign in newspapers as the results were analysed; it was deemed the perfect platform for reaching the target market of 25-49 year old ABC1 respondents and it was able to capture experiences with the brands being measured as they happened, including photos.

Conference delegates will gain other useful insights from the project: how MESH Planning was able to integrate the results of mobile research with those from the online platform; how online diaries were used by the respondents to see what they had submitted; how the MESH research team were able to instruct respondents in the methodology throughout the project.

Source:www.mobileresearchconference.com

Market Feasibility Study

A market feasibility study is an analysis of the viability of a product or service. A feasibility study focuses on helping answer the key objective of “should we proceed with the proposed project idea?” All activities of the study are directed towards helping answer this question.

The feasibility study will help you to identify if there are opportunities in a market or market segment. This type of survey is usually carried out before writing a business plan. The results from this survey will provide strategic direction of the idea or project. It is very important to conduct a market feasibility study before launching a new product/service in the market. Below are some reasons why it is important to conduct a market feasibility study:

• Helps in narrowing business alternatives
• Identifies new opportunities in the market
• Identifies reasons to or not to proceed with an idea
• Enhances the probability of success by addressing and mitigating factors that could affect the project.
• Provides quality information for input in strategic decision making
• Helps in securing funding from lending institutions and other monetary sources
• Helps to attract equity investment.

When planning to run this type if survey, it is important to understand the key issues you want investigated in the survey. In essence, a good market feasibility survey will cover the following key areas:

• Main players in the category of interest
• Brands playing in the category
• Market segmentation
• General usage behaviour
• Purchase patterns
• Master brand and sub brand SWOT

The above are key areas that can be covered in a market feasibility survey. The list above is however, not exhaustive.

Wishing you success !!!!

Feasibility Survey integral part of start-up success

Do you know that 90% of start-ups fail within six months of operation? This figure is shocking, isn’t it?.

Majority of enterprising people with brilliant business ideas find themselves in trouble a couple of months down the line.

Without knowing what hit them, they find themselves unable to pay their daily business expenses.

The question is what causes this high failure rate in the first place? There are several reasons attributed to start-up failures. Below I will profile a few key ones.

• Lack of knowledge about the market
• Insufficient Capital
• Poor Management
• Poor Location
• Lack of planning

I will focus on the first item – Knowledge about the market you are planning to do business in is very critical in ensuring success. First and foremost any budding entrepreneur needs to identify a niche in the market – in other words a market niche is an unserviced or an opportunity identified in the market which is under serviced. After identifying this gap in the market the second step is to find out if that gap is profitable. To find out if there is real need for the products/services identified, there is need to gather market insights about the identified market (niche).

How do you get or establish market insights from the identified niche/ market? This where market research comes into play. Market research conducted to find out whether an idea is viable or not is called  a ‘Feasibility Survey’. The aim of this market research survey is to find out if the proposed idea/s are viable and accepted by the target market.  A feasibility study is the analysis of a concept to see if it will be a success or not. It takes into account:

• Operational (will it work?),
• Economical (costs Vs benefits)
• Viability (can it succeed?)

Results of the market research survey often determine whether the concept should be implemented or not. When developing a feasibility survey he following 5 key questions must be addressed:

1. What is the actual product or service?
2. Who are the targeted customers?
3. What is the benefit of providing your product or service?
4. How will you get the product to the customers?
5. Who is already providing the service/products you want to sell

It has been proven that the 10% of start-ups, who make it, utilize market research before embarking on setting up their businesses. I will be covering in depth the elements of a feasibility survey. For free advise feel free to contact me here.

To your success!!!!

Google Keeps Its Grip on Search Engines

Google’s domination of the search market continues, according to market research data from comScore qSearch, released in July,2009. But Microsoft’s Bing is making small inroads. Microsoft sites were the only major search player to increase market share between June and July 2009, climbing 0.5 percentage points. Search query share going to Google and Yahoo! was chipped away slightly, by about 0.3 percentage points each.

Note: home, work and university users; includes partner searches and cross-channel searches for each property. Source:Comscore qsearch as cited in press release, August 18,2009. www.Marketer.com

Google still held tight to the top spot, with the vast majority of July’s searches. Almost one-fifth of searches were performed at Yahoo! sites, and 8.9% at Microsoft sites—a share they hope to increase as part of their upcoming partnership. Total US search queries were down 3% month over month in July. Microsoft was the only search provider to see an increase in queries, of 2%. At Google and Yahoo!, queries were down 4% and 5%, respectively.

Note: home, work and university users; includes partner searches and cross-channel searches for each property. Source:Comscore qsearch as cited in press release, August 18,2009 www.Marketer.com

According to ForeSee Results, one reason Google remains firmly entrenched in first place is that the search giant enjoys very high customer satisfaction. Google scored an 86 out of 100 on the University of Michigan’s latest American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), the highest for any search property. Yahoo! ranked second, with a score of 77. “Google is unquestionably king of search, so the only competition is for second place,” said Larry Freed, president and CEO of ForeSee Results. “The research was done before Bing entered the market, so we don’t know what effect its entry will have. But Google’s customers are pretty happy and have little reason to try something new, so Bing has a real uphill battle ahead.” That battle has high stakes: eMarketer projects nearly $12 billion will be spent on US search advertising in 2009, almost 49% of the total US online ad market. Source: emarketer.com

Free software to design surveys online

Today i have very exciting news as i stumbled on a very useful website, which anyone can use to design surveys. What is most interesting about this website, is that the service is completely free. What is required is to create an account, once you have done this off you go to design and invite respondents to participate  in your survey.

The software is 100% FREE and easy to use survey service. You can quickly create Web forms and Email surveys, collect & download results all for free. Kwik Surveys offers the following benefits over traditional subscription services.

1. Secure and Reliable service
2. Does not send unsolicited emails
3. It is very easy to use
4. Downloadable results CSV format (MS Word, Open office)
5. Customizable Surveys, Logo’s and themes
6. Embedded surveys directly into HTML webpages, forums etc..
7. Email Notifications upon survey completion
8. Surveys can be sent by email or linked to
9. Anonymous or tracked surveys
10. Results filtering
11. Updated question builder with question preview & spell checker
12. Star rating questions
13. Multiple choice matrix questions
14. Skip logic

The software is very good and provides a free platform for gathering useful feedback from visitors to your website regarding your  content, layout and graphic design. You can tailor make the questionnaire to gather information on pretty anything you want. It is however, important to bear in mind that questions must be precise and easy to understand in order for you to get useful feedback. Length should also be taken into account. I would suggest a maximum two page questionnaire will be ideal, as respondents may not complete if the questionnaire is long. Please kindly leave comments once you have interacted with this software. Before i forget here is the link to the website: http://kwiksurveys.com

Happy browsing

Step by Step Guide to launching FGDs

For any market research survey to be successful, there are steps that need to be followed. The same goes for qualitative research. I have therefore, outlined key points that must be considered when you plan to use focus groups as a research tool.
Define your research goals.
The first step is to define the research objectives. Here you need to clearly spell out what you want to achieve from the survey. The research objectives must be clearly defined and must also be straight forward. Based on these objectives, you will be able to formulate questions which will form the basis of the discussion guide.
Determine sample size and composition of focus groups
Since focus group is a qualitative research method and the results are descriptive rather than prescriptive, you don’t need to have a very big sample size. It is therefore, important to ascertain respondent characteristics such as:
• Age
• Gender
• Ethnic group
• Social Economic class
• Language Spoken
Invite participants to participate in focus groups
This process must be well coordinated to ensure that the right participants are recruited for participation in the FGDs. A screening questionnaire will be used to screen the participants based on demographic profile, product usage and or specified criteria.
Location
Location, location, location is everything. When planning your focus group it’s important to select a site
that is accessible for the target audience. Not everyone has access to an automobile or is able to drive.
The best location should be centrally located, near a subway or bus stop. For instance, If you were targeting the Latino/Hispanic community, the best site would be close to where the audience lives or work so that it’s more convenient.

Incentives
There are many incentives for encouraging participation in focus group. Snacks are a necessary factor. Again, being culturally sensitive to the type of snacks served moves to the top of the list. Avoid unhealthy snacks and remember that many participants may be vegetarian. When planning your menu include a variety of foods, salads and vegetables.

How many people should be invited?
In order to get enough feedback about your product or campaign, it would be best to host a group of 8
to 12 people. More than 12 participants could prove to be unmanageable when trying to collect adequate
information. Remember it’s key that everyone gets an opportunity to share their thoughts and ideas
without feeling rushed or cut off.

Timing
A focus Group discussion should not exceed 90 minutes. Participants should be encouraged to eat when they arrive or during the focus group as to not interfere with the group discussion. Output from FGDs vital consumer insights which can be further explored quantitatively inorder to see prevalece of the issues raised across a robust sample size.

FGDs – Cost effective way of gathering consumer insights

A focus group is a form of qualitative research in which a group of people are asked about their attitude towards a product, service, concept, advertisement, idea, or packaging. Questions are asked in an interactive group setting where participants are free to talk with other group members. Focus groups are seen as an important tool for acquiring feedback regarding new products, as well as various topics. In particular, focus groups allow companies wishing to develop, package, name, or test market a new product, to discuss, view, and/or test the new product before it is made available to the public. This can provide invaluable information about the potential market acceptance of the product.

Benefits/strengths of focus group discussions

• Group discussion produces data and insights that would be less accessible without interaction found in a group setting—listening to others’ verbalized experiences stimulates memories, ideas, and experiences in participants.
• Group members discover a common language to describe similar experiences. This enables the capture of a form of “native language” or “vernacular speech” to understand the situation

Weaknesses of focus group discussions

• However, focus groups also have disadvantages: The researcher/Moderator has less control over a group than a one-on-one interview, and thus time can be lost on issues irrelevant to the topic; the data are tough to analyze because the talking is in reaction to the comments of other group members; observers/ moderators need to be highly trained, and groups are quite variable and can be tough to get together. Also, the number of members of a focus group is not large enough to be a representative sample of a population; thus, the data obtained from the groups is not necessarily representative of the whole population.
• A fundamental difficulty with focus groups (and other forms of qualitative research) is the issue of observer dependency: the results obtained are influenced by the researcher, raising questions of validity.

It is important to note that Focus Group Discussions are a quick and cost effective way of gathering accurate information which can help marketers make a decision within a short time frame. There can be significant costs however: if a product is to be marketed on a nationwide basis, it would be critical to gather respondents from various locations throughout the country since attitudes about a new product may vary due to geographical considerations. This would require a considerable expenditure in travel and lodging expenses. Focus Groups are most suitable for generating consumer insights, which normally addresses when, why, how, where and what people do or do not buy a specific brand. This methodology is very effective in gathering data which enables marketers to understand the buyer decision making process, both individually and in groups.

In my next post i will provide a step by step guide on launching successful FDs.

To your marketing success!!!!

Cheap way to do Market Research – Omnibus Survey

An omnibus survey is a method of quantitative research where data on a wide variety of subjects is collected during the same interview. Usually, multiple research clients will provide proprietary content for the survey (paying to ‘get on the omnibus’), while sharing the common demographic data collected from each respondent. The advantages to the research client include cost savings (because the sampling and screening costs are shared across multiple clients) and timeliness (because omnibus samples are large and interviewing is ongoing). Omnibus Surveys are more suitable for measuring and tracking public opinion, attitudes and behaviour, General brand evaluation, establishing market share and incidence and measuring advertising awareness. Due to its robust sample and wide coverage, clients often get valuable demographic data which is often very useful for market segmentation. Respondent demographic data such as:

•  Urbanisation                          
•  Ownership of consumer durables
•  Literacy levels
•  Dwelling type
•  Occupational category
•  Media usage
•  Personal/household income
•  Ethnic origin
•  Religion

Both large and small to medium businesses can effectively use omnibus surveys to keep track of advertising, promotions and general brand health.

Welcome to My Blog

Thank you for finding time to visit my blog ‘marketresearchfacts.com. The blog is dedicated to all market research practitioners worldwide. It is a meeting point for discussion on what is happening in the market research world. It is a platform for sharing ideas and resources. I will try to keep this blog as updated as possible.
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