Market Research Facts

Coca-Cola, Ogilvy, Unilever unveil their Online Strategy

According to GDS International, online sales have shown a significant increase this year capitalizing on the return of consumer confidence across Europe.

European shoppers spent £11.2 billion online in July, 15.7% more than was spent in June and 16.8% more than July 2008.

The driving force for the increase appeared to be the clothing, footwear and accessories sector, which showed growth of 18% month on month and 17% year on year, the latest IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index said.

Retailers across Europe are predicted to sell $97 billion in goods and services online in 2010, up 37% from last year.

Owing to this unprecedented growth Retail Giants will join forces at the iStrategy program this October in Berlin to capitalize on the growth of the Online Dollar.

Visionaries such as Babs Rangaiah, Global Director Communications Planning Unilever, Rikke Wivel, VP Global Advertising and Media Monster, Michael Donnelly, Group Director The Coca-Cola Company, Michael Buck, Global Head SMB Online Dell, Sarah Evans, Head of Mobile Advertising O2, Thomas Marzano, Creative Director Phillips will be sharing the innovative steps they have all taken to drive value through online investments.

This meeting further illustrates the migration to new media for retail giants.

The growth of Web 2.0 has lead to far greater opportunities for such retail giants outside to the obvious sales growth.

With more of us sharing personal information online through sites like Facebook, Linkedin, MeettheBoss and Xing, companies can monetize online investment through analyzing consumption patterns, behavioral targeting, cost effective online product testing and having direct contact with the consumer.

Online is still the key growth market and in the midst of a Global recession it seems to be the main focus for European retailers.

CEO Steve Jobs most admired Entrepreneur by Teens

In a survey by Junior Achievement USA, 1,000 teenagers age 12 to 17 chose Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs as their most admired Entrepreneur.

Perhaps surprisingly, Jobs beat out contenders with typically more star power among teens, including Oprah and skateboard wizard and video game entrepreneur Tony Hawk.

Further down the survey were Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, owners of their own clothing line.

According to Junior Achievement USA President Jack Kosakowski, “We live in a celebrity-obsessed culture, so it’s no surprise that teens admire famous entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Oprah Winfrey, who have built brands around their personas as well as around their products.”

Source: zeromillion.com

Step by Step Guide to setting up a Survey

One of the best ways to clarify your study goals is to decide how you intend to use the information. Do this before you begin designing the study. This sounds obvious, but many researchers neglect this task.

Rule 1: Follow your Study Objectives

Always write down your survey objectives. You can always refer to your study objectives whenever you are unsure of a question. Ask only questions that directly address the study objectives. Avoid the temptation to ask questions because it would be “interesting to know”. These questions are not necessary.

Rule: 2 Include questions that address your survey objectives only

As a general rule, with only a few exceptions, long questionnaires get less response than short questionnaires. Keep your questionnaire short. In fact, the shorter the better. Response rate is the single most important indicator of how much confidence you can place in the results. A low response rate can be devastating to a survey. Therefore, you must do everything possible to maximize the response rate. One of the most effective methods of maximizing response is to shorten the questionnaire.

Also use less open end questions as these take more time to administer. If your survey is over a few pages, try to eliminate questions. Many people have difficulty knowing which questions could be eliminated. For the elimination round, read each question and ask, “How am I going to use this information?” If the information will be used in a decision-making process, then keep the question… it’s important. If not, throw it out. Give your questionnaire a title that is short and meaningful to the respondent.

A questionnaire with a title is generally perceived to be more credible than one without. Use simple and direct language. The questions must be clearly understood by the respondent. The wording of a question should be simple and to the point. Do not use uncommon words or long sentences. Make items as brief as possible. This will reduce misunderstandings and make the questionnaire appear easier to administer. One way to eliminate misunderstandings is to emphasize crucial words in each item by using bold, italics or underlining. Leave adequate space for respondents to make comments.

One criticism of questionnaires is their inability to retain the “flavor” of a response. Leaving space for comments will provide valuable information not captured by the response categories. Leaving white space also makes the questionnaire look easier and this increases response. Place the most important items in the first half of the questionnaire. Hold the respondent’s interest. We want the respondent to complete our questionnaire. One way to keep a questionnaire interesting is to provide variety in the type of items used.

Varying the questioning format will also prevent respondents from falling into “response sets”. At the same time, it is important to group items into coherent categories. All items should flow smoothly from one to the next. The wording of a question is extremely important.

Researchers strive for objectivity in surveys and, therefore, must be careful not to lead the respondent into giving a desired answer. Unfortunately, the effects of question wording are one of the least understood areas of questionnaire research. Many researchers have confirmed that slight changes in the way questions are worded can have a significant impact on how people respond.

Several authors have reported that minor changes in question wording can produce more than a 25%t difference in people’s opinions. Several researchers have looked at the effects of modifying adjectives and adverbs. Words like usually, often, sometimes, occasionally, seldom, and rarely are “commonly” used in questionnaires, although it is clear that they do not mean the same thing to all people. Some adjectives have high variability and others have low variability.

The following adjectives have highly variable meanings and should be avoided in surveys: a clear mandate, most, numerous, a substantial majority, a minority of, a large proportion of, a significant number of, many, a considerable number of, and several. Other adjectives produce less variability and generally have more shared meaning. These are: lots, almost all, virtually all, nearly all, a majority of, a consensus of, a small number of, not very many of, almost none, hardly any, a couple, and a few. If a questionnaire is more than a few pages and is held together by a staple, include some identifying data on each page (such as a respondent ID number).Pages often accidentally separate.

Rule 3: Consult Experts

If you are not a professional market researcher, one important way to assure a successful survey is to consult experts and relevant decision-makers in the questionnaire design process. Their suggestions will improve the questionnaire and they will subsequently have more confidence in the results.

Rule 4: Think about the Data Analysis

Formulate a plan for doing the statistical analysis during the design stage of the project. Know how every question will be analyzed and be prepared to handle missing data. If you cannot specify how you intend to analyze a question or use the information, do not use it in the survey.

Rule: 5 Always Pilot a Questionnaire

The final test of a questionnaire is to try it on representatives of the target audience. If there are problems with the questionnaire, they almost always show up here. If possible, be present while a respondent is being interviewed. of the best ways to clarify your study goals is to decide how you intend to use the information. Do this before you begin designing the study. This sounds obvious, but many researchers neglect this task.

To your Success!!!

How to write an Effective Market Research Brief

Market is defined as the systematic and objective collection and interpretation of data to help reduce risk in marketing decisions. In order for marketing research to effectively address identified marketing problems, the problem definition must be clearly spelt out. This means before you put pen to paper to write a research brief you need to be clear on what you want to achieve by carrying out market research survey.

This means you need to have a well defined marketing problem, with clear and concise objectives. There are several reasons why companies conduct market research; a company may decide to do market research to identify opportunities for business growth and expansion. A good research brief must clearly address the following elements:

Research Background – under this section you need to give a brief synopsis of the company and its product portfolio. This should be detailed enough to give enough information to the researcher to understand your company and what business it is involved in.

Research Objectives – every research project should have defined and explicit objectives which clearly states why the research is being carried out. All other aspects of planning and carrying out the research flow from these objectives; in other words if they do not contribute towards achieving the objectives they almost certainly should not be undertaken. The objective should relate to the marketing decision which will have to be made or the problem that needs a solution (and decision).

Remember a problem well defined or understood is a problem half solved. Your research objectives must be clear and well articulated, to ensure the core issues of the marketing problem are well understood by the researchers. Remember if the research objectives are not well defined, the research output will not address the marketing problem, thus the information will not be useful.

Research Scope – This section you need to again clearly define the research scope in terms of geographical coverage, sample size and your target respondents. You need to be as precise as possible to ensure when the research is done the researchers will be able to speak to the right respondents, i.e. your target market. It is important to be precise with regards to target respondents in terms of descriptor variables. Specify age, gender, Income level, Religion, Social Economic Class and residential status i.e. high or low density locations, Urbanization i.e. urban, semi urban or rural.

Research Methodology – Depending on your level of market research knowledge, you can suggest the methodology you would like the researchers to apply. But if you are not very sure, it is important to ask the research agency to propose a suitable methodology that will help in addressing the marketing problem.

Action Standards – Under this section you will state what you intend to do with the research output. For instance if you are conducting a customer satisfaction survey, you may use the research output to come up with a Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI), which you will be tracking over time.

Having stated the above, I think you should be able to get a good proposal from a research agency clearly stating how they would be able to address your marketing problem. In the next post I will be talking about what a good market research proposal should address in response to a market research brief. As usual your comments and suggestions are welcome.

To your Success!!!!

Market Research Methods – An Overview

Market research as a discipline is made up of two facets namely, qualitative and quantitative research. Qualitative research is mainly concerned with understanding in-depth human behaviour and reasons that drive these behaviors.

Qualitative

Qualitative research is mainly concerned in finding out the whys, hows, and why not and their knowledge, attitudes and fears. In essence it tries to delve deeper into the respondent’s psyche to bring to the core underlying respondent behavioral traits.  There are a number of methods used to collect data under qualitative research, namely: Focus Group Discussions, In-depth Interviews, and Observations. Qualitative research is subjective, meaning it describes a problem or condition from the point of view of those experiencing it i.e. the respondent.

The advantage of using qualitative methods is that they generate rich, detailed data that leave the participants’ perspectives intact. The focus upon processes and “reasons why” differs from that of quantitative research, which addresses correlations between variables.

Quantitative

On the other hand Quantitative research as the name implies is a numbers game. In other words, quantitative research is employed when you want to know ‘how many’ and ‘how often’. If you want to profile a target audience by determining what proportion of the audience has certain behaviors, behavioral intentions, attitudes, and knowledge related to your subject matter, and whether specific determinants predict behaviors at a statistically significant level. It quantifies an opinion, on how prevalent the issues are among a given sample size. This methodology is used if you want to survey a group of people usually on a large scale like Opinion polls. A structured questionnaire is used to obtain feedback from respondents. Quantitative research uses methods adopted from the physical sciences that are designed to ensure objectivity, generalizability and reliability.

These techniques cover the ways research participants are selected randomly from the study population in an unbiased manner, the standardized questionnaire or intervention they receive and the statistical methods used to test predetermined hypotheses regarding the relationships between specific variables.

Your comments and suggestions on this article are most welcome.

To your Success!!!

Research Findings – Number of websites on Earth

According to market research survey conducted by Netcraft, the number of websites added to the internet has increased from 185.5 million at the beginning of 2009 to 231.5 million in April 2009, representing an increase of 46 million websites in just a few months. Interestingly, the increase is more than the number of websites which were created in 2008. In 2008, only 29.9 million websites were added to the dot.com platform. The phenomenal growth witnessed this year, is attributed to a surge in blogging websites registered by a Chinese social network called QZone.

This increase in blog related websites clearly shows the popularity of blogging as a social network and also as a business model. Blogging has indeed taken the internet by storm, it has now turned into a multi-billion business with master bloggers like John Chow and Yaro Starak making thousands of dollars from their sites every month.

You may be wondering, what is this thing called a blog?  Blogs are websites with content management systems that allow visitors to the site to add content. They are forums for organizations and individuals to exchange ideas and communicate with their partners, customers, employees, etc. You can create pages relevant for your business, post articles on different subjects, and offer a platform for others to write their comments or opinions on that post.

Blogging is not just for individuals, it is also a vital marketing tool for businesses. Today most popular blogs are commercial blogs that utilize their reach to promote their products and services.  Due to its easiness to create and convenience of interacting with customers and prospects, this platform has evolved to become one of the most important tools for promoting a business and its products.

Happy blogging!!!!!

How to Profit from Membership Sites

Recent market research findings on lucrative online businesses, has shown that apart from blogging, affiliate marketing and other forms of online businesses, Paid Membership sites are a goldmine with very handsome rewards if launced professionally. Today i am giving away a very comprehensive ebook which shows you market niches  you can consider venturing into. Please feel free to download the free ebook  here: 10 Profitable Membership Ideas

I will be happy to get your fedback after reading this ebook. I will be giving away another ebook on how you can profit from membership sites, this is a step by step guide which you can use to get started as soon as you finish reading the ebook. Check this space on Thursday.

To your online 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

How to gain competitive advantage through market intelligence

In order to survive in today’s cut-throat business environment, all businesses need information to guide their decision making. As an entrepreneur or business manager you need fresh information everyday to aid your decision making. This information desperately needed by managers to make informed business decisions can only be supplied by professional market researchers. Because of this, the research sector plays a valuable role in the commercial, social and political world today.  In a world where technological superiority is gaining momentum, commercial success is dependent more than ever, not on technological superiority alone, but through understanding of customers’ behavior i.e. their needs and using this information to guide your decision making. Sometimes research needs are obvious. For instance if you are planning to launch a new product, you will need to know your target customers’ reactions to your proposed offer. Will they like it? Will they buy it? How much will they pay? How much will they buy? What will trigger their purchase? Launching a product without understanding your target customers’ reactions and basing it on your gut feel and opinion could prove to be disastrous and a sheer waste of time and resources. There is a misguided notion that market research is expensive and sheer waste of time and money, many businesses and managers have learnt the hard way as product launches and brand extensions have proven to be disastrous and a waste of resources without insights from the market. Apart from commissioning a market research survey, there are many ways you can use to gather vital market intelligence about your target customers.

The cheapest way is to use customer feedback forms. This is a sure way of getting feedback on what your customers think about your business. However, there are drawbacks associated with this method of data collection, most customers may not have time to fill and return the forms, and therefore, returns may not be robust enough to make concrete decisions. Feedback forms are very important even on websites, as this provides you with a platform where you will get direct feedback on what visitors to your website site think about your business. Feedback forms will help you to leverage valuable customer feedback to increase conversion rates, reduce customer attrition and to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty. To get a free form up and running on your website, please visit: http://www.kampyle.com

Apart from Customer feedback forms, you can also use face to face interviews with your target customers. This can be done by administering a semi structured questionnaire to your target audience. This is the most effective way of data collection, as it ensures 100% strike rate. Face to face interviews usually cost some money, depending on the sample size, the amount is not much if you are focusing on one location only. Alternatively, if you have a robust contact list you can invite your target audience to participate in an online survey. This will not cost you a dime, but the survey will be limited to people with internet access. You can use a free platform to do online surveys by visiting: http://kwiksurveys.com.

To your success with data collection !!!

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