Archive for the ‘Online Focus Groups’ Category

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Digital Love

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Since the start of the new millennium, direct mail volumes in the UK increased year on year until 2003, but have been in steady – some might say dramatic – decline ever since. Whilst a low of 4.65 billion direct mail items in 2007 is not to be sniffed at, it is nevertheless a drop of some 14% from 2003’s high of 5.43 billion items.

Direct mail volumes

Source: Royal Mail

By contrast, the growth of digital marketing has been well documented, both in terms of volume and of increased design/technical capabilities. Of course, with digital marketing seemingly taking precedence over more traditional forms of direct mail, it does potentially leave a gap in the market for really eye-catching and attention-grabbing direct mail pieces. Nevertheless, the marketing agencies that are currently thriving are those that have embraced the concept of digital marketing with both hands.

Unsurprisingly, this digital growth has touched other areas of marketing, and we in the market research industry have witnessed a huge increase in online market research applications.

First of all, quantitative desk research has been transformed over the past decade or so. Visits to the library and the purchase of huge directories, which are out of date before they have even been opened, are almost things of the past since so much - and such up to date - information is available online, if you know where to look.

Then we have online focus groups, which are an innovative, cost-effective and increasingly popular way of carrying out qualitative research into the opinions of small groups of respondents. More information on this technique is available in our white paper, Using Online Focus Groups.

Web surveys have become the preferred method of data collection for many of our larger-scale customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction surveys, since they have the potential to offer significant cost and time savings, as well as increased data accuracy.

The advancement of technology and constant evolution of digital techniques in so many aspects of our business life need not signal the end to traditional ways of working, but there’s no doubt that new and exciting opportunities are presenting themselves all the time.

Posted in Online Research, Online Focus Groups |
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Two faced or too honest?

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If you’re dissatisfied, do you make your feelings known or do you tend to keep your opinion to yourself for fear of causing offence or creating a scene? Let’s face it, many of us will only give vent to our true feelings behind somebody’s back!

The British are, of course, known for their reserve. However, it would appear that we’re not alone. A study by Survey Sampling International has concluded that online surveys allow subjects in some countries to be more honest when answering questions than they would otherwise be.

Many respondents in Asian countries avoid being critical, which means that the results of face-to-face interviews can often be skewed since they don’t want to openly offend the interviewer. It would seem that respondents in China, in particular, voiced stronger opinions when questioned online than when quizzed face to face.

Of course, B2B International has long been at the forefront of online research – be that web surveys or online focus groups. The anonymity or perceived anonymity of online research increases respondents’ willingness to be open and honest, which is one of the major benefits of this particular research technique. Other advantages include:

• Higher speed and lower cost of information gathering
• Improved data accuracy levels
• Access to respondents across wide geographical spreads and/or time zones
• Volume and depth of information generated

For more information on online research methods or about talking to the Chinese market, see our white papers:

• Using Online Focus Groups
• Market Research In China

Posted in Online Research, Online Focus Groups |
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Market Research Prices - A Global Comparison, Part II

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Following on from our initial post last week about the findings of the 2007 ESOMAR Prices Study, in this post we look in more detail at how online research methods, such as e-surveys and e-focus groups, have continued to exert a strong downward pressure upon research prices.

That online research tends to lower costs is amply demonstrated by the fact that while telephone interviewing was found, on average, to be roughly three-quarters of the cost of face-to-face research, online techniques were a further 33% cheaper than telephone-based methods.

The article then concludes by examining the key factors that determine market research price differentials between countries and regions:

How cheap will on line go?

In the current study, 19 countries were able to provide at least three bids for conducting a tracking study using online data collection, up from 10 countries in 2005. Prices fell, in US dollars, in five of the eight countries that were included in both the 2005 and 2007 studies. These falls were despite the fact that exchange rate movements alone should have made most of them more expensive. In Australia, Japan, and UK the absolute price reductions were particularly large. It appears that a major factor in these price cuts is the increased number of suppliers and fierce price competition.

However, there is an indication in the study that prices won’t continue to fall indefinitely. In the USA prices rose between 2005 and 2007, by about 13% per year.

The main drivers

The study suggests the key drivers of price are the cost of labour and the size of the research market where the work is done. The cost of labour, in turn, being driven by a combination of local wage rates and the shortage or abundance of talent (markets that feel the need to hire international talent certainly end up more expensive). Smaller research markets, in economically advanced countries, find it hard to create online access panels. Without a range of online access panels, these countries miss out on the cheapest options for research. This, in part, explains why Ireland was the most expensive country on the Global Index.

The cheapest countries tend to be those with the lowest cost bases, with the cheapest being Pakistan, followed by Bulgaria and Macedonia. Several of the recent EU accession countries, for example Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania, are amongst the cheapest on the Global Index. This position may change markedly over the next few years, as these economies harmonise with the rest of the EU.

The above article orginally appeared in the October 2007 edition of Research World

Posted in Online Research, Online Focus Groups, Market Research, Articles |
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Need Research? Think Independently

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“It is not the strongest species that survive….but the ones most responsive to change� Charles Darwin

Gone are the days where organizations employed ‘Market Research Managers’ to commission, manage and utilize market research carried out by external agencies; in fact it is very rare these days that a company has such a position. Originally the focus of market research was on marketing issues, and the main users of market research were the marketing departments of large companies. Over time its use has broadened to a wide range of business issues, and today market research is used by a broad spectrum of functions in a wide range of small as well as large organisations. In deed, in recent years, the use of market research has developed very healthily outside the traditional confines of the Marketing and Market Research departments, thanks to the relationships built and skills offered by independent consultants and small/medium research agencies.

Market research carried out by ‘Independent Consultants Group’ and Ciao! shows that independent market research consultants are viewed in a very positive light. Reflecting the individual nature of their service, their key characteristics are creativity (a more flexible approach to problem solving, free thinking) and a good working relationship (good listeners, stimulating to work with) – in addition to experience, actionability, insight, commitment and an understanding of business issues.

The key findings were as follows:

1. Market research is now a highly valued information source, which has become more useful in the past five years

2. Market research is being commissioned by a wide variety of client functions other than Marketing and Market Research. The client base has broadened considerably and this trend seems likely to continue, as market research becomes increasingly a mainstream rather than a specialist tool

3. Confidence appears to be growing in the usefulness of the Internet (presumably as a resource in its own right as well as a tool which makes market research easier to use and more widely accessible - http://www.b2binternational.com/aboutb2b/techniques/quantitative/esurveys.php ), and in technological developments which render market research ever more relevant to business issues eg online focus groups - http://www.b2binternational.com/library/whitepapers/whitepapers14.php

4. Smaller, independent market research consultants are widely used by research buyers because they have a broader skill set and can work with a more varied client base rather than just the conventional Market Research function

5. Independent consultants are valued for their creativity and problem-solving approach and the good working relationship that they build with clients – good listeners and stimulating to work with. These are important skills which need to be more widely developed in the market research industry.

6. The perception of large/global research agencies tends to be much more associated with offering standard off-the-shelf solutions rather than understanding the problem. They are seen to delegate to juniors and provide information rather than insight. This does not project the right image for the healthy future development of the industry

For more information on B2B International’s consultancy offering visit
http://www.b2binternational.com/services/consultancy_and_training/consultancy_services.php

This article can be viewed in its entirety at www.indepconsultants.org

Posted in Industrial Research, Online Focus Groups, Market Assesment, Market Research, B2B News |
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The Benefits Of Online Research

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This morning’s blog is interesting because it is a harbinger of things to come. We refer to an article in the Financial Times of Tuesday this week in which it talks of online research taking over other methods of data collection for Unilever. Since Unilever virtually invented market research in a commercial sense, we should take note of this.

In the US, 80% of Unilever’s research is now carried out online and the UK and Japan are likely to follow quickly in suit. There is an obvious reason for this. Online research is quicker and cheaper than the phone or face to face interviews. It is the reason for the stellar growth of companies such as YouGov, set up only 7 years ago and now worth £133 million on AIM.

Last week YouGov reported on four surveys in the national press and they were all broad consumer subjects - family breakdowns (Daily Mail), DIY shopping (Daily Express), web surfing (The Guardian/The Sun) and Gordon Brown’s suitability as prime minister (Sunday Times).

The question we business to business researchers must ask ourselves is “can it happen to us?� The problem here is getting the appropriate samples. YouGov has a panel of 150,000 respondents in the UK and they are all consumers. Of course, many consumers are like you and me – they have jobs – and so they could also answer a question in the capacity of their employment. However, that is not going to help a business to business company that wants to look at aircraft deicing fluids because we can be virtually certain that no one (unless we are very lucky) on the panel will be occupied in a job at an airport buying deicing fluids.

At the present, it seems that business to business market researchers will confine their research to customer surveys, using the customer lists (and potential customer lists) that have been built up within the company. Or they will use the panels to carry out surveys of SMEs where the large consumer panels can supply sufficient numbers of proprietors and managers in small businesses. However, what we do know is that most ideas that change the world begin as small dots on the radar screen and one day they can loom large. This online research dot is one that merits a constant watch and report. Enjoy the read and we would be interested in your opinions on this interesting subject.

Unilever to cash in on benefits of web research
By Carlos Grande,Marketing Correspondent Finanical Times April 17 2007

Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch food and personal products group, plans to increase the use of the internet as a market research tool, following the success of its web re-search in the US.
The percentage of Unilever’s US research conducted online has more than doubled to 80 per cent in five years. This is part of a long-term policy by the company to exploit the speed and low cost of the web to research customers’ behaviour.

While the US is its most advanced market, Unilever envisages similar trends in countries where internet access is widely available, such as the UK and Japan. The shift to internet pro-jects by Unilever, which spends an estimated €400m (£272.2m) a year on research, reflects the web’s accelerating impact on the global market research industry. Internet research advocates believe it produces results more quickly and cheaply than phone or face-to-face interviews and focus groups.

Chet Henderson, vice-president of Unilever Insight, the group’s research division, said the catalyst for putting projects online in any country was the point at which half the population had internet access -a figure the UK achieved in 2003. Mr Henderson said: “As soon as we get to that, we can get the benefits of the speed of internet research.”

Mr Henderson said that according to Unilever’s internal data testing, internet responses also tended to be more honest than those gained by traditional methods. “In some countries, people are far more honest on the internet,” he said.

The move to web research by big consumer groups underlines the business opportunity for internet-only research companies trying to grab business from established research networks.
Market research was worth about $16bn (£8bn) in the world’s five biggest territories in 2005, including $7.7bn in the US and $2.4bn in the UK.

Web researchers typically recruit a big panel of res-pondents via the internet and ask them to complete rapid response online questionnaires.

Webcams and online chatrooms are sometimes used to create virtual focus groups.

In Unilever’s case, it believes the web could be 10-20 per cent cheaper than traditional methods. Senior Unilever brand executives think that greater use of technology has gone hand in hand with a broader change in research approaches. Mr Henderson said: “Where you lose is in not being able to have a conversation. People type in a lot less than they say and online you miss the non-verbal way people signal their reactions.”

Nevertheless, Unilever believes it can exploit the web to conduct increasingly sophisticated research.

Gerardo Rozanksi, global brand vice-president of Rexona - the deodorant brand known as Sure in the UK - said: “We are shifting the focus into more strategic work. So we ask people less often, ‘What do you think about this specific product?’ and more about their lives and opinions in generic terms to give us the under-lying insights to come up with solutions.”

Posted in Qualitative Research, Quantitative Research, Online Research, Online Focus Groups, Esurveys, Market Research |
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