In earlier postings Australia Gets Own Version of YouGov and Old Brigade Goes Feral With Upstart Pollster I covered the joint venture between Photon Group and the London online election polling and research group YouGov. The Sydney Morning Herald is now reporting that the venture is on the verge of collapse.

However, observers close to Photon said this week YouGov had pulled out of last month’s deal, negotiating for majority control of the joint venture, which Photon is understood to have rejected. Photon is said to be days away from acquiring the local social research company Auspoll, which has various Labor Party and local government contracts and has done election polling for the Seven Network and Sky News in the past.

It seems that Australia nay to have to wait a little longer before they get their YouGov.

Questions are the life and soul of any survey, without questions there is no survey. Good questions are essential to the success of any survey while poorly written questions can condemn your survey to failure.

I have put together some ideas and considerations on how to write well structured questions.

In this article I focus on:

1. Social Desirability
2. Non-attitudes
3. Inaccurate Estimates

Social Desirability

Social desirability bias is the inclination to present oneself in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others. It is commonly accepted that people are generally inclined to seek some degree of social acceptance and it is not uncommon for survey results to be skewed by people choosing the more desirable answer.

The great thing about online surveys is that people generally give more honest answers when answering questions on a computer where the feeling of anonymity is increased. This is opposed to face-face interviews or telephone interviews where anonymity may be guaranteed but it is obvious that at least the interviewer will be able to associate the answer to the respondent. Read the rest of this entry »

Marketing Sherpa in their case study How To Qualify Leads with Targeted Online Surveys highlight how online surveys can prove an extremely successful way to build qualified leads for your sales team.

While the marketer in me is instantly excited by this idea it is the researcher in me that says caution must be taken when choosing this method of driving sales. Read the rest of this entry »

Mike Sachoff’s article “Use of Online Data Providers to Increase” highlights the growing conversion from offline to online research. The article refers to findings from “The Online Research Barometer,” a survey by Greenfield Online-Ciao Survey.

The survey found that 82 percent of market researchers in North America and 87 percent in Europe are predicting their use of online respondent providers will increase in the next 12 months.

What is likely is a drop in telephone surveys and face to face interviews and an increase in the use of online surveys.

Immi have developed a innovative piece of technology that turns a cellphone into a media surveying device. The IMMI^(SM) phone randomly samples 10 seconds of room audio every 30 seconds. These samples are reduced to digital signatures, which are uploaded continuously to the IMMI servers. IMMI also tracks all local media outlets actively broadcasting in any given designated media area (DMA). To identify media, IMMI^(SM) compares the uploaded audio signatures computed by the phones with audio signatures computed on the IMMI servers monitoring TV and radio broadcasts. IMMI also maintains client-provided content files, such as commercials, promos, movies, and songs. By matching the signatures, IMMI couples media broadcasts with the individuals who are exposed to them. The process takes just a few seconds.

The system relies on audible media so does not pick up for instance a television on mute. Yet the technology is still pretty impressive (if it works). To date most media companies have been reliant on diaries completed by panel members or set top boxes, something that IMMI may be able to send into retirement.

In Trade Show Basics, David Daniels high lights some good advice for planning and building a stand at a trade show/expo. David identifies that one of the most overlooked opportunities of a trade show is to conduct market research. It’s cost-effective and can yield answers to questions that can drive product innovation, and validate assumptions about the market. It’s also a great way to get an insight into new trends and directions.

I can’t agree more with this statement and having supported a clients survey at an expo last week I have some additional insights into how to take full advantage of the opportunity.

We ran an online survey on a laptop that was available for participants to fill in. As we had developed the survey for the show, the online platform allowed us to make any changes to the survey should they be required. In addition, many visitors to the show were too busy to fill in the survey at the time. In this instance we were able to take their contact details down and then email an invitation to the survey to them. It was also a great way to add people to the clients regular newsletter. In some cases respondents indicated that they would willing to receive further information regarding the clients product. The beauty here is not only does the client have the respondents permission to contact them to discuss their product in greater detail, they also have the respondents attitudes, behaviour and opinions on the product the client is selling.

A great incentive to encourage participation is to give respondents the option to receive a copy of the final research report. Not only does this increase active participation but it has the additional benefit of building and strengthening the relationship between your organisations and the respondent. Read the rest of this entry »

One creative solution to the ongoing problem of low response rates to intercept surveys – S&M.

Glen Shinn, Matt Baker and Gary Briers seek to answer this question in their article Response Patterns: Effect of Day of Receipt of an E-Mailed Survey Instrument on Response Rate, Response Time, and Response Quality The premise is that responses to online surveys emailed to respondents differs depending on the day that the survey invitation is sent.

Personally I have always tried to avoid sending out on surveys on Mondays for no other reason than I thought people might be more responsive to surveys once they have shaken off the ‘Monday Blues’. I read with interest then that the authors found no significant difference in the rate of response by day the instrument was e-mailed/received. In addition the authors report no discernible difference in the time to respond or in the quality of responses.

So it would seem that one day is just as good as the other (excluding weekends which were not included in the study). Still, I think I will continue to try and avoid Monday mornings just to be on the safe side.

David Taylor and Roger Brooksbank in their article “Strategic marketing in action: A comparison of higher and lower performing manufacturing firms in the UK” highlight the key elements of high performing manufacturing companies in the UK. What I found most interesting is the role that market research has to play in helping organisations become ‘High Performers’ and that high performers make greater use of marketing information systems.

The key findings were:

1. High Performers do more and better marketing research;
2. High Performers carry out a more comprehensive strategic situation analysis;
3. High performers pursue a strategy based on providing superior value to the customer;
4. High performers make greater use of marketing information systems.

When high performers talked about their marketing information systems they tended to focus on customer feedback and how this was managed. Mention was made of how customer advisory panels enabled the high performing organisations to capture effectively and efficiently the opinions of their customers.

Customer advisory panels are ideal for any organisation looking to create a sustainable competitive advantage. While achieving a sustainable competitive advantage can be like looking for the holy grail, one of the easiest ways is to understand your customers better, which is exactly what a Customer Advisory Panel can enable an organisation to do.