Archive for the Online Market Research Category

Companies regularly use focus groups to gain customer insights, test product concepts, investigate buying processes, and evaluate advertising concepts, websites, and media choices.  Online focus groups are often considered just because they are cost effective.  In fact, they can be the preferred methodological choice as well.
Following is a list of 10 reasons to consider online [...]

Market research is universally considered to be important, but many make common mistakes.  Here’s a quick checklist of common pitfalls to avoid.

No Purpose: A lot of market research asks the wrong questions.  Companies often follow a standard template and ask generalized questions.  Instead, clearly articulate your Guiding Research [...]

A new white paper from Survey Sampling International (SSI) has found that long online surveys lead to less engaged survey takers.  But according to Market Tools, which has published its own analysis of the factors affecting respondent engagement, the reality is less clear-cut.
SSI compared a 20-minute survey to a shorter version to test for fatigue [...]

Doing online moderation is somewhat different from moderating traditional groups. Here are 14 tips:
1. Recruit well. Just as with traditional groups, you’ll need to over-recruit to account for no-shows, and you’ll need to compensate participants at the same level as with traditional groups.
2. Prepare your moderator’s guide thoroughly and know it well. You’ll be [...]

Consider the following hypothetical newspaper excerpt:
An October poll of 800 registered voters found that, if the election were held that day, Candidate-X would beat Candidate-Y, 55% to 40%.  While Candidate-X held a 15 point lead, his numbers have “slipped” from a September poll that showed Candidate-X at 58% and Candidate-Y at 39%.
Although data are [...]

Statisticians often refer to data that are “normally distributed” (that is, where most values are close to the mean and fewer are at the extremes). For example, a community’s weekly calorie consumption would typically be normally distributed, with a few “outliers” consuming far more or far fewer.
When graphed, normally distributed data form the classic [...]