Resources for the Market Research Community
This Access Toon was inspired by the webinar I moderated today on the topic of Big Data. One of the points discussed was that market researchers need to move beyond the traditional skill set in order to meet the challenge and opportunity of Big Data. That got me thinking about the fact that, with some exceptions, it can be difficult for corporate market researchers to spend the time and money needed to keep on top of emerging trends and analytical techniques.
There are a lot of buzzwords out there in market research, and Big Data is one of them. I’ve been hearing that term everywhere.
I’m proud to announce that Research Access is partnering with GreenBook to bring you a webinar to help you understand Big Data.
This is the first in a series of webinars to be brought to you in 2012 in an exciting partnership between Research Access and GreenBook.
The webinar is entitled, “Turning Big Data from a Headache to a Competitive Advantage,” and it will be held on Tuesday, February 21 at 1pm EST / 10am PST.
We’ve assembled a panel of experts to help you understand Big Data and, more importantly, give you practical tips for how to analyze it and turn it to your advantage.
I will be moderating the session, and joining me will be four expert panelists:
Sign up for the webinar today, and when you attend, tweet your questions to the hashtag #mrxideas.
On January 30th, 2012, Survey Analytics sponsored a webinar on Mobile Market Research Trends. The webinar was moderated by Esther LaVielle of Survey Analytics and featured Romi Mahajan, CMO of Metavana, and Chad Bhandari, co-founder of SurveySwipe. Today we bring you the full text of Part 6 of the webinar, which covered the topic of Hyperlocal Surveys.
Esther LaVielle
Esther LaVielle: Fantastic, thank you. Now, let’s dig deeper into a kind of mobile ethnography, hyperlocal surveys. We talked about it a little bit already, just bringing it up through push notifications and mobile ethnography. How do you think this is– particularly hyperlocal surveys– how do you think this is going to change the way clients or companies should interact with their customers?
Romi Mahajan
Romi Mahajan: Hyperlocal, what it’s really suggesting is that there are different types of patterns and behaviors depending again on the “c” word, context, right, in which the old notion of this unvaregiated mass of people that all make decisions like a herd is being put to the test. And so hyperlocal says that there might be neighborhoods, communities, particular buying contexts, particular geographies, parts of downtowns, et cetera, in which people have different behaviors and different patterns.
If you think about, there’s a huge movement all over the country to revitalize downtowns because the hyperlocality of a particular place changes the behavior and the tenor of both purchases and other things in that area. So again, a very, very powerful construct as long as it’s not overdone, right? As long as you’re not now dealing with millions of data sets when you’re trying to sell Tide detergent, right, because Tide detergent might or might not change depending on the hyperlocality of the context. But there are some products and services that do, and you just have to be smart about where you invoke hyperlocal and where you don’t.
But again, all of these things are just tools. They have to be wielded carefully, and a good market researcher knows that. And a bad market researcher will just use them all without thinking and actually create a Tower of Babel for him or herself.
Esther LaVielle: I do want to pose a question over to Chad. How exactly does hyperlocal work a person who’s on a panel?
Chad Bhandari
Chad Bhandari: So the way it works is you basically program a location and associate a survey with that particular location. And the location is basically defined by latlong of that place. And then you can define a radius where you can say if the panelist is within this radius, enters this circle, per se, of the radius that you define, the survey becomes available. So the panelist gets a push notification, and then they will instantly get the survey right there.
I think that is just the basic of what is possible. So we also have been experimenting with some heuristic based approaches where we’re trying to figure out if we can figure out if a panelist enters a particular store, let’s say Walmart, and stays there for half an hour, and then tagging all that information, keeping all that information, and then, after half an hour, assuming that they’ve left Walmart, send a customer satisfaction survey saying, hey, looks like you just visited Walmart. Did you visit Walmart? What did you buy? What did you not buy? Why did you not buy? Those kinds of things, traditional surveys that you want to do.
So really, you program the location, you associate the survey, and I think the key to understand here is that we can– the panelist gets the survey where they actually are. So the location context, and the time context, and the context of why they made certain decisions can be a very, very useful tool I believe.
Romi Mahajan: I know we’re about to jump into a demo, but I’ve got to riff off of what Chad is saying because there’s something even more granular that’s very powerful. Because when Chad talks about latitude and longitude, you can– I advise a company called Novitaz, and they’ve built an incredibly interesting wi-fi system where you could technically get the exact details of where somebody is in the store. So are they in the men’s section, and do they move to shoes, and how long do they stay there, and what was their behavior as you pushed out offers and coupons to them? And so hyperlocal allows you to not just pinpoint a specific store, but a part of a store, or a part of a neighborhood. It’s just very, very powerful.
That’s it for Part 6: Mobile Ethnography. I hope you’ve enjoyed the series! Check back regularly for more great webinars from Research Access.
On January 30th, 2012, Survey Analytics sponsored a webinar on Mobile Market Research Trends. The webinar was moderated by Esther LaVielle of Survey Analytics and featured Romi Mahajan, CMO of Metavana, and Chad Bhandari, co-founder of SurveySwipe. Today we bring you the full text of Part 5 of the webinar, which covered the topic of Mobile Ethnography.
Esther LaVielle
Esther LaVielle: All right, so let’s go ahead and move on to a really fun topic that I really like getting to which is mobile ethnography. So what’s the difference between mobile ethnography versus traditional ethnography, and what do you see as its benefits? Romi, do you want to start?
Romi Mahajan
Romi Mahajan: Again, what mobile does is it offers you scenarios both in terms of time, and location, and context that traditional doesn’t. Ethnography – it’s an interesting word. Its background is anthropology. Where an anthropologist was studying, let’s say, a tribe or a people living halfway across the world, they would go there and actually get into the context of how these people lived. It wasn’t this parachuting in, parachuting out drivey-by type of knowledge collection, right? And mobile ethnography allows you to go into the moment, into the location, and into the context of the people that you’re trying to learn from. So I have never been a person who’s been at the forefront and cheerleading of any trend because I think that a lot of this can be very self-serving. But I do believe that the mobile and local phenomenon is going to transform marketing and marketing research in a way that, while pundits are talking about it, no one really understands that we’re the notion of data and making it contextual wisdom. I’ve said that several times on this webcast, but if people go away with nothing else but that, it’s that mobile– the SoLoMo, really the mobile and local piece of that give you contextual wisdom, not just data that, frankly, data, there’s an overload of it and no one can make sense of it. But wisdom we can use.
So a very powerful concept. And again, platforms like SurveySwipe allow a person like me, a marketer without great technology savvy and without great budgets, and so on, and so forth to be able to conduct mobile ethnography with ease. And I thank entrepreneurs like Chad and like Vivek Bhaskaran of Survey Analytics for coming up with stuff like this.
Esther LaVielle: So what kind of technology do you think is going to make mobile ethnography so exciting? What kind of tech tools are you seeing that are going to be super beneficial? I don’t know, maybe taking pictures? What other things do you think is going to be beneficial when you’re using the mobile versus having someone observing people?
Chad Bhandari
Chad Bhandari: I’ll answer that. I think you have to think about what tools are available today and how mobile is going to enhance those tools. I think, like you said, photos, videos, the capability that phones have for scanning bar codes are very– when you look at a surface, it’s very simple. But when you contextualize it with the kinds of research that can be done, it’s not very far-fetched with mobile devices and the power that they have today to have a mom basically take a picture of all the products that she uses for breakfast. It’s not very far-fetched for folks to carry their phones and provide very deep contextual data about what they are performing at the moment.
So I think when you look at forums which were sort of passive, you have to have your laptop open to actually give feedback, so a lot of it was based on recall. With mobile, it’s instant. I think while it sounds simple, I think it can potentially provide very deep contextual data that could be very useful for marketing research.
Romi Mahajan: One of the areas that I’ve been thinking about, and I know people on this webcast must be thinking about a lot is, how do you go and understand, let’s say, consumer behavior in countries in which the economy is moving, but really ones in which they are some bereft of traditional infrastructure, right? I mean, how would you go and do real mobile ethnography in Brazil, or India, or Pakistan, or Bangledesh, or a place like that?
And obviously, the mobile devices, the burgeoning of the mobile world has allowed for that. And so we’re opening completely new vistas in research through this mobile revolution. And ethnography, again, like any disciplinary artifact, has to change with the times, and mobile’s absolutely making it far more powerful. So again, I think we’ve probably exhausted this subject, but again, a very powerful construct.
Esther LaVielle: Fantastic, thank you. Now, let’s dig deeper into a kind of mobile ethnography, hyperlocal surveys.
That’s it for Part 5: Mobile Ethnography. The final installment of this series will cover the topic Hyperlocal Surveys.
At the Net Promoter Conference I had the honor of meeting and conducting an interview with Dr. Minh Duong-van, a renowned physicist in the field of chaos theory. Dr. Minh was at the conference for the announcement of a partnership between his company, Metavana, and Satmetrix, the Net Promoter Company, to create a Social Net Promoter Score called the SparkScore.
This hour-long interview must be watched in its entirety to be fully appreciated. It will take some brain power on your part to fully understand Dr. Minh’s brilliant explication of his insights into the ways that the principles of physics can be applied to language, and, specifically, text analytics.
Enjoy!
On January 30th, 2012, Survey Analytics sponsored a webinar on Mobile Market Research Trends. The webinar was moderated by Esther LaVielle of Survey Analytics and featured Romi Mahajan, CMO of Metavana, and Chad Bhandari, co-founder of SurveySwipe. Today we bring you the full text of Part 4 of the webinar, which covered the topic of HTML5.
Esther Rmah LaVielle
Esther LaVielle: All right, let’s go ahead and move on to the next thing, which is HTML5. And how would this benefit mobile market research? I’m going to go ahead and let Chad start.
Chad Bhandari
Chad Bhandari: Yeah, I think what I would like to focus in on is basically say that we are a software company, a technology company. And our goal is to make sure that we allow all the tools that are necessary to collect data for market researchers. So the way I see it is that surveys are all about distribution, or research is all about distribution in the sense that the more people you can reach in the form factors that people interact with today, the better it is because you’re going to collect more data. That’s a fundamental that I have.
And HTML5 really is a testament to that belief really because what HTML5 five allows us to do is while we have apps for the four major platforms; HTML5 allows us to reach other platforms that we may not have apps for. And even in the cases where we do have apps on mobile devices for a quick survey, HTML5 can come in pretty handy. So for QR code based scenarios, for example, if the respondent does not have an app installed, HTML5 essentially is a mobile, optimized survey solution. So really, it’s about reach and it’s about making sure that respondents have access to form factors that they are accustomed to using.
Romi Mahajan
Romi Mahajan: I don’t think anyone could say it better than what Chad just did. HTML5 is going to allow us to deliver value and exchange value with people on the devices of their choice in the context of their choice. And there is no more powerful statement about its power as a technology-enabling platform and the power of what’s being called SoLoMo, social/local/mobile. People are bandying that about, but there’s something very profound about what HTML5 allows or, let’s say, what it powers. So I’m not a technologist, but again, Chad said it best. It’s allowing people to use the device and context of their own choice.
Esther LaVielle: Very cool, very cool. I like that, SoLoMo, I haven’t heard that one. So that’s very neat. I will definitely keep that in my pocket. All right, so let’s go ahead and move on to a really fun topic that I really like getting to which is mobile ethnography.
That’s it for Part 4: HTML5. The upcoming installments will cover the following topics: mobile ethnography and hyperlocal surveys.
The big news from the opening day of the Net Promoter Conference yesterday was Satmetrix‘ partnership with Metavana to offer a new “social” Net Promoter Score called the SparkScore.
Net Promoter is an approach to customer satisfaction measurement. The new SparkScore is Satmetrix’ approach to the growing field of text analytics and sentiment analysis.
The announcement seems to have gotten significant attention so far, including a nice writeup from Mashable, which likened the SparkScore a “Klout score for brands.”
Coming soon on Research Access will be my interview with Satmetrix CEO Richard Owen, and conversations with Metavana’s CEO Michael Tupanjanin and the brains behind the SparkScore, Metavana founder and renowned physicist Dr. Minh Duong-van.
Later this week I’ll be attending the Net Promoter Conference in San Francisco. I’m really looking covering this event for Research Access.
Customer satisfaction (or CSAT) measurement is a highly specialized, but vitally important, part of the research world.
Yet I think there are many researchers and marketers who aren’t terribly familiar with the ins and outs of customer satisfaction and loyalty measurement.
Here is a quick ABC guide to what you need to know about CSAT.
Satmetrix, known as the Net Promoter Company, is the firm that administers the Net Promoter methodology.
The ACSI (American Customer Satisfaction Index) is a methodology for measuring customer satisfaction. It factors in the following variables: customer expectations, perceived quality, perceived value, customer complaints and customer loyalty.
Tracking
Customer satisfaction and loyalty are fluid; therefore, most measurement programs involve tracking scores consistently over time.
Indicator
Customer satisfaction is a leading indicator of business success; that’s why it’s so important to understand it and take action based on it.
The Secure Customer Index is a customer satisfaction measurement methodology developed by D. Randall Brandt. The SCI combines three elements – overall satisfaction, likelihood to continue using the service, and likelihood to recommend.
Future
The purpose of customer satisfaction research is to assess current attitudes toward a company in order to predict purchase behavior in the future.
Answering the Ultimate Question
Answering the Ultimate Question is a book by Fred Reichheld which outlines the Net Promoter methodology.
Calculating Your Net Promoter Score
The Net Promoter score is just what the name implies – the net of customers who are “promoters” minus those who are “detractors.” The core Net Promoter question asks on a scale of 0 to 10 how likely a customer is to recommend the company to a colleague or friend. The NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of customers who give a score of 0 through 6 (“Detractors”) from the percentage who give a score of 9 or 10 (“Promoters”).
Truth
Like all research, customer satisfaction research is a search for truth. There are different approaches, but the search for truth must continue unabated.
Index
Most customer satisfaction methodologies yield an index; a single score which is easy for an organization to understand, and, importantly, can be the basis for positive action.
Out of Luck
Firms that ignore customer satisfaction altogether will soon find themselves out of luck.
Net Promoter is a customer satisfaction measurement methodology, developed by Satmetrix, Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld. The Net Promoter Score is obtained by asking customers about their likelihood to recommend a company to a friend or colleague.
You can use this link to get a discount if you’d like to join me at the Net Promoter Conference in San Francisco, February 1-3, 2012.
I hope to see you there!
The Super Bowl is huge in every way, even when it comes to market research.
It is by far the biggest sporting event in the U.S. Perhaps more significantly, it is annually the highest rated television program.
The contest is preceded by two weeks of sheer, unadulterated hype. It’s not just the sports networks and websites making hay. Other media outlets capitalize on Super Bowl hype in the weeks before the game. Every commercial is dissected six ways to Sunday. Even the halftime musical performance gets a huge amount of attention (this year it’s by Madonna).
This hype may excite you or disgust you, but you can’t ignore it.
As a researcher and a marketer, I find the hype surrounding the Super Bowl endlessly fascinating.
This has been true even in years where my team is not in the game. My beloved New England Patriots are going up against a very worthy opponent, the New York Giants.
This year’s contest, as a rematch of a hotly contested (and wildly disappointing to Patriots fans) game from four years ago, looks to be bigger and badder than ever. Add in the growth of social media, and you have the makings of a true marketing spectacle.
Awesome!
As a market researcher, I’ve heard endless talk over the past few years about how the poor economy has had a negative effect on our industry.
Well, I say we should be thankful as market researchers that the Super Bowl gives us so many things to measure, analyze and interpret.
The Super Bowl is a great thing for anyone involved in marketing. Market researchers should be thankful for this bonanza.
Here are some of the many places I can only imagine extensive research has occurred connected to the Super Bowl.
- Of course, at the National Football League, by widely respected Director of Research Alicia Rankin.
- At ESPN and other sports media entities
- At NBC, the television network broadcasting the event
- By the city of Indianapolis, hosting the event for the first time
- By the dozens of television advertisers for this year’s game
This list just scratches the surface. Literally thousands of businesses run Super Bowl related promotions, creating numerous business opportunities for the market research industry.
Yes, it’s a hype-filled marketing event, a spectacle of capitalism that gives a major boost to our economy.
Only in America!
Please share your thoughts on Super Bowl market research in the comments section below.
Research Access may be the single best resource for information about how to use QR codes in market research. Here’s a link to all our articles on those little (not always) black and white scannable codes.
Now we’ve taken it a step further. Presenting the Research Access QR Code Gallery.
Because we write about QRs so often, we get a little excited when we spot those little guys in the field. So we’ve started snapping photos of them.
We thought it would be fun to start a gallery of all the QR codes we find.
But to build a truly great QR Code Gallery, we need your help.
When you spot QR codes in the wild, take a picture of them and email them to us at info@researchaccess.com. We especially like custom QR codes, which can incorporate color and other design elements.
Happy hunting, and we look forward to posting your QR codes!
Here’s a link to Research Access’ QR Code Gallery.
