Are Traditional Online Research Panels Dead?

October 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Huge CrowdI write this feeling as though I have one foot in the past/present and another foot squarely in the future.

Let me explain.

I’ve been a part of market research panels for YEARS.  In fact, I have to admit that because of my years of experience of actually calling respondents on the phone as well as sending mail surveys and now online surveys — I always feel obligated to take the time and effort to go through any survey that is offered me.  I suppose you can call it paying it backward rather than forward.

$2 just isn’t enough for 20 or 40 minutes of my time.

The last two panel survey requests I’ve received offered me $2 for between 2o and 40 minutes of my time.  I had prepared myself by taking the survey on a Saturday morning over coffee.  And then about 2 minutes into the survey — I just bailed.  I tried not to — but I just couldn’t keep answering long matrix questions on attributes for a company I had NO experience with.

I also have to admit that this is not the first panel survey I bailed on — I’ve bailed on several over the last month or so primarily because they are too long — even online and even over lunch, I just can’t seem to dedicate 30 minutes to answering stupid questions.  And the questions have terrible logic – I can absolutely understand asking me questions about a product, service or company that I used.  But if I’m not a user and have no experience – it doesn’t work to ask me 50 questions about the detailed attributes on the subject.  It’s fine and fair to ask me say 5 or 10 questions — but anything more than that is just too frustrating.  As a respondent I hate having to repeat “I don’t KNOW” and then not have an option for N/A.

Does the panel you paid for REALLY represent your target audience?

Anyone can sign up for a panel.  Anyone can be any demographic in a panel.  In the survey I bailed on, they were offering $2 for 20 minutes.  After going through the first 15 questions, I could see that their target audience wasn’t going to spend the time required to give them the quality answers they wanted.

So are they getting the good data that they need from their target audience?  I don’t think so.  In fact, I think they are paying $5 per respondent for garbage.

Yet I have to think that there is value in these old fashioned online panel studies.  I’d love to hear from the online panel research folks and have them explain the logic here.

Mobile market research panels are better, cheaper, funner

Over the last several months, I’ve been playing in the mobile market research panel sandbox and I have to say the experience is EXPONENTIALLY more engaging, valid and valuable to the company doing the research.

  • Real people.  When you use a mobile smartphone to answer a survey, your demographics are locked in.  We know who you are.
  • Location focus.  Your smartphone also has GPS feature that shows where you are.  This makes geographic targeting much easier,.
  • Super short surveys.  Only one to 5 questions per survey means you are in and out in an average of 30 seconds.
  • More fun.  The mobile survey panel questions occur as much more fun and engaging.  I’m not sure if it’s how they are worded or the fact that the surveys are short.  I can only say that people like taking them.  You can take a survey in the grocery line, waiting at the doctor’s office or during a boring meeting.  Either way, you feel part of a community and it doesn’t take up much of your time.
I don’t think online research panels are dead by any stretch of the imagination.  I think that we will see the use of panels increase.  But I certainly hope that the long surveys are done and over with because at this stage of the game, I’m not sure that any customer worth having will have the time or attention span to complete a survey that takes any more than a couple of minutes.
Filed Under: Essay, Market Research Tagged With: , , ,

Free Webinar: How To Set Up a Panel Management Solution in 30 Minutes

August 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Panel management solutions are popping up everywhere, giving companies quite a bit to explore. What keeps many from getting startet, though, is that it may seem too difficult to learn, too time-consuming, or that to much seems dependent on the software company, which may slowing down the panel debut. With MicroPanel, a new solution from our partners at SurveyAnalytics, implementing your own panel management solution doesn’t have to be difficult. The webinar “How To Set Up a Panel Management Solution in 30 Minutes” will help familiarize you with the following:

-Trends & Advantages of creating and managing your own panel solution
-How to get started : 5-point focus to kick off your panel solution
-Customized site behavior: Get Your panel & Panel Portal the way you want it to
-Profiling Surveys: Capturing panel info while you ask questions in your survey
-What Are Knowledge Bank Questions: How to Implement them and connect them to your Panel profiles
-Sampling Portal: Pulling specific data for your surveys

A Question and Answer session will follow prior to the conclusion of the webinar.

This free webinar will take place Wednesday August 24th, 2011 at 8:00 AM PST.

Click here to sign up now

Filed Under: Events Tagged With: , ,

Recruit Your Own Survey Panel

March 23, 2011 By 1 Comment

Sometimes a survey panel is exactly what you need — and for that, you can use any number of panel providers such as Peanut Labs or EMI.

But sometimes, a panel can be overkill and just too expensive for your project, in which case, it’s a good idea to have recruited a panel of your very own.

Here are a few ideas as to how to have an ongoing panel recruiting effort and panel survey:
[Read more...]

Filed Under: How-To, Market Research Tagged With: ,

Thumbspeak – Mobile Panel Platform – Dean Wiltse gets back into the game.

July 15, 2010 By 4 Comments

After being in the Market Research business for 10 years and leading Greenfield Online public and then overseeing the merger/buyout of Perseus and Websurveyor into Vovici – Dean Wiltse is back in the game – with ThumbSpeak.

As mentioned in my previous post, we’ll be profiling innovative companies that are attempting to change Market Research and data collection and looking beyond traditional models. This is our first post on this.

What is ThumbSpeak?

A mobile panel. Where users _actually_ take surveys using smartphones (iPhone, Android devices etc.)  Users download the app – and the App then “pushes” surveys to consumers. Consumers get points/rewards (like with most other panels) for completing surveys. Thumbspeak sells access to these users to market researchers who want to tap into them.

Why is it unique?

Traditional panel providers like eRewards, Toluna, SSI have mobile panels – as in they have users who have (or have used) a smart phone – but the surveys are still conducted over the traditional web interface. Thumbspeak is solely focused on the mobile platform. All their data-collection efforts are going to be in the smartphone — at least for now. They have an iPhone App out – the Android app will come out soon in the next few months.

Next – they are recruiting via developers. There are over 200,000 apps in the App-Store – and most of them are Free. Which means there are approximately 100,000 – 200,000 developers developing for the Apple eco-system alone. If you add in the Android platform and the Symbian/Palm OS platfrom – there are a LOT of developers trying to make money off smartphones. Not all can make money. They need a better monetization model than simply ads. Ad’s in mobile work to some extent, but because of real-estate restrictions – you cannot make a ton of money just on Ads. Thumbspeak has the ability to make these developers some cash – but being the conduit between users who want to pay, who need access to mobile users and want to conduct market research, and the development community.

What’s the business model – aka – is this real?

So far it seems. The typical going rate for an iPhone completed panel member is ~$6/Completed Survey. This revenue can be distributed between the developer and Thumbspeak – and given the fact that Wiltse has a deep background in the panel business from GreenField – I don’t doubt that he can sell panels! Wiltse was the CEO of GreenField with a 400M market cap. He also has a good background in software development when he led Vovici and oversaw the Perseus/Websurveyor merger.

Challenges/NaySayers?

Couple :

  1. Critical Mass – Any panel company requires critical mass – its the chicken and the egg problem. Wiltse will have to overcome that both from a sales and recruitment standpoint.
  2. Competition – Toluna, SSI, GMI and eRewards – have a combined market cap of about a 500-800M – So you are talking about the big boys here. If they smell blood – they’ll come after this – I would not say this is that bad – very likely one of them just buys Thumbspeak?

Filed Under: Innovation Tagged With: ,