I’ve come up with a few scenarios that could result if online surveys with non-customer populations became impossible tomorrow. Imagine: you can still reach your customers for research, but what about the rest of the world? What if you could no longer reach qualified, non-customer groups in a quantitative way? If the lists and panels were no longer available or the response rates dropped to .0005 percent, what would the impact be on your market research needs and investments?
In a crowded marketplace, how can market research help your company stand out? By doing things your competitors aren’t daring enough to try. So let’s have some fun.
You have built up your in-house market research resources. Maybe standardized on a new survey platform. Perhaps hired some more market research staff. That’s great. Now that you have those skills and tools in place, let’s look at a few applications you may not have considered that will hone your competitive edge.
During the January 11th Twitterversity, one of the topic areas was, “About Survey Projects.”
Below is an excerpt from that section. The posts are from myself (@ResearchRocks), Annie Pettit (@Conversition), Manny Flores and Jeffrey Henning.
Here are a few practical tips about what you should see in a market segmentation proposal. If you see these things, it tells you that this proposal is from an experienced market research firm that understands how to mitigate the risks specific to segmentation projects.
One of the easiest ways to improve budget efficiency is to simply ask your research suppliers: “What options can you offer to reduce our research costs?” Let them know you are open to creative ideas.
If you have been thinking about expanding your market research investments but still aren’t quite ready to build an in-house team, another option is to build a virtual one.
Market Research Project Disasters: Common Cause #1
My premise is that one of the market research world’s greatest challenges is that market research departments spend 70% or more of their time on project management—as opposed to the strategic functions that would lead to more innovation.
RFPs range widely in terms of their level of sophistication and complexity. If your need is for a simple project, do yourself a favor: keep your RFP simple. It will save you a lot of time when the proposals come back and you actually have to read them.
At minimum, a market research RFP states parameters and requests responses to the basics:
