Online Communities Drive Deeper Insight
Our experts have spoken before about the benefits of online-community-based market research. Industry news sources report that more and more companies use communities to fill a need that focus groups once did, attracted to the comparative flexibility and cost-efficiency of the Internet. Certainly, the online community and the focus group have a good deal in common –but they are different in very important ways.

Like in a focus group, moderators can ensure that forum discussion in the community stays on-topic and addresses objectives. However, the online format gives community members more opportunity to speak candidly. This frees insights to emerge from the discussion in a way that feels organic and authentic. Online research communities bring to light ideas that other research methods can miss, and businesses, as a result, are able to capture richer data from the qualitative research they conduct.

Social Media Monitoring Captures Unscripted Feedback
Social media monitoring collects qualitative data, but it does so in a different format than the online community. Social media monitoring captures spontaneous online interactions that are not moderated, and hence it harnesses thoughts that consumers might not express as freely under controlled conditions. The social-media approach gives businesses new ways to understand and respond to consumer behaviour. Researchers found recently that Twitter is an accurate predictor of box-office profits. The popular micro-blogging site sheds light on other subjects, too –which is why FGI Research chose to include data from Twitter in its community solution. With social media monitoring attached to our community solution, we can create a more complete perspective of any research project.

What the Updates Include
The SmartPanel^TM community invites consumers to take surveys and participate in forum discussion in exchange for material incentives. The community portal features an online forum, quick surveys, and secure client- and user- access, among other features. Meanwhile, the new community solution offers the choice of whether to include, on the landing page, a module tracking forum discussion or a feed tracking buzz on popular social media sites.

Qualitative data from community-based research will help businesses refine existing quantitative studies, contextualize quantitative results, and define fresh business initiatives to better serve customers’ interests. For community members, the many features and opportunities to contribute to research make for a dynamic online experience. In short, the new community not only engages customers in online discourse, but it provides researchers with a larger volume of better data, for a better value.

More About SmartPanel^TM
The FGI SmartPanel^TM is one of the most respected online consumer panels in the industry. It is an engaging and interactive platform that invites users to take surveys, exchange ideas, and interact with other panelists in exchange for rewards like cash and prizes. Cash and prizes are delivered promptly, securely and directly into survey respondents’ PayPal accounts. In addition, SmartPanel^TM members are eligible to join the SmartPanel^TM Community. To join SmartPanel^TM, visit the SmartPanel^TM Gateway (http://ld.fgiresearch.com/fgireportbuilder/sp/gw/).

The focus group (online or in person) is a tried-and-true method for gleaning qualitative insight from a subset of your target audience.  One of the most attractive benefits of the focus group is the presence of a trained moderator, who can direct and manage conversations so as to target specific questions. The answers to these questions can produce valuable insights that drive marketing decisions and fuel additional quantitative research, both of which ramp up business performance.

But what are your options when you need qualitative reactions from a larger group of people?  Or if you’re not exactly sure what your focus should be?   What if you don’t even know what issues you need to address?  How do you reach your target audience and get them talking freely about what they like, what they don’t like, and what they’d like to see in the future?

For many companies, the answer to this dilemma is to develop an online community. In an online community, your customers can interact not only with a moderator, who sets the ball rolling on precise exercises, but also with each other.  This produces dual benefits. First, it lets researchers drill down on specific issues. Second, it provides ample opportunity for community members to raise new topics that may not previously have been considered priorities.  Keeping these communities invitation-only allows researchers and their clients a way to interact with customers within the proverbial “walled garden.”

FGI’s suite of community products offers additional twists on the private online research community: the opportunity to run topic-driven sessions for short periods of time to deal with a specific set of concerns, or to run the community as a permanent website that is always available to members.  The short-term session is an excellent method both for defining the parameters of an upcoming quantitative study and for identifying future research paths to be explored. Long-term communities, meanwhile, let customers bring up concerns as they arise, allowing businesses to monitor subjective feedback in real time. Each type of online community has specific advantages that respond to different needs. Whether your intent is to keep a constant eye on customer satisfaction or to gauge their opinion on a time-sensitive decision, FGI can help you build a community to satisfy your objectives.

Heather Woodward
Director, Online Research
FGI Research

To learn more about online communities with FGI Research, contact one of our representatives. You can also join FGI’s own SmartCommunity, our proprietary online community where SmartPanel panelists contribute to independent qualitative research and offer their views on the latest trends.

In the last five years, custom panels have brought tremendous benefits to market research teams across multiple industries. More recently, online communities have started to replace traditional qualitative methods like in-person focus groups. At FGI Research, we help many of the country’s leading utilities draw maximum benefit from custom panels and online communities alike. Every utility client sees promising results as it adopts these up-and-coming market research methods. Below is a summary of key benefits that utilities are generating:

#1 –Savings: Market research is a major expense for electric and gas utilities. Their core studies often include customer satisfaction trackers, concept and ad testing, and saturation studies. Altogether, the cost for these studies can eclipse a million dollars or more per year. Properly implemented, custom panels and online communities can help a utility’s MR department shave off 20-40% of these research costs. Even when trackers require multi-modal designs, the cost savings from using custom panels and online data-collection are huge.

#2 –Quality: Utilities dramatically improve the quality of their market research when they conduct studies from their own custom panel, for several reasons. First, a custom panel with FGI provides a private source of sample that we recruit from the utility’s customer file and use exclusively for their research. Second, FGI Research stresses the importance of appending in-house data such as segmentation scores and customer usage information to a utility’s custom online panel. Commercial online sample sources simply cannot match the depth, quality and reliability of data that such a well-constructed and -managed panel provides. Finally, a utility’s online community (especially when it incorporates both qualitative and quantitative elements) yields data and insights that go far beyond the results generated by traditional focus groups.

#3 –Speed and Flexibility: Custom panels and online communities combine to form a ready and reliable platform for any number of real-time market research applications. For utilities, this means that studies launch quickly and field efficiently. In most cases, FGI’s utility clients can conduct multiple studies in the time it used to take to complete just one. They can much more rapidly determine the feasibility of a proposed study and design an approach that will meet their analytical, budget and timing requirements.

Custom panels and online communities help gas and electric utilities generate better, faster and more cost-effective market research for their internal clients, which in turn helps them satisfy those clients more effectively. Even better, new insights from innovative research methods fuel superior decision-making across the board, so a utility can see gains in its overall performance.

David Wilson
CEO
FGI Research

Michael Mauboussin, in his new book, Think Twice, advocates for a more measured approach to making certain decisions. He argues that we can put too much stock in our personal intuition and experience… and not enough in rigorous, fact-based, contemplative methods. Specifically, he calls us to engage the “wisdom of crowds,” which in the marketing research world means online communities and social media mining; statistical models, such as regression, conjoint, and MaxDiff; and best practices of data collection, which includes online surveys, custom online panels, RDD telephone data collection, and more.

Mauboussin believes that the Blink model is best left for use in predictable environments, where results from prior/similar decisions are well-known, and where we can see an obvious cause-and-effect relationship. While our gut instincts may be useful in such situations, Think Twice suggests that we more often find ourselves in situations that are totally new, where cause-and-effect models are not immediately obvious. As Mauboussin succinctly puts it: “Intuition is losing relevance in an increasingly complex world … more is different.”

So, who is right: my gut or my research? In these videos, the authors speak for themselves.

In my view, both Gladwell and Mauboussin make compelling cases for their views. Instant decision-making can serve us well in the right situations. When we’ve “seen this movie before,” we should confidently decide, act and move on. We can thump our chests and declare: “He who hesitates is lost.”

On the other hand, we must also acknowledge that we live in a complex and rapidly changing world. I have seen too many costly mistakes made because companies failed to invest in marketing research. They failed to seek the opinions and insights of the very customers whom they were in business to serve.

In order to successfully navigate this world, to choose correctly when we face our toughest decisions, we should take full advantage of the powerful marketing research tools and methods that are now at our disposal. We can use custom online panels, social media mining, online communities, quantitative models, prediction markets, and other advanced methods to inform our choices. During these times, we’ll turn to the data, while calmly reminding those around us that: “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” Some days we’ll blink and others we’ll think twice. The trick is to know when to rush in and when to hesitate. Do you have an instant opinion about the issue…or to you need to conduct some more research?

David W. Wilson
CEO
FGI Research

Client Adaptability: Across the board in 2009, FGI Research clients demonstrated an uncanny ability to stay close to their markets and customers, to spot the differences between short-term trends and long term shifts, and to quickly change their strategies to optimize performance under a new set of rules. FGI Research clients invested even more in marketing research solutions in order to gain new advantages during a time of unprecedented change and uncertainty. Steady, savvy and aggressive clients anchored our FGI Research success in 2009.

Marketing Research Innovation: Economies, consumer behaviors and media habits are not the only areas undergoing massive change: the marketing research industry is being revolutionized. Marketing research solutions are changing and improving at rates never seen before in the history of the industry. At FGI Research, demand for some of our newer solutions is fueling much of our growth. These solutions include custom panels, online communities, and social media mining. These solutions are unlocking tremendous benefits for our clients across all industry and all research/business applications.

Marketing Science: Even with the buzz that comes from the newer marketing research solutions, best practice marketing science is a pillar of our success at FGI Research. Ultimately, the business of marketing research requires professionals to properly process, analyze and interpret the data we collect and the observations we make. So, while innovation is key to our success, so to is FGI Research’s insistence on using best practice marketing science to drive the insights and recommendations that ultimately lead to better client decisions and performance. Marketing science had a major impact on FGI Research success in 2009.

So, these are three of the most important success drivers for FGI Research in 2009. Before I wrap up, I would be remiss without tipping my hat to the incredibly dedicated team of professionals at FGI Research. In the end, the character and commitment of our employees is what makes our client projects successful. Their teamwork, attention to detail and quality, and positive approach to every task are the things that underpin our success. Let me close by thanking our loyal clients, talented employees, and dedicated partners for a great 2009 at FGI Research. Let’s do it again in 2010!

David W. Wilson
CEO
FGI Research

1) Go West (or South) Young Man: Jobs (and therefore, people) are quickly migrating South and West: Lower taxes and fewer unions continue to encourage economic growth in the South and West. Conversely, regulations in many northern states, such as New York, are less favorable for businesses. Compounding the problem (or the opportunity for the South and West) is the fact that entire families, not just the younger workers, are moving. MR questions: How does this shift effect the consumption of your products and services? Should you test new concepts that will play better in the South and West? Should you refine the allocation of your media spend and/or the messaging behind your marketing?

2) Multi-Cultural Nation: While white non-Hispanics still comprise two thirds of the US’s 300 million people, it is the slowest growing segment at only 2%. The Hispanic population has grown over 40% since 2000 which makes it the largest minority group in the US at 50 million people (or 16%). MR questions: Do you really understand Hispanic consumer preferences as they relate to your products and services? Really? Many people give it lip service but fail to really invest in understanding this population. Do your customer satisfaction and awareness and usage studies delve deeply into Hispanic preferences?

3) Women on the Move: In a 2009 report, the Census Bureau revealed that more women had graduated college than men for the first time in US history. While the deep recession in male-dominated industries like construction and manufacturing has contributed to this shift, the increased role of women in the economic engine is a trend that’s likely to continue (see a related blog post here about women and their increased earning and purchasing power). MR questions: Are you looking at women through an outdated lens? Does your research fully understand the unique preferences of the all-powerful female consumer?

4) Power to Pops: It is forecasted that there will be 70 million grandparents by 2010. That’s a massive increase when you consider there were just 47 million in 1990. In effect, the number of grandparents in the US grew five times faster than the overall population. More importantly, grandparents are living with their children, helping with unmarried mothers (their daughters), and making spending decisions for the household. The bottom line is this: American consumers who are 50+ years old now “control the vast majority of assets and show the most economic growth.” As a result, marketing research and advertising budgets should shift accordingly, from the current allocation of 10% on that demographic to as much as 40%. MR questions: How well do you market to the grandparent demographic? Does your marketing research properly account for the grandparent demographic? How can you improve your questionnaire design, sampling and analytics in order to better understand this critical segment of the US population?

5) Christmas Spending Cheer: The Ad Age report forecasts “a small but encouraging spike in consumer spending” for this Christmas season. Furthermore it predicts, as do many other economists, that the recession in real estate will end in the spring (and construction in the summer). States likely to see the earliest turnaround include Texas and Florida, owing mainly to their relatively young populations and healthy industries. MR questions: How can you tweak your pricing and messaging to gain the most from this modest spike, without compromising the equity of your brand? Is there pent up demand for your products and services that poised to release once the psychological savings thresholds are achieved? If so, what are those thresholds and how can you ready your offerings and messaging to take full advantage of a resurgent US consumer?

David Wilson
CEO
FGI Research

While some may question the accuracy of online research due to sample bias and the risks from “professional responders,” there’s no doubt that this tool has become a much quicker way to initially evaluate the marketplace and consumer reaction compared to the traditional methods alone.  But, some skeptics have a valid point in that online research alone isn’t always the best answer.  Better solutions can often be found by combining online surveys with online communities, social media mining, online focus groups and even telephone interviewing.

Ashton Smith
Social Media Intern
FGI Research

As market researchers, the onus is on us to help our clients find new and creative ways to get answers to their business problems, without sacrificing the best practices that make those answers actionable.  This could mean combining multiple modes of data collection to ensure we reach our target population where they “live” (web, phone, mail, mobile), finding new environments for clients to interact with their customer base (custom panels, communities, social networks) or investigating new technologies to get at information that might not be revealed using traditional research methods (social media monitoring).  The world is changing faster than ever before – we all need to be ready to move with the times.

Heather Woodward
Director, Online Research
FGI Research

This social media site also creates an excellent new source of customer feedback that can be combined with traditional methods such as focus groups or surveys.  New tools such as Tweetdeck now allow companies to follow competitors, track key words, or determine consumer opinion concerning their brand or product.  Our clients who have begun monitoring social media sites prior to product launches have gained great insight into consumer reaction, competitor response and the marketing tactics that should be used.   With Twitter expected to have close to 50 million users by the end of the year, it’s important to employ expert advice in social media mining and web monitoring.

Ashton Smith
Social Media Intern
FGI Research

Not today.

If you’re not being discussed online, something’s up.  Whether it’s about your latest product, recently published research report, or company, or if it’s positive, neutral, or negative feedback you want to have your fair share of the social media pie.  If people are talking about you online then that means you can directly tap into what your customers (and potential customers) are saying about you – with no censorship.

This easy access to your customers’ opinions gives you an opportunity that businesses a generation ago didn’t have – the ability to respond almost immediately to questions, concerns, and responses to your business.  Whether the feedback is positive or negative you can respond accordingly and quickly.

So how do you dive into the social media pool?  Create accounts for your business – make a Facebook page, a Twitter account, Youtube videos, etc. and start publishing information about your business.  Invite clients and other business in your industries to be part of your networks.  Maintain dialogues (not monologues) with those people in your networks.  Respond quickly, succinctly, and efficiently to their feedback.

In the world of social media, no news is bad news – start a conversation today!

Emily Varney
Social Media Intern
FGI Research

• They will spend more for goods and services of higher quality (65% food, 57% clothing, 56% facial skin care)
• They demand products that deliver: time savings, fulfilling experiences, and emotional benefits
• They give examples of brands that consistently meet their needs: Coach, Crème de la Mer, Adidas, Apple and Nike

Our advice: keep your research sharply focused on the wants and needs of women as they related to your specific products and services. Otherwise, you may find yourself on the outside looking in on the very people who control the majority of every dollar that is spent.

David Wilson
CEO
FGI Research

Traditionally, surveys are designed to present price options on a basic scale, without methodological regard to the order in which the price deltas are presented to the respondents.  In this survey, a random half of the respondents were presented the pricing variation choices from low-to-high (i.e. 30% less to 30% more), and the other half were presented the price variations in the opposite order (30% more to 30% less).

Data from the “low-to-high” respondents skewed toward paying less for the product, while data from the “high to low” respondents skewed toward paying more for the products.  The same number said “about the same” in both cases; “about the same” was the midpoint of each scale. This finding reflects  a classic example of order bias.

Dino Fire
Customer Relationship Manager
FGI Research

In our experience, custom panels and other marketing research tools are maximized when experts are in the trenches helping clients put them to use. Many companies experience frustration and failure when they put too much faith in tools alone to power their research. For example, custom panels are powerful tools, but only when best practice sampling methods are applied. Without proper sampling, custom panel studies may yield the desired number of completed surveys, but with data that is totally unreliable for downstream decision making.

Similarly, social media mining is a powerful, must-have research tool. However, unless key social media trends are properly validated using proven quantitative methods, errant conclusions can be drawn and huge mistakes can be made by decision makers. The point is this: the proliferation of marketing research tools and methods puts an even greater premium on the need for expert help execute all the critical details and make it all work.

David Wilson
CEO
FGI Research

When innovative new research methods and tools are used, you must insist on the highest levels of quality control and the use of best practices at every step in the process. Custom panels, online communities, social media mining, “quali-quant” methods and other innovative approaches must all be used with proven processes and the steady hands of research experts. Here’s the good news: when innovation meets best practices, the result is cutting edge market research solutions that you can trust for your most important decisions.

David Wilson
CEO
FGI Research

• 156,000,000 The average number of Tweets per year on Twitter
• 200,000,000 The number of active Facebook users
• 133,000,000 The number of active blogs
• 346,000,000 The number of people who read blogs

As I think we can all agree, today’s market research toolbox must include some type of social media monitoring solution, including sentiment mining and the ability to quantitatively validate key social media trends.

David Wilson
CEO
FGI Research

Customers are comfortable meeting in online communities to share their thoughts and ideas. Unlike quantitative studies, participants are free to share ideas and insights that go beyond the highly structured questionnaires used in online surveys. Unlike traditional focus groups (in person or online), participants have more freedom to express their opinions without being dominated by groupthink or strong personalities.

Used correctly, and smartly integrated with other methods, private online communities can unlock needs, ideas and insights that simply are not possible via traditional means (quant or qual) and even newer methods such as social media mining. As a result, online communities deserve to have a prominent seat at the market research table.

David Wilson
CEO
FGI Research

In many respects, the custom panel should form the foundation of today’s market research. It provides a trusted source of sample that can be readily tapped to unlock critical opinions and ideas. The custom panel can be enriched with transactional data, segmentation scores and other behavioral and attitudinal information. Unlike third party sample sources, custom panels give companies immediate access to the voice of their customers.

Once established, the custom panel serves as a trusted platform from which to launch a host of compelling research methods, including quantitative surveys, quick polls, online communities and focus groups, trackers and social media validation studies. For companies with active market research efforts and a sufficient number of customers, custom panels have quickly become a must-have solution.

David Wilson
CEO
FGI Research

The technology drivers include Internet communications, custom panel tools, community platforms, and new survey methods. In turn, customers are rapidly adopting new methods of communicating with each other and the companies they trust for goods and services.

New technologies and customer behaviors have formed the perfect recipe for a revolution in market research. Going forward, market research must fully embrace these new technologies and behaviors in order to continuously understand and appropriately serve today’s customers.

Custom online panels are fueling the market research revolution and FGI Research is a recognized pioneer and leader in custom panel technology and managed services.

But panels are only the tip of the revolution. As more and more consumers flock to the Internet to communicate, learn and share ideas, market research is expanding into online communities and social media mining. These are rich new sources of valuable and real-time market intelligence that are unlike anything we’ve seen before in the market research industry.

Companies that fail to embrace these new tools and methods (custom panels, online communities, and social media mining) will quickly find themselves out of touch with customers and their broader target markets. Let’s briefly consider the case for each new market research tool.

David Wilson
CEO
FGI Research

In the midst of these multiple layers of continuous change, you must use every means possible to stay connected with your customers. In order to keep pace, you quickly move beyond the status quo of market research. At the same time, you must keep pace with such rapid flux in customer thinking, As you will see below, this includes the use of both new and traditional channels and methods. And, it includes both passive listening and active collaboration with your customers.

So here’s our strong advice and point-of-view about the future of successful market research: 1) embrace the new innovations today, 2) blend the new and the traditional, and 3) don’t go it alone.

David Wilson
CEO
FGI Research