INSIGHTS IN ACTION: THE FGI BLOG
The Future of Market Research?
The changes in the market research industry over the past 30 years have been significant; the widespread adoption of the CATI system for telephone interviewing, predictive dialers to help us reach our respondents more efficiently, the use of sophisticated scanning techologies to speed the processing of mail surveys, and, more recently, the implementation of online research using both qualitative and quantitative methods that allows us to present audio and visual stimuli more easily, shorten field windows, and even reach audiences that had previously been unreachable through random digit dialing. So, what’s next?
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
November 18th, 2009 at 8:55 am
I think all the changes we’re going through are going to force marketing research to grow and evolve…and in general I think the industry is responding well. The best solutions are likely going to come from a mix of approaches that are all grounded in best practices. It will be a balancing act between relying on approaches we’ve used for 50 years (traditional marketing research methods) and things that have just become available in the last few years (online communities, social media mining, etc.). Many marketing research studies for customer satisfaction, concept tests, A&U, branding, and more can benefit from a smart combination of the old and new.
November 19th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Things like social media monitoring are interesting but not on the radar screen at the company i work. I don’t think we really lag the market in too many areas either, so are you talking about stuff that is way out on the horizon or has it already been adopted by a few and it will spread to the mainstream (my company!) in the near future. Another question: how fast do you see the adoption rate of social media monitoring?
November 19th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Now more than ever, clients are looking to the marketing research experts to help point them in the right direction as far as the ‘new’ approaches to an ever-changing industry. So many of the legacy clients are deeply entrenched in how they’ve handled their research before that they are somewhat reluctant to ‘change what they’ve always done’ — which means using outdated survey instruments and strict, qualitative (ie, boring) surveys.
Additionally, part of what we need to make sure clients are educated on is that sometimes ‘less’ is really better. So many have latched onto the idea that the online survey instrument can be used to pull whatever information they need, without a clear understanding of the ramifications of creating survey instruments that are either too confusing or just too onerous for respondents to take. The result — unhappy panelists and bad data. Instead of just sending out a 20-minute, verbose quantitative study, the mixed mode model can fit in so many ways. Whether starting with the online community to gather the qualitative ‘lay of the land’ then doing the abbreviated online (or phone) quantitative study to fill in the gaps, or using social media monitoring in conjunction with online focus groups and/or communities to get the pulse of what consumers are saying, the old ‘let’s give them a quant online questionnaire’ is quickly being replaced with multi-modal studies that provide so much more breadth and depth. My question is: how do we handle that balancing act to know when to use the ‘tried and true methods’ and when to push the envelope? That may be the secret to successful marketing research in the next 10 years.