Taking a Random Walk

It has been said many times that randomness is next to godliness in the world of experimental design. I would extend this thinking to the structured world of survey research as well. In this post we will look at two methods for incorporating randomness into your online survey design. Cvent offers...read more

Making the Right Choice

As consumer insight professionals we are often tasked with assessing how our consumers and prospects make a choice when selecting a product or service. This is not an easy task regardless of whether your focus is consumer or B2B market research, but there are several ways to reach the end. A recent...read more

Using Invitation Forwarding to Grow Your Responses

As winter winds its way down and spring looms on the horizon, I was reminded recently of a sampling technique used in the old days that has taken on a new spin. It used to be called snowball sampling. Just as a snowball gets bigger as it rolls down the hill, this form of sampling builds up the...read more

Keep it simple, but also make it fun!

There is no doubt that our job as market researchers has become easier due to the advent of online questionnaire design. The tools available to us now have also made it less challenging to create surveys that are engaging to the respondent which benefits the overall quality of the data we collect....read more

A good deed

Incentives have become the necessary evil in marketing and other forms of survey research. In the days of old it was common to send out a single dollar with a mailed survey to encourage participants to complete their survey. As data collection methods have evolved toward online survey platforms the...read more

Adding customer feedback to the planning process

Building on a previous entry about exceeding market expectations, this post will look at a particular type of survey, the planning survey. If you are in B2B market research you are likely familiar with the requests of internal clients who need to budget and schedule for the coming year. The timing...read more

Do incentives matter?

We are a busy society. There seems to be less and less time for the smaller things. This is one trend that is negatively impacting survey response rates. This is a trend in both consumer and B2B marketing research. Unless you are lucky enough to survey a rabid fanbase then response rates will always...read more

Testing Using the ABCs

At one point we all learned our ABCs. With the pace of change currently increasing in the marketing research world we are now in need of a refresher. In this case the A and B refer to the concept of A/B testing and the C is the outcome of that test, better known as the Champion. A/B testing has long...read more

Being Dynamic: 4 Ways to Improve the Respondent Experience

Making your survey dynamic is one of the easiest ways to engage the respondent and make his or her experience more memorable. Why is that critical to your success? Engaged respondents are more apt to provide robust opinions and make it through to complete the survey. After all, as market researchers...read more

Capturing the First Time

Do you remember your first time? Well if it was your first kiss then I hope you would remember. In this case I am referring to first time you became a customer of (fill in the blank). How you feel about your first experience with a new retailer, vendor or other company plays a large role in...read more
The Rise of the Smart Phone: Are you Leverging Mobile? 10 Tips for Mobile-Friendly Survey Creation