Tag Archives: QuestionPro

Food for Thought: This Week’s Hot Market Research Discussions and Trends

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Ivana Taylor | Leave a comment

To get your week humming and excite the coffee break conversation, here are some of the hottest trends and topics being discussed in market research.

Panel are HOT. Panel management is becoming increasingly important AND a lot easier to do. Join the Survey Analytics team and learn how to set up a research panel in 30 minutes or less. REGISTER HERE

Data and privacy. Look for more conversations about data and privacy in the months to come. To whet your appetite, Brian Terran from Research gets the ball rolling with a terrific intro and summary to data privacy conversations that will be held Monday, August 22, 2011. Head over to the Greenbook Blog to register.

Zuberance, the new software that allows companies to manage their customer advocates. Romi Mahajan introduces Zuberance as a way for companies to enhance their customer satisfaction and customer engagement. If you or your organization have been looking for ways to light a fire under those customers who are your biggest fants, this is an article worth checking out.

Gamification. You’re going to see this word more and more. It isn’t a fad, it’s the future of market research and customer engagement. Betty Amadou from Game Access does a fantastic job of introducing you to a new word in this new territory — gamotion. It’s the combination of games and promotions and she’s reviewing several apps that will introduce you to this latest trend.

The bond between research and technology. It seems that there is an interesting relationship between people on the research side of the table and the people on the technology side of the table. As a marketing strategist, I’m not as involved in that conversation, but I understand it can get rather HAIRY. For some guidelines on how research and technology can get along, check out this interesting article by Greg Heist from Go Innovate called “Why Can’t We Be Friends” where he outlines what each group can learn from the other.

Blogs you should be reading. New Market Research has a list out of the top Market Research Blogs — and Research Access and QuestionPro blog are listed. If you want to know what you should be reading – follow this list.

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Posted in Essay

Tagged blog, Business, Customer, Gamification, Market research, Marketing, QuestionPro, Survey Analytics

Recruit Your Own Survey Panel

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Ivana Taylor | Leave a 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. And for that, 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:

Decide on the audience you want to target. That’s fairly straightforward. Get clear on the industry, title and any other demographic that you’re after.
Create a valuable free download. This can be an eBook, report or even a webinar that you want to offer. The primary requirements are that it’s educational, informative and not a sales pitch. We don’t want to sell them anything other than the opportunity to have their opinions counted in a survey.
Build a landing page with a form. Landing pages are nothing more than focused pages with a form where people can register. You want to keep it as simple as possible. If all you need is an email – than that should be the only field that’s required. If you need to qualify your sample — keep those down to a minimum. The fewer fields, the more likely people will be to sign up.
Use an email marketing tool. I recommend an email marketing tool because it allows you to manage, segment and communicate with your list easily and quickly. You can always export the lists and import them into QuestionPro and SurveyAnalytics to send customized invites.
Nurture your list relationships. Don’t just USE and ABUSE your list – build relationships with them and engage with them. Send them articles, newsletters or incentives to stay loyal and participate in your surveys. The more you engage with your list, the higher your response rates.
Leverage your panel. If you create a large panel with more than 10,000 people, you may have another revenue channel on your hands. If your panel is specific to a region, discipline or any other super-niche (such as Chihuahua owners) you can build this list with the intent of actually sending them surveys. Just be sure to get their permission and give them a good incentive.

So now you can see that panels can come from panel providers OR from your own targeted industry audience. Besides – your panel can also become your customer. Just be clear on your objectives and be sure to get legal advice on how to manage your panel.

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Posted in Essay

Tagged Chihuahua, EMI, Market research, Marketing, Marketing and Advertising, Paid survey, Peanut Labs, QuestionPro

Using Crowd Sourcing Tools to Solve Problems

Posted on September 10, 2010 by Ivana Taylor | Leave a comment

While at the Government 2.0 Summit, the QuestionPro and Survey Analytics team interviewed Bev Goodwin, Director of New Media and Citizen Engagement. One of the programs they talked about was Challenge.gov. This is a program that brings in a diverse set of voices to work on challenges together. This program uses a crowd sourcing platform to get the job done.

What other ways can you use crowd sourcing platforms?

In 2008, I wrote about crowd sourcing as a trend and now, it’s gone mainstream in ways we couldn’t imagine. I thought I’d show you some interesting ways that people are using crowd sourcing to do projects, solve problems and get more creative input.

Challenge.gov: Citizens can create challenges for the community to participate in or they can contribute their insights to a challenge. If you’ve ever wondered what kind of impact or change one person can have on a problem — try this out and see.

SquadHelp.com: Are you stuck on naming a web site, newsletter or a product or service? Try SquadHelp. They treat brainstorming like a contest. Simply submit your challenge to the group and attach how much money you’re willing to award the winning response. Then watch the responses come in. I submitted an SEO challenge for my web site and within 2 days, I received 10 responses with recommendations that were really, really good. Granted, I’ll need some help to implement them. But I think I saved myself a couple of hundred dollars in getting the recommendations.

99 Designs – Need a logo or web design? Check out 99designs.com . As a matter of reference, you can hire a designer to do a logo project and pay about $1000 – $3000 depending on the scope of your project. You can use Logoworks and pay about $300 and get assigned to a couple of designers to complete your project. Or for the same price $300 you can get a bunch of designers to contribute their ideas toward your project and pick the one you like best. I have not used this myself, but have heard rave reviews from a couple of colleagues.

Fiverr.com : This is what I call completely out of the box, insane, attention getting fun for $5. I first heard about Fiverr from my web site host who recommended I check them out for some creative marketing ideas. And he was right. I actually use this for brainstorming because the things that people will do for $5 will entertain you for hours. Besides, it’s a fantastic way to stand out in front of your audience.

I’ve listed some of the more popular crowd sourcing apps that have cropped up recently. For even more examples, read this article that mentions 9 crowd sourcing apps for your business.

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Posted in Essay

Tagged Business, Crowdsourcing, IT Crowd The, Marketing and Advertising, Programmes, QuestionPro, Survey Analytics, Television

What is Reverse Segmentation and Why is it Becoming a Popular Market Analysis Tool?

Posted on September 6, 2010 by Ivana Taylor | Leave a comment

There is an outstanding post by Nico Peruzzi on reverse segmentation over at Research Access from last week.

I have to admit, I had never heard the term “reverse segmentation” and I’m a fool for segmentation. Can it be that I’ve missed some HUGE development in market research? Nope. There is a good chance you’ve already been doing and struggling “reverse segmentation” and just didn’t know that this was what we were calling it these days.

A Definition of the Reverse Segmentation Process

Let’s start with the basics — segmentation is grouping. Marketing managers and small business owners alike intuitively know and understand that smaller, more targeted groups are more desirable because we can develop a message that appeals to them and makes it more likely for them to choose us.

There have typically been two basic kinds of segments; demographic (more concrete and observable segments such as gender, income, age, etc) and psychographic (emotional, aspirational, attitudinal attributes such as independent, organized, practical or cautious).

There is a common criticism of segmentation in that we typically collect either demographic or psychographic info, but not really both. And this is where the “reverse segmentation” comes in.

What’s The Trigger for Reverse Segmentation – How Do You Know You Should Do it?

Say you already have an existing customer segment of college-educated women from Ohio between the ages of 25 and 35 who purchase your product. And now you wonder how many of them are procrastinators or how many of them go skydiving? Because if you had more than 50% that were procrastinators, you could develop an offering just for them. This sounds like a job for reverse segmentation.

Richard Hamer from Deft Research puts in another way in his article titled “What the Heck is Reverse Segmentation Research?” He explained that all you do is take the demographic data you already have within an existing customer database and do more research to assign new (perhaps psychographic) data.

Use QuestionPro‘s and Survey Analytics‘ Custom Variables to Do Reverse Segmentation

After I read that- the first thing I thought of was the hundreds of survey’s I’ve done using the custom variables tools in QuestionPro. THIS is where I put the data I already knew about my customers. For example, I wanted to know if customers that ran frequent and multiple transactions had different satisfaction levels than those that were less expert and ran few transactions.

We took our existing database and created 4 segments based on the number of transactions that these customer ran. Then we ran the survey and attached their satisfaction results to those segments. After that we ran some analysis to see if there was a difference.

As it turns out reverse segmentation might be a new term — but we’ve had the tools to do it all along.

What’s been your experience with “reverse segmentation”?

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Posted in Best Practices, Survey Analytics

Tagged Business, Market research, Market segmentation, Marketing, Marketing and Advertising, Ohio, QuestionPro, Survey Analytics

Survey Analytics and Ziff Davis Enterprise Partner in the Feedback Management Space

Posted on June 29, 2010 by Ivana Taylor | 1 Comment

Provides Leading B2B Technology Media Company with New Tools to Enhance Audience and Marketing Solutions

Seattle, WA –June 29th, 2010 – Survey Analytics today announced that it has partnered with Ziff Davis Enterprise, a leader in innovative enterprise IT media, engagement solutions and services, to provide survey and crowdsourcing solutions to better serve Ziff Davis Enterprise’s network of registered users and marketing clients.

Survey Analytics’ flagship product, QuestionPro, will provide a scalable solution for the thousands of online surveys and feedback forums that Ziff Davis Enterprise utilizes to gather valuable insights from the millions of users and vendors who rely on them for world-class enterprise IT content and marketing solutions and services. Survey Analytics offers a complete set of intuitive online tools for conducting market research, including standard survey templates, a platform for hosting data collection, automatic notifications and an advanced suite of analysis tools for analyzing customer satisfaction.
“The addition of Survey Analytics powerful community feedback solution to Ziff Davis Enterprise’s sterling suite of media options means further insight into the sought-after tech audience,” said Vivek Bhaskaran, President & CEO of Survey Analytics.

“Our audience is comprised of some of the most influential and discerning technology professionals and leaders in the industry. Their insights are at a premium right now,” said Steve Weitzner, CEO, Ziff Davis Enterprise “The Survey Analytics solution will help us not only listen to our customers, but help us continue to offer them superior service and relevant content.”

About Survey Analytics
Survey Analytics offers an enterprise grade research platform for collecting feedback to enable businesses, governments and consumers to participate and learn from each other. Through it’s core businesses of Surveys, Crowdsourcing, Panel Management and Polls – Survey Analytics listening systems enabled businesses and governments to touch their customers and constituents through all major channels – including Web, Email, Social Media and mobile. The self-service and cloud enabled platform empowers companies to execute and deliver on research at real-time and global scale.

The Survey Analytics Platform is used by companies like Motorola, McGraw Hill, CareerBuilder and Agencies of the US Federal government including the FCC, USPS and the GSA.

About Ziff Davis Enterprise
Ziff Davis Enterprise, Inc. is B2B technology’s trusted information resource. Millions of technology buyers rely on our brands – including eWEEK, Baseline, CIO Insight, Channel Insider, WebBuyersGuide.com, TechDirect, and the Developer Shed network – for relevant, objective content to identify the right solutions for their organizations. Over 300 technology companies, from industry giants to emerging start-ups, rely on our contextual content, marketing, and audience development expertise to compress sales cycles and lower their go-to-market costs. Ziff Davis Enterprise has proven marketing solutions for branding, engagement, and face-to-face events. Products include print and online advertising, eNewsletter sponsorships, content syndication, eSeminars, virtual tradeshows, events, and custom media services. Ziff Davis Enterprise has a global database of 5.5 million users representing an unparalleled community of business and technology professionals, developers, and the channel. www.ziffdavisenterprise.com

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Posted in News

Tagged Business, EWeek, Market research, McGraw Hill, QuestionPro, Survey Analytics Survey Analytics, Vivek Bhaskaran, Ziff Davis Enterprise Ziff Davis Enterprise

REGISTER TODAY: Effective Use of Online Survey Tools in the Innovation Process

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Ivana Taylor | 1 Comment

Webinar Presentation
Thursday June 17^th, 2010
9:00AM PST

Looking for ways to bring innovation to your company without going over budget?

It’s been proven that customer-driven innovation requires a steady flow of real insight from real customers. However, to be successful, the right questions and techniques must be used for each stage of innovation. If used correctly, cost-effective online survey methods can become an essential tool to consistently deliver new, valuable products and services.

Join Survey Analytics and Planning Innovations for this one-hour webinar on how cost-effective online tools can be used throughout the innovation process to identify needs, explore solutions, and validate concepts.

1) How can online surveys be used in the discovery process to fuel innovation?

2) How should your survey techniques change throughout the innovation process?

3) What kind of questions can actually limit your ability to innovate?

This webinar will answer these questions and more as well as provide a forum to discuss specific challenges.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/513450435

About the Presenters:

Dorian Simpson founded Planning Innovations in 2002 to help technology-driven companies launch successful products and services through focused innovation management and planning. He has significant experience in both engineering and marketing to help build the bridge between these two critical innovation functions.

Esther LaVielle is a Senior Account Manager at QuestionPro and Survey Analytics, which was started in 2002 inSeattle and is now one of the fastest growing private companies in the US. Prior to her adventure at QuestionPro she spent 3 years as a Qualitative Project Manager at the Gilmore Research Group.

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Posted in Training

Tagged Business, Innovation, Market research, Marketing, Marketing and Advertising, QuestionPro, Seattle, Survey Analytics

WEBINAR: Effective Use of Online Survey Tools in the Innovation Process

Posted on June 8, 2010 by Ivana Taylor | Leave a comment

Webinar Presentation
Thursday June 17^th, 2010
9:00AM PST

Looking for ways to bring innovation to your company without going over budget?

1) How can online surveys be used in the discovery process to fuel innovation?

2) How should your survey techniques change throughout the innovation process?

3) What kind of questions can actually limit your ability to innovate?

This webinar will answer these questions and more as well as provide a forum to discuss specific challenges.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/513450435

About the Presenters:

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Posted in Training

Tagged Business, Innovation, Market research, Marketing, Marketing and Advertising, QuestionPro, Seattle, Survey Analytics

Register NOW: Effective Use of Online Survey Tools in the Innovation Process

Posted on June 1, 2010 by Ivana Taylor | Leave a comment

Webinar Presentation
Thursday June 17^th, 2010
9:00AM PST

Looking for ways to bring innovation to your company without going over budget?

1) How can online surveys be used in the discovery process to fuel innovation?

2) How should your survey techniques change throughout the innovation process?

3) What kind of questions can actually limit your ability to innovate?

This webinar will answer these questions and more as well as provide a forum to discuss specific challenges.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/513450435

About the Presenters:

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Training

Tagged Business, Innovation, Market research, Marketing, Marketing and Advertising, QuestionPro, Seattle, Survey Analytics

WEBINAR: Effective Use of Online Survey Tools in the Innovation Process

Posted on May 25, 2010 by Ivana Taylor | 2 Comments

Webinar Presentation
Thursday June 17^th, 2010
9:00AM PST

Looking for ways to bring innovation to your company without going over budget?

1) How can online surveys be used in the discovery process to fuel innovation?

2) How should your survey techniques change throughout the innovation process?

3) What kind of questions can actually limit your ability to innovate?

This webinar will answer these questions and more as well as provide a forum to discuss specific challenges.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/513450435

About the Presenters:

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Training

Tagged Business, Innovation, Market research, Marketing, Marketing and Advertising, QuestionPro, Seattle, Survey Analytics

Successful Survey Tips: How to Get “All of It” From Your Surveys

Posted on April 21, 2010 by Ivana Taylor | 1 Comment

Successful surveys don’t just happen. They are a function of doing some very logical simple things really, really well. The first element is knowing what you want to know; defining objectives, laying out what decisions you’re making and planning out the infrastructure of the survey. Another element of the series is actually writing the questions and making it easy for the respondent to participate. Next, we’re going to focus on leaving our respondent happy and preparing ourselves for analyzing the data.

My favorite part of this clip is actually the very end when Mr. Miyagi informs Daniel that he will be using his new technique to paint the WHOLE fence. Daniel says “All of it?” and the camera sssslllloooowwwllly pans around the garden. All you hear in the background is Mr. Miyagi saying “up….down….up….down”

Yes. All of it. If we really want to get all the benefit from the work that we had done in defining our objectives and creating engaging questions, than the very least we can do is finish the job and get as much information and future cooperation from our respondents. This next set of tips is designed to reduce the amount of work for you and also reducing the need to go back to your respondents for information you might have missed.

Segment your sample. If you are using an existing customer list, pre segment your sample using the “custom variable” feature in QuestionPro. You have the ability to use as many as 255 custom variables. If you already know specific demographics about your respondents, then this is the ideal place to program them in. In addition to that, you can place up to 5 custom variables in an e-mail invitation to personalize it to each respondent. You can also compare as many as 10 segments at a time by the specific questions that you ask.
Pre-test your survey. The easiest way to test your survey is to literally give it internally to your company or a trusted group of respondents. Be sure to tell your test group who the audience or the respondents are and to act is if they were the target respondent when answering the questions. Look for two specific types of feedback; first check for clarity of the questions. Did the respondent perceive the question as it was intended? Next check the test data and see if you can make the decision that was the core of your objective. If you don’t have enough information to make the decision, then you will have to go back and tweak the questions.
Use a Thank You. QuestionPro gives you a variety of ways to say “Thank You” to your respondents. There is, of course, a Thank You page. This is actually a wonderful piece of promotional real estate where you can give your customers a “downloadable” thank you gift. Another use of the Thank You page is to send your respondents to another page on your web site where they can get more information about the topic that they’ve been surveyed about – maybe even a blog post where they can provide more feedback. You can also send your respondents a Thank You e-mail in addition to a thank you page. I would recommend using BOTH the Thank You page AND a Thank You e-mail especially if you are providing a downloadable gift.