An Overview of Using Surveys for Market Research

Using Surveys for Market Research

Most of us, at one point in our life, have been asked to complete a survey. I know I have certainly been asked to complete surveys - most recently by a PhD student I encountered at the local Starbucks! Having personally never relied upon large scale surveys to guide new product design, I wanted to explore the role surveys could play in launching new ventures. Here’s what I have found.

From a pedagogical level, a survey is a short or long questionnaire designed to solicit feedback on a product or service. They are typically used to assess customer satisfaction, conduct customer segmentation studies, evaluate product usage, and, among other things, understand the perceptions consumers have of a business brand. The data gained through survey information are also descriptive; they are expressed in percentages terms and frequency counts, and sometimes cross-tabulated for the purpose of comparison. And while the aforementioned definition and uses of surveys are simplistic and intuitive, their execution is not. Just like business forecasting, it is part art and part science. And just like business forecasting, garbage in yields garbage out.

An Overview and Primer on Web Marketing

Over the last few weeks, we have met with small business owners, venture backed companies and a few enterprise software firms. Here’s a presentation on web marketing we put together for these individuals. Enjoy!

Financial Storm Looks Grim but Has Silver Lining

We enter 2009 with grave uncertanity about the economic climate.  Fallouts do not respect calander boundaries and the news suggests that this one is going to march unhesitatingly into the 2009 small and local business markets.  First, Bloomberg reports that shopping mall vacancies have reached a 10 year high:

Vacancies at U.S. malls and shopping centers approached 10-year highs in the fourth quarter, and are set to rise further as declining retail sales put more stores out of business, research firm Reis Inc. said.

Regional mall vacancies rose to 7.1 percent last quarter from 6.6 percent in the third quarter. It was the highest vacancy rate since Reis began tracking regional malls in 2000, as well as the largest quarter-to-quarter jump in vacancies, according to New York-based Reis.

Impossible to Ignore: Online ads prime the consumer subconcious for brand favoritism

Online advertising is an increasingly popular way to market a company. Web advertisements show up on virtually every web site and ad revenue has grown year after year. However, many businesses are reluctant to jump on the bandwagon as their own personal behavior suggests that few viewers pay online ads any attention. Indeed, some studies suggest that over half of internet users go no further than recognizing that an ad exists. This makes sense in the context of human behavior: when looking for something specific, we tend to avoid distractions. So if consumer tendency is to naturally avoid online ads, is this really a valuable means of marketing?

Enhancing your Business Blog with Customer Comments: Trends

One of the great business benefits of writing a blog is its ability to establish a repertoire with consumers. While the relationships is typically one sided with most consumers simply reading the content, many will participate in a community dialog by leaving comments. Comments are valuable in such that they garner insight into your customer-base and create a sense of community: many viewers will respond to comments left by others. As a result, people keep coming back to your site to interact with like minded consumers.

Given the value comments can add to a blog-based marketing platform, it is worthwhile to consider why people leave comments and how commenting can be encouraged. While we’ll delve into specific tactics that yield customer comments in a future post, Nick Halstead of fav.or.it aggregated some interesting comment related statistics that speak volumes about commenter behavior.

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