Topic: Market Research Expert Support for Pilot Studies & Budget Options
A hypothetical scenario: Imagine you are planning a market research project to discover customer attitudes and behaviors about lawn care. You have decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to pilot test mobile ethnography—you want to see if the methodology delivers to your expectations. If successful, you have a proven use model for mobile ethnography and an extra component for your broader lawn care market research! But here’s the problem: your market research & insights team is already at capacity. Effectively, this leaves you with 3 options:
- Decide not to do the pilot at this time.
- Delegate it to your existing team anyway. Maybe it gets squeezed in during short work reprieves
- Expand your team temporarily, with a qualified qualitative research expert experienced with mobile ethnography.
Should you consider option 3, how much would it cost you to get a temporary team member who can help you efficiently run a mobile ethnography pilot project? Here’s a hypothetical scenario:
- You plan to recruit people who own or rent homes with at least .25-acre of lawn area (planted with grass), and who either mow their own lawn or hire the person who does it for them. You want to have 15 participants complete this pilot project.
- You plan to run a 2-week project over the summer, during prime mowing season. You have chosen 2 weeks, to get data from both before and after 2 mowing cycles.
- You plan to collect a mix of text, image and video responses. The video responses are especially important to you, as you plan to have people walk around their lawn while answering questions that are intended to reveal emotional associations and behaviors with lawns and lawn care.
- You want a researcher who will plan and coordinate the screening, plan & program the participant activities and perform daily moderation. You plan to do most of the reporting work yourself, though you want the researcher to assist by summarizing the video submissions and creating a 5-minute video montage.
So how much will it cost to have a Rent-a-Researcher expert assist?
Given the above scenario, the researcher will need between 26 and 38 hours (which allows some time for meetings with you and the normal qualitative research planning iterations), as follows:
| Screener development & programming | 2 – 4 hours |
| Activity Design & Programming | 6 – 10 hours |
| Daily moderation for 14 days | 14 – 18 hours |
| Video Summaries (as text, assuming 30 videos of roughly 2-minutes each) | 3 – 4 hours |
| 5-minute video montage created from select videos | 1 – 2 hours* |
*The researcher usually creates the video plan by identifying the timestamp ranges and specifying the sequence. The actual video editing can be done in-house or outsourced to a video editor.
The Bottom Line: Hourly rates for the mobile ethnography-qualified researchers below range from $110 to $160 per hour (rates vary by experience levels). Thus, the fee range for this hypothetical scenario is as follows:
Is $4,400 a reasonable amount of money to invest in piloting a new methodology? Is $7,600? Given mobile ethnography’s potential to reveal in-the-moment feelings and behaviors on your topic of interest?
Platforms: There are several mobile ethnography platforms available. We recently published a case study done using Indeemo. Other platforms are available from 20|20 Research, Dscout, Mindswarms, and Over the Shoulder.
The Rent-a-Researcher Option: If you have a pilot project topic and want to discuss it with us, we can help you work out your likely budget range. And a plan that won’t exhaust your team.
Just contact us by email [email protected] or call (508) 691-6004 ext 703.
Don’t forget: We have six amazing, qualified researchers from our Rent-a-Researcher service. All are mobile ethnography-skilled researchers who can help you pilot this methodology efficiently.
- ANOOD150 is a hands-on researcher (quant and qual) experienced in various product categories. Experience includes conducting high-profile insights studies for leaders in advertising, events & conferences, and financial services. Creates insights-rich reports (no data dumps here!).
- ASANO616 is a thoughtful, detailed quantitative and qualitative researcher who has worked across a number of verticals, including advertising, CPG, education, healthcare, insurance, pharmaceuticals, retail and travel. A fantastic moderator and skilled reporter.
- ERLDS858, a former advertising executive turned market researcher, is experienced in B2C and B2B qualitative research. A strong researcher and enthusiastic ethnographer, specializing in millennial and multicultural
- GAOVA268 is a one-of-a-kind multilingual qualitative market researcher specializing in both online and offline methodologies. Conducts research in various languages (English, German, Russian, French). Rich experience conducting studies on adult beverages, banking, baby care, health & beauty, household appliances and more.
- ISXON534 is an experienced researcher (quant and qual) who has completed numerous studies for major global A fantastic reporter—writes and designs executive-ready reports.
- LALES609 has worked as both a client and vendor-side market researcher, including significant research in consumer goods, healthcare, medical and utilities. Hands-on with both quantitative and qualitative methods.