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Category: Best Practices

12 Actionable Tips from the 2014 MRA Corporate Researcher’s Conference

The MRA’s Corporate Researcher’s Conference (CRC) was full of great sessions and first-class attendees. And I came home with a pile of business cards that are covered with scribbled down notes for follow-up. If you didn’t make it to CRC this year, here is a sampling of my notes from this 2.5 day event.

1. Sally Hogshead: High performers tend to specialize & tend to over-deliver in one area. I find this to be true, though she said it more articulately than I ever have.
2. Sally Hogshead: Successful brands know how they are different and what they do best. They avoid the “all things to all people” trap…

5 Ways You Know You Are an Awesome Market Researcher

Here are the five core attributes of an awesome researcher. Make sure you have these nailed, and your clients will quickly begin to appreciate your awesomeness.

1. You use multiple research methodologies. You are familiar with multiple research methods, and can match a project’s goals to the best available method. You don’t assume every project is either a survey or a focus group.
2. You think carefully about sample source. You know when to use panels, …

Article Synopsis: Still Full of Beanz (Effective Data Management)

Using a philosophy of test and learn, Heinz looks to multiple information sources for research, including electronic-point-of-sale, Nielsen data, panel data, and social media and brand monitoring. One such panel, Heinz 57, is an online community of 300 consumers that the company uses as a source of customer feedback.

Market Research & Lost Mojo: Article Synopsis

Andrew Reid, son of Market Research luminary Angus Reid, says Market Research has “lost its mojo.” In a new article published in Entrepreneur Magazine, Reid states, “In the early 2000s, with the increased use of email, the internet, mobile phones and social media, many companies transformed their way of doing business, but market research companies did not.”

3 Tips to Avoid Bad Market Research Software Purchases

Market research software comes in many forms these days: survey programming, data analysis, text analytics, and social media analysis are among the most common.

The good news for buyers is that many firms offer monthly options—helping you, the buyer, mitigate risks. There is no need to get “married”; you can just live together and part ways amicably when the mood strikes…

Chainsaw Juggling Lessons for Market Researchers

The trial and error sketches can be considered a form of exploratory data analysis, and can help the researcher see the story in a more impactful way than staring at crosstabs all day.

When I tell our students that this trial and error approach is one of the techniques useful in data analysis, they are always happy to hear it. Why? Because it shows that insights are hard, and that great insights are rarely obvious from crosstabs alone. All researchers—even those of us with 25 years’ experience—have to work hard to find rich insights. The students are relieved because now they know it’s not just them;…

The Lost of Art of Pre-testing Questionnaires: Don’t Let Your Market Research Crash

I have had two recent experiences where I had seasoned researchers working with Research Rockstar clients, and they had assumed pre-tests were not required. Really? That’s the assumption? I wonder how many pilots assume pre-flight checklists don’t apply to them.

3 of 17 Time Management Tips for Market Researchers

A recurring challenge I hear from Research Rockstar students is that of time management. Too often, deadlines converge, fires erupt, or clients “need it yesterday.” So based on my 25 years of market research reality, I have put together 17 time management tips. You can download the full eBook…

One Big Survey or Three Small Surveys?

When it comes to market research projects, how big is too big?

Market Research as a Profit Center? It May be Closer than You Think

Consider these two questions: Can market research departments be profit centers (either by “selling” internally or externally)? Should market research departments be profit centers? I first wrote about this controversial… Continue reading Market Research as a Profit Center? It May be Closer than You Think