Training Portal Access

Category: Best Practices

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

For Market Research Excellence: Stop

7 times when market researchers need to stop. Knowing when to stop is a discipline. But after 25 years in the market research business, I know that some of my best work has been when I stopped doing something—even if just temporarily.

Are Market Researchers Creating the Functional Equivalent of genetically modified food?

Market research studies often capture and measure attitudes and behaviors, as if they could all be sorted into neat packages. We carefully structure our questions, and in the case of survey research, even our answers. We use quotas, we use weighting. But are we creating the functional equivalent of genetically modified food?

Getting a 16-Word Survey Wrong [a Special Guest Post by Jeffrey Henning]

I’m a fan of Google Consumer Surveys’ limitation on question length. Google limits you to questions of no more than 125 characters long, primarily – I believe – for a better experience for readers of the sites of its publisher partners … [Guest post by Jeffrey Henning of Researchscape]

Survey Scales: Market Research Fundamentals

How many points in a scaled question is “enough”? That’s a pretty common question in survey design. If you’ve spent some time with online market research surveys, you’ve probably noticed that they often have five points. “Please rate your satisfaction on a scale from 1 to 5, with one representing ‘not at all satisfied’ and five representing ‘extremely satisfied’.” Sometimes, though, you may see a 7-point scale instead of 5. Is 7 points an improvement? How about 11? Is higher resolution better? The answer is, “that depends”.

Is Market Research a High-stress Job? 4 Tips for Mitigating Project Risk Factors

Is Market Research a high-stress job?

It certainly can be.

But I can also tell you, after 25 years of doing market research, that there are known strategies for managing project-related stress. My favorite is one Research Rockstar students hear me talk about frequently: the preemptive strike.