You have built up your in-house market research resources. Maybe standardized on a new survey platform. Perhaps hired some more market research staff. That’s great. Now that you have those skills and tools in place, let’s look at a few applications you may not have considered that will hone your competitive edge.
The results point to some important changes for the way market research is sold, conducted and reported. No surprise there—we all know that the rate of change in our industry is swift these days.
A total of 35 market research industry predictions were posted during the last two weeks of 2010. For each one, people could vote for or against the item, resulting in a net score.
The first ever market research Twitterversity will be held January 11th, 2011. Indeed, this may be the first Twitterversity ever. While some companies have held events to teach people how to use Twitter, I can find no examples of anyone actually using Twitter itself as the instructional medium for a day of learning.
…the premise is simple: through early detection, events or patterns can be escalated as needed, thus preventing, or at least minimizing, problems.
Social media research is a powerful tool that can be used as an early warning system by many types of businesses. Consider the following four applications.
I’d like to share a little market research fun. And what’s more fun than a crossword puzzle? I have crafted a market research crossword puzzle; it was fun to make, and I hope you enjoy it.
-3. Social Media Research to Capture 25% or more of MR budgets by 2012. It had actually been hovering around positive 3 and 4, then came down! Does this mean more people really think SMR will not take off? Or that clients will use free/low-cost tools such that it won’t take up much budget?
To support this, I have set up an IdeaScale voting site titled, “Market Research Predictions Site.”
I have started by posting 9 of my predictions (though I confess, one is there to stimulate debate, and not because I actually believe it myself). You can vote on mine, and add your own (which others can then vote on).
Best Speaker: Dawn Lacallade from ComBlu. For content, delivery style and just being so refreshingly honest.
Most (delightfully) unexpected content: Kelley Styring’s presentation on the One-armed Dove Hunt, which is a core piece of research for her current project, “The One-handed World.”
Most amusing: This award goes to the Shopping Track. Apparently, research on shoppers is a rather slippery topic; I heard contradictory data from 3 Shopper Track speakers. I won’t name names. But I sat in on 3 sessions…
If you really want to get the most from your market research investments, the first step is to do a brutally honest audit of your current research resources. Yes, it takes time. But with a structured approach, I have seen it completed in as little as ten business days.
