Thank you to everyone who joined us in July for our webinar, “How to Create a Competitive Advantage Using Market Research”. We hope you found it very informative. During the broadcast, we welcomed questions from listeners, but because of time were unable to answer all of them. Below are two viewer questions about research that we’d like to take a few moments to answer now.
Q: How can one calculate the cost versus benefit of market research?

A: This question relates squarely to your objectives.
• How much are you investing to bring that product to market?
• How much are you spending on the marketing campaign you plan to implement over the course of the next 12-18 months?

Consider these factors and then set a portion of that budget for research.

A companion issue to the above is not only to conducting the research, but also to paying attention to the results. For example, one client ignored the results of a study we conducted that showed several flaws in the product they were planning to launch. They launched it anyway, and unfortunately, that company went out of business months later. Consequently, it’s not simply a matter of budgeting for research, but of understanding that the research may reveal issues that must be resolved prior to launching the product or service. This means that resources and flexibility in the launch schedule should be built into the larger marketing plan.

Q: How do you get hard to reach public sector customers to participate in research studies? What methodology is best for reaching these customers?

A: The public sector is a tough audience in general, but it’s an audience we specialize in, with 80-90% of our studies targeting this sector. Market Connections has worked hard to build a reputation of honesty and integrity, and our vast experience has made ours a name public sector respondents can trust.

Our experience has shown that telephone surveys are more effective with this audience than online. This is the case for a few reasons. Mainly, we’ve seen online results drop dramatically since 9/11, and especially in the past few years. Public sector employees are inundated these days with email, and also have a number of filters on their PCs that may further hamper messages getting through to them. Another issue is that with online research, you cannot control who is responding to your survey. For these reasons, we recommend an online methodology only for specialized studies in specific cases.

Through experience, Market Connections has learned that to reach public sector employees requires persistence. It is often the case that the first person contacted is not the one we need to speak to. Also, it’s important to use interviewers trained not only in eliciting responses during the interview, but also in the right outreach techniques, and who are capable of the special handling public sector respondents need.

Did you miss the webinar’s original broadcast? Watch it online NOW!

This entry was posted on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 2:17 pm and is filed under Government, Market Research. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.