Are Your Consumer Insights Stale?

Posted by Rahna on February 15, 2010 under Consumer Research, Strategy | Be the First to Comment

At Beacon Marketing, we answer strategic questions like:

“Sales are great; what are we doing right?”
“How should we best position ourselves in the marketplace?”
“What are the best areas of growth for us?”
“How could we become more well-known?”

How we answer these questions depends on the particular question being asked. Sometimes it’s best to have in-depth (qualitative) conversations with consumers or employees about the nuances of the brand. But many times, quantitative research is the most effective way to get the answer.

Many love quantitative research. Done online, it can be quick, relatively inexpensive, and can answer many strategic questions. But not all online research is alike. Beacon Marketing offers an affordable method of gaining valuable quantitative consumer insights without the expense of a full-blown custom survey.

Would you like to have the confidence of a thousand consumer responses for your top strategic issues? Perhaps your senior management would approve that new product idea — if you had just a little bit of data to back up your big idea?

The research team for Beacon Marketing has developed an omnibus study for clients to participate in. This is an on-going, proprietary consumer research vehicle, and we would be happy to include you in this process. If you would like to ask a few timely questions to a group of a thousand consumer respondents as part of this research, give us a call! For just over one thousand dollars, you can get a customized question about your critical issues — and that includes upfront consultation on question development AND back-end graphic detail for optimal reporting to your constituents!

The River or the Pond? What is River Sampling?

Now, don’t confuse this information with your typical, run-of-the-mill panel data! At Beacon Marketing, we pride ourselves on being anything but ordinary. This research methodology uses an ever-refreshing group of respondents (often called “river sampling”), which is a non-panel sample source, where consumers on the internet are recruited to participate in online research, in real time.

Panel research has been around for quite some time; large research companies have ongoing questionnaires they field to ask about a myriad of topics:

“Which of the following did you buy at the grocery store?”
“Do you like package A or package B better?”
“What is your child’s favorite snack?”

In research circles, there’s been much discussion about “river sampling” versus panel sampling. One of the issues with traditional panel data is that the panel gets… well… stale. The respondents are not repeatedly screened and represent only a small slice of the Internet universe. In today’s world of immediate and near-universal consumer access, there is no reason for stale panel data. Methodologies like “river sampling” work from the premise that the research results will be fresher, (richer, better, more accurate) if you pull fish (respondents) from the river as they swim by rather than if you go repeatedly to the same (potentially stagnant) pond that everyone else goes to (panel data).

Simply stated, methodologies like “river sampling” can cast a wider net across the World Wide Web, collecting consumer input and providing the following benefits:

Stronger, fresher recruiting
More frequent screening
Larger populations (covering 92% of online users)
Higher response rates (that can save you money!)

If you are looking to gain new insights and quantitative confirmation on your brightest ideas, give us a call. And remember, there’s no need for stale insights anymore!