Editor's Note

MR Perspectives is a twice-monthly newsletter that provides perspectives on market research topics of interest, best practices tips, emerging trends, quick case studies, and other useful information.

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May 6-7, 2004 

South Bend, IN

AMA Marketing Boot Camp

The American Marketing Association's day-and-a- half workshop is for marketers who are new to the profession. It is repeated throughout the country throughout the year. This one is at the Marriott South Bend in South Bend, Indiana.

May 6, 2004 

New York City 

Decision Makers Conference

The Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO) is holding its one-day meeting for decisions makers at all sizes of research companies. The conference is at The Millennium UN Plaza Hotel in New York City.

Polaris' IT Interns

Polaris has two IT interns, both students at Georgia State University.

David Jean-Baptiste has an associate's degree in computer science from Georgia Perimeter College and is working on his bachelor's from Georgia State. He is fluent in French as well as several computer programming languages. He worked formerly as a computer technician at a printing company.

Jonathan Harris is finishing up his bachelor's degree in computer information systems at Georgia State this semester. He is interested in programming and application development. He also has worked at REI and as an electrical engineering intern.

When And How To Benchmark

Any given study can serve as a baseline study to which future tracking surveys can be compared. It's typically more effective, however, when a baseline study is purposefully set up as such. Creating a dedicated high-quality baseline research study that is optimized for future tracking can range from very simple to very complicated. It depends on a number of factors: 

• Survey type, such as advertising/marketing awareness, customer satisfaction or lost customer. A customer satisfaction baseline research study, for example, often is complex due to a greater need for multivariate analysis to establish satisfaction drivers.

• Internal knowledge of the issue. This depends on whether management feels they have a clear understanding of the issues. Developmental techniques, such as moderated employee brainstorming sessions or in-depth interviews with key respondent segments, may be required to validate the baseline research study. Also, if internal knowledge is low, a longer baseline survey may be recommended. With a properly designed longer survey, statistical driver analysis can be conducted to uncover which measures are most closely correlated to the key measure of interest (overall awareness, loyalty, etc.). This allows the tracking survey to be streamlined to contain only the most critical questions.

• Internal buy-in. Chances are that the results of your baseline research study and follow up tracking survey will be tied to performance improvement initiatives for several people and processes. As such, it is critical to obtain the support of those most involved in the process. The importance of internal buy-in to the ultimate success of your research program cannot be overstated. 

Internet vs. Telephone ... The Strengths (Part 2)

Following up on our earlier discussion on the value of Internet vs. telephone surveys (Issue #5), which should you choose for a particular survey? The answer depends upon many factors: your strategic initiatives, the information you need, who you are surveying, available sample, budget, etc. Since all of these things can vary from company to company and project to project, it is most important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each methodology. In this issue, we will look at strengths of each.

Strengths of the Internet survey methodology:

• Lower cost, especially as sample gets larger

• Accommodates complicated questionnaires (i.e., skip patterns, constant sum)
• Accommodates complicated studies (i.e., conjoint, card sorts)
• Provides ability to show visual stimuli
• Data collection can be extremely quick
• 24/7 survey availability is convenient for all types of respondents
• Pre-recruit panels provide very quick access to low-incidence groups
• Basic survey results can be made available real time
• Questionnaire can easily be translated and conducted in multiple languages

Strengths of the telephone survey methodology:

• Random Digit Dialing (RDD) provides a truly random sample

• Interviewers can find qualified respondents in the absence of full contact information
• Interviewers can do in-depth probing of respondent on key issues
• Interviewers can engage difficult respondent groups and complete the survey
• Specific survey responses can be recoded and used as a training tool
• Relatively low cost, although not as low as an Internet survey (see issue #5)
• Generally fast data collection, although typically not as fast as an Internet survey
• Can provide a more personal touch for the respondent
• Fairly robust in the types of questions that can be administered

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