If you ever have trouble convincing your managers and executives about the value of market research, tell them this: The one billion dollar settlement that Samsung will pay Apple for patent infringement was based on a carefully designed market research study using conjoint analysis. According to colleagues at Sawtooth Software, a company that develops the…
Way back in 1944, Edwards Deming published an article in the American Sociological Review that could be required reading for anybody who does research today. He outlined all potential (and unfortunately, common) sources of error in survey research. Apparently our contemporary obsession with sample sizes, random samples, response rates, and margins of error is not…
Bad data is worse than no data. With no data, at least you have intuition and experience to rely on. Bad data, on the other hand, will result in “findings” that are likely to spoil important decisions. With most surveys fielded online nowadays, we have lost the opportunity for phone (or in-person) interviewers to assess…
Conventional wisdom is that your current customers are your best customers. Indeed, when marketers focus on cross-selling as a strategy, they typically see substantial increases in revenue and profit. Not only that, but when you look only at customers who cross-buy a lot, the profit from these customers is huge compared to customers who do…
How do you make a beautiful, elegant, intuitive, and useful chart showing changes in market share over time? In R. That always seems to be the answer these days when it comes to data visualization as well as data analysis. It is the reason that we at Versta Research are in the midst of…
Every ten years the Census Bureau provides a count of all people living in the United States. More importantly, the Census Bureau and other agencies conduct ongoing surveys of the population to document crucial facts and figures about who we are. And every year, it seems, these agencies come under attack from politicians who would…
How big of a sample size do you really need? A recent article in the New York Times cited the following statistics: A small Voice of the Customer (VoC) research company called Mindshare Technologies collects satisfaction data from 175,000 respondents every day. That’s 60 million in a year. ForeSee, a small customer experience analytics firm…
Summer provides an ideal opportunity to learn from our research colleagues in the academic worlds. Many of them offer short, intensive “summer camp” training that is relevant and practical for market researchers. You get training that is far more rigorous and comprehensive than courses offered by “training institutes” and other commercial providers. Here are our…
We came across these images in a series of humorous montages that professionals had created about what they do. This one was created by Jason Sullivan.
One lesson I have learned serving on the board of the American Marketing Association in Chicago is that for most companies, research and marketing can no longer be separated. Why not? Because marketers now deal with immense volumes of data. If they want to make smart decisions and execute campaigns effectively, they need to use…