Versta Research Blog

Versta Research Blog

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Versta Research is a marketing research and public opinion polling firm that helps you answer critical questions with customized research and analytical expertise.

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Versta Research Blog

Explore industry trends, research methods, and tips for your own research projects in the Versta Research Blog. All opinions are our own, and some may change over time.

First time reader? Check out the Best of the Blog for the most popular posts from almost 10 years of blogging. We’re glad you’re here.

Perils and Pitfalls of Social Media for Research

Perils and Pitfalls of Social Media for Research

It’s been four years since the AMA convened a panel of thought leaders in market research to ponder questions about how social media fits into research practices and methods.  An excerpt of our discussion was published in Marketing News in 2010.  Last month, another top industry group (AAPOR) released its Emerging Technologies Task Force report…

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Versta Research Post

NYT Blunders on Sample Size

Readers of this newsletter and blog know how much we value and respect the New York Times.  It is one of the few resources we cite regularly, as it always has relevant, authoritative information that informs our work and that of our clients.  So  my heart sank when I read this description of a new…

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How to Fix Bad Research Reports

How to Fix Bad Research Reports

Last week I learned about a surprising niche of marketing specialists that I never knew existed: Consultants who fix terrible reports written by market research vendors.  Not to toot our horn too loudly, but I received this note from Gary Schmidt, Chief Catalyst of West End Consulting, who does just this type of consulting: Joe,…

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Old Marketing Poltergeists: They’re Ba-a-a-a-ack!

Old Marketing Poltergeists: They’re Ba-a-a-a-ack!

A couple of weeks ago we highlighted the top tier marketing research priorities identified by a select group of corporate executives who are members of the Marketing Sciences Institute, and who represent the corporate-user side of marketing research.  Every two years they vote on where to direct the institute’s research funds for academic research. Not…

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Versta Research Post

Pointy-Haired Boss Finds Significant Correlation

Before the days of DATA MINING this was called DATA DREDGING.  And for good reasons, because it was considered not a good thing.  Almost any dataset will have nonsense correlations, and if you’ve turned on your magical statistical testing tool at the 95% confidence level, five out of every one hundred nonsense correlations will likely…

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Execs Vote on Top Research Needs in Marketing

Execs Vote on Top Research Needs in Marketing

Every two years marketing executives from more than 60 corporate members of the Marketing Science Institute (MSI) vote on the most important marketing topics they need to understand better.  They represent companies like Kraft, Colgate-Palmolive, Bank of America, Nielsen, and Walmart.  MSI—a think tank, of sorts, whose mission is to “bridge the academic and business…

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How to Succeed with Biased Samples

How to Succeed with Biased Samples

Leading practitioners of survey research now agree that online polling and other forms of non-probability sampling can work.  The key is to give careful attention to the survey protocols, data collection, cleaning, and back-end weighting so that ultimately the sample being analyzed matches the population you want to know about in as many relevant ways…

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Don’t Waste Money Delighting Your Customers

Don’t Waste Money Delighting Your Customers

Don’t waste money delighting your customers.  That’s the message from an intriguing new study and report just issued by the Corporate Executive Board.  Why not delight your customers?  Because meeting expectations is enough to keep them loyal.  Going beyond those expectations and “delighting” them has no measurable impact on loyalty.  Quoting from the report: Most…

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Two Cool Tools for Pricing Research

Two Cool Tools for Pricing Research

Versta Research has just published is spring 2014 newsletter which features a short video on how to do pricing research.  If you ever work with price and demand data, and need to figure out the optimal price for your product or service, here are two great tools worth knowing about:  1. PowerPoint (yes, that says…

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