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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.
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Surveys matter only if people are willing to fill them out – and getting people to fill them out is not an easy task. There are many interesting distractions in the world! And there many silly surveys and junk surveys competing for people’s attention. When the time comes that you need important feedback via a…
Survey respondents and other participants in our research studies are the lifeblood of the polling and market research industry. Therefore it is critical that we promote and nurture public participation in research, and that we reward, respect, and thank our respondents. So whatever you do, please don’t take Dogbert’s approach to conducting a survey: Versta…
A pet-peeve of mine is that many (way too many) market research professionals talk about “actionable insights” and I almost never know what they are talking about. I suspect most of them don’t either. The more our clients complain that research reports are sitting on shelves collecting dust, the louder every research firm starts proclaiming…
One way you can make a research report really pop is to carefully select and edit quotes from the people involved in the study. For qualitative research, that means pulling quotes from transcripts of in-depth interviews, focus groups, online bulletin boards, social media, etc. For survey research, it means pulling quotes from open-ended questions that…
In July, I moderated a panel of thought leaders in market research to ponder the question: “How Will Social Media Change Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty (CS&L) Research?” The event was sponsored by the American Marketing Association, and included participants from GfK, Maritz, MARC, SAS, Market Tools, and Versta Research. A partial transcript of our panel’s…
Research without an audience, like the title of this article, is ridiculous. By the time you figure out if the research makes any sense – if it is even true – you realize perhaps that nobody may really care. If research is not done for somebody to answer critical questions they have, then there is…
Many assume that rigorous market research always works with random samples or probability samples. This assumption is not true. There are many studies that require purposive sampling instead. Purposive sampling involves finding people with specific characteristics or qualities, even if they do not fully represent the whole population, because these specific people can provide unique…
Should you state a survey’s margin of error in your press release when pitching a story to the media? In our view, the answer is no. Why not? Because margins of error refer to sampling error only, not about the overall accuracy or error of the survey itself. But how many readers of your news…
A client had a surprising experience this week when a member of our multivariate analysis team showed up online to watch a live in-depth interview with a registered nurse about how prescribing decisions are made. “Who is that online with us?” the end-client inquired, not recognizing the name. The qualitative manager answered, “He’s on our…
An essential component to Versta Research’s strength in turning data into stories is communicating those stories to the audiences who need them most. Those audiences might be researchers, internal clients, brand management teams, PR specialists, or reporters. Or the audience might be the top level executives at the companies or organizations we are working with. …