Versta Research is a marketing research and public opinion polling firm that helps you answer critical questions with customized research and analytical expertise.
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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In the old days (decades ago), phone surveys had limited utility because many people had no phone service in their homes. When that changed, phone surveys became ubiquitous because they allowed researchers better control over the process. Data quality improved. Now increasing numbers of people have moved to cell phones only, which has been a…
We saw an ad today for a downloadable survey app similar to Survey Monkey or Zoomerang that was pitched as a tool for actionable insights. Wow! Download, install, run . . . click again, and there they are, sitting on your desktop or smart phone: actionable insights.
Today, an industry colleague (another owner of a market research firm) said to me, “We all lust after those big tracking studies.” For most market research firms, tracking studies are attractive because they involve big samples, multiple ongoing deliverables, and multi-year commitments, all of which means predictable, ongoing (and usually substantial) revenue. At Versta Research,…
Choosing an omnibus survey can be a simple approach to getting survey data, because it is usually inexpensive and fast, and involves asking just a few questions. But there is sometimes a downside to simplicity: You have just a few questions to get that nugget of data you’re hoping to use as a news hook…
Another article was just published in the Spring 2010 issue of Public Opinion Quarterly exploring data quality differences between online surveys and phone surveys. The findings were based on a lab experiment in which subjects completed survey questions either on a computer or over an intercom system with an interviewer. Doing the study in a…
If something works and it keeps on working but you don’t know exactly why it works, what would you do? Our view is that you should keep doing it. Not everyone agrees with us. The American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) convened a task force to study online survey panels, and released their report…
Ten years ago, surveys through online panels were rare. Mostly we conducted telephone surveys. Today it is the other way around. With online survey panels being a $2 billion industry in the U.S., there is now a wealth of comparative data to measure and assess the implications of using online surveys as a substitute for…
This quarter’s newsletter from Versta Research focuses on the art of asking questions. We suggest that the importance of business questions far exceeds the importance of survey questions or focus group questions. You can’t do the latter without the former, at least not very well, and research that is not specifically designed to answer clearly…
Telephone surveys are still considered the gold standard for rigorous public opinion polling and market research. The reason is that virtually every household in the U.S. can be reached by telephone, and therefore we have careful methods of determining the probability that any individual person is included in a sample to be surveyed. Knowing this…
One problem with new survey technologies that make it easy (and inexpensive) to design and field surveys is that we now have an explosion of poorly done and ill-intentioned surveys. Have you ever suspected that a survey isn’t quite legit? Keeping your survey efforts honest is critical. Sincere efforts to document issues through rigorous surveys…