Versta Research just hit a magic number: 100. That’s the number of articles we have written to help our clients and their colleagues keep abreast of important trends in market research. If your market research supplier is not providing ongoing thought leadership in design, methods, and analytics, then what are the chances they are bringing…
We are often surprised by the number of senior researchers in the market research industry who never touch raw data. Often they don’t even have the tools, since “data processing” is outsourced to lower levels or other countries. It is surprising because we almost always engage in work where getting into the data and puzzling…
As much as we love numbers, we find ourselves often advising clients against using numeric scales in their surveys. A numeric scale is any response format that asks people to give a number within a certain range to indicate the strength of their feeling or opinion. The insanely popular survey question used to calculate Net…
I’ve always been intrigued by the promises of data mining because it offers such a magical solution to much of what we do in market research. If only we had a tool or technology that would discover hidden patterns and insights in our data. We would not have to think so hard, or work so…
One of the most powerful pieces of advice our clients sometimes hear is to stop researching and start marketing. In fact, a client told us yesterday that our presentation of findings last year was good, useful, impressive . . . all that. But it was when we said, “Stop worrying about the next level of…
Last quarter we wrote about Magic Numbers in Market Research—those arbitrary rules of thumb and cut-off points we use when quoting things like minimum samples sizes or how many people to include in a focus group. Presto! Like magic, the issue appeared in the New York Times a few weeks ago, this time related to…
With the magic of the holidays upon us, we got to thinking about “magic” in market research, or the lack thereof. So our just- published quarterly newsletter focuses on magic numbers in market research, arguing that certain “magical” numbers seem to guide much of what we do, whether we realize it or not. The best…
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. …
As an industry driven by data and information, market research and public opinion polling has seen dramatic changes in the last ten years and will no doubt change quickly and in big ways during the next ten. Looking back, here are what we consider to be the five biggest changes that shaped current challenges faced…
Five of Chicago’s PR leaders gathered at a PRSA forum this week to discuss current trends and the future of public relations. The discussion was striking in how fully it echoed the trends and challenges facing the polling and research industry, and what we need to do to keep our eye on the ball. Here…