The problem (so we’ve been told) with check-all-that-apply survey questions is that respondents do not process the full list of response options carefully and thoughtfully. Instead, they glance through, knowing they’re supposed to find at least a few that are relevant to them. They check the ones that jump out (often at the top of…
When the U.S. Census Bureau started redesigning its race and ethnicity question for the 2020 decennial census, we started revising our own short version for surveys, too. Now we have enough data from one full years-worth of surveying on multiple projects, and we can tell you this: it works really well. We used to have…
If you have been tasked with the job of measuring “brand authenticity,” you probably noticed what a messy conceptual world you are now in. The idea of brand authenticity makes sense, but all the vague and competing definitions proffered by consultants surely makes your job harder. In comes market research to the rescue! A professor…
Last week we showed you a survey that might convince you to think twice about hiring a super high-end consulting firm for your survey research and insights. Fancy business consultants may know a lot about business, but they know little about gathering good data to answer their business questions. So this week, instead of focusing…
Ever wonder what you get if you hire a fancy schmancy consulting firm for your survey research and marketing insights, instead of Versta Research? Every once in a while we have a potential client who insists: “Give us IBM! Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.” I got a view into what those surveys look…
One luxury of doing primary research is that you can get data perfectly tailored to the problem you need to solve. Primary research allows you to design how data will be elicited, and how, exactly, attitudes and behaviors are measured. Hence, you get the insight you need. If you don’t have perfectly tailored data, you…
This summer you will not have to schlep to Ann Arbor for a month if you want to take advantage of top-notch summer training courses in survey research offered at the University of Michigan. Everything is being offered online this year! It is a perfect opportunity for corporate researchers and others who work on the…
A public relations client early in my career gave this assessment of my work: “Joe is strong at highlighting problems, but what I really care about is solutions.” That was many years ago, after I left university teaching and started doing client work full time. Her words have stayed with me and deeply shaped the…
An important role for good survey researchers is to translate ridiculous sounding jargon their clients give them into ordinary words that real people use. The jargon is typically business or marketing related, because most surveys are done for business or marketing clients. But I just ran across some “marketing science” jargon (created by market researchers)…
A survey platform we have been using launched a new service promising an “expert review” of our surveys before we send them out for data collection. Unfortunately, it is a gimmick. It turns out that there are no experts reviewing our surveys. An artificial intelligence robot reviews them. It was interesting to see which best…