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23 Jan

Posted at 14:51h in Business, Corporate
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Over the past year, we've introduced new business programs, launched eCommerce accessible reports and worked for our ISO 27001 certification. We've also made several upgrades to our physical space and got up to all kinds of initiatives and events that made the year really fly by. We figured we would share a synopsis of 2018 as we saw it - feel free to scan through the Insightrix 2018 Year in Review. ISO Certification Throughout 2018, Insightrix Research invested a great deal of capital and worked tirelessly with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in pursuit of obtaining ISO 27001 certification. And we are only months away from completing the process. This international certification means Insightrix will distinguish itself as having some of the most stringent information security management systems (ISMS) available anywhere. ISO 27001 certification goes beyond regular IT and data management security. It covers all aspects of information security and data management in our organization. Whether it is raw data, paperwork or even the physical space of the Insightrix offices, ISO 27001 certification means our clients can be assured their data and information is safe and protected. Securing ISO 27001 certification in 2019 will bring Insightrix ISMS closely in line with recent EU GDPR requirements and will set Insightrix apart in the national and international marketplace as a leader in information asset and data security. Insightrix AdCheck Launched Early in 2018 In early 2018, we launched Insightrix AdCheck – a new and innovative way of pre-testing advertisement creative. Suitable for individual ads or multi-media campaigns, AdCheck is the most comprehensive tool for assessing, predicting and optimizing the performance of advertising copy and creative. Insightrix AdCheck is a quantitative pre-testing solution that uses standardized copy-testing measures based on a battery of questions. With AdCheck, we can help execute ad testing projects quickly and build industry norms - all with metrics that are both easy to understand and to act on. eCommerce and Syndicated Reporting 2018 In April 2018, we added an eCommerce  storefront to the Insightrix website. Now, clients and those interested in purchasing our syndicated reports can conveniently access them directly though the website powered by Stripe. The 2018 Saskatchewan Social Media Report offers in-depth and representative analysis of social media habits and perceptions across devices and platforms. The Saskatchewan Media Democracy Report digs into device usage behaviours, media consumption habits, views on advertising, the online shopping behaviours of Saskatchewan residents and more. Both reports are quickly becoming recognized as an indispensable tool for targeted marketing intelligence in the Saskatchewan marketplace. New Features to SaskWatch Research in 2018 We've strengthened our already robust SaskWatch Research® member profiling system. We’ve added more and even deeper categories to ensure our clients get to consult the niche groups they need to engage with most. We’ve added specific profile categories and subcategories. These speak to general interests and spending habits, residency and newcomer status, specific occupations and distinct sub-fields of employment or activity and a whole lot more. By adding these categories, we can probe even deeper and be incredibly specific to choose the exact participants you need for your study. This provides actionable research that speaks precisely to your unique question. With these changes, we continue to provide the most accurate and relevant market intelligence about Saskatchewan possible. Continuous Development in Insightrix Communities 2018 was a year of team effort and client partnership at Insightrix Communities. As part of our commitment to providing the best customer service available, we’ve worked with our clients to develop a user experience that is second to none for the Insightrix Communities software – the only all-inclusive market research online community (MROC) platform available. By adopting an international focus in 2018 and through consultation with existing and prospective clients, we’ve tailored our MROC to be the most robust and worry-free online panel anywhere. Office & Focus Group Facility Upgrades In early 2018, Insightrix implemented several office upgrades and enhancements to amenities in our focus group rental facilities and meeting rooms, including connectivity and multimedia display capabilities. With these upgrades now in place, Insightrix is now able to offer the highest-quality focus group spaces available in the province. Podcasts & Publications Stories of Market Research: The Insightrix Podcast got its legs under it in 2018 and really hit its stride. What follows are the episodes of Stories of Market Research: The Insightrix Podcast we produced in 2018. Episode 3: Market Research & the Customer Experience In this episode of the podcast, we were joined by voice of market consultant and customer experience guru, John Morton, to discuss how customer experience is evaluated, why companies are focusing on this more and more lately and how market research can be used to make buyers’ journeys remarkable… Episode 4: Market Research & the World of Marketing In Episode 4, we were joined by President of the Saskatchewan Professional Marketers Assoc. and Manager of Marketing and Communications at the United Way of Saskatoon and Area (and local marketing wiz), Paige Gignac, to discuss the ways marketing professionals benefit from market research and her perspective on the place of market research in relation to the world of marketing… Episode 5: Careers in Market Research In this special episode of the podcast, we spoke with some of the younger researchers at Insightrix to get their unique perspectives on their careers. We discovered what led them to pursue careers as market research professionals and learn a few tricks and tips for those new to the field. The episode also features an interview with Insightrix Research Director, Lang McGilp, about the skills, abilities and background he looks for in researchers. This episode is a must-listen for anyone considering a career in market research...
 

10 Dec

Posted at 17:27h in Business, Syndicated
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6 Saskatchewan Social Media Statistics Marketers Should Know As part of our commitment to share knowledge with the industry, Insightrix Research conducted the Saskatchewan Media Usage Study with residents about their digital diet - including social media habits, consumer behaviours and device ownership. The research was conducted with more than 1,500 Saskatchewan residents (December 2017), using SaskWatch Research®, our proprietary online panel. Comprehensive results from this syndicated study are available in the 2018 Saskatchewan Social Media Report. The 2018 Saskatchewan Social Media Report answers questions like… What social media platform is most popular with specific Saskatchewan demographic groups? What do Saskatchewan social media users expect from the brands they follow online? As we did for the 2017 version of this syndicated series, we are delivering to you (for free!) highlights from the 2018 report in the 2018 Saskatchewan Social Media eBook. Each report continues to provide trended data and actionable insights that help brands with an interest in the Saskatchewan marketplace to make better-informed decisions with their paid, earned and owned media strategy. Even more, we have put together a list of "6 important statistics Saskatchewan marketers need to know in 2018". So, if you are a marketer, or if you are in an integrated role that requires you to think like a marketer, statistics like these validate the need for the development of a targeted digital strategy for business. #1 SOCIAL MEDIA USE CONTINUES TO INCREASE IN SASKATCHEWAN The number of active social media users in Saskatchewan continues to upturn. Since 2016 – the number of social media users have increased from 87% to 90% (2017)*. *The 2018 Saskatchewan Social Media Habits Report 4: Do you use social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest or LinkedIn, etc.? Base: 2016, All respondents, n = 1,500; 2017, All respondents, n = 1,500. Leading social networks like Facebook have become powerful communication tools to connect with family or friends – or with brands of interest. Visual platforms – like Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube – continue to lead the growth of social networks in Saskatchewan and give businesses an opportunity to target specific audiences – an important takeaway for marketers looking to capitalize on this traffic. As social media networks continue to gain traction in the province, it reinforces the need to consider investing in paid social media strategies by allocating larger dollar amounts to your digital media marketing budget. #2 SASKATCHEWAN MILLENNIALS CONTINUE TO LEAD As a society, we are very well at the peak of the "darn those millennials" internet movement. Between millennials ending cereal, diamond rings, handshakes and the Toyota Scion (yes, it’s a thing) ...
 

20 Sep

Posted at 10:24h in Business, Technology
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Opt-in communities help businesses target niche markets If you are trying to get to know your target market, market research is often your first stop to find out more. And surveys are an excellent way to achieve relevant information about your brand. Although survey engines are readily available, your target audience may not be as accessible as you need them to be. Brands know exactly how important it is to talk to their potential customers and get their feedback, but the opportunity to enlist research participants who are interested in giving their opinion can sometimes stop your innovation from moving forward. And the more niche the audience, the more expensive recruiting potential participants to weigh in on your product or service can be.  While the dog days of recruiting individuals to participate are far from over, market research online communities (MROCs) have helped alleviate the pressure of attracting targeted and engaged individuals to assist businesses by contributing to research on their areas of interest. What does that look like? Maybe you are a marketer of a brand or service and you want to know how it is performing with a specific demographic. Perhaps you want to know more about that demographic – say, millennial women aged 18 to 25 – who commute by bicycle to school/work in all seasons. With access to an MROC, brands can conduct primary research with members of their niche market – like those passionate, all-season bicycle commuters!  As a result, your online community becomes a more focused group of survey participants with a unique knowledge base you can tap into. What does that mean? All online communities are different – by size and by their profiling. While some online communities can recruit as large as 15,000 general population participants, other communities can be created to be heartier, such as 50 specifically targeted survey participants. But whether it is 15,000 people or 50 community members, all online communities provide powerful insights in a cost-effective way. In fact, smaller, engaged communities can be easily facilitated by research professionals or business owners - making for research on a much more personalized level at a fraction of the cost of a traditional ad hoc research project.    By employing online communities to create surveys, you can invest in customers/clients to understand their preferences better and to gather intelligence at any stage of development. Simply – it means getting constant feedback with relevant people.    Relevant participants Why speak with participants who are not relevant to your research project? By only selecting the most appropriate individuals to participate in the research, the data produced will be much more relevant to your business goals. A more focused group can facilitate research that produces actionable intelligence because the research is done with participants who have already bought in to the organization’s goals, and who demographically conform to research needs.   For example, if the desire is to survey those who bike to work everyday – it can be assumed the potential participants are a more defined group of the population than those who commute in other ways, like a personal vehicle. By zeroing in on the target participant group, you may get answers to questions that other, less-targeted participants may have no experience with (i.e., how often there is snow removal in bike lanes). Ease of access Because online communities can be set up ahead of time, and because survey participants have bought in, organizations can field as much research as they like, about whatever topic that is of interest to them, with a sample group that is ready to go right away. For example, if an organization wants to test specific winter tires for bicycles, or perhaps a series of advertisements involving bicycle winter safety, they can access their target group whenever they like and turn the research around at a much faster rate. Affordability Because target groups are enlisted from online recruitment, primary research can be done with an online community at a fraction of the cost of research projects that rely on the need to recruit qualified participants. And, as all participants are pre-screened to meet exact criteria (for example, those who commute to work on their bicycle in all seasons), and since the research is conducted online, many costs associated with custom research projects are eliminated. Think about travel costs, call centre costs (like telephone recruitment, etc.), participant incentives, focus group facility rentals and more. The turnaround One of the best reasons to employ an online community for your target group is undoubtedly the speed with which your research can be turned around. If you are burning the midnight oil and interested in tapping into the knowledge of your participants, you can do so at any given time. Most research questions are turned around in under 48 hours - it’s almost as if you have a research group in your back pocket, waiting to help make the decisions as quickly as possible.    Insightrix Communities can deliver powerful insights Insightrix Communities™ can provide you the research insights you need with relevant easy-to-access participants at an affordable price. Online community software is flexible - giving the capability to build short-term communities or more long-term, complex research projects. By applying Insightrix Communities software, your team can benefit from on-hand market research experts who can help see your project through from concept to completion – or employ and brand your own DIY community! Insightrix provides the know-how to take organizations through each step of the community-building journey, from recruiting your first community member to engaging with them and promoting participation in your research activities, to developing insights as the research is completed. If you want to learn more about how communities can help, listen to The Insightrix Podcast Episode 6: Market Research Online Communities by streaming here or from any major podcast app. ...
 

04 Sep

Posted at 11:51h in Business, Marketing
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Multi-channel ad campaigns have their own challenges It doesn’t take a genius to know today’s customer is always connected and that audiences consistently have their finger on the social pulse through social media and the internet. And, let’s face it, getting honest feedback about your company, your product or your advertising can be especially difficult. This is the reality most advertisers are working in today, especially those working in multi-channel campaigns. With the desire to get messages out to as wide an audience as possible, many creative professionals can be quick to launch a multi-channel advertising campaign without putting effort into understanding how the overall message of the campaign is about to be received.  When advertisers (or marketers for that matter) are executing their digital campaigns this way, without employing ad testing methodologies and being unaware of how their messages are going to be received by their audiences, it is usually to be quicker than the other guy, or to avoid the dreaded, “Why did you spend money on that?” These micro-marketing moments can have a major impact on your brand, and if your audience does not respond well to your campaign, the backlash can happen as quickly as a comment on social media can be posted. Not employing creative testing can come at the cost of your brand’s reputation   While marketers and advertisers want to be quick and efficient, what they need is to be credible and relevant. This is even more relevant in multi-channel campaigns, in which messaging can change depending on in what location and on what medium it is being seen, and who the intended audience will be.  There are simple tools that can help deliver customer feedback on your advertising at the same pace your target audience is connecting with you. Feedback tools like advertising testing offer real value when it comes to seeing how your creative will be received, and are a great alternative to the more traditional (*ahem* not-as-quick) forms of evaluation.   What follows are 5 benefits of advertising testing in multi-channel campaigns   1. Find out what will work next time, and the time after, and the time after that… When you put an ad testing methodology to work on your creative, you are benchmarking – gathering data on what works best and what was less successful, what audiences engaged with most, how different channels engage with your advertisement, etc. By testing and adding to benchmarks and established norms about your creative, you will accumulate data on how to create great ads again and again based on what worked best before. 2. Your creative is good – It could be better… Want to turn out creative that will succeed in the audience you intend it to speak to? By testing your ad, you can make sure not only that your messaging is exactly how you intend it, but also that the message speaks exactly to whom you intend it to reach. New developments in methodologies have even made it possible to measure the virality of an ad before it is launched. Sure, the original messaging in the ad may have fallen short at first – but through ad testing, you can be sure to change it up before that creative ever hits the streets. 3. Money! Of course! A terrible ad costs the same to produce as a great one. At least, it can unless ad testing is put in place to catch that bad ad before it sees any large investment. Most of the spend on creatives will happen during the final phase of their production. Ad testing is usually done in the very beginning phases of the creative, using storyboards, animatics and other pre-production materials. Testing at this phase allows for your audience to get an idea of where a creative is going before it gets there, but saving the investment it would take to get that creative all the way finished and presented to them – a potentially sizeable savings.  4. We could all be a little more customer-centric… Providing what your customers want out of your organization is key in today’s marketplace. By employing ad testing with your customer base, you are listening to your customers and possibly co-creating with them. With data about your ads coming directly from your customer base, you can develop creative that speaks directly to them. 5. Protect your company’s reputation! Not employing creative testing can come at the cost of your brand’s reputation. While marketers and advertisers want to be quick and efficient, what they need is to be credible and relevant. Communicating with any audience involves some level of risk. Testing advertisements and their messages can help brands remove some of the risk by showing how messages will be received before they are visible to everyone, allowing for the gauging of opinion or reaction to your creative – potentially saving a brand from harm or embarrassment....
 

23 Jul

Posted at 15:46h in Business, OnTopic
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Market research is a powerful tool for advocacy In an internet age, not-for-profit organizations should understand how important it is to adopt market research as advocacy to help inform their public interest initiatives. Because not-for-profits are vital to the local communities they serve, it is their shared responsibility to encourage policy and law makers to do what is right for the public. By using advocacy market research, not-for-profits can adopt a robust tool to put their cases forward and reach change agents in all levels of government.   This is research for advocacy in a nutshell. In most funding circles, advocacy is often considered an “art of persuasion”; it can be loosely defined as “converting the impossible into the inevitable”. Ask any campaign manager and they will tell you the same. The question is: How do campaign managers convert the impossible and reach the public to create more awareness and become relevant to policymakers?   Research for advocacy When we think of research for advocacy, some may think of decades of long, drawn-out research studies that show obscure connections between lifestyle and behaviour factors. And while some industry research can take many years to yield actionable results, research for advocacy can often be done MORE QUICKLY and can deliver information that is sometimes more relevant to policymakers. One way to get an advocacy message in front of the public is by undertaking and publicizing research that demonstrates the need for such laws or policies, the public support behind them and the likely results if the change were implemented. For example, as part of Tourism Saskatoon’s strategic plan, they identified the need to expand hosting capacity and to remain competitive for business and sporting events. For the past several years, the city of Saskatoon has seen on and off support for a new downtown arena and convention centre. Because Tourism Saskatoon ran a public opinion poll conducted by Insightrix to promote their advocacy message, they received media coverage to help grow support and validate their city planning initiatives. Insightrix worked with the Tourism Saskatoon on the question wording to ensure that the answers represented the views of the community, and were not leading, thereby ensuring credibility. This is an example of publicizing research that demonstrates the direct interest of the community. https://globalnews.ca/news/4101828/downtown-arena-tourism-saskatoon/ (media coverage) http://www.tourismsaskatoon.com/about/about-strategic-plan/ (strategic plan) What distinguishes research for advocacy from other types of evidence-based research is that it is focused on specific answers in mind, and that it is a part of an overarching strategy to influence potential policy development and policy change. While other research can contribute to the overall understanding of an issue, market research for advocacy has a narrow and specific aim, and it does not have to take a lot of time or money to be effective for advocacy campaigns.    Think like an NGO and run an Omnibus Poll Most NGOs conduct research in-house, but can use market research firms to help with validating or creating evidence for the larger research projects undertaken by these organizations. NGOs often use market research to “top up” their existing research by employing omnibus surveys and using locally-conducted research. Omnibus surveys often make good news, particularly if your research is interesting and shows potential for strong public support for the initiative at hand. Not-for-profits should monitor how NGOs conduct omnibus polling – as these kinds of research methodologies can be done easily and are inexpensive to conduct. At Insightrix, we run a monthly omnibus poll. Omnibus surveys are a quick and cost-effective, potent research tool that doesn’t break the bank. Our monthly omnibus sample is random and representative: we set quotas by region, age and gender to ensure the sample matches the distribution of the populations. When thinking about conducting an omnibus survey – keep two things in mind: your story should be newsworthy and contain something interesting that will catch people’s attention (or the attention of journalists), and it should also incorporate the advocacy message. Many NGOs have created media partnerships that have proven to be fruitful. With the internet becoming an important tool to promote timely research, low-cost media advocacy is an inexpensive way to increase your initiative’s chances for success, especially when it becomes news.   Getting an “in” with the media Using the media to get your advocacy research in front of the public is an effective way to secure better policies on a range of issues.  Cultivating relationships with journalists and local media can be difficult – that is, until you get your in with them. Media professionals are often on the look out for good ideas to write about for an article or to produce a segment for broadcast, and they pay close attention to press releases they receive. However, your press or media release itself is not the objective of advocacy; it is the effect of the news coverage that is important, and that may not always be easy to measure. One of the best ways to get your in with the media is to be analytical in your own observations of the media and their interactions with those you’re trying to reach. Attempt to understand what type of news is considered newsworthy - What appeals to readers? What issues gain little attention and which gain a lot? Are there local journalists who are more interested in social issues than others? Through your own research, you can see what gets covered in the media and how that information is presented. Doing this will create advocacy research that is desirable to media, that will be easier to digest and that will more than likely land you publicity for your initiative.   Use omnibus research to spur your advocacy efforts Media and research are two extremely valuable tools that can increase the awareness of your advocacy research and often require few resources other than the time and people to see them through. By using more advocacy to validate long-term research, by strengthening your relationship with the media (thereby building the understanding of the population), it will be much easier to influence the policies that matter to them most over time.  ...
 

04 Jul

Posted at 08:46h in Business, Manitoba, OnTopic, Saskatchewan
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Gauge citizen engagement - check in with the people who matter most Imagine you are a manager within a municipal department and/or provincial ministry. Now, imagine you are asked if citizens are aware of and satisfied with your department’s services, or perhaps if they have seen and can recall your department’s ad campaign.   Yikes!  How are you going to do this? How can you measure your success and get data to help in planning your next steps? OK – take a minute to breathe. It’s not really happening! This situation is fictional, of course. After all, this isn’t 1988. Today, you can easily get this data! However, budgets are tight and you need research that is not only timely, but that is affordable as well. Policy planning cannot be built on intuition. To do any good planning upfront or to validate those plans later, you need a pulse check to ensure initiatives or plans are on the right track - and any good plan has proper research behind it. How does omnibus research work? Government employees who employ omnibus research work together with research professionals to develop expertly crafted research questions to obtain the information they need. These research questions can be asked in one or two ways, either as closed or open-ended questions, depending on the kind of intelligence desired. Examples of closed questions Closed questions are designed to get a specific response from the population – either a yes or no answer, or perhaps a response to a multiple response question (one that asks for responses that involve picking one or more responses from a pre-determined list of possible responses). Example of an open-ended question Open-ended questions ask the population for a verbatim response, allowing for you to obtain citizen engagement in their own words. With the choice of either open-ended or closed questions, you have the choice of asking either qualitative or quantitative research questions – meaning there is virtually no end to the types of issues you can examine.   What kinds of market research are available to government managers? With omnibus research, you can obtain intelligence of almost any kind, and benefit from consultation with experienced researchers to ensure the survey is accurate and regionally representative. Measure citizen engagement and citizen participation in new or existing initiatives. Understand how initiatives have performed with the people who matter most – residents in your province or city itself. Provide needed information to inform stakeholders of the importance of a cause or issue. Answer objections that may be raised about a proposed policy change before rolling it out. Demonstrate popular support for a specific policy or program.   There are very few research topics market research cannot answer for governments. In the past, Insightrix has provided research insight on many policy and planning decisions. Awareness and usage of government services Recall rates of government advertising campaigns Satisfaction with specific government services Citizen opinion research relating to hot-button issues like the legalization of cannabis, anti-bullying policies, etc.   Government can do fast, lean research In times of shrinking budgets, the research budget is often one of those hardest hit. Maximize research budgets by employing omnibus research. Omnibus research allows you to do fast, lean, regionally representative research at a fraction of the cost of custom studies. How fast? Omnibus research allows for you to submit research questions and receive actionable data and insight back in just a few days. With the Insightrix omnibus service, you can begin a research project, put it into field and receive valuable insights back in only 7 days from beginning to end. How affordable? Omnibus research projects field multiple research projects together, all at once, at the same time every month. Combining questions from multiple research projects in a single survey increases government purchasing power by spreading costs across a larger sample. Choose the sample The Insightrix omnibus service, OnTopic™, allows you to choose the geographic location of interest. If you’d like to know about what people in Regina or Saskatoon feel about a specific topic to validate initiatives against the opinions and beliefs of those regions or against those of rural or northern demographics, OnTopic can accommodate. OnTopic allows for sample to be taken from either Saskatoon, Regina, southern Saskatchewan, northern Saskatchewan, or just one of these places - or all at once for the whole province. We set age, gender and region quotas to ensure the sample is representative of the area of interest. If you are a government decision maker in Manitoba, we’ve got you covered too. Insightrix OnTopic gets you regionally representative sample that is either specific to Winnipeg or province wide. How you use omnibus research is up to you. Are you interested in using omnibus research? The Insightrix omnibus service, OnTopic, is just an email or phone call away. Our experienced researchers and analysts are here to consult with you on the formulation of research questions, to put them into field and to assist in making the most out of the results. We run OnTopic once every month in Saskatchewan on the first Friday of every month, and we provide detailed tables that contain useful, actionable insights only a week later on the following Friday. We also do follow the same process in Manitoba, on the following week. Get the intelligence you need for a fraction of the cost of custom research projects.   ...
 

26 Jun

Posted at 09:57h in Business, Research
0 Likes

You could be doing research for your small business Getting the chance to ask research questions for your business is often thought to be beyond the ability of most small and medium-sized businesses (SMB). Market research, while desperately needed for SMB, can be considered a lower priority when determining what an SMB should or should not spend money. With the constant need to probe, learn and collect intelligence for businesses – in an economy where everyone is trying to market their product effectively – research should not be the first budget item on the chopping block. Especially when market research companies offer cost-saving alternatives to custom research projects like omnibus research. Not only is market research a necessity for all levels and types of business – it could also save further investment down the road and have a major impact on the brand. Getting actionable insights from asking the right research questions can be both affordable and accessible to all businesses who need a pulse check.  The question is, what are some best practices to employ to create good research questions that yield actionable results? Actionable market research needs to start out right It isn’t always easy to find the right place to start a market research project. It may be there are many ideas for research that come to mind. But a good place to get rolling is to decide the exact research questions you would like to have answers for. Market research isn’t always about uncovering the hidden insights that you never knew before you started – it is also to help clarify or validate what you already knew.     Think about it this way… As an SMB, start by asking, “What kind of market intelligence is it that I want or need for my business?” or “What evidence am I after to clarify my business or marketing strategy?” Let’s say you are a business developer or a marketing specialist for a tech company. You are ready to start concept testing on a new feature of the product but do not know if your customers are interested or ready in such a feature. You may rely on your general understanding of how the product works to prepare the lot of questions in ways that make sense to you - but will that yield actionable results? You may come up with questions like… -or- But take a minute. Are these questions going to yield actionable results for the business or marketing strategy?   Think about the answers when reading the question; will it help you define if your customers like the new feature(s)? Sure. Will it help determine if the new feature is right for your customers? Perhaps not. Questions, questions… Formulating questions that need to be answered, based on the research topic, is a problem waiting to be solved. As an insights agency, we encourage our clients to deliver us their questions monthly to be included in our omnibus. And our omnibus functions as a lean research tool for businesses that need quick results. Whether it is pre-determined market intelligence that requires questions developed to explore, or if you already have research questions that need answering, our consultants can help in the formulation and fielding of omnibus research that will yield relevant and actionable information.  But before you contact your market research provider, we’ve provided some hints you can use when coming up with your own research questions. Ask research questions that can be answered. Before starting to try to answer a question, it must first be determined whether there is the time or resources available to conduct the research in the first place. Let’s go back to our first example… Finding out which age groups engage with your product or what your customers want from the new features are questions that can be easily answered! But determining the factors of influence that led your customers to be interested in your product in the first place may not be (with this level of research, at least!). Ask one question at a time. Compound questions should be avoided. Asking questions around “if they use your product” and “at what times” may seem like a good place to start the survey, but asking questions like these at the same time or all at once will result in answers that are confusing and uninformative. It is always better to ask single, succinct questions to avoid confusing your customers. Review the research questions thoroughly. Before consulting your research provider, make sure to investigate with your developers to know how your product works, and with sales managers to know its selling points. While you consult your pros, you will still need to develop your own perspective that will help validate the need for your questions.   Be straightforward. If your responding customers do not know what the research question is asking, the response given won’t be of any use to inform the insights gathered at the end of research. Avoid the use of confusing words or language – keep questions as simple and as short as possible, and try to be specific about what it is that is being asked. Avoid research questions like, “Do you like to eat a lot?” Instead, stick to questions like, “At what times of day do you usually eat?” Being specific like this will lead to less confusion for customers, providing actionable market intelligence that relates directly to the research at hand. Provide restrictive and extensive response options. When setting up multiple choice research questions, be sure to make choices exhaustive (they cover all possible choices to the question asked) and restrictive (one answer cannot be mistaken for another by the respondent). In a question like, “What is your annual net income after taxes?”, an example of a restrictive and extensive series of responses could be: In a series of responses like this, virtually all possible options are covered and none of the answer categories can be said to overlap with the others. Setting up research questions so they are restrictive and extensive will not only provide a wide range of detailed data to work with, it will avoid biasing, or presupposing the answers respondents will provide before they are asked. Give your respondents an out. Some respondents may not feel comfortable answering all research questions. If inquiring about demographic information like household income, gender, etc., or looking to gather other sensitive information, it is often a good idea to provide a “Prefer not to answer” option to respondents. Giving responding customers an opportunity to opt out of questions will keep more of them answering (instead of dropping out entirely) and will limit them giving inaccurate responses only to proceed in the survey (resulting in unreliable data). On top of this, the number of those who preferred not to answer questions is still valuable data that can used in finding insight into the research topic. Balance the scale of available responses. Think long and hard about the scale upon which responding customers will answer survey questions. Points on scales should be equally distant from one another in concept or number from one another. Meaning - always avoid response scales that do not measure the same thing. If the question were to be asked, “How would you rate your experience with my company’s product?”, it doesn’t make sense to ask customers to rate their experience on a scale of 1 – Excellent. The first response is a number; the second is a feeling. Both are much different in concept, and using them both in the same scale would not just confuse responding customers, but it would also confuse the data gathered from their responses. If the research question requires a scaled response, stick to easy-to-use scales of one to ten, or scales that involve concepts that are very easily understood at first reading. Pitch your questions to a market research firm for consultation.  Now that you know what you want to research, and you have some great research questions ready to ask, it never hurts to call in a pro to validate the direction and scope of the research before committing to the investment of time and resources to the project. Market research firms like Insightrix are experts in their field and are both accessible and affordable to all levels of business. Whether to validate a specific project, or to inform a project from its beginning, engaging a market research firm at the outset for a consultation will result in more focused research (saving your business both time and money), and will provide more actionable data when the research is done.  What's more, when you access the experience of a market research firm, you'll be sure your research project is overseen by a third party, ensuring the project design and the data it produces are free from any bias - either real or imagined by others.  Doing good research is within reach Creating market research, formulating research topics, deciding on methodologies, crafting the perfect research questions, etc. can all be heavy lifting at first, but if you stick to the tips above, the process can be made much less arduous. Do you have a question or an idea for a research topic for your business? Insightrix OnTopic omnibus surveys allow any size or type of business to ask a research question affordably. Using either the SaskWatch or ManitobaWatch online research panels, the OnTopic service can ask your question or questions for you and provide you the intelligence your business needs at a fraction of the cost of undertaking a research project yourself – and benefit from the insight and survey design experience of seasoned pros. ...
 

28 May

Posted at 13:51h in Business, Research, Syndicated
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  Trended data specific to Saskatchewan Since 2016, Insightrix has been tracking the use of social media by Saskatchewan residents and their social lives online to understand how they engage with one another and with brands and businesses, and to find out their preferences and the ways they use the platforms themselves. When the Saskatchewan Social Media Report (2016) was published – it was presented at workshops and conferences across Western Canada, and more than 200 marketers, business consultants, policy makers and advertisers downloaded the report or benefited from its insight. Many of those who accessed the report say they have used it to validate their marketing initiatives, and as a valuable tool for planning and strategizing.   For the first time, it was possible examine the ways Saskatchewan consumers (aged fourteen years old and older) interact with social media over mobile technologies and the internet, their attitudes toward social networks and their behaviours while using them - and what their preferences might be in the future. And even more important, it became possible to compare those statistics with trended data specific to Saskatchewan social media users. A useful narrative that you can understand  Now, those with interests in the province are able to examine Saskatchewan-specific usage data that have been trended over time and make comparisons to the historical story.  The value of this trended data is obvious when comparing Saskatchewan-specific social media usage data over time. In Saskatchewan, social media use has clearly increased since 2015. Back then, 83% of Saskatchewan residents said they used social networking sites - now, that number has increased to 90% of the people in the province over the age of 14! With evidence like this, it doesn’t take a genius to see that untrended data do not give the whole picture when it comes to social media usage statistics. New to the 2018 Saskatchewan Social Media Report The 2018 Saskatchewan Social Media Report has been slimmed down in terms of raw data and beefed up with digestible and thoughtful insight - and it's been repriced to be accessible to all levels of business in Saskatchewan. Dive into this rich, trended data and actionable insight to learn how the Saskatchewan digital landscape has changed over the years with visualized reporting and a clear narrative that you can understand and use right away. The 2018 Saskatchewan Social Media Report has also added a local chapter dedicated to Saskatchewan brands and how Saskatchewan social media users engage with them. Use the report to find out why residents are following local brands, which industries they are engaged in and what they are looking for in terms of advertisement and brand engagement.  ...
 

01 Mar

Posted at 13:23h in Business, Insights
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Customer experience programs are not a new concept It has been pretty much established that in any line of business, while your product or service may be what gets them in the door, what keeps your customers coming back again and again is the experience.  The customer experience landscape has shifted the way all B2C organizations manage their brand. This can include impeccable front-line customer service, ease of navigating your facilities (or digital assets), the user design of those facilities, etc. - and how that all ultimately ties back into your customer journey.  In fact, customer experience is not only the responsibility of one business area; it's something that should be managed across all levels of business.  In the beginning… Weirdly enough, customer experience measurement (or management programs) have existed in many forms over the years. From the first bazaar merchant who asked a customer if they could do better, to customer comment cards and the old school variant - the customer satisfaction survey - most of these older methodologies revolved almost exclusively around identifying customer touchpoints, or moments of contact between the business and the customer before and after their purchase. But, focusing almost entirely on increasing satisfaction at these points is a slippery slope, as it can lead to a distortion effect – data like this can lead companies to believe their customers are happier with the company than they really are.    It also takes emphasis away from the customer’s actual journey with the company, and magnifies the need to act on specific touchpoints.   For example, if your customer service representative asked one of your customers during a service call how satisfied she or he was with their interaction on a Likert Scale, the number your company would get back may not accurately represent the reality of the interaction. Say the customer gave a rating of 3 out of a possible 7 – was this dissatisfaction due to the interaction the customer had with the customer service representative? Or was the frustration due to waiting too long to talk to that representative, or was the hold music not to her or his liking, or was there something else entirely that led to the customer’s dissatisfaction? In these older customer satisfaction methodologies, who knows? There just isn’t enough qualitative data to find out what led the customer to be dissatisfied – the company just knows something is wrong. Today’s customer experience measurement programs go beyond simple quantitative assessment and look to develop answers to WHY the customer is satisfied or dissatisfied. This gives a much more holistic view of what’s actually going on in these customer interactions.   Rather than trying to make sense of numbers with no meaning, today’s CX methodologies allow organizations to worry more about managing the store than managing their score.   In other words, customer experience programs allows businesses to become more customer-centric as a whole. In fact, on a recent episode of Stories of Market Research: The Insightrix Podcast we interviewed Voice of Customer consultant, John Morton, to dig into the most common and critical issues many organizations have encountered in managing their customer journey, as well as some of the customer experience best practices successful companies share.  Identify stakeholders, not just shareholders… Building a customer-centric organization is about building relationships – and building relationships is done by showing customers you are listening.  Creating a customer-centric organization involves talking to stakeholders – those people, like your customers, who rely on the company, and not just its c-suite executives and board members.   This is why employee engagement surveys are one of the crucial elements in any CX program.   To get to the bottom of a customer’s journey, you must involve front-line staff who are a major part of that journey. It’s the front-line staff of the company who are in the closest relationship with the customer. Therefore, their input to the process isn’t just important, it is critical. Without direct lines of communication between the front-line and the boardroom, divisions and disconnects across business silos occur – often resulting in a less than optimal customer experience. According to the Harvard Business Review, “Even if a fix appears obvious from the outside, the root causes of poor customer experience always stem from the inside, often from cross-functional disconnects. Only by getting cross-functional teams together to see problems for themselves and design solutions as a group can companies hope to make fixes that stick.” Customer experience programs tie the front-line and the boardroom together, creating an organization that not only understands the touch points in their customer’s journey, but also understands what’s happening in the organization on the ground level and all other points along that customer’s journey, before, during and after purchase.   Go beyond customer service and extend to all levels and all areas of a business and focus on creating customer relationships, not just sales.   Address not just the shareholders of a company, but also that company’s stakeholders – bridge the gap between the boardroom and the point of sale. Ultimately, CX programs address your customer’s entire journey with the company, resulting in someone who is willing to come back, again and again… and again. Do you want to know more about customer experience programs? You can download this whitepaper – it describes the Insightrix Customer-Centric Experience Program (Insightrix CX). ...
 

19 Jan

Posted at 11:13h in Business, Marketing, Research
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Ad testing isn’t a thing of the past It seems like every time forward-thinking marketers bring up ad testing these days, they are dismissed by their older, set-in-their-ways colleagues.  Concerns of cost and timeliness, as well as the idea that ad testing (in nebulously described ways) diminishes the creativity of your advertising efforts are usually at the root of criticism of the practice. While it may have been true at one point – before strides in technology and methodologies were made – practical application has lifted the practice of ad testing out of focus group rooms of the nineties and back into common practice for forward-thinking marketers. This is because ad testing has evolved. While today’s innovating front-line marketers are fixated on the metrics to help justify their advertisement choices, their executives and stakeholders simply want results. Marketers believe ad results should be inherently data driven, but businesses are starting to see the need for their brands to be more daring and better represented in the media, so the expectation is much bigger than a marketer’s projected ROI.   New quantitative techniques and methodologies have been developed to create faster, more credible and more actionable quantitative testing protocols and to build and access deeper, more robust norms - making those criticisms mentioned earlier more than a little invalid and out of date. But is advertisement research really worth the effort? The short answer is...