Are you wasting time on quick, bad research?

Can you stop the insanity?

This week, in a post in Ad Age online , called “Online Research: Don’t Confuse More with Better“, Constance O’Hare addressed the problem of companies fielding multiple, poorly designed market research studies or “web surveys” without spending the time to make sure the research (1) asks the right people, (2) asks the right question, (3) and asks it in the right way.  As she puts it, such research, “Creates an illusion of rigor while actually sowing confusion, leading executives — in particular CEOs and CMOs — to miss the big picture and waste opportunities right under their noses.”

Now, as you can tell from this blog, I am a big fan of web surveys to provide insight quickly at reduced cost compared to traditional research.  But it is clear that this approach can also be subject to abuse.

One of my clients had to drop everything to field a survey for the CEO asking lapsed customers why they stopped buying and what it would take to get them to return.  Based on the way the questions were worded, the answer to both questions came back the same:  “Price.”  (And that does not refer to my last name either)  OK, so what are they going to do with that information?  The cost of that futile survey was a multiple day delay in a digital marketing program that would have driven revenue.

Constance’s recommendations suggest she is more of a fan of larger-scale research than I am.   She recommends focusing on answering big questions, fielding a more permanent panel and conducting studies multiple times to measure longitudinal impact of initiatives.  All of these are correct, from a market research perspective, and fit well with traditional marketing-focused organizations.

It is in the organizations most likely to abuse web research where the need for rapid, iterative customer insight is the most critical.  Companies that are not traditionally marketing-driven have the need to make up the most ground quickly and often have very limited marketing budgets.  They need answers fast and want more confirmation than the conventional wisdom that filled the place of research previously.

But Constance’s point is well taken — how do we make sure the research asks the right people the right questions in the right way?  Here are three No Excuses Marketing recommendations to reduce the chances of “research malpractice”:

1. Gain agreement on the overall business question that needs to be answered. Usually, we frame the question as, “If you knew this, what would you do with the information?”  General research is interesting, but that is all it is; you need research that drives actions to make a difference.
2. Ask those questions with a consistent scale. This scale ideally is the same scale that has been used in other research.  Answers to 5-point scales vary on how the points are labeled, and answers to a 10-point scale are not the same as 5-point answers.  Try for consistency with other research and within the study itself.
3. Target the right customers. If you ask the right question of the wrong customers, you do two wrongs.  First, you will get answers that do not address the needs of the key customer group.  Second, by asking the wrong customers about an issue, you tell them that you do not know who they are, in effect damaging your relationship with them.  Here they are, nice enough to agree to spend the time and answer some questions and you repay them with questions that don’t apply to them!  We call that “Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.”  Use customer behavioral data to carefully target customers for the best possible fit with the overall business need, to avoid this challenge.

Fast and cheap research does not have to equal bad; the key element for success is to spend just a little time planning the research before you begin coding the survey and pulling lists.

I could go on with more tips to improve your web research, but start with these three and you will be moving in the right direction.

Spend the time, get your answers quickly and get to business!  Your company needs those results now!

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Tagged as: customer centric, customer data, customer relationships, customer segmentation, customercentric, Database marketing, Market research, Online Surveys, Research, web survey