Market research helps companies go global

Web Surveys recently reported that 62% of companies who were international remained optimistic about the current state of the economy. When thinking about going international, it's very important that companies do their market research. Not only are the countries possibly speaking different languages, but they also have dramatically different cultures. Conducting market research is a must for any company thinking of going global. Read the complete article here.

TMRE LinkedIn Roundup Available!

Here's the February edition of the newsletter we regularly send out to our TMRE LinkedIn group members. Remember to join our TMRE LinkedIn group if you haven't so already in order to receive these communications on a monthly basis. Enjoy!

Read the Newsletter

Archived Web Seminar: Unlock Survey Secrets: Turn Text Responses into Insight

If you missed the SPSS web seminar Unlock Survey Secrets: Turn Text Responses into Insight yesterday, here’s your chance to view it at your own leisure. The web seminar is 60 minutes long with a very informative Q & A session at the end. Enjoy!

View the archive

Polls on social network allow for more customer insights

Recently at Web Surveys, they look at the new functionalities starting to appear on the popular social networking sites across the web. LinkedIn already has the capabilities, and Facebook has announced that they'll soon be there. Engagement Ad will allow for marketers to have a targeted polling system in the form of an ad model on Facebook.

This is a new, inexpensive method to collect the feedback and opinions from the exact target audience you're looking for. Have you already used these tools on LinkedIn? What have your results been?

How to research on a tight travel budget

I recently came across the Project Management Tips blog, and they gave five way to continue effective market research even though your travel budget may be down.

1) Use the phone. People love to give their opinions, so dial a few people up to see what they think about what you're doing.
2) Use online marketing tools. By using GoToMeeting or WebEx, you can see how your customer will use your product by meeting virtually. And they're cheap compared to a plane ticket.
3) Send out open ended surveys. Join an online survey company, and send out questions that ask for text responses. You'll receive rich insight by giving your customers a flexible way to answer your questions.
4) Travel locally. Talk to your customers within your region. They'll provide some insight as to whether you're targeting your customers correctly.
5) Double up on your travel. If you'll already be out of town for a business related event, see if you can spend another day and gather opinions of your customers in the tow you're visiting.

These are some great tips. Do you have anything to add?

LG enlists director Edward Zwick for 'Life Looks Good' campaign

According to Brand Republic, LG has enlisted director Edward Zwick for 'Life Looks Good' campaign. Andrew Warner, marketing director UK & Ireland, LG, said: ‘Previously our adverts have promoted individual LG products, but the ‘Life Looks Good' campaign focuses specifically on building an emotional connection with the brand. To create this, we have used subtle branding and made Mr. Zwick the focal point of the campaign, bringing a personality to the brand.' It sounds a lot like the American Express campaign, or even the Visa Check Card campaign from a few years ago? Are people really going to respond to celebrities in a finicky environment?

Cutbacks result in less market research report purchases

In a study done by MarketResearchCareers, they report that buyers of market research have cut their budget for market research services by an average of 9.5%. This is in an effort to cut back on non-revenue generating expenses. Those industries cutting back the most are education; transportation and travel; and banking and financial services. Find out more about the report here.

Free Webinar: Unlock Survey Secrets: Turn Text Responses into Insight

SPSS in conjunction with The Market Research Event will host a complimentary web seminar presented by Jane Hendricks, Product Marketer, SPSS Inc and Frank Maduri, Sales Engineer, SPSS Inc. This web seminar will take place on Wednesday February 25th from 2:00 to 3:00 PM EST. Reserve your webinar seat by registering now. Mention priority code MWS0021BLOG.

Here’s a brief recap of the webinar:

Open-ended survey questions allow people to express themselves in their own words; and give researchers rich new insights into attitudes and preferences regarding service, purchase decisions, product design, employment, operations, whatever the issue under study.
If you’ve limited your surveys to close-ended questions due to the time and expense of reading and manually coding text responses, this session can be your organization’s first step toward maximizing the value of your survey data.

Created specifically for open-ended survey responses, SPSS Text Analysis for Surveys uses proven technologies in computational linguistics to make it far more powerful than typical text-coding procedures. It allows you to categorize hundreds, even thousands of responses in a fraction of the time it would take to do so manually. Then easily export results for further analysis and graphing.

What you will learn by attending:

• How to turn text into quantitative data
  
• How to save even more time by automating the creation of categories and the coding of responses
  
• How to uncover category relationships using visualizations such as bar charts and tables
  
• How to export results to Excel, SPSS or other software for analysis
  
• And more!
  

Don’t miss your chance to view this free webinar. Click on the link below to register.
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/189677043

Confirmit launches new market research software

Confirmit, a software vendor specializing in market research software, has released a new software-as-a-service for market research.

The software will provide market research organizations with software to deliver multi-mode research using the web, telephone interviewing, paper questionnaires, face-to-face interviewing, and offline data collection methods.

The chief strategy officer, Pat Molloy, had this to say about the new software:
"The arrival of this platform has created widespread interest across the market research industry. It is the first solution of its kind to combine the many benefits of true, multi-mode research with the cost reductions and efficiencies offered by on demand delivery."

Source: CRB Online

Superbowl Battle of Brands Continues

Days after the Steelers took their big win at Super Bowl XLIII, market research experts are now parsing data to determine who won the Super Bowl XLIII battle of the brands. According to LATimes.com, the contest runs the gamut from the 30-second commercials that cost an average of $3 million to stadium signage and product placement during the game broadcast on NBC.
Only time will tell whether commercials -- such as Denny's well-received promise to serve up free Grand Slam breakfasts -- spur consumers to spend during what's shaping up to be a rough recession. (Denny's said it spent about $5 million on Super Bowl advertising and the cost of 2 million free breakfasts.)

Who do you think won the battle?

Maximizing the ROI of Market Research

Browsing through the B2B International Marketing Blog I came across their new white paper Maximizing the ROI of Market Research. The white paper goes over how to maximize ROI of market research, by demonstrating:

the role of market research in business decision-making
how to measure the ROI of market research
which types of research will generate the greatest ROI

This is an informative piece; take a couple of minutes to read here.

The basics of market research

The Baltimore Examiner recently took a look back at the basics of market research. For best business practices, market research should be done at the beginning of the business, and a method to continue to grow the business. It should be done to look at three primary things: your customers, your competition, and your business environment. For more, read this article at the Examiner.

Facebook set to become a bona fide market research service?

According to econsultancy.com, Facebook is going to try its hand at market research. According to The Telegraph, Facebook executives at the World Economic Forum in Davos have been demonstrating a market research product that "will soon allow multinational companies to selectively target its members in order to research the appeal of new products." Talk about bang for their buck, every company would salivate at the opportunity to target specific individuals based on age, sex, etc. But will Facebook lose members with their devotion to marketers?