Marketing Blurb has spent countless hours engaged in market research studies. We have studied secondary research. We have crafted and conducted primary research. Some of this time proved valuable and productive, but for the most part, market research is a colossal pain, and of dubious value. Of course, top researchers already know this, and 30 top research firms gathered at the "Research Industry Summit for
Improving Respondent Cooperation" in Cincinnati last week to complain and discuss a mutual concern: The unwillingness of so many consumers to participate in surveys. We can spare you the details, but surveys are meaningless unless the sample is valid. These days, it is almost impossible to create and then query a representative sample of anybody. Response rates to consumer telephone surveys has dropped below 10%, and marketers cannot get a handle on the psyche of non-responders, who are disproportionately male, black, Hispanic, and young. While
Marketing Blurb is not a market research specialist, we have come to believe that
observing behavior is the only valid approach. The cost of behavior studies is reasonable online, but costly offline. Using your
gut is very inexpensive, and to our knowledge, yields results comparable to more costly primary research. Search the literature first, but then make a decision and get on with your life.
Good advice - I agree, the kind of people who respond to marketing studies are an entirely different breed from regular customers (unless, perhaps, you market by phone or infomercial). They're people with a whole lot of time on their hands (which very often means not a lot of money).
Posted by: Piper Kinison | October 3, 2006 11:25 AM | Permalink to Comment