Top 10 Mistakes in Online Market Research

I don't know what you don't know
These days it is easy to conduct an online survey. so easy. It may be so cheap and easy, you don't need to know the basics, and end up with misleading answers that send your business to the wrong path. This is worse than never doing any research. Take a moment to understand what you don't know about market research. A basic review of the following topics is a good start.

• Sampling and sampling errors
• Quantitative and qualitative research
• Problem bias/problem design
• Response rate/confidence level
• Questionnaire code
• Why do people participate in the survey [social contract]

Some good books on these topics are:
from

  " Mail and Internet Survey: Tailored Design Methodology "Written by Don A. Dillman
from

  " Ask a question: the definitive guide to the design of the questionnaire "From Norman Bradburn, Seymour Sudman, Brian Wansink

2. Does not eliminate sampling error
Now that you know what sampling error is, you can understand why it makes sense to conduct meaningful market research. Many of the online surveys you see today are full of potential sampling errors. Don't be one of them. Take the time to make a good sample and then make sure that these people are involved in your survey as much as possible. This may be the biggest difference between professional market research and your own hands. Professionals spend time and money developing good samples and then making sure they get good response rates. If you work hard, you can.

• Always use a true random sample
• Track your response [PIN]
• Program the survey to eliminate duplication of intent errors and respondents
• Check the data for abnormalities [clean up illegally recorded data]
• Use incentives [not necessarily currency, see social contract]

3. Use inaccurate information to make decisions
If you never understand any of #1 and #2, then your investigation is useless. Worse, you might think it tells you how to handle your important business decisions. Making decisions with inaccurate information is worse than guessing.

4. Write a bad questionnaire
You may get everything done and then write a bad questionnaire. Many online surveys have at least one bad question. What is a bad problem? It is any of the following:

• Biased problem
• Unanswerable question [I can't know the answer]
• Have two meanings
• Incomprehensible problems [long-term, strange use]
• Stupid question [ask about what the researcher should already know or have already asked]

5. Write difficult surveys
After you have spent all your time creating a good sample and writing a good question, don't destroy it by writing an intractable survey. One of my biggest complaints is to force a response to complete each answer. Too much will allow you to get an artificial answer or response. Both are not good.

• Do not force non-critical issues
• No non-standard buttons
• Do not use non-standard technologies [Java applets, etc.]

6. Cheap
The downside and downside of online market research is that it can be much cheaper than in the past. The bad news is that it is too easy to conduct a flawed market survey. Many of the above projects take time and money [sampling, questionnaire design, etc.] to spend time and money to do the right thing. Better hire a quality market research company to do this for you. Either way, you can save money in the long run by conducting high quality market research.

7. Confusing social networks by quantitative market research
Talking to a lot of people [social networks] may yield valuable and qualified information, but this is not a quantitative market research. The difference is that qualitative information rarely represents all of your audience and gives you personal opinions and ideas. On the other hand, quantitative research is designed to represent all of your audience and provide you with knowledge that reflects all of your customers. Don't confuse both. Social networking can be useful, but understand its limitations.

8. Using survey tools is too "cute"
Your market research is expected to collect meaningful information about your target audience. It should not impress them with all the high technology you can master. Keep your survey techniques as simple as possible to reduce the elimination of the latest and fastest response times.

• Keep Flash and JavaScript to a minimum [use them but not in critical areas, always offering alternatives.]
• Use proven real-world network technology

9. rely on only one source of information
Market research is a snapshot of opinions at a certain moment. If your findings are very different from what you expected, it is wise to use more data to confirm these conclusions.

• Conduct another investigation
• Looking for solid data

10. Ignore market research
If you are upset about doing a good job, plan to do something with this information. Too many organizations conduct market research for some reason, and when they get the information, they sit down. Don't end up saying, "Wow, if we just finished what our market research tells us, we won't be in this disadvantage." Before you do any online research, you need to make a plan to understand what you will do. Measures.

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