This paper is about taking a holistic approach to online communities and developing a mindset that obsessively focuses on the client end-game, rather than any fixed methodology. We explore what makes an effective online community; highlighting what works, and also some of pitfalls (based on personal experience!). During the course of the paper we'll use four case studies from clients in diverse sectors to illustrate the key points.
Discover how to use holistic research communities to give stakeholders fast and cheap - without compromising on quality. And by doing so to get back to the core role of market research, providing accurate insights to clients, not worrying about methodologies.
Behavioral economics is emerging as a significantly influential insight paradigm in the UK in research and related disciplines and it poses many methodological and philosophical challenges. A key interest will be in helping to understand these challenges and exploring the efficacy of classic and innovative approaches in this area. Further relevance comes from the provision of valuable background information about behavioral economics and our objective view on the issue of hype vs. value regarding it.
This paper briefly describes why the Internet is important to marketers. It then discusses the need for effective research to create effective online relationships between companies and their customers. Following this it looks at the different stages of a website lifecycle and describes the innovative research approaches that have been used at each stage based on Research Internationals experience in this field.
This paper describes a customer satisfaction programme carried out for Telewest Communication. It focuses on the initial selling of the survey to the internal clients and the communication of the results to the different audiences within Telewest. The paper also touches on key features of the research programme itself
The paper will introduce some of the major marketing issues facing vendors of IT hardware and software. An increasingly competitive market environment is forcing such companies to consider the following key questions: What is the best mix of channels for my product? What branding strategy should I adopt? What pricing strategy will complement my brand strategy? How can determine if my company's interface with the end-user is the most appropriate? Where traditional market research can go far in answering many of these questions, IT Product Managers often find it difficult to monitor the performance of their products and brands in the market. How can they tell, for instance, if sales personnel in high street retailers are spontaneously recommending their products? How can they tell how much discounting key competitors are adopting at point of sale? How can they be sure that the channels to market consistently present their products in the best way? The mystery shopping technique allows many of these questions to be answered. Research International undertook its own telephone Mystery Shopping exercise amongst a variety of types of PC dealers. The purpose of this was to determine the relative strength of a variety of PC, software and printer brands in the market for entry-level systems. The paper will include findings from this survey (which was undertaken in the UK earlier this year). The results show the significant strength that a relatively small number of brands have built within the channels to market. The study indicates strong potential for mystery shopping in the business-to-business sector - particularly by manufacturers wishing to determine the effectiveness of channels to market in supporting their brands.