Online market research is a cost effective and time saving method of gaining immediate feedback on products, services, concepts, advertising, brands, websites and business performance.
Online focus groups
Online focus groups are a qualitative market research method where we bring together 6 to 8 group participants in a secure online virtual room to gain feedback on a particular topic. They are ideal for conducting reoccurring research groups such as online community panels, consumer groups, and online website usability testing.
Participants in the group are shown any number of stimulus including videos, images and websites. They can also to interact with each other and share ideas on a interactive ‘whiteboard’.
Online focus groups are managed by an online moderator who directs the discussion and controls the stimulus shown to the group participants. The moderator’s role is to reveal the groups opinions, reactions and attitudes towards the stimulus and discussion topics.
Online focus groups are great for identifying why individuals have an issue and why it might by important. It will help reveal purchase behaviours and the underlying reason why individuals behave a certain way. Once you have identified an issue, problem, or behaviour you might want launch a online survey (quantitative study) to find out how many preople in the target market share similar characteristics. Find out more about online focus groups »
Find out more about online websute usability testing groups »
Online surveys
Online surveys are made up of a series of questions which are typically distributed to a sample of your target market, commonly referred to as respondents. Respondents answer those questions to help you measure how wide spread an issue, problem or behaviour is. Online surveys will assist you in identifying characteristics of the market and help you build a picture of attitudes and opinions shared amongst people with similar demographic characteristics (such as age, sex, income etc.).
Quantitative research (online surveys) will also help you identify how wide spread attitudes and behaviours are around a particular topic. It is an effective way of finding out how many people use a particular brand, product or services. Online surveys will also assist you in determine the market potential of new product, service, concept or business idea. The measurements and metrics generated provides information to help segment the market based on similar demographics, behaviours and attitudes.
What online surveys will not do is tell you why people behave in a particular way, or why there is an underlying issues or problem associated with a product, service, brand or business idea. This is where real-time online focus groups come into their own and is a more cost effective and immediate method of behavioural discovery. Find out more about online surveys »
