Answers to Your Burning Questions...

When doing online customer and/or employee surveys, our clients often ask, “How much time should we give for people to take the survey?” Our standard answer is two weeks, unless there is an unusual circumstance that requires a longer time frame.

When the survey first launches, you will get about 80 percent of your respondents completing the survey in the first week, and most of those folks will take it within the first few days. The second week is basically to send out reminders about the survey. There will be an instant flurry of responses the second week from people who intended on taking it, but just didn’t get around to it the first week. Keeping the survey open for more than two weeks will only extend the time period of the survey activity; it will not garner a notable batch of additional responses. In a nutshell, if someone wants to participate, they will do so within two weeks. After that, they lose interest.

Just a quick hit Q&A in case you were wondering!  

If you would like to know how effective your current online customer and/or survey process is, or if you’d like to be proactive in starting a new survey initiative, give us a call. We can help you Know More, so you can Do More. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).

A New Approach to Market Research Reports?

A recent research project we had in-house for a national not-for-profit presented a number of unique challenges, both in scope and in the style of suitable presentation. While we know each project we take on will be unique in many ways, we are usually assured of a number of commonalities among them – statistical significance, willing participants (be they customers, suppliers/vendors, or prospects), and a data analysis and report writing process that has been internally standardized. Unfortunately, nothing really could prepare us for what awaited.

We very loosely looked at this project, at least from our sixth floor office in Reading, PA, as a Market Opportunity Assessment (MOA), with a few interesting twists to it. Data collection was an interesting process via telephone calls in and of itself (the details of which this writer will spare you, the reader), and yielded a total of approximately 80 interviews, simply because there were no other possible interviewees. As the package of reports we were intending to deliver included eight individual reports, each focused on one state, and an overall data summary, we realized rather quickly that we would have to alter our typical MOA report style, lest we have a report with two observations and another with twenty-three.

After careful consideration during the data collection process, we decided to be focused less on charts, graphs, and tables and more on telling the “story” of the interviews—a goal for which we strive anyway, regardless of the number of observations. Eric Whipkey, in May 2014’s edition of Quirk’s Marketing Research, makes the case that journalists can teach a valuable lesson to those of us engrained in the “traditional” market research report writing process.

“Executives increasingly do not care for nor expect research to meet the standards set by science (e.g., statistical significance for every finding). […] The new expectation is that market research has a business mind-set intent on providing quick and actionable insights that add to the bottom line, rather than one focused on hypothesis testing, test-and-retest and taking three to six months to complete a project.”

To do this, Whipkey calls for writers who are able to “craft compelling nonfiction stories…[that look] very much like old-school investigative journalism or, more specifically, progressive journalism or computer-assisted journalism.”

At the end of the day, the finished product was, visually, unlike anything we had delivered in recent memory; but it did contain everything for which we have been known for over twenty years—actionable research and analysis that will help our client gain and sustain a competitive advantage in its market. We were able to step somewhat outside of our comfortable “box” and enter a realm into which none of us had ever ventured, while providing the valuable information we were tasked to obtain.

Market research comes in many different shapes and sizes, and we have also learned it comes in many different tones and presentation styles, too. Whether it’s a quantitative data-driven report or a qualitative-laden/observational “story,” Tweed-Weber has the research solution that will help you Know More so you can Do More. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com, and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).

About the author: Michael Thompson has been with Tweed-Weber, Inc. since 2008 and serves as Project Manager. He handles all internal aspects of market research projects, including implementation, database creation, data analysis, and report writing.

Social Media and Market Research

In today’s ever-changing society, social media impacts everything it touches. From everyday tasks to communicating to friends and those in different countries, social media opens the door for new and improved ways of thinking, communicating, and doing. But how does social media affect research?

With everything in life, utilizing social media the right way will help benefit a business with marketing, branding, and other important aspects that shape a business. There are six easy “tips” for implementing social media in a business, ultimately improving results.

Tip One: Track trends
You may be asking yourself what a trend is. According to Webster, a trend is a general direction of change, a way of behaving, proceeding, etc. that is developing and becoming more common. A trend can also be depicted as a trend line – showing the general direction that a group of points seem to be heading – either upwards, downwards, or staying the same over time. But how does one track changes? It’s easy. Social media – Twitter or Facebook – makes it simple by offering many ways to analyze trends. These sites allow one to search posts, both new and old, and popular ideas, giving insight to the emerging trends of customers and prospects. By doing this, it allows one to see what people are looking for and what they need.

Tip Two: Learn the language of your audience
Learning the language of your audience is extremely important because it helps a business grow. The language you may think is appropriate may not always be what your customers are thinking or view as being important. Social media gives an outlet to businesses because it is a free tool where one can analyze comments and data about certain products, services, or brands offered by a business. By utilizing these results, a business can change their direction and focus on the areas where they see the greatest impact to costumers.

Tip Three: Social media = quick research
Market research, traditionally speaking, involves the implementation of surveys or study groups, but today with social media, the implementation is easier because it is so fast. Because of its fast-paced nature, the results may be there, but beware: are they always correct?

Tip Four: Broaden the scope of your market research
According to a Nielson report, 80 percent of people use the Internet to utilize social media. With such a large percentage, it gives a business a larger audience to conduct market research.

Tip Five: Discover unnoticed trends
Research is driven by questions, and asking the right ones, the right way, will give great results to those burning questions businesses want to know. With social media, information is gained through interaction and observation, which is easy since it is all just a “click” away. It gives a person the choice to be either an observer or a participant in the discussions found on social media, but it can also help a business discover new and innovative ways of thinking and doing.

Tip Six: Cost-effective
Social media is  cost-effective. It is a great tool for research, as well as advertising because it reaches millions of people. Though it does take time to use social media, if it is used right, it can greatly benefit a business.

Now that the journey through the six “tips” of social media is complete, it is up to you to see if it fits for you. Social media is present in everything we do; it surrounds us. But is that always a good thing? Do we want everything at a “click” of a button? Social media is very accessible to those who know how to operate the different sites and how to use it to benefit their business. As you saw throughout this article, social media helps you track and discover trends, broaden the scope of your market, and is cost-effective. These are all enticing, but how does it influence research?
It makes it easier to find results and to analyze trends to who don’t know where to begin. Social media is always changing to adapt to society, and so must a company. It helps a business know the markets surrounding them and how they can create a niche to adapt to them. How do you exactly do this? 

Market opportunity assessments and market perception surveys allow a business to see how they are doing in their given markets, and if they should look into a new and/or different niche. If you don’t know where to begin, we can help. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com, and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).Today, sit back and allow us to do all the work, and help you figure out the perfect picture for your company. No one can guarantee certainty, but market research can guarantee clarity. You will Know More, so you can Do More.

The Conversation: Al Weber

Dan Fink, Editor of the Reading Eagle Business Weekly, recently sat down with Al Weber, president of Tweed-Weber, Inc., to discuss the business of data collection. The conversation below was published in the July 30, 2013 edition of Business Weekly. The original, along with additional content, can be found here.


Al Weber has been in the consulting business since the early 1990s. His company, Reading-based Tweed-Weber, has scratched out a niche as one of the go-to firms for strategic research and planning. He’s something of a wise old hand at making sense of huge piles of data. Weber, who just turned 61, sat down recently to talk about trends in the data-collection business.


Business Weekly: How long have you been doing this? How old is the company?

Al Weber: Tweed-Weber was founded (around) 22 years ago. I had a private consulting firm. Steve Tweed had a private consulting firm, and we merged them together in 1991.


BW: What was your background?

Weber: I worked for a company that sold and implemented management and supervisory sales training programs.


BW: So you come from the planning background, but it sounds like more of the work now is the research piece.

Weber: We started out as a planning company that did some research and over time morphed into a research company that does planning.


BW: How does that work?

Weber: In the typical year, I read maybe 80 research reports and really know what to look for in those reports and how to assess them and to pull the information that matters out of them. Not everybody has the opportunity to spend that much time with reports. While they’re certainly capable of reading it and understanding what is said in the report, they may not know how to take it to the next level, and that is to determine how it’s useful to them. That’s another big step.


BW: In health care, there’s all this effort now to do things like improve patient satisfaction and to gather and convert to electronic medical records. What does that do for somebody in your business in helping health care clients?

Weber: Information has become an essential component to delivering high-quality care. So health care impacts a wide range of organizations, and it does so in many different ways. Some segments are incredibly competitive. The home health care industry as a good example is a very competitive industry right now, and others are less competitive just because the nature of that segment within a marketplace isn’t quite as demanding.


BW: Do you have an example?

Weber: Hospitals compete, there’s no question about that. But they don’t compete in the same way the smaller organizations compete. Reading Hospital (and) St. Joseph’s: They’re both great organizations, and they do compete, but it’s very different than some of the segments in which the barrier to entry is much lower. It’s not easy to say we’re going to start a new hospital today. But someone could say we’re going to start a new home health care agency today, and it could be in operation very quickly, maybe not tomorrow, but within 30-60 days.


BW: One last question. Data gathering has been in the news recently, with Edward Snowden and the NSA leaks. What’s your thought about all of that?

Weber: I can tell you, when it comes to data, we have to realize that the level of privacy we might have thought we had simply doesn’t exist anymore. I don’t know how many cameras there are on Penn Square, but let’s start by saying several and count up from there. Every time you walk into a Wawa to get a cup of coffee, six or seven cameras are taking your picture. Every time you go to an ATM, smile because you’re on what’s a really a not-so-candid camera.


BW: Well, we saw all that through the Boston bombing investigation. Those guys were tracked on cameras throughout.

Weber: They were. You are … somewhere in the world probably on a hundred different cameras in the course of an average day. In 2012, we stored more bits of information than we did every other year put together in the history of man. That should tell us that every time that you walk anywhere, there’s someone out there watching you.

— Interview by Dan Fink

(This conversation was posted in the July 30, 2013 edition of the Reading Eagle Business Weekly.)

The Numbers and the Words: Methodologies in Market Research

What research method is right for you? Quantitative research categorizes information collected through experimental means that is expressed and evaluated numerically. In other words, when asked to use a rating scale to evaluate factors such as employee satisfaction or one’s work environment, a survey participant is participating in quantitative research. Isabelle Albanese, in the May 2013 edition of Quirk’s Marketing Research Review (“Qual, meet quant,” pp. 70-74), sums up the benefits of quantitative research quite nicely: “[q]uantitative research does provide the date and data analysis to make marketing decisions with a comfortable degree of certainty.” Analysts are able to measure performance (and provide comparisons to a baseline if available) and, to a degree of certainty, offer clients the data necessary to make sound strategic decisions.

Qualitative research, by contrast, focuses on the significance of observations made in a study rather than the raw numbers themselves. A survey participant is part of qualitative research when he or she is asked a question such as “What is the main strength of XYZ Company?” Albanese notes the benefit of qualitative research as providing insight, understanding, truth, and inspiration. After all, perception is reality and reality is, well, truth.

Combining these two methodologies into a sort of “qual-quant” methodology has been a hallmark of Tweed-Weber’s research capabilities for the better part of two decades. This sort of cohesion can yield the deepest, richest, and most action-oriented results, speaking truth to numbers and backing up employees’, customers’, and the market’s perceptions with data. Adding a qualitative component to quantitative research, says Albanese, will reveal emotional connections and underlying motivations to the data and will put “emotion ‘meat’ on the rational ‘bones.’” Adding a quantitative component to qualitative research will help in validating and confirming insight on an emotional level and, ultimately, in providing confident recommendations.

The insights, understanding, truths, and inspiration we can glean from our clients’ employees, customers, and stakeholders is truly rewarding as we know that information, coupled with the hardened numerical data we will undoubtedly gather, can be used to truly make a difference in the organization’s, its employees’ and its customers’ lives. Whether it’s through telephone interviews, online survey instruments, or focus groups, Tweed-Weber’s trained researchers are able to build a nearly immediate rapport with our interview subjects and get them to think, “Someone actually cares enough to ask me what I think.”

Tweed-Weber has the track record to assist your organization with all research functions, both quantitative and qualitative. From marketing to sales, customer service to quality, research can be vital to every organization. Why? Every organization, whether for-profit or nonprofit, is interested one of, or a combination of, three things: profit, revenue, and strategic improvements. Any organization that requires any data or knowledge about themselves or their market will use some form of qualitative, quantitative, or qual-quant market research.

If you find yourself questioning what your employees, customers, or stakeholders are thinking, contact us today to learn more. Our office is centrally located in Reading, PA, just about an hour northwest of Philadelphia. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com, and be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).