Category — Research Reports

You know this one, right? The market research project with a great recruit, good feedback, and actionable information. The segments you targeted were well represented, and a comprehensive view of the problem being studied was presented.

Then it happens. The curse strikes! The discussion during the report presentation focuses on just one participant: Some individual who was dynamic, funny, and perfectly represented a specific view of one of the study sponsors.

So why is that a curse? If the fascinating participant is an outlier who represents a view that is not in line with the majority of the study, then you have a problem. The opinion of one participant should never be over-weighted, no matter how articulate they are.

A couple of tips for how to handle this:

• Make sure the client observes enough participants to balance out any single point of view
• Look for cues that you have seen the “Fascinating Outlier”. Then, in the “post-research huddle” immediately put the input in perspective. If you’ve seen enough participants, strongly point out how unusual the participant’s point of view was. If it’s early in the study, set the stage for different input with a comment like “we’ll of course have to see what turns up during the rest of the study.”
• Specifically call out the outlier’s input in the report. Have a section labeled “Outlier Input” (or “Off-the-Island Input” if your audience isn’t market research savvy) that includes an analysis of the persona, why they were different, and why their feedback was not in line with the rest of the study.

Energetic, passionate, articulate research participants are great, and outlier opinions are important to balance any study. But following these tips will help put their feedback clearly in context.

If you’re not confident that your anti-virus software is keeping you safe, you’re not alone.

Dimensional Research recently completed a study on anti-virus and anti-malware software, sponsored by CoreTrace.  The 226 IT professionals who completed the Web survey reported that  Corporate IT believes the threat from malware is increasing, but they don’t have confidence in existing blacklisting approaches to protect them.  Key findings include:

• 80% say threat from malware is increasing
• 74% do not have confidence in blacklisting anti-malware
• 66% concerned that blacklisting anti-malware is not effective on “day-zero” of a new attack
• 50% concerned about the impact of performance scans
• 80% say the idea whitelisting is compelling, but only 9% report using whitelisting approaches to anti-malware

You can find press coverage of the report from:

• DarkReading
• eWeek Security Watch

A full copy of the report is available for download here.

Dimensional Research completed a new study on Desktop Power Management, sponsored by KACE. I found this study particularly interesting because so much of the conversation about power management has talked about power management in the data center, with very little discussion about the impact of leaving desktop computers, monitors, and laptops powered on when not in use.

The study reveals an interesting opportunity here since most participants (93%) think desktop power management can reduce costs, but only 10% are using a commercially purchased solution to do this. The press has been covering this report, with some of my favorite stories here:

• InformationWeek’s bMighty (an interesting take for SMBs)
• ZDnet
• eWeek Europe

You can download a copy of the full report from: www.kace.com/resources/Desktop-Power-Management.

So, to be honest- it really depends.  But I know that’s not an answer to a very pragmatic question, so let me give more details here, bearing in mind that it really does depend on your specific project. 

A typical market research project takes six weeks. This is pretty standard for a small to mid-sized project, say 10-30 in-depth interviews or 4-8 focus groups.  Larger projects take longer, of course.  And we’ll talk about Web surveys later.

Here’s a pretty typical schedule for a single stage project with one series of focus groups or in-depth interviews - excluding unforeseen “bumps” or unique requirements:

Week 1: Project go-ahead. Write and approve recruiting guide. Identify source for recruiting participants - internal or external.

Week 2-3: Recruit participants. Write and approve interview guide or moderator’s guide.

Week 4-5: Conduct research. This may take less than two weeks, depending on your goals. Four to six focus groups all in the US are usually done in just one week.

 Week 6: Write and present market research report.

WARNING: The biggest schedule slippage that happens, aside from getting all the approvals in place for the project go-ahead of course, is with identifying internal participant contacts.  Using in-house lists or asking account managers to give us their contacts for recruiting may be time consuming and the schedule should be adjusted as needed.  

Web surveys are usually faster. A typical schedule for a web survey project is three weeks:  

Week 1: Project go-ahead. Determine goals. Identify lists for participation.  Write and approve questions. Upload them to survey tool.

Week 2: Field survey.

Week 3: Close survey. Do analysis including filtering and correlating findings. Write market research report.

If the survey is being conducted as a collateral piece to support outbound marketing efforts such as PR or lead gen, add another week for copy-editing and layout.

KACE – the leading systems management appliance company and a fabulous client - just announced the results of a new Dimensional Research Web survey that revealed 84 percent of IT staff polled do not have plans to upgrade existing Windows desktop and laptop systems to Windows 7 in the next year—despite early enthusiasm from beta testers of the new operating system

Other key findings include:

• 84 percent of survey respondents have no plans to upgrade existing Windows desktops and laptops to Windows 7 next year
• 72 percent indicated they are more concerned about upgrading to Windows 7 than staying with an outdated XP operating system
• 50 percent revealed they have considered moving from Windows to an alternative operating system, and 27 percent of those cited Mac OS as the top alternative
• Almost 60 percent of survey respondents do not presently have a tool in place that automates operating system migration
• Economic factors, such as budget freezes and staff reductions, were cited as other reasons to not immediately adopt Windows 7

You can download a full copy of the report, as well as detailed information on the methodology used at http://www.kace.com/resources/Windows-7-Adoption-Survey.

 Here’s a few links to some news coverage of the survey:

• Computerworld, Gregg Keizer
• Fortune, Philip Elmer-DeWitt
• The Register, Gavin Clarke

The way we present our research findings depends on the audience. People who understand and have experience with research – especially qualitative research where you have the opportunity to drill down and really understand subtleties – are great at their jobs because they understand the importance of detail.

As a result, these people prefer very detailed reports on exactly what happens in focus groups and interviews. Reports for this audience need to have lots of direct quotes, charts, and detailed summaries, organized by participant persona and market segmentation. 

Recommendations need to be very descriptive with significant backup.  It’s also beneficial if these people can attend or listen in on as many live or recorded interactions as possible, especially at the beginning of the project. This enables them to feed their observations back to the researcher to make sure they capture the subtleties.  A report for this type of person is easily dozens of pages long! 

Executives are different.  They are too busy to read a long, thick report. They want to see the bottom line. So obviously, research reports should have an executive summary. An executive summary previews the key points of the in-depth report. It is written for people who don’t have time to read the main report. An executive summary should communicate independently of the report: after reading the summary, your audience should understand the main findings of the project.

How long should the summary be? It is almost impossible to be too brief for a busy executive. A good rule of thumb is to write the executive summary, then go back and edit out half of what you’ve written. Wait 24 hours, then go back to the report and edit out another half.  Seriously: one slide with three bullets in a large font is a realistic summary for this audience!  Once they have their ultra short summary, they can ask more questions. Needless to say, the researcher should always have the backup to present and defend the recommendations and findings presented in the report.

While it can be difficult for people who appreciate detail to go through this process of editing and re-editing the executive summary, it is a crucial step. Researchers need to realize that if they present their findings in a way that is not appealing to executives, they run the risk of seeing the project they worked so hard on make no impact on the business, simply because the report was too detailed and the executives never really got the message.

Hmm…  Now let’s re-write this post as an executive summary:
    1) Be brief – very brief
    2) Be prepared with backup
Done.

Clients often tell me, “I have lots of happy customers but none of them will say anything about my products!  How do I get the story about my products out?”  This is a classic pain for anyone who sells into Corporate IT.  You talk to your customers all the time and they tell you how happy they are, but when your corporate marketing team asks for those stories, even the happiest customers won’t let you tell them.  They have their reasons, of course: they may have internal policies, or perhaps they just don’t have the confidence to work with their own corporate communications teams for permission. 

So what you can do? Prospective buyers do their homework before investing in a new technology or product. They seek out third party validation: first-hand experiences from similar companies who have already implemented the same technology in similar real-world environments. Credible, unbiased information allows these decision makers to make confident purchase decisions.

Telling decision makers vague stories about your customer success without backing them up with credible proof just won’t cut it. Your stories simply aren’t that compelling for the IT executive or CFO of a public company that has been burned in the past with products that don’t work. 

A technology market research company like Dimensional Research can bring third party validation to those stories.

We interview your customers, understand their use of the product, get hard and soft data on ROI, and capture some of their best “tips and tricks”. Our technical background means we can understand and capture the real-life benefits your customers are receiving from your products. Then we can turn that into a report that does not name those customers or their companies.  It gives the customer the opportunity to tell the story without jumping through hoops getting permission, and gives you a reliable third party validation that you can use as a sales tool.

A well-presented market research report is a vital part of a company’s decision making process. Collecting the information is just the start: we must make sure it is accurate, pertinent to the client’s needs, and as clear as possible.

Successful presentations are created, refined, and delivered by experienced professionals who exercise attention and care.  A good report will enable the organization to reach conclusions and take meaningful action.  A poorly crafted presentation that lacks focus will leave the client confused and unable to proceed. When an entire meeting is spent talking about a side issue that was not the focus of the project, you know the presentation isn’t very good and an otherwise fantastic research project will not impact the business.

Dimensional Research makes it a priority to present findings in a way that tells a clear story and inspires the company to take meaningful action. One of the best ways to achieve this is by allowing the voice of the participants to come through in the report. 

Dimensional Research includes sample participant quotes in all our reports. Since participants are ensured full anonymity, we never share their identities, but we always include in our reports participant quotes that communicate overall findings very specifically using the same language as the target buyer.

The resulting report is highly valuable to the client, because participant quotes reveal subtle attitudes or perspectives that the summary findings don’t communicate effectively. They yield useful insights by clearly conveying the participants’ motivations or pain-points and by uncovering hidden issues.

A good example from our daily lives of how participant quotes enrich research findings is the Zagat restaurant guide. Take The French Laundry restaurant, for example. Glancing at the general findings, it’s clearly a very good restaurant, since it received high ratings. But when you read participant quotes such as “fantastic enough to halt all conversation” and “wildly imaginative”, you get a true feel for the spectacular experience the restaurant offers.

In the same way, including participant quotes in a technology market research report allows companies an important glimpse into the issues. Last week I had two conversations with IT professionals who were concerned about managing their virtual environments.  If the report said just that, it would be accurate, but consider what the tone of the participants actually communicated:

FIRST PARTICIPANT:  “That’s a great question.  I don’t know.  We should be concerned, of course.”

SECOND PARTICIPANT:  “We’re very concerned about virtualization.  When everything is hidden, diagnostics is much harder.”

There is as great opportunity to sell immediately to the second participant.  The first participant needs education first.