The Market Research in the Mobile World conference took place in Amsterdam last week; it was an agenda-packed and insightful event that solidified the industry’s commitment to expanding both the opportunities and the capabilities of mobile market research on a global scale.

Kinesis’ Leslie Townsend and Tariq Mirza delivered a session “Glocalizing” Mobile Research in the European Region which compared mobile survey traffic, device usage, completion rates, and other metrics between Europe and the U.S. Kinesis also conducted a survey among the conference attendees via our multimode MRMW Community to gauge researchers’ own perceptions on mobile; some results are shown below:

The majority of MRMW respondents indicated that location-based research and gamification will gain prominence in the near future, but a number of respondents indicated that it is still too soon to tell/don’t know what impact the various mobile capabilities will have on the industry. This was somewhat surprising to us, given what our own Kinesis respondent traffic looks like these days. Ms. Townsend and Mr. Mirza shared some Q1 data that revealed more than 25.5% of Kinesis’ U.S. survey traffic is now mobile, and that mobile-intended surveys completed on mobile devices have an impressive 59.7% completion rate in the European region. From our data, mobile is gaining ground in all areas of market research, and at a faster rate than ever before.

More information from their MRMW session, and additional findings from Kinesis’ latest data, will be shared in an upcoming Kinesis whitepaper – be on the lookout for it next month. Our team will also be present at the MRMW U.S. event being held July 18-19 in Cincinnati; we look forward to continuing the conversation then.

OnlineMR recently conducted an interview with Kinesis President Leslie Townsend. She offers up a valuable perspective on the current state of the market research industry, and also shares some history about Kinesis.

“We believed back then – which has certainly proven true since – that mobile technology would become vital within the MR industry for immediate, flexible and highly reliable feedback gathering.” — Leslie Townsend

Read the full interview here.

SoLoMo is the new acronym on the block, according to the presenters at last week’s Geo-Loco Conference held in San Francisco. Executives from Google, Facebook, and Starbucks were among those who discussed the convergence of the Social, Local and Mobile platforms and how the marketplace is being transformed through this synergy.  Many of the sessions centered around how to capitalize on mobile location-based technologies to improve consumer engagement and drive promotions and sales in real-time. And while the Geo-Loco agenda was not specifically targeting market researchers, its insights certainly have big implications for our industry.

There is no doubt that location technologies, just like social and mobile technologies, hold tremendous promise for market research. The possibilities for location-based surveys are vast, and could very well transform how the majority of market research is conducted in the future. A valid criticism of location-based technologies has been that they are still too imprecise for most applications in our industry, particularly when utilized indoors. Yet, many of the Geo-Loco speakers argued that location-tracking precision will continue to improve just like all SoLoMo technologies that offer value, and one day we will be able to accurately track consumers in a building, on a floor, and even near a product on the shelf. Just how far off this capability really is can be (and is being) debated, but it is coming.

Kinesis ran its first location-based research project back in 2007 utilizing geo-fencing, so it is a technology we have been evaluating for some time. Earlier this year we introduced a mobile research app designed for point-of-sale diaries that utilizes geolocation to identify where and when diary entries are made. While we have found it advantageous for certain types of projects, we do not feel location-tracking is yet ready for broad implementation in market research. Kinesis will continue to keep an eye on the advancements of location-based technologies and all things SoLoMo, and expand our solution suite accordingly in order to keep our clients at the top of the research game.

Be sure to stay tuned to privacy issues around geolocation – we will be posting more on this issue soon.

 
There are many resources available, including several from Kinesis, that detail best practices for mobile surveys. Harder to find are best practice recommendations specific to mobile survey invitations; while there are actually numerous invitation options to consider, little information is available to the MR industry as to which are most effective for any given mobile research project. This is primarily because a majority of today’s mobile survey traffic comes from respondent intercept on mobile websites and ads, rather than from mobile panels. Things are starting to change however – Kinesis is seeing significant growth of mobile and multimode panels among our clients and throughout the industry – and therefore effective mobile invitation delivery is becoming a critical issue. The challenge is that there are many mobile invitation modes to consider, and determining which mode(s) to utilize can be tricky.  Below Kinesis has briefly identified both the well-known and emerging mobile survey invitation options available to researchers, with some recommendations for use.

Email. Just as is the case with desktop surveys, email is a predominant survey invitation method used in mobile research, and rightfully so. Email is a very inexpensive invitation option, recipients are highly familiar and use it regularly, and delivery times can be precisely scheduled. Email remains a strong and perhaps the best option for multi-mode (web/mobile) studies in that it provides respondents with the ultimate flexibility to decide when, where and via what device they will participate.

There is also an email-to-text option that uses the built-in email address specific to each mobile phone rather than the recipient’s third-party email application, but since many mobile subscribers do not know and do not use their mobile email address, Kinesis does not generally recommend this option. While it can be useful in camera phone ethnographies and mobile diaries, today’s mobile devices are sophisticated enough to utilize the third-party email applications for these projects, and therefore this invitation mode is becoming obsolete.

SMS.  SMS is a widely used mobile communication method, particularly among younger mobile subscribers, and enables the survey invitation to be sent as a text message. SMS short codes are well-suited when targeted recipients’ mobile phone numbers and email addresses are not known, and are currently the most popular option for recruiting feedback at public venues because they are fast/easy to type and automatically return the survey URL (or other content). SMS is a highly immediate option, yet it can be expensive. Per-usage fees are often required which can make implementation undesirable if the sample size is large, and may involve usage fees for the respondents themselves (although there are some new free-to-recipient SMS services emerging – the MR industry should keep watch here). Additionally, in Europe and other places where GSM network standards are used, WAP Push is available. WAP Push utilizes an encoded message which can be used to send links that open up directly in the mobile browser, and has proven to have higher completion rates than basic SMS.

MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service). MMS is like SMS but it can also send sound, images and video files in addition to basic text. Currently MMS usage is very expensive and there is not a single standard in use. Additionally, email provides much higher resolution for images, and mobile email supports other forms of media more readily, therefore Kinesis does not recommend MMS.

QR Codes. QR codes are a further option for pubic venue research where targeted recipients’ mobile phone numbers and email addresses are not available. QR code invitations are inexpensive to implement (the only required cost is signage/display printing) and ensure that surveys are accessed from the mobile device like SMS invitations. Respondents for QR code surveys are limited to those who have an installed QR code reader/scanner app on their mobile device, but QR code knowledge and usage is growing very quickly worldwide, and it will likely be a very viable invitation option moving forward.  QR codes may also be used in conjunction with short codes to appeal to the broadest possible audience and increase response rates.

Location-based.  Utilizing the location-tracking technology that comes standard with most smartphones, survey invitations can be triggered based on the targeted recipients’ physical location. Technologies such as geo-location, geo-fencing, Bluetooth, etc., ensure real-time invitation delivery, and can also confirmation where a survey was completed. There are limitations with this mode however; mobile users have the ability to turn off this feature, location tracking is still sometimes imprecise, and its usage may require compliance with regional privacy laws. Researchers need to be careful not to abuse or alienate respondents with location tracking until the technology becomes more mature, so therefore today it should be used with caution.

In-App Messaging.  Use of smartphone in-app messaging obviously first requires that a custom mobile research app has already been developed and downloaded to the phones of the participants. For research panels where regular communication is necessary and expected, apps are a good option. Beyond the development and maintenance costs, app messaging is typically free and invitations pop up similarly to text messages.

Social Media. Several survey software tools now offer survey invitation integration with leading social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, and this is a good option for multi-mode surveys since these sites are readily accessed by both web and mobile browsers. Social media sites are a good recruitment source for brands and companies with an active and successful social media presence, however survey invitations posted to a Facebook Wall or Twitter Feed may be easily ignored, and therefore response rates may be lower than expected.

Naturally, determining which mobile invitation option(s) to use is dependent upon the type of survey being conducted, the targeted demographic groups, and also the regions in which the project will take place.  Significant research-on-research will be necessary to determine industry-wide mobile survey invitation best practices, but in the meantime, hopefully this blog can shed some light on both the pros and cons of the options available for today’s mobile projects.

Merlien Institute’s Market Research in the Mobile World conference took place earlier this week and was a resounding success. The varied sessions offered the best mobile research content of any conference this year, and attendees were highly engaged and inspired.

The conference offered four topical modules over two days, with numerous speakers and expert roundtables. One of the modules, named Strategic Insight, posed this question: Will we recognize the market research industry in five years? Kinesis President Leslie Townsend was among the speakers featured in this module, and to address this question she listed her top ten predictions about the future of the industry during her speech “Future-proof Mobile Research: Successful Survey and Panel Strategies for the Mobile Revolution.”

Keeping in mind that Kinesis believes that market research projects will be dominated by mobile technology within the next five years, here is Ms. Townsend’s list (note that these predictions are provided in no particular order of importance):

1. Apps will be a mostly transitional phenomena in the industry as browsers become more powerful and replace the need for the majority of apps.
2. Mobile will hasten adoption of online methodologies in developing nations and regions, bringing billions of individuals to the global respondent pool.
3. Mobile technology will further drive down data collection costs.
4. Respondent authentication processes will for the most part remain the same, but engagement measures will be radically different.
5. Geolocation will become the most important new type of metadata.
6. Both traditional and new methodologies will exist side-by-side (as an example, the conjoint is not going away – but traditional methodologies may actually increase in cost).
7. Email will still be the dominant form of survey invitation, but probably not by much, and the industry will be having extensive discussions about invitation mode bias for the foreseeable future.
8. Routers will incorporate mobile traffic, and advanced behavioral sampling frameworks will exist alongside them – and incorporate mobile-centric and mobile-only behavior.
9. The CPG industry finally will be able to track impulse purchases with precision.
10. In-store couponing will be married with surveys as a new incentive mode, as the lines between marketing and market research data collection blur.

Mobile functionality will take online research far beyond where we are with the web today, driving new methodologies, respondent pools, and data types, and driving our industry to be increasingly innovative.  Meanwhile Kinesis will continue to evolve and enhance our mobile research platform in order to capitalize on the latest and most beneficial mobile technologies, and remain your future-proof market research solutions provider.

The market research industry is currently facing some big challenges. New technologies such as mobile and social media are being rapidly adopted by research participants, and therefore dramatic changes to our processes and methodologies are required. At the same time, research budgets and project timelines are shrinking, making it difficult to quickly and effectively implement the necessary changes. With mobile and social media development moving faster and faster, and other new and valuable research technologies emerging (such as on-site barcode scanning and media capture, gaming and geolocation), it is clear that the fast-paced trend will not reverse any time soon. Those who are struggling to keep up now will undoubtedly fall further and further behind in the coming years unless fundamental strategy changes are implemented.

So, the million dollar question is this: how do you protect your investments in skill sets, software, training, etc., while simultaneously migrating your business to support these new and critical technologies?

Thankfully the million dollar question does have an answer, and the answer is a relatively straightforward one: become future-proof. Wikipedia defines future-proof as: anticipating future developments, so that action can be taken to minimize possible negative consequences, and to seize opportunities. Dictionary.com defines it this way: (of a system, computer, program, etc.) guaranteed not to be superseded by future versions, developments, etc. To become future-proof, a shift in mindset is required. It means considering not only how emerging technologies are being applied to research today, but also how they could and should be applied tomorrow.

To successfully future-proof your business, new investments must be made now – even though we are facing a weak economy. Education and training are needed to understand how these new technologies will affect research processes during the next several years. Survey design, panel management, sampling practices, participant authentication tools, etc. are evolving as a result of mobile and social media usage, and all researchers need to fully understand the implications. In the face of the growing DIY research movement, education will be the card to play that keeps MR companies thriving. Researchers need to be anticipating where the participants will go next, how to reach them there, and what tools will be needed to keep them engaged. Enterprise businesses will have no choice but to return to the experts for truly effective market research analysis and results.

New investments in software may be needed as well. Some solution providers are stagnated in the wake of mobile web growth (while already lagging behind in web solutions), and are now attempting to play catch up with their solution offerings. As a result, many MR companies are now faced with needing to change, or at least augment, their research platforms in order to keep pace with the industry’s evolution. For companies in this position, a careful ROI evaluation is needed for each solution being considered, particularly in terms of longevity and flexibility. Consider how well your software investment will be protected as expanding technology continues to evolve market research, and whether or not the solution vendor will be capable of providing ongoing future-proof solutions.

The answer to the million dollar market research question is straightforward, but that does not mean its implementation will be easy. Collectively we must recognize and embrace the changes being thrust upon our industry, and be willing to do the hard work necessary to achieve success.  Now is the time to take on a future-proof mindset and answer the question for yourself.