Although survey and market analysis techniques have been adapted to new technology, few new concepts in the way people interact with and learn from research data have been introduced since around the time of Descartes (circa 1625).
Now, however, audience response systems are allowing marketers to change the way they conceptualize, collect, and understand data on marketing perceptions and preferences.
The following are 4 areas in which audience response systems are improving marketing research efforts:
1. Customer Focus Groups
After creating lists of important items to be discussed, audience response technology allows the group participants to give specific opinions on each item in a way that shows levels of preference, relative importance, and satisfaction. It also gives silent participants the opportunity to be heard and provides a different form of stimulus to draw them out as the results are displayed.
In addition, all members of the group, regardless of verbal agility or organizational position, have an equal but private vote. While the members vote, the response system stores data for analysis by the group, segments within the group, and segments by individuals permitting feedback between segments and individuals without revealing the identities of the voters.
The speed of tabulation also makes it feasible to immediately review the results with the participants within time constraints of the focus group. Using these results, the researcher can explore the similarities and differences found in the results and get assistance from the group in explaining why those differences might exist.
In so doing the researcher, and ultimately the client, can achieve a new level of understanding of the issues relevant to the topic discussion based on how the participants, not the researcher, interpret their thinking.
2. Product Line Analysis
Discussions that follow presentations of product portfolios are usually based on interpretations of facts and represent the values of the people in the meeting.
Audience response technology allows the interpretations to be built into the decision equation by letting the meeting participants express their interpretations through voting by using scales similar to those in the portfolio analysis.
Discussing the resulting similarities, or differences, helps the participants clarify issues facing the various product lines and focuses their attention on the aspects of each product line that need to be addressed.
At the same time, it shifts the focus of discussion away from individual positions regarding the products to what is in the best interest of the organization in pursuing each product.
3. Conjoint Analysis
Typically, conjoint analysis is reported as a set of statistics in tabular form. Audience response technology permits a researcher to conduct this analysis using three attributes and eight variations simultaneously.
What emerges is a two-dimensional, easily visualized positioning of the various attribute combinations of an x-y grid, far easier to interpret than the tabular presentations.
4. Marketing Research with Employees
Most employee surveys are conducted with impersonal questionnaires. The processing and time required for report writing delays feedback to employees and, as a result, distances the employees from the process and the steps that management might take.
When audience response technology is used with employees, the combination of building and revising their own list, anonymous voting, immediate visual feedback, and discussion after the results proves to be a powerful tool for building positive employee attitudes toward management’s desire to listen to their needs and respond.
For more information on how you can improve your marketing efforts by purchasing your own audience response system or audience response system rental, please click the button below.
