Gamification seems to be a hot new buzzword right now. It involves applying game design principles to non-game applications with the intent of making them more fun and attractive to users. Examples of gamification include the use of badges in Foursquare and the points systems of some customer loyalty programs. It is a very trendy Read more

Data weighting is a technique that is commonly used in market research. Many people reading this will already know what the concept means. If you’re not one of them, it refers to the practice of adjusting data results to either overcome sampling bias or to give more or less significance to factors based on their estimated Read more

As mobile research continues to gain a broader appeal and acceptance in the market research field, it also forces the industry to revisit how surveys are written.  Not that they were ever overwhelmingly popular to begin with but many firms are choosing or have already chosen to do away with mail/paper surveys in favor of online Read more

One thing you must always think about when developing a survey is to encompass all possible responses; this means conducting secondary research (even some qualitative research) to ensure that you are covering everything.  This is more commonly referred to as collectively exhaustive in market research terms, part of the MECE principle.  The results of not Read more

We all know how important it is to keep in touch with your customer-base in order to make sure they are satisfied, to understand them better, to test interest of new ideas, and so on.  When conducting market research, there are quite a few advantages telephone surveying will provide over other methodologies (such as web surveys or mail surveys).  Read more

A prior market research blog post (authored by our guest blogger, Mark Dengler, President of Research & Marketing Strategies) gave the following explanation of quantitative research. Quantitative research generates numerical data or data that can be converted into numbers for a statistical review. A typical example would be a restaurant survey card that asks “from 1 to 5, Read more

Customer satisfaction research is one of the most basic forms of market research.  It’s a course of research that virtually all businesses have considered, and in a lot of cases implemented.  Customer satisfaction surveying is a linchpin in process improvement, offers a portal to customer feedback, and is used to evaluate products and services.  Yet there are many Read more

At RMS, we are frequently asked by our clients what kind of response rate they can expect from their survey research, or after the fact, if the survey response they did receive was “good.” Usually, the most honest answer we can give to those questions is “It depends.” The truth is that survey response rates are Read more

As a marketing research and marketing consultant in Syracuse, NY – Research & Marketing Strategies (RMS) speaks with a lot of clients about their needs.  Sometimes clients come to us knowing they need to do some type of marketing research, but don’t know where to start.  Other times clients come to us having already started Read more

It’s the final day of Scale Week and what better than to give you 6 tips on what else? Scales.