Market Research articles by the best and brightest in the field

• How to Foster 'Workable Wondering' to Harness Consumer Insightsby Gerald Zaltman and Lindsay Zaltman
  The process of thinking deeply is known as "workable wondering," which involves the use of empirical, rigorous, and relevant information to challenge our assumptions. It means more than collecting information. It requires reading between the lines. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Market Research
• Adopting a Web 2.0 Mindset: Walk Before You Wikiby Val Fox
  Companies have been scrambling to figure out how to leverage Web. 2.0 applications, but are they doing so for all the wrong reasons? With all the buzz about blogs, wikis, widgets, and other forms of user-driven Web interactions, the question your business needs to answer is, "Is this what our customers want?" [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Market Research
• Maximizing Lead Generation Marketing ROI (Part 1): Lead Quality Countsby Jim Lenskold
  Marketers responsible for lead generation are all too familiar with some common challenges—getting closed-loop feedback from the sales organization, measuring marketing effectiveness beyond just lead quantity and cost per lead, and building strong alignment with the sales organization. As presented in the MarketingProfs' research report, "B-to-B Lead Generation: Marketing ROI and Performance Evaluation Study," effective lead-generation marketing is very much tied to overcoming these challenges to prioritize lead quality over lead quantity. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Market Research
• Building the New Marketing: Making Marketing Important to the Enterprise (Part 1)by Michael Fischler
  Marketers have become masters of segmentation inside our own organizations. We've segmented ourselves into Lead Generators. Message Makers. Brand Stewards. Useful, of course—in fact, indispensable. But indispensable the way facilities management is indispensable. Or travel management. Or any other organization that an enterprise relies on, but cannot be easily shown to have direct impact on revenue. And if you don't have direct impact on revenue, you don't directly impact profit. And if you don't do that, you're second in line for everything—except maybe workforce reductions. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Market Research
• Online Research Traps That Can Derail Your Marketing Strategyby Kevin Horne
  It's hard to believe how different it was, just a mere fifteen years ago, to conduct secondary market research. There was no Internet, no Yahoo!, no Google search, no Web-accessible databases to tap. How times have changed. But, not always for the better. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Market Research
• Four Keys to Marketing Operations Successby Gary M. Katz
  What does "best practices" in Marketing Operations look like, and how do industry-leading companies operate and integrate this highly valuable function? Marketing Operations Partners recently polled more than 80 marketing leaders to find out. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Market Research
• How to Avoid Six Common Pitfalls of the Launch Processby J. Mark Carr
  Launching new products, services, or segments is the lifeblood of growth for most organizations. Yet, despite its importance, the launch process is often mishandled or assigned inadequate resources. Many of the mistakes that companies make are basic—yet frighteningly frequent and consistent across various types of businesses and industries. Here are six common fault lines in the launch process that very company should look out for. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Market Research
• How to Unleash the Power of Brand Repositioning: A Four-Phase Processby Gregory J. Pollack
  Many brands and companies today are constantly reinvigorating their businesses and positioning them for growth. There is a constant need to innovate, reinvigorate, update, recalibrate, or just simply fend off the competition in an effort to better explain "why buy me." To move forward, companies and brands need to first take a look at their current brand positioning. But for a moment, it makes sense to go back to the brand drawing board to answer the question, "Just what is brand positioning, anyway?" [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Market Research
• Email Marketing for Nonprofitsby Winston Bowden
  Nonprofits are confronted with many of the questions that any other enterprise often ponders: How do I connect with my customers? Which communication vehicle will provide my organization with the highest return on investment? How can I determine what my target market wants? While many of our corporate friends have turned to email marketing to help answer these questions, the concept is comparatively new to nonprofits. Email marketing may not be the silver bullet for every problem, but it provides us with an efficient and affordable tool to communicate with our constituents. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Market Research
• Online Customer Communities Power Routine Innovationby John Kembel
  As a result of its online customer community, a company can get much more than basic product feedback. It gains deep insight into the needs of customers, and creates ever-greater customer loyalty by embracing customers as co-designers. Most importantly, the company goes directly to the source for product enhancements, pulling new innovations and ideas directly from the minds of the customers who use, buy, and recommend its products. This is the holy grail of customer-centered product design. Online customer communities can enable the connections, host the conversations, and facilitate the processes that make routine innovation possible. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Market Research
• How to Hear the Voice of Your Customers: Hone First-Person Intelligence From All Forms of Feedbackby David Bean, Ph.D.
  Today's technology offers ample opportunities to start conversations with and among customers, fans, foes, competitors, and the press—any person or group who cares to listen and, perhaps, act on the messages received. By some estimates, 85% of the information companies collect is not in a form that they can access or analyze—it is unstructured. The Gartner Group reports unstructured data doubles every three months while seven million web pages are published every day. This cacophony presents the one of the biggest challenges companies face today. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Market Research
• In Search, Bigger Is Not Betterby Jason Prescott
  General search engines like Google and Yahoo aren't designed for B2B companies, which is why so many experience disappointing results. Recent developments with smaller Vertical Search Engines (or VSEs) are providing a strong alternative. But, as with any growing industry, it's important to research and understand these alternatives before making the plunge. The advantages of vertical search will go a long way toward providing professionals with relevant business results while also helping advertisers and marketers target a very specific and relevant audience. Following these guidelines can help navigate this important industry trend. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Market Research
• Three Reasons to Be Wary of Customer Satisfaction Surveysby Bill Cusick
  There is an entire industry devoted to helping companies determine customer satisfaction levels through surveys and analysis. But how much real value does knowledge of "satisfaction" contribute to helping you keep profitable customers? The answer, unfortunately, is "not much." Though surveys do serve a purpose (primarily showing trending: "Are we doing better or worse than last year?"), they don't tell the whole story. The following are three fundamental reasons why it's dangerous to rely on customer satisfaction surveys to help improve your customer experience. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Market Research
• Seven Rules for Achieving Higher Online Survey Response Ratesby Dean Wiltse
  Online surveys are an increasingly common way to solicit feedback, but response rates are often quite low due to poor survey design, lengthy surveys, requests for personal information, or a lack of incentives for survey completion. So how do you ensure that people respond to your survey? Follow these seven simple rules of engagement. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Market Research
• How Marketing Can Lead the Charge for Business Innovationby Laura Patterson
  Long-term corporate success is linked to the ability to innovate, and Marketing should play a more central role. Who is better positioned to give insight into who will buy, how many they will buy, why they buy, and when specific markets will buy? It is time for marketing executives and professionals to step into a leadership role and lead the innovation charge! [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Market Research
• Business Aikido: Gaining Strategic Advantage Through Leverageby Nilofer Merchant
  In Aikido, martial arts students study and practice katas—pre-arranged movements that enable them to deal with an opponent successfully. The centuries-old art teaches practitioners to use the force of an opponent against the opponent. This strategy gives the student a definite advantage if they are attacked. In a similar way, what were considered strengths in Web 1.0 have become weaknesses in Web 2.0. Now, agility and intellect are critical. There are several things businesses need to pay attention to if they're going to thrive in this environment. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Market Research
• How to Use Effective Keyword Choices as the Foundation for a Powerhouse Web Siteby David Salinas
  For any online business, the goal of search engine marketing is to achieve high rankings in the major search engines for keyword phrases specific to the products or services offered. What's more, it's just as crucial to ensure that the keywords chosen are the ones most likely to convert to sale or action. Traffic is great - sales are even better! Here's where to start. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Market Research
• Marketing to Small Businesses: What You Need to Knowby Niti Agrawal
  You might be an expert when it comes to marketing to large businesses. But selling your products and services to smaller companies requires an entirely different strategy. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Market Research
• New Interest in, and New Tools for Measuring, Customer Satisfactionby Tony Lopresti
  There's new interest in solving an age-old corporate problem of how to measure customer satisfaction. Lukcily, there are new tools for doing so, too. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Market Research
• Repackage, Rebrand & Relaunch? Or Do We Need to Dig Deeper?by Ted Mininni
  Leading consumer-products companies are looking to rebrand, repackage and relaunch... often too frequently. Sometimes, the effort is merely putting a bandage on a deeper sore. It's far less painful to assess lagging sales in a superficial manner than it is to dig deeper into company practices, customer-service issues, and the actual product mix being offered—not to mention how customers are experiencing the brand and whether that brand is delivering on its promises. In fact, companies that really want to dig for the truth ought to seek answers to these questions... . [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Market Research

Market Research: See all 139 marketing articles

Market Research case studies, deconstructing real life examples and illustrating lessons learned

• How a Small Internet Publisher Doubled Its Email Database & Reduced Marketing Spend With Cost-per-LeadTripmela, Inc.
• How One Whitepaper Generated 500 Leads and Significant PR for a B2B ManufacturerJER Envirotech
• How a Consumer Electronics Company Leveraged the Power of Community to Uncover Market Preferences and Build Excitement for a New Product LineEastman Kodak Company
• How a University Embraced Social Media and Scored Millions in YouTube ViewsCarnegie Mellon University
• How a Web-based Company Increased Leads 90%—and Sales 23%—via PPC-Visitor Profiling, Landing Page PersonalizationCompany: Continental Warranty
• How MyFax Upped Customer Engagement, Achieved a 79% NetPromoter ScoreMyFax
• How a Small-Business Consultant Leveraged a High-Profile TV Commercial to Generate New Traffic and Win New BusinessLocalZing
• How an Online Software Biz Doubled Its Sales Leads, Increased Site Traffic 75%Makana Solutions
• How an Online Business Increased Conversions (Sales) on Landing Pages by Up to 12%AutoAnything.com
• How a Marketing Consultant Significantly Increased His Client Base via Social MediaL&G Business Solutions
• How a Technology Firm Upped Webinar Attendance, Improved Lead NurturingObjectivity, Inc.
• How a Viral Campaign Gave OfficeMax Brand Recognition, Drove ShoppersOfficeMax, Inc.
• How Major League Baseball Doubled Fan Research Without Increasing CostsMajor League Baseball
• How a B2C Web Site's Landing-Page Tests Resulted in a 67% Jump in ConversionsBabyCenter
• How the Kimpton Hotel Group's Affinity-Based Email Program Boosted Bookings Revenue FivefoldKimpton Hotels
• How a Web-based B2B Niche Service Increased Revenue per Sales Rep by 9.3%ShareBuilder401k
• How a Niche Web Site's 'Telechats' Increased Credibility, Visibility and Google PageRankTheSpiritedWoman.com
• How an Office Furniture Company Tripled Its Sales by Optimizing for SearchPanel Systems Unlimited
• How Garden Fresh Realized a Huge Gain in Web Traffic and Longer-Term Loyalty via EmailGarden Fresh Restaurant Corp.
• How a State Agency's Anti-Smoking Campaign Effectively Reached Teens via the Web, TV and Live EventsColorado State Tobacco Education & Prevention Partnership (STEPP), a division of the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment

Market Research: See all 42 case studies

Market Research online seminar broadcasts from the best minds in marketing

• Segmenting the Hispanic Market: What the Numbers Really MeanAttendee rating:  - Jul 12, 2007
• Small Business Series: Do-It-Yourself Market ResearchAttendee rating:  - Jun 22, 2007
• Demystifying Website Usability: Rapid Research for MarketersAttendee rating:  - Jul 25, 2006
• Conducting Online Research the Right WayAttendee rating:  - Jun 1, 2006
• Marketing Research the Guerrilla WayAttendee rating:  - May 11, 2006
• Make GOOGLE Your Most Powerful Market Research ToolAttendee rating:  - Sep 15, 2004

Market Research: See all 6 seminars

Market Research mini articles distilling bite-sized advice (from our Get to the Point newsletters)

• It's Brewing on the HorizonNew Media
  The possibilities for mobile marketing grow with each new smartphone introduced. For marketers, it's best to keep on top of the latest iterations—to better design mobile campaigns that dazzle. The...
• You Look Mahvelous!Customer Behavior
  Let's face it: as consumers, we're not that good at judging the volume of a product (eg, how much liquid is actually in that bottle or glass of juice). Moreover,...
• End on a High NoteCustomer Behavior
  Whether customers come back and buy your product again may likely depend on whether they remember it fondly or not. So, how do you promote positive product memory? Well, research...
• Search Is 6/8 of ResearchSmall Business
  You have lots of options when it comes to market research. "[T]here is a research firm for every project," says Ed Erickson in an article at MarketingProfs.com. "Don't settle for...
• The Freeconomics of Online MediaNew Media
  Phil Bronstein, San Francisco Chronicle editor-at-large, said during the 2008 AlwaysOn media summit at Stanford that if he "could collect a buck every time anyone says 'monetize,' I wouldn't need...
• Find a Fresh Pair of EyesSmall Business
  "Let's face it," writes Bill Taylor in a post at Harvard Business Online. "Most companies in most industries have a kind of tunnel vision. They chase the same opportunities that...
• I Think I Can, I Think I Can Marketing Inspiration
  In a post at MarketingProfs' Daily Fix blog, Leigh Duncan-Durst highlights a Fast Company profile of the kiosk-driven makeover Alaska Airlines gave to the check-in counter at its Seattle terminal....
• Be a Trend SpotterNew Media
  Following the trends in online media is not rocket science, but it is a key to navigating your success. As the big fish eat the little fish in corporate acquisitions,...
• Who Are You, and Why Should I Care What You Say?Customer Behavior
  Companies are becoming increasingly involved with sponsoring social causes, such as encouraging consumers not to drink and drive. These do-good practices are laudable. They also support socially redeeming causes, which...
• Survey Says ...Small Business
  The problem with surveys—whether on the phone or the Internet—is that they're often too long and rambling. In many cases, you either bail out before it's over, or feel like...
• Four Blogs You Should Be ReadingSmall Business
  If you're a regular reader of Get to the Point, you've probably noticed we have a few favorite bloggers. Each approaches marketing from a different perspective, but what they share...
• Put That Checkbook AwayMarketing Inspiration
  Think about the last time you wanted to make a quick purchase and the person in front of you whipped out their checkbook. Did you wince as they began the...
• How to Be a Better BloggerSmall Business
  We never tire of great blogging ideas, and Andy Sernovitz of the Damn! I Wish I'd Thought of That! blog applauds Jeremiah Owyang's enteprising efforts to let his readers choose...
• Get Serious About Being SillySmall Business
  We're creatures of habit. We have daily routines. We like it when the barista at Starbucks has already started on our usual order when we reach the counter. Yet our...
• What's Your Specialty?Customer Behavior
  Marketers choose to position a product on either a single feature or a combination of features. Which strategy you use can materially impact how consumers perceive the item's value and...
• Impose Influence via Sticky Notes Customer Behavior
  You might consider a yellow sticky note as a quick, easy and rather unremarkable way to remind yourself to do something. Yet research conducted at Sam Houston State University discovered...
• Would Anyone Care If You Went Out of Business?Small Business
  John Moore of Brand Autopsy blog has a provocative series of posts in which he asks: "If [company name here] went out of business tomorrow, would anyone care?" Subjects have...
• Nobody Wants to Be a TightwadCustomer Behavior
  It would be logical for consumers to use a coupon to save money rather than pay full price for a purchase. The notion just makes sense. Yet redemption rates for...
• What Surveys Can Tell You—and Your CustomersSmall Business
  What are you trying to accomplish with a survey? It's likely you're asking a series of questions designed to elicit valuable feedback for ongoing improvements of your product or service....
• Simple Evaluation Can Resolve an Ineffective CampaignSmall Business
  Though they're a great way to boost short-term sales of products and services, promotions can also lose their impact over time. Senior marketing consultant and MarketingProfs seminar presenter Michael Goodman...

Market Research: See all 27 quick reads

Market Research marketing downloads for the busy professional

• Small Biz How-To Guide: Market Research
  Need to learn about your customers without the big price tag of market research firms? This guide on do-it-yourself market research will help you get the information you need to position your business without emptying the corporate coffers.
• Small Biz How-To Guide: Avoiding Key Pitfalls
  Let's face it, more small businesses fail than succeed. Make sure yours is one of the winners with this guide to getting your small business off the ground and solidly on the road to success.
• SWOT Analysis How-To Guide
  This comprehensive, step-by-step how-to guide will help you assess the position in the market of your product or firm, by identifying the product's Strengths and Weaknesses, by considering the potential Opportunities the product has in the marketingplace, and by assessing the potential Threats posed by either the competition or the marketplace.
• Online Research How-To Guide
  Set clear objectives and a realistic scope to online research projects. These are just two of the steps that this comprehensive, step-by-step planning guide will help you to accomplish to insure your online research results in the most relevant and useful information possible.
• Competitive Analysis Template
  A thorough competitive analysis is a critical component of a solid marketing plan. It is an exercise that will provide you with valuable insights to guide the development of your business strategy. This 20-page template will make the project quick and easy, and you can end up with a leg up on your compeition.
• Using Google as a Research Tool
  This in-depth handbook will walk you through the ins and outs of using Google as a powerful resource for market research. In 27 easy-to-follow pages with a dozen screen shots, this PDF is a handy tool you will want to print and keep nearby as you learn to incorporate the new techniques into your search routines.

Market Research: See all 6 downloads