Market Research On The Internet

The Economic Times

2 September - 8 September

Internet Edition

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NEW MEDIA-A KISS on the Net
Lyndon Cerejo
Mumbai

Market research has never been easier. Facilities on the Net, from e-mail to hyperlinks on the Web, to moderated chat sessions, can all be used to make the researcher's job much easier and productiveIf the term ``Market Research'' conjures up images of pesky young college students knocking on doors during summer vacations, you still haven't graduated to generation Net.
In today's virtual world of cyberspace, market research no longer involves long questionnaires, or persistent door-knockers who disturb siestas to get answers to scores of questions.
Since almost everything in real life has a mirror reflection in the virtual world of the Internet, it's no surprise that primary and secondary market research have online equivalents too. Primary research on the Internet usually assumes the form of online surveys and interactive focus groups, while secondary research largely involves using relevant statistics, figures and other published data already available on the Internet-either for a fee or for free.
In May 1997, advertising agency Chaitra Leo Burnett (CLB) needed to find out the perceptions of NRIs about one of India's leading business houses. It decided to use the Internet to conduct the survey online, and was pleasently surprised with the response. While the agency had decided it would chase on a sample size of 1,000, the survey elicited over 1,200 authentic and unique responses, after which it was stopped.
Navonil Roy, group manager - brand planning, CLB, explains, ``The survey was a success. The respondent profile matched the profile of our target audience-predominantly male, between the ages of 25-to-40. They ranged from students to consultants, to senior level managers, respondents from the US to the Netherlands, Finland to Hungary. Fifty-two countries in all. And to top it all, we completed our survey in less than a fortnight.''
Conducting a survey online is very different from conducting it on the ground. Patience and attention levels on the Internet are relatively short, which means that any online survey should follow the KISS principle: Keep It Short & Simple. Since the respondent cannot clarify any doubts, a special effort has to be made to keep questions articulate and direct, leaving little room for doubt.
While questionnaires can be sent via e-mail, doing this is considered by some as spamming (sending unsolicited junk mail) and is usually avoided. So most questionnaires are put on the Web, and the Internet address publicised online through newsgroups, bulletin boards and ads on websites and in e-mail newsletters. CLB publicised its survey for a period of 10 days through ads inserted in e-mail headlines that went out to NRIs. While these ads serve well to inform recipients about the survey, a pull factor is usually required to get them to spend their time online taking a survey. CLB did this by offering US $50 worth of gifts to each of 10 randomly chosen respondents, which were delivered through an online gifting service.
The reason online surveys are increasingly being considered as a feasible alternative is that they are more efficient, faster, inexpensive and they have the ability to target a more geographically diverse audience than those found in offline surveys.
Surveys are often also carried out to understand the demographic profile of visitors to a website. For instance, the online edition of The Economic Times carried out a survey to ascertain a representative demographic profile of its surfers. A simple form primarily asked for age, income, sex, occupation, country of residence and probed the respondent's usage of the Internet. Transferrable air tickets (sponsored by Jet Airways) were used to encourage online readers to participate in the survey. With over 1,600 replies, Sathya Ramaganapathy, an offficer withTimes Interactive, feels the response was quite satisfactory. ``considering this was our first online survey.''
Like surveys, another tool used by the marketing world for getting the lowdown on what customers really think, is a focus group. In offline research, a pre-screened group gathers in a room, where a moderator guides a discussion that examines attitudes about a particular topic or product. A video camera recording of the meeting is usually done, to be seen by others later, and transcripts created.
Needless to say, there is an online equivalent already functional. NFO Research and Talk City (a leading Internet chat site) have joined forces to offer online focus groups that basically do the same thing in a slightly different manner-participants log in to a site at a predetermined time, and a moderator asks questions. The entire exchange is logged, to be transcribed just hours later. And thanks to today's technological advances, not only can a text-based chat discussion be held, but products can even be displayed-either in 2-D, 3-D, and soon, live video for concept-testing and package-testing.
While primary research relies on first-hand information and customised results, secondary research relies largely on using previously published results online and using that as a basis for the research on hand. While published research on the Internet is available in abundance, digging for it is time-consuming and usually requires a skilled Internet researcher, and his best friend-the search engine.
Netventures, an Internet solutions company with a strong presence in Asia, wanted to prepare for its clients a paper on how the Internet was picking up in Asia in a big way, since the perception was that the Net is US-centric, and does not have a substantial Asian population online. Joel Sequiera, business development manager, Netventures India, complains, ``The studies that had been done were maily about the US-wired population. And these had their shortcomings too: online population studies done by different agencies had statistics that differed by as much as 20 million users.''
So Netventures outsourced this study, and got a detailed report done that required 200 hours for the making. However, the Net being what it is, with the number of Internet users increasing at a rapid pace, in a couple of months' time, it was already time to update the results. ``However, the hard facts and statistics in our report proved useful in approaching our clients. It contained only information we were looking for and did not have the exorbitant price tag that primary research would have demanded.''
As with all things new, the adoption rate for online market research is still relatively low, with many market researchers adopting a wait-and-watch attitude. However, Charles Hamlin, NFO's president, interactive business development, is optimistic. ``Within five years, 30-to-40 per cent of all market research will be done interactively.''
The author is Programme Strategist, Rediff On The Net

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