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Fast Facts
63% of American
adults - 128 million people - are
online.
On any given day, there are some 72 million Americans
online.
One in fourteen Americans have made an online charitable
donation.
Slightly less than one in three Americans have looked
for religious or spiritual information online.
The most popular activities on the Internet are...
- sending e-mail
- using a search engine to find information
- searching for a map or driving directions
- researching a product or service before buying
it
- looking for information on a hobby or interest
- checking the weather
Source:
Pew Internet & American
Life Project; March-May 2003
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Conducting
the Right Online Research
Today it
is easier than ever to conduct an online survey.
Yet, it is debatable as to whether conducting an
online survey is an appropriate way to reach some
information goals. That is why many nonprofits have
found it practical to seek advice from a professional
research firm. Whatever your needs, it all starts
with a strong understanding of your research objectives,
and the ability to translate those objectives into
clear, deliberate questions. Our clients are often
surprised at how much effort is spent developing
the research instrument.
Depending
on your particular research goals, a research professional
might recommend an online survey to provide hard
data, or a chat-based online focus group to deliver
qualitative information. Some of the newer techniques
are described here…
Bulletin
Board Focus Groups (BBFG) offer a flexible
alternative to traditional qualitative research
methods. Researchers post discussion questions
on a secure site where the participants log-in
and provide their input when it is convenient for
them over a span of three to five days, or even
longer. With an online group such as this, participants
can log in from anywhere in the world, a benefit
that eliminates geographic constraints commonly
seen as a drawback of live focus groups. Yet, the
researcher may still introduce multimedia content
to the group, or seek participation in complex
tasks such as trade-off analysis. The BBFG interface
may be customized and personalized to meet individual
client needs.
Online
Focus Groups vary from BBFGs in that they
are conducted in real-time. The focus group is
scheduled for a shorter timeframe – typically
two hours – during which a live moderator
constantly interacts with the participants, probes
for deeper responses among one or all participants,
and has the ability to alter the questions at any
time. This method provides nearly instant transcripts
for review and analysis. However, because they
meet at a specific time, such groups can be more
difficult to recruit. Other benefits tend to parallel
those found in BBFGs.
Internet
Surveys are probably the most widely-used
primary research tool on the Internet. This category
is very broad, and includes every strategy from
simple surveys to very complex tasks such as conjoint
analysis, which can result in a robust understanding
of member or donor choices and values.
Campbell Rinker chooses from a wide variety of surveying
tools and techniques in order to recommend a plan
to fit your needs. In selecting an online research
vendor, organizations must consider whether the firm
offers various software programs, hosting solutions,
recruiting and invitation methods, security features,
skip patterns, data capture techniques and reporting
options. Can the vendor monitor the time it takes
for each respondent to take the survey? Will question
response options be changed from one respondent to
the next to eliminate bias? May 2-D images and video
be incorporated into your survey? Can the researcher
match the color of the web interface to your brand
specifications, or report results in real-time via
web interface?
Firms like
Campbell offer options to ensure that your survey
will deliver the flexibility and the data you require.
Quality
respondent recruiting is essential to a quality research
project. Great recruiting rarely makes a study, but
poor recruiting can certainly break one.
Your researcher
should, like Campbell, have years of online recruiting
experience, and use an advanced e-mail broadcasting
system to maximize the return on its efforts. The
ability to broadcast tens of thousands of names in
just hours and track response rates (including rates
for opening, click-through, survey initiation and
completion) is a must.
Also, be
sure to select a vendor who can send reminder invitations
only to non-respondents, and target specific messages
to specific segments. Your vendor should be able
to send HTML, AOL and plain text versions of the
message within the same e-mail, collect data from
within the message itself or forward respondents
to a web site, and merge unique content into e-mails
on the basis of sample segments.
Your vendor
should be able to send messages using your name and
e-mail address, turning you into an invisible partner
in generating good response. Creative vendors may
also employ postal mailings, pop-ups, and other channels
to ensure optimum success.
Of course,
we wouldn’t mind if you called on Campbell Rinker to help you fulfill your online research
objectives. Let us know when it comes time for your
next project so we can help make it a success.
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