Quantitative
Answering Market Questions
If you have questions, we have answers.
Or at least we can tell you how to get answers.
Sometimes businesses need data about their market that simply is not available. For example, businesses that specialize in making handmade goods often struggle with pricing their items. What is the true value of a handmade silk dress or an original piece of art?
The European street team of Etsy decided to find out, and distributed a questionnaire on the Etsy and Flickr forums and through Modish. 687 people answered the questionnaire. Most of the respondents were women under 35 years of age. 34 percent were from the United States and 22 percent were European.
The results of the survey helped entrepreneurs making homemade goods to price their products, and thereby grow their businesses. It shows that research is vital for businesses, because it is the only way to get all of the answers needed to make important decisions.
For more information about the survey, check out the summary here.
Surveys to Improve Business Practices
Surveys can be useful for organizations to learn how to improve business practices. These surveys can be distributed online. By surveying employees, customers and other business partners, organizations can determine how they can create a more efficient business.
Obviously, questions will vary from business to business. Depending on your business you could ask what time is usually best during the week for a meeting, what business partners would like to see change or how customers view your brand.
It is important to determine which audience you are going to survey and what you want to learn form this audience.
Bloggers and Survey Research
Even bloggers can conduct research.
In fact, popular bloggers are especially capable of conducting research. Take, for example, Gus Philpott, a blogger who discusses traffic issues on the Woodstock Advocate.
Philpott asked his readers to participate in a Tollway speeding survey. 46 people responded, and their answers confirmed his observations of speed on the tollway.
Philpott demonstrates how observational research can be supplemented and confirmed by survey research – a concept that is very important for businesses operating in today’s competitive market.
Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of concepts and policies for managing information technology infrastructure, development, and operations. A student of MBA-Project and Quality Management at Anna University conducted a survey studying the awareness and adoption level of ITIL in India.
The main purpose of this research study was to find out the extent of ITIL awareness in India and how many organizations have adopted ITIL. The data was collected through telephone surveys, email and web questionnaires. The target audiences included 50 technology organizations and 50 non-technology organizations.
The survey yielded the following results: 34 percent of organizations (both technology and non-technology) are aware of ITIL while 66 percent are not. 34 percent of organizations (both technology and non-technology) have adopted ITIL.
For more information, click here.
Community Development Research
Sometimes, conducting research is easy. If people truly care about the subject in question, they are eager to respond.
At least, that was the experience of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation when they sent out a growth survey in an e-newsletter. The survey asked respondents about the community they lived in and how their lives are affected by growth. This survey received plenty of interesting and unexpected results.
The survey asked four simple questions:
“What is your greatest frustration with poorly managed growth?”
“Has life in your community improved or become more difficult with the growth in your area?”
“Should Maryland planning officials be more or less involved in managing growth in your city, town or county?”
“What would you recommend to improve the management of growth in your community?”
From the answers, members of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation gleaned information and ideas that were used to develop a growth reform package to present to the Govenor and the General Assembly.
It seems that “do it yourself research” really does pay off.
For more information about the survey, check out this article.
ICON magazine survey
Icon is a world-leading architecture and design magazine. This magazine interviews the most exciting architectures and designers in the world, visits the best new buildings and analyzes the best new cultural movements and technologies.
Writers at the magazine conducted a survey after a series of editorial meetings. They wondered whether the limited-edition design phenomenon was influencing graduates’ choice of career path, and whether young designers were less inclined these days to work with industrial manufacturers.
Their method of conducting the survey was simple and completely unscientific. They took questionnaires to New Designers, the national graduate showcase in London, and posted it on their website as well.
The questionnaire asked students whether they were more interested in industrial productions or limited-editions. They had a total of 125 respondents which yielded the following results: 55 percent selected industrial design, 36 percent selected limited-edition and nine percent were undecided.
When the findings were presented to tutors at the UK’s leading design schools, they were taken aback. They were surprised to find the numbers for industrial design wasn’t higher. The comments students made on the questionnaire confirmed the most obvious advantages and disadvantages of the two ways of working.
One prospective industrial designer listed “job security, regular wage and better job prospects,” and an advocate of limited-editions listed “more freedom for creativity.”
To learn more, click here.
Mardigan Library survey
More than 700 students at the University of Michigan-Dearborn responded to a Mardigan Library survey in the fall of 2007 regarding their use of library services.
The library staff members met in early 2008 to review the results and recommended the necessary actions to address the students’ needs. One action that was taken was to increase hours the library is open to 24 during the week of final exams. Another change the library was working on included increasing the number of electrical outlets for laptop users and creating more online tutorials to help students learn to use various online resources.
Here are some key findings from the student survey:
- 21 percent of students reported they use library services online or in the building several times a week, and another 52 percent reported using services between once a week and once a semester.
- 74 percent of students found it “somewhat easy,” “easy” or “very easy” to use the library’s online resources.
- 91 percent of students preferred that the library communicates with them via email.
- The most common way students learned about the library and its services was through campus orientation (50%), followed by the library’s website (49%) and a friend or classmate (39%).
Faculty members had the most influence on how effectively students used the library’s services for academic work (30%), followed by the library’s website (29%) and a friend or classmate (25%).
Taken from “Student Survey Results.”
The Georgetown University Law Center, Equal Justice Foundation (EJF), conducted a survey to receive feedback on how much of students’ summer living expenses were covered by their EJF stipend. Of the 246 students who received an EJF stipend, only 158 responded to the survey conducted through SurveyMonkey.com.
The Law Center found that the EJF stipend did not cover a majority of students’ living expenses. In fact, 81% of the respondents said their summer living expenses weren’t covered by the EJF stipend.
Most of them said they had to pay for their rent, which accounted for $750 or more every month. This means, after 3 months, each student would have paid $2,250. If their rent was $1000 every month, this would have exhausted a 1L stipend and left them no money for groceries and transportation.
Many EJF recipients are getting into even more debt because of all the expenses included with college. Most of the respondents said they either borrowed money from their parents or paid for other expenses using their credit cards just to make ends meet. Some of them were even forced to take second jobs and miss payments on their bills.
Due to rising gas prices, a majority of respondents have been finding internships where they live rather than moving away and accumulating the costs of commuting.
Therefore, the EJF Board plans to increase funding levels to allow students to participate in public interest work. However, when asked how much money they would need from the stipend, the majority of respondents said $4,000 to $6,000 would be sufficient.
As a result, the EJF will be increasing the stipend by $1000-$2000 to be able to help students survive financially while making a public interest summer more feasible for the students.
Basically, if you are trying to conduct research to find out what aspects of your business work and which don’t, you will need to create a survey that will help you figure this out.
As soon as you get the answers you need, you should actually implement the changes respondents have suggested so that you can make your business more successful.
For more information about the research conducted by the Equal Justice Foundation, click here.
One Man’s Method for Researching Twitter Users
A man was interested in researching how people used Twitter. In order to do this, he used inexpensive but brilliant ways to conduct his research.
He started by creating a survey of 10 questions. He chose to use 10 questions because people usually like top 10 lists, and also because he couldn’t think of any other questions to add. Furthermore, the software he used limited him to ten questions.
Nine of the questions asked were multiple choice questions, and one was open-ended. The survey allowed him to see some interesting trends. The first question revealed that most of the respondents (80%) were from the United States, while 12% were from Europe and 10% were from Western Europe.
The next question showed that of the respondents who use Facebook, 78% update their status and of the respondents who are Myspace users, only 16% update their status. However, 45% of the respondents use FriendFeed, and 85% of them said they tweet no more than 10 to 25 times a day.
He found that the three main ways that the respondents tweet is through the Web, Twhirl and Twitterfox. He also found out that of those respondents who have iPhones or Blackberries, most of them don’t tweet using these gadgets. The majority of the respondents said they used Twitter mostly for networking and personal communications.
Check out the original article on Twitter research here.
Research on the Streets of Seattle
When the city of Seattle wanted to find out how, why and where residents walked, they distributed an online 11 question survey. The 
survey included thought-provoking questions such as:
Where do you walk?
Why do you walk?
What places do you avoid?
What is your favorite place to walk?
The city used the survey results to develop project lists and begin prioritizing improvements. The survey reached a broad sampling population, as it was available in nine different languages and distributed through neighborhood councils and ethnic outreach groups.
Online surveys can be very powerful, as the Seattle example proves.
Australian Gambling Behavior
Surveys can answers all types of questions, as the one described below demonstrates:
In an attempt to further define the gaming behavior and expectations of Australians, a survey will be conducted in the jurisdiction of Victoria online and offline. A comparison between the Australian and European gaming market will be made. The focus is on machine gaming, since this is the major aspect of gaming in Australia and has changed gaming behavior drastically.
A general market overview and general trend information about the Australian market will be obtained. Generally, it will answer why gambling is so successful in Australia. To secure that only gamblers from Victoria are participating, little cards with serial numbers used online also will be used at gaming venues.
At a later point, the player groups will be investigated for their “trendiness” and compared with similar groups in Europe.
An Example of a Questionnaire
There is definitely a right and wrong way to create a questionnaire.
The following is a link to a good example of a questionnaire from Hemel Hempstead:
Survey Research: Answering Life’s Questions
The results of a survey discussing left-handed people show that almost all of life’s questions can be answered through survey research.
Ever wondered if left-handedness runs in families? Do left-handed people change hands when doing various activities? The effects of being left-handed?
Check out the survey and survey results to get answers, as well as ideas for your own exploratory survey.
