Email Marketing for B2B companies

Over the summer I interned with Jones Lang LaSalle, one of the largest commercial real estate firms in the world. I got to work with their email marketing campaign. The first daunting task was to manage the distribution list. Let me tell you this was not the most fun, however it was highly important to the metrics of the campaign as well as it sparked my interest for email marketing.


My next task was to research metrics and what was considered successful and what was not. The first website I found was by Mail Chimp on the industry averages for open rates on emails. OPEN RATES. This surprised me at first on how low open rates are for these emails, however thinking about my own behaviors, I rarely read most of the newsletters I subscribe to. Note to self: SUBJECT LINE IS KEY!


As for research, the most interesting thing about this was the only thing I used for research was Google. I didn't look to find any books, nor did I talk to people I know in the industry. This is definitely more evidence on how times are changing and technology allows us to have any information possible at our finger tips. With the information I learned from reading hundreds of articles and blog posts, I was able to make recommendations with powerful evidence to support my claims and ideas.

Blogging in Review

As my school years winds to the end, it is time to review how my personal branding project went. At first I was not into the whole blogging thing, but after jumping in and writing about something I love, I have seen the huge benefits of blogging. 

 Since this is a blog about market research, of course I had Google Analytics on my blog to see how effective my blog was. Below are some screen shots of my analytics. 

This is a shot that shows the general information- it shows I have had 167 visits to my website between January and April. Of those, 122 were unique visitors. The average time on the blog was 2 min and 33 seconds. I was really pleased to read this statistic because it showed that people were at the very least reading one post I had on my blog. 

In the image above it shows the bounce rate at 72.46%. For not having many pages for my viewers to go to, I think this is a great rate. 


While all these stats look fantastics, once I looked more in depth, I saw that there were lots of visitors who didn't spend anytime on the blog and left just as soon as they go there. This fact makes the first statistics seem like more people are going to my blog than actually are. Knowing this kept my head in the game and determined to try and make better posts that were more appealing to the viewers. Hopefully time will show that this tactic has worked. 


I have loved this experience and will continue to work on this blog as well as use twitter (@MegCril) to make connections with other market researchers to learn more about this evolving industry. I have learned about the newer tools that market researchers are using to gain data about consumers online. 


So stay posted for even more tools that are being used as well as my thoughts on different types of industry news!

Proof that Sex and Money go hand in hand

      FlowingData recently did a study of people who are looking for casual sex and how much income they make. They wanted to see if there was any correlation between the two factors.

  OkCupid, who ran the research stated, "money seems to be a more powerful influence on sex drive than culture or even religion". While this report doesn't prove that money will get you sex, it just shows that it is a motivator of wanting/ looking for sex.

Some food for thought!

Students and Market Research

 

Cvent recently did an article about how business school kids are becoming huge fans of online market research tools. Their reasons as to why are the fact that online surveys can reach much more people, are cost effective compared to the old school way of paper and pen surveys as well as there is a higher response rate.

   I think a big place that Cvent missed as to reasons why students flock to this medium for research is that these students have grown up with technology. I think it is only natural for us to be most comfortable with technology and use that to gain insight into matters. I would venture that lots of students are more comfortable reaching out online than in person- just because this is what we are used to. Luckily the internet has allowed us to do research, in some ways better research because we are a technological generation. However there are the downsides to online market research still like Cvent discussed- not being able to reach every possible target market (ie people who aren't online and children). It also is minimizing our face to face interaction with the customers. I wonder just how important that face to face interaction is. How does it influence people's behaviors and answers to questions? Will the quality of information decrease because survey takers don't know the person who is "interviewing" them?

Market Research is DEAD!

  Ok, well market research isn't totally dead, but according to Martin Lindstrom market research will be changed forever with neuromarketing. In his latest book Buy-ology Linstrom shares the results of the most extensive neurological study ever done. 
   Instead of asking people what they think or asking them to share the reasons they purchase the way they do, Linstrom and his team watched the brain while asking people questions or showing them images. One of the most shocking revelations was the fact that the anti-smoking campaigns were actually working for the tobacco companies. Linstrom interviewed several smokers and asked them if the warning signs bothered them when they purchased cigarettes. One woman said that it did, however when they did a scan of her brain when she looked at the warning sign, a signal rang in the motivator area of the brain. It was doing the opposite of deterring her, it was motivating her to purchase that cigarette. While it is unknown as to why this happens it is a huge insight into the behaviors of consumers. It also answers the question of why more people aren't quitting smoking when they see those warning signs.
   Because of findings like these, Lindstrom believes current market research techniques will soon die and new ones like these (neuromarketing) will take over. While current market research techniques like focus groups and surveys have their flaws that need to be flushed out still, I think we are still a long way from actually being able to use neuromarketing as a research tool. For one it is incredibly expensive to use the machinery for tests. Second, neuromarketing is a great tool for the aftermath of a marketing campaign. It can show researchers what part of the brain is triggered by certain ads, however it will never be able to tell researchers what the consumer wants in the future. To find this information out, I think focus groups and surveys is the best way to do it!


   Where do you think market research will go? Will tMRIs become cheaper and allow more people access to using them? Will marketing start working on the neurological level- if so, how will they do that? Lots to come in the next few years of marketing and I'm excited to see!!

The pro's and con's to Trump's market research

   While this was research done as a joke there are things to learn from this video. First, face to face interviews can reveal a lot more than an online survey or over the phone interview. Seeing the facial reactions of people to questions can help researchers will analyzing the data. However, the downside to face to face interviews like the Trump was doing here is that people are biased when they are being video tapped or looking straight at the interviewer.
   We want to please others- its simply in our genetics. So, when someone is approached on the street like this they want to answer the questions the way they think the interviewer wants them to answer. They look for facial cues of the interviewer to help guide their questions. 
   So while there are some great things to face to face interviews, there are also some downsides that need to be taken into account when analyzing data!

Disposal of Cigarette Research work

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am doing a research study on how students at my school dispose of their cigarettes. To understand this further I have decided I will do an observational study as well as an online survey.


The survey questions
1.) Do you smoke regularly (yes or no)
2.) Do you smoke on campus? (yes or no)
3.) How do you dispose of your cigarette? (cigarette disposal unit, dropping it on the ground, other)
4.) How often do you use the cigarette disposal unit? (every time, most of the time, occasionally, rarely, never)
5.) How often do you drop your cigarette on the ground? (every time, most of the time, occasionally, rarely, never)
6.) Do you normally smoke with friends or by yourself? (mostly with friends or mostly by myself)
7.) If your friend used the disposal unit would you be more likely to use the disposal unit as well? (yes, no, maybe/ I don't know)


The obersvational study perameters:


Objective: To understand how many people use the cigarette disposal units vs. dropping their cigarettes on the ground in hopes to identify patterns or areas of influence for behaviors.


location: at the college campus in two locations- one right outside the student life center and the second in the courtyard of the school.


Time: 1 hour in each location both on a Wednesday between the hours of 12:30 and 1:30 (peak traffic hours).


Spreadsheet/what I will be looking for-

   I will be looking to see how many people use the disposal units vs. dropping the cigarette on the ground and stomping it out. 


What do you think?! Please give me any suggestions :)

Market Research Project

   As a student at Champlain College, I have decided to put all my learnings to the test and conduct some research. The topic will be around smoking and using the appropriate disposal products that are around campus. I will conduct some observational research as well as an online survey to gage people's thoughts on top of watching their actions. As I make the survey and observational study I will post them here as well as a report at the end with all my findings!
   Stay posted! And if you have any suggestions as I go forward please comment!

Why Black Friday is So Huge

   Black Friday is the retail industry's favorite day. It is the day people line up at the wee hours in the morning and buy products they wouldn't normally buy. Arie Kruglanski a psychology researcher believes that a major factor in the phenomenon that is Black Friday, is the theory of need for closure. Some people take a long time to make a decision then take an action based on the decision, while others are quick to make a decision and then quickly make an action. Someone's need for closure can certainly motivate them to act.
   In the case of Black Friday, it motivates people who don't think about a decision as much to take action quickly. They don't consider all the factors in that moment. They simply want the product and know they can "afford" (sometimes they have to give up things to afford the product) it, so they buy it. Retailers have noticed this is the main factor behind the success of Black Friday. Which is why they make deals that any quick decision maker would go for!
    Being a big fan of Black Friday I realize now that I am very much an impulsive buyer. Also, I can easily justify a purchase to myself. Knowing that I am a quick decision maker, maybe now I will try to take my time before making a decision on Black Friday. We will see how that goes..
    What about you?! Are you a quick buyer or do you think things out before making a decision? 

Not on Social Media? Reconsider NOW

For those companies who don't know whether or not to be active on social media sites here is the market research study to PROVE you need to be there interacting with your customers!


The Retail Consumer Report surveyed 4,512 social media users as well as monitored multiple social media sites and review sites. The following are the key statistics that every company should know!


1.) 68% of people who complained online (whether it was on FaceBook/Twitter or a review website) had a response from the company
2.) Of those, 18% turned into LOYAL customers of the company they had a complaint about and bought more items from that company


This shows how powerful it is for a company to see a complaint and respond to that complaint. It could change a "hater" into a lover of your product. This is also an element of surprise for the customer.


3.) 61% of customers would be shocked if a company replied to their complaints on the web.


Do we need any more proof on why companies should be online?! 

The Challenges of Web Analytics

Location of visitors to megcril.blogspot.com

   Currently I have web analytics running on my blog. I figure the best way to fully understand a tool like this is to simply use it! As I look at all the information, some of it can be very deceiving. A difficult measurement is number of visitors. My favorite thing to look at is where all my visitors come from. There are a few from Russia, the United Kingdom, India, Canada and of course the US. However upon closer inspection of the reports, I notice that some visitors don't spend even a second on the blog. 

Av time on site for megcril.blogspot.com

    This is an important factor in understanding how well my website is doing. On the surface it looks like its a highly successful blog that people around the world are reading. However, upon closer inspection I can see that this is true for some of the countries, but it is not true for all. Which means I have some work to do on my blog to keep people on the site as well as I have to be critical of any of the information I receive via my analytics!
    This tid bit goes for market research in general. Don't just accept something at face value. Dig deeper and find out what they numbers are really telling you! More to come on this topic in future blog posts!

Are we Still Angry at Groupon?

Today I found a very interesting study about people's feelings towards Groupon now that about two months has past since their infamous commercial on the Super Bowl. Like any huge controversy the public upset has subsided, however Groupon has gotten lucky. Their like-ability wasn't severely damaged. Conversition did a study using text analytics with social media tools and found the following results:


   Picture from conversition.com


This first graph shows how much Groupon came up in tweets or Facebook statuses or other social media tools. The spike is at the Super Bowl. Then gradually people stopped talking about Groupon. The interesting stuff is in the next graph-


  Picture from conversition.com

    In this graph the top line is measuring the positive talk about Groupon and the bottom line is measuring the negative talk about Groupon. So, clearly the social media world was upset with Groupon, voiced it but it seems as if the public has forgotten about the commercial and have moved on. 


   Maybe this is because of recent events in Africa and the Middle East or Groupon simply has a good idea as its business that people love. In any case, Groupon took a huge risk that could have potentially ruined their brand image and reputation, but luckily they were able to surpass it very easily and with little harm done to their company. 
  SO, do you think Groupon got lucky or did they know people would get over it so quickly?! What does that tell us about society today?

Ethical Dilemmas

In my marketing capstone class today we talked about ethical dilemmas people and companies may face everyday. The debate came down to are ethics relative or situational? Or is their a standard of ethics that should be used in any situation? 


The market research industry has ethical dilemmas they face all the time. From how to conduct a research study to issues with clients and respondents. A major problem that market researchers face is when a client wants to get the name of the respondents and their answers to the survey or interview questions. Market researchers have an obligation to keep confidentiality with the respondents, however they also have been hired by the client. In the client's eyes they own the results as well as the individual answers to the survey questions. The researcher must make tough decisions knowing they could potentially "harm" someone. 


Personally, I would not give the names of the respondents to the client explaining to them that you have promised those respondents confidentiality. Additionally I would explain how if this confidentiality wasn't promised to the respondents the client would not get the true information/ data they were able to receive


What would you do if you were the market researcher? What if there was no promise of confidentiality given to the respondents? Would that change your answer to this question?

The Power of Asking the Right Questions

In a recent study done by the CMO council, revealed that many companies are not closing on close to 80% of their leads, or potential sales. There are a few reasons as to why this number is so high. The biggest being structural problems within the company. For example many respondents said they do not have the tools to generate and create new business opportunities. Another issue is that many people do not think sales and marketing departments are functioning as efficient as they could be. These different factors are severely affected sales in companies around the country. 


From one study that asked the right questions, they were able to identify these major problems within multiple companies. With this knowledge companies can now focus their efforts into creating stronger, more understandable structures. This study shows the power of asking the right questions and how it can lead to a greater understanding of a problem. While structure is always a challenge for companies, they probably didn't realize how much of an impact it was having on their sales and revenue. 


For the complete analysis of this study go to Marketing Today

Text Analytics Put to Use

  Text Analytics is the newest way of analyzing all digital data and compiling the information based on parameters set by the user. Text analytics works like data mining. The software can be programmed to search out key words, phrases, etc. and compile all the information that comes with each of those tagged words. Experts in this industry can then go in and create reports and recommendations based on the reports to the clients. Text Analytics was very helpful for JetBlue in 2007 when they left thousands of people stranded on JFK runways. They received 15,000 emails the following day (almost quadruple what they normally see). They needed to respond quickly but they had an information overload. Thankfully, they had begun using text analytics before this event and were able to use the technology to understand the main problems and were able to quickly solve the problems. Additionally with text analytics companies are able to combine structured and non structured data together and understand situations even better. For example, JetBlue can combine structured info like flight times, fares, etc with the results of surveys and interviews with their customers to get a better understanding of their consumers and economic influences. Text analytics is a powerful tool that will become a major measurement of success/ need for improvement for all companies. 
To read more about JetBlue's Text Analytics, check out this link


Currently, customers have hired consultants to interpret the data in ways the client can understand. I recently read an interview of Tom Anderson, a consultant and an expert in Text Analytics who says, within the next five years companies that specialize in text analytics consulting will not have an advantage in the field because other market research firms will adapt the softwares and be able to do the same thing as part of their packages to their clients.(read full interview here) I see Text Analytics becoming like Web Analytics; where individuals can set up the software and have the education and information to be able to interpret their own data. When this will happen I do not know, but I think it will end up that way. 

The Bystander Effect

Market Research is closely tied to the studies of psychology. The basis of market research is to understand why consumers make the choices they do, and their thought processes/ influences. A psychology theory that fascinates me is the bystander effect. This is the theory that when someone is in distress and there are lots of people around, nobody helps because they think someone else will. Watch the video below and see how this is true, but also the light of hope there is for society to change this theory.

So, how does this connect to marketers and market research? The major lesson that connects to the business world is the power of influencers. People will not normally do something until they see other people doing that action. Those people who do react first are known in the business world as innovators. They are the first to buy and try the newest products then tell their friends about them. Many companies have identified these innovators in their target market and have given them the product for free in hopes that his/her friends will purchase the product. This has been proven to be pretty successful when the innovator is passionate about the product.
While market research and psychology are two different industries, there are so many lessons to be learned from psychology that can help improve a company’s marketing strategy!

GutCheck!

Here is another example of how powerful the internet is for any company to get valuable information for very little cost. GutCheck is one the latest tools companies are using to hold focus groups over the internet. It allows market researchers to interview people one on one via an instant messenger platform, or do an entire group on the instant messenger platform. One of the largest challenges with focus groups is that there are always one or two people who will dominate the conversation. This tool allows market researchers to talk to everyone individually and get the most out of all of their participants. 

Another huge factor is diversity in geographic locations. Unless marketers are willing to spend the money to do focus groups across the country, the group is not very representative of the country. This could potentially skew the results of the focus group. Lastly there is costs. As the video below mentions it costs on average $700 per participant, whereas GutCheck is $40 per participant.

The only downside to this website is, the participants are actively online and willing to participate. Which means there might be a demographic/ psychographic that may be missing from this area. However, every tool has their downsides, its up to the market researcher to fill in the missing pieces with other tools!

To learn more about GutCheck check out their website at gutcheckit.com

Using Social Media for Market Research

As we know or can probably guess, social media has opened the doors to a two way road between marketers and consumers. Marketers can no longer push a message on the consumers without hearing feedback as well as consumers have a much stronger voice in the online world which forces companies to be more proactive and communicate with their customers in this online Community. Below is a video I found that shows social media is an asset to another department of the marketing group: the market research folks-

  As David C Skul of Relativity an internet market firm says in the video- social media is a great way to converse with customers as well as get very detailed demographic information. A profile can tell the market researcher so much information that it helps them narrow down who to talk to, or who is talking about their products in the social media world. 
   A company might think they need to target 14-19 year old males who play video games, however through research on social media sites like FaceBook and Twitter, that company may realize their actual market is 17-24 year old males who are active members of a community. This understanding will allow companies to market to their actual audience and connect with that audience. 

Next in Line- The Mystery Shopper

The mystery shopper technique was developed in the 1940's by companies that wanted to know what the customer experience was in their stores. It was started by banks to ensure the tellers were being honest and ethical when dealing with any of the customers. Since then it has evolved to become a popular way of collecting data from consumers and help improve the quality of customer service. Now instead of just making sure employees are representing the company in a good light, they use mystery shoppers to share their experiences shopping in the store. For example, what caught their eye, how they felt about the set up, how the prices are displayed, how many employees were present at the store. As we know in the eye of the market researcher, the customer is an always changing topic. To answer difficult questions like this, the best way is to send a mystery shopper in with these questions in mind and to report back their feelings. The reason they are a mystery shoppers is because if the store knew they were coming in, it would skew the results and feelings of the shopper. When the employees don't know they will act like they normally do. This is a great way to keep control over the experiment. 
I really like this kind of technique because the mystery shopper is a consumer so they are giving genuine insights as to what their experiences are and how they think the company can improve. Like social media, this is market research's form of communicating with the consumers/public. 

A different way of looking at the data

    Ever get bored of the same old pie chart or graph to represent the data found? While going through my Google Reader today, I found a really cool article about market research companies starting to show data in a unique way! Check out the images below:

Poll results of Danish Opinion about wearing religious symbols in public professional jobs. (38% think its unethical for women to go to work with the head piece, 42.5% think its unethical for school teachers and educators to wear traditional Islamic headpieces at schools, 46% think its unethical for nurses and doctors to wear Islamic headpieces, and 66% think its unethical for judges to wear traditional head pieces.) Flowing Data

     This image represents the amount of changed behavior Danish people have experienced due to gang related crime. For more visual representations check out Behance Network's website

I am more interested in figures that are displayed in a unique way than just the traditional pie chart or graph. Wouldn't you agree?

Valentine's Day Special

   Valentines day is just a day away and the malls are packed with last minute purchases for their loved ones. The National Retail Federation is estimating revenue of $15.7 billion for this year's Valentines Day. Thanks to social media, there were many surveys distributed that people responded to. The results to some of the questions were very interesting. The first survey was done by Joseph, a blogger for Education Insights (Degreeseeker.org blog). Flowers was the number one gift that will be purchased on Valentine's day with a whopping 56.2% of survey takers  intending on buying that for their significant other. The statistic that caught my eye was the one for the question- Are you planning on celebrating Valentine's Day? 41.9% of those surveyed said they were not going to celebrate. I think this number is getting larger each year as companies keep pushing the envelope for how much someone should spend on their significant other. The best reason for not celebrating I have heard is, "I don't need one day to tell you how much I love you"- best reason ever!
      The second survey was conducted by Mashable about love and how people celebrate Valentine's Day. Below is the infographic Mashable created to illustrate the results:

   As we can see sending your significant other something at work is not the best idea, more people want a private celebration of Valentine's Day. Again, flowers are the number one gift that will be given this Valentine's Day so expect to see lots of flowers tomorrow! 

Data Mining to the Extreme

    All around us companies are collecting data about our spending habits, eating habits, and behaviors. This information is then stored in databases in each company. This process is called data mining. Analysts can pick certain things to follow and soon they will identify trends in their customers. For example, they can track how many times ice cream cones are purchased in a store. They organize the data which they then make conclusions about. So with the ice cream, they may notice that more ice cream is sold during the months of July and August. After gaining this knowledge marketers can create campaigns either during this time or in the “low season” to boost sales. There are so many different trackers that companies may follow. The master in data mining would be none other than Wal-Mart. The internet has less than half of the data the Wal-Mart databases hold!

    Wal-Mart tracks all purchases, they have the purchases connected to credit cards when applicable, and with cameras they track how people move about the stores as well as they have ways to obtain information about the customers themselves. Being one of the few places people can go to cash their checks without a bank account. The customers cashing checks must submit their social security number, a driver’s license number and a home address. Additionally, Wal-Mart sees the companies they are working for, the amount of money they cash each week (or month) which gives them even more data about their customers. Wal-Mart made the realization that there was an enormous increase in Strawberry Pop-Tart sales right before a hurricane.
    Data mining is a fantastic tool to understanding the customer in your store as well as what types of customers shop at your store. 

What Do Consumers Really Think?

 Sentiment Analysis is a tool that allows companies to see what people are saying about them. In the past, they have had to do surveys, polls, and focus groups to understand what people think about their company. The only challenge is, people may be biased or not truthful during the survey/interviews which has skewed the results for companies. With social media and people freely saying what they feel, companies can have a better grasp on what people think about them. 
 Sentiments types can be analyzed automatically by different platforms available, it can be analyzed by humans, or a hybrid of both. Once these are analyzed and documented, the program (or people analyzing) can create a report to share that gives everyone in the company a good understanding about what most people are saying about the company. For more in depth information on the analyzing check out a presentation given at the Text Analysis Summit in Boston.
In most cases, companies can alter their marketing strategies to work on common problems they have found through this information, or use things people love about the company in their marketing campaigns.More and more researchers are using this tool. Not only does it filter through data to help researchers understand all the information, it can take in infinitely more information then traditional routes. Below is an example of the easy to read results sentiment analysis can give you-

Want this software? SAS was recently named best Sentiment Analysis Software! Click here to find out more!

Gallup!

One of my favorite places to get information from is Gallup. They have been doing consumer behavior research for 75 years and have become one of the most respected research firms in the country. 
One study they constantly do is the unemployment rating and what people are thinking who are unemployed. This is a study I follow because in just a few short months I will be heading out into the workforce and I like to keep tabs on what is happening out there. Gallup has just reported that the unemployment rate is currently at 9.8% (up by only 0.2%) from last month. This is almost a whole point down from this time last year when the country was at a 10.9% unemployment. The graph below shows the unemployment level over the past year. 

The reason Gallup is one of the most trusted companies is that they give their survey methods and a margin of sampling error (calculates any errors that might have occurred) right on the page. For more information on this report and more articles please visit Gallup's website!

Online Surveys = Best Way to Start Market Research

   Online surveys are easy to make, distribute, and collect data from. On top of all that they are the cheapest form of market research. I believe using online surveys is the best way to start off a research project because you can ask a wide variety of questions. In this exploratory phase they can identify points of interest and focus the rest of their research on those points. So, instead of focusing on economic factors in decision making, they focus in on a social influencer on decision making (ie friends, parents, celebrities influencing a purchase decision). It can also cut down on the amount of research done. It might just take an online survey to determine why everyone has stopped going to a specific store. If everyone said the same thing, then there is no reason to go any further into research than the survey. Which saves money for the company! 

   Greg Timpany of Cvent Survey agrees that online surveys has allowed even the smallest of companies to jump into market research, because it is easy to use and inexpensive. Cvent Survey is a great place to learn about online marketing and how to do it properly (through their blog) as well as they offer a service to companies to do their web surveys for them. Great thing to check out if you are a beginner surveyor!

How to Take Advantage of the Internet!

Web Analytics is the answer for markers to understanding how people navigate the web. This tool is imbedded into the code of every website, blog, and social network page. With Web Analytics, marketers can see what part of a page is attracting people's attention and what areas are scaring people off the website. I love this tool because everyone on the Internet can get Web Analytics for their own website or blog!
 This tool is the most interesting market research tool because the consumers are unaware of the fact that they are being "followed" while they navigate through the different websites. The great thing about people not knowing they are being watched, is they are unbiased in their decision process. The downfall traditional market research such as focus groups and in depth interviews, are that people say what they think the interviewer wants them to say which skews all the data collected. People can't really communicate how they surf the web- so traditional market research would not be an ideal way to understand. Thank goodness for web analytics that has allowed researchers to observe web surfers and figure out what part of the website works and what parts don't.
  Another fantastic part of Web Analytics is the speed at which the marketer get their data. As soon as a person comes in and starts surfing around, the data is collected and entered into the Web Analytics program and decisions can be made very quickly. Just think, a few short years ago, it would take weeks or even months to compile all the data from a survey and draw conclusions from that survey!
   The most challenging part of Web Analytics for me, is figuring out which features are the most important to follow and how to interpret those  data points. For example, number of visits in a day, or number of unique visitors in a day? Luckily for us, there are plenty of websites and bloggers out there to help us out! One of those people would be Eric Peterson from Web Analytics Demystified. He has so much knowledge about the workings of Web Analytics and gives great insights to the ethics involved in web analytics. Another fantastic and well respected Analytics blogger is Avinash Kaushik. He writes weekly about different ways to use web analytics and step by step directions on how to implement those tools. If you are in the least bit curious about web analytics and the powers it can give you as a marketer, or web developer check out these two guys!
     I see Web Analytics being one of the biggest assets to market research as life moves to the world wide web. It can help marketers in so many different capacities- and it does it in real time! 
   Still need to get some web analytics of your own? I would suggest Google Analytics because it is free (which is fantastic) and has an entire online university of videos and articles about how to use analytics! Of course there are other sites out there that do the same, this is simply what I use. So, in a few months when I am getting ready to graduate, I will be writing a post here about my findings from my web analytics on this blog. Stay tuned for that and much more!

Welcome!

Hello! My name is Megan and my greatest passion is market research. This may be strange however I find the psychology behind the decisions we make everyday to be fascinating. Trying to figure out the behaviors of people as they are shopping for different types of products and how they change their behaviors based on the product they are purchasing intrigues me.
As technology boomed, market research morphed into a whole new industry. Now many companies get their information from online polls, web analytics, keyword research, observational research and much more. With this blog my goal is to explore these tools and to see how companies are finding out what their consumer does, wants, needs, etc during the shopping experience.