As my colleague Ray Krueger likes to say “I loves me some corndogs,” I like to say I enjoy reading good editorial about happenings, trends and innovations in the mobile technology arena (sorry Ray, just popped into my head, I know you loves other things as well). But when I read something a tad confusing, those examples stand out more so. Such was the case in today’s MobileMarketer in an article titled, “Location data is helpful for survey-based consumer panels.”
Essentially a back/forth interview between a text messaging provider and MobileMarketer staff, the article attempts to convey the value of blending location-based data with data obtained from panel surveys often conducted by brands and market research firms to understand trends among targeted customers. If you are not paying close attention, you might say “yep,” but think about this for a second and maybe like me you say “uh, yes, but, you seem to be co-mingling several different ideas here:”
- First off, survey panel questions can include a request for geo details such as zip code or phone number area code, to connect survey data to location, so where is the mobile value add?
- Secondly, the article describes obtaining opt in permission from survey participants – which alone yields some pretty hard to believe benefits including “Increase the value of their marketing panels by having travel patterns, shopping preferences and lifestyle patterns, Strengthen value of existing customers by knowing proximity to stores and when they are likely to shop, Obtain competitive insights – consumer visits to competitive stores and how often, Use location as a media planning tool – armed with travel and work patterns, advertisers can create an optimal mix media mix.”
The article fails to prescribe exactly how benefits like these flow to brands and researchers. Readers similarly confused would be wise to view their options as follows:
- Obtaining mobile opt in permission during panel surveys is a great idea but a plan of action for how to use that permission should be a key consideration. What’s the goal — provide targeted offers or coupons, or pose follow up questions via multi question SMS text message survey capabilities like those offered by Interactive Mediums? How does the researcher mitigate the risk of inaccurate answers from mobile survey participants? One best practice is to present a call to action matched to survey response data that yields a relevancy-based offer (such as one based on age or product preference). What if the client’s channel preference is email rather than mobile?
- Market researchers owe it to themselves to take advantage of mobile-enabled Crowd Sourcing, or the ability to attract an audience on demand to achieve their research goals. It is becoming commonplace to promote a strong mobile call to action such as a sweepstakes across various media segmented by keyword in an effort to learn more about customers, including their location. A text messaging survey instrument such as the one architected by Interactive Mediums offers a very flexible way of posing multiple questions in a single session and feeding these into a database for later retrieval and analysis using common tools like Excel. Survey responses can be instantly segmented by mobile number area code, or to be more accurate, questions can be posed around zip code or home town location.
Trackbacks: