The Merrill Dubrow Blog

Did you ever watch the old TV show Mission Impossible? Well I did and Field Agent reminds me of that. Raise your hand if you have ever heard of Field Agent? I would love to see if anyone has their hand up?

I presented Field Agent at a conference a few times in the past 3 months and the only person who ever heard of it was from Wal-Mart. Yes Wal-Mart the largest company in the world. This person not only had heard of Field Agent but used them and had a very successful experience with them.

Basically Field Agent is a system that connects people who need information with people who can provide it. It begins by a client requesting specific information on their website. Clients might need a simple price check, retail audit, in-store photo or maybe a new item analysis. In addition they can also do surveys. They broadcast the request to people in the field (currently they have 60,000), who they call Agents and give the Field Agents a certain amount of hours to complete the task and let them know how much they will be paid for to complete the task. The Agents use a mobile device to return the needed info, which they get paid for.

Their website says they are in all 50 states and have an average Response Time in Populated Area of 2 hours and a 98% project completion. Clearly those numbers are very impressive.

• Have you heard or used of Field Agent?
   
• What do you think of their offering?

I look forward to hearing your comments.

Posted in Research | Post Comments (2) »

A few weeks ago my friend Steve S asked me what I thought of the look of his invitation and if I was going to be able to attend his company celebration. I said I don’t recall seeing anything and asked him about the dates. Even though I couldn’t make it I was curious. I searched and low and behold his invite was caught in my spam filter. Looking closer at the invite I mentioned to Steve and his colleague Amber the problem was they should avoid using the word party in the invite because I am sure that was the cause of the email never getting to me.

I was curious as to how many emails get caught in my spam filter daily. The number was truly amazing. I assume I get about 200 emails a day and my spam filter trapped another 272 emails. Yes you read that right – 272 emails or 57% never made it to me!
This gave me a chance to pause and think about building a list of words we shouldn’t use in marketing campaigns. Of course I will leave out the obvious ones like Viagra, sex etc.

I did a little research and here are 12 words and phrases that you should stay away from:

1. #1
    
2. 100% satisfied
    
3. Amazing
    
4. Congratulations
    
5. Guarantee
    
6. Marketing solutions
    
7. Never
    
8. Opportunity
    
9. Performance
    
10. Solution
     
11. Special promotion
     
12. Success

A few of these words/phrases like amazing, solution, success surprised me. Lots of companies in our industry are still using them and based on spam filters shouldn’t moving forward. All of us should avoid using these spam filter trigger words in our e-campaign subject line if we can. Be creative, and find a different way to say your message!

• What words on the list surprised you?
   
• What words/phrases are you using that give you the best success?
   
• How successful have your E-Campaigns been?

I look forward to reading your comments.

Posted in Research | Post Comments (1) »

I am sure the title may have gotten you a little interested, perhaps a little curious of what I would like to share. Over the past few years river sample has become very important in the research industry. Well in my opinion that river sample will need to move over for a new ocean called FATWIN!

Yes you heard it heard first – FATWIN!

IN FACT HERE IS THE LOGO I CREATED!

Ok so now I probably have your attention let’s take a closer look at these three social networking giants!

FACEBOOK

• Launched February 2004
   
• More than 500 million active users
   
• 800 million in revenue in 2009 (haven’t seen 2010 numbers)
   
• Since January 2009 most used social network

TWITTER

• Launched July 2006
   
• 190 million visitors monthly
   
• 4 million in revenue in 2009 (haven’t seen 2010 numbers)
   
• Since February 2009 third most used social network

LINKEDIN

• Launched May 2003
   
• 60 million members
   
• 17 million in revenue for 2008 (last number I could locate)
   
• Adds 1 million members every 12 days

In addition check out this activity level at a random amount of time!

• Shared links: 1,000,000
   
• Tagged photos: 1,323,000
   
• Event invites sent out: 1,484,000
   
• Wall posts: 1,587,000
   
• Status updates: 1,851,000
   
• Friend requests accepted: 1,972,000
   
• Photos uploaded: 2,716,000
   
• Comments: 10,208,000
   
• Messages: 4,632,000
   
• Likes: 7,657,000

ALL THIS HAPPENED OVER A 20 MINUTE PERIOD OF TIME ON FACEBOOK!

I truly believe these three social networking sites will be in the research world on the horizon. In some ways they will be a vendor and on a different day they will be a competitor. 

Here are some things they have in common and I why I believe FATWIN is a reality!

• Access to millions of people
   
• They have an Opt in process
   
• They are TRUSTED by almost everyone
   
• Today/Tomorrow this will be the communication of choice
   
• All of these social networking sites will be looking for revenue
   
• They already took a swing at research and missed – rest assured they will again and BE successful!
   
• They all have Apps which will be huge for our industry!

What do you think?

• Am I crazy?
   
• Isn’t LINKEDIN perfect for business to business sample?
   
• Is this an area that the research community has struggled with for years?
   
• What can/will FACEBOOK/TWITTER/LINKEDIN do with respect with research?

I look forward to hearing from you and discussing this VERY important topic.

Posted in Research | Post Comments (36) »

I love thinking about the future! I really like thinking about things and trying to figure out what will be going on in the research industry in the next 3-4 years. When I do a big smile comes on my face because I not only love the research industry, it is changing very quickly and I am excited because if the research community makes the right moves (a future blog topic for sure) then research will be more prominent in client organizations and much more important than it is today.

I took a few minutes and thought about what are some of the future titles in the research industry. Here is what I came up with:

• Insight Implementation Officer
   
• Chief Innovation Officer
   
• Director of Text Analytics
   
• Chief Creatologist
   
• Social Media Director
   
• Scraping Guru
   
• Social Networking Maven
   
• King of Data Mining
   
• Future Facing Team
   
• Social Media Specialist

Now your turn:

• What do you think of my list?
   
• What new titles have you recently seen or been using at your company?
   
• What titles do you think we will be using in the next few years?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments.

Posted in Research | Post Comments (0) »

In the past few weeks a number of announcements have come out that I thought were very interesting. Some if not all could impact the research industry.

Facebook announced A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Insights

• Is this an early indication that Facebook will eventually get into the research game?
   
• When that happens will it be a good or bad thing for the industry?

Starbucks announced that you can pay with Your BlackBerry

• Seems like Starbucks is getting even closer to their customers and research respondents.
   
• How long before every retailer adds this as an application and adds customer satisfaction as well?
   
• Is this a good or bad thing for our industry?

Skype Introduces 10-Way Video Calling

• Next stop online focus group?

LinkedIn announced new and improved moderation features for LinkedIn Groups

• Does that smell like an easier, better, less expensive way to set up an online community?

• What do you think of these announcements?
   
• Are you concerned?

I look forward to reading your comments.

Posted in Research | Post Comments (8) »

THE MOST IMPORTANT 5 YEARS IN THE HISTORY OF MARKET RESEARCH IS UPON US. I BELIEVE IF THE RESEARCH INDUSTRY DOESN’T GET ENTRENCHED AND EMBRACE NEW TECHNOLOGY, IT WILL CHANGE THE INDUSTRY IN A NEGATIVE WAY AND DRAMATICALLY IMPACT THE OVERALL REVENUE OF THE RESEARCH INDUSTRY FOREVER!

• Do you agree with my statement?
   
• How important do you think the next 5 years are for the research industry?
   
• Do you believe the research industry is a slow moving industry to embrace NEW technology?
   
• If you believe that? What can we do about it?

I really look forward to hearing from you and seeing what thoughts you have!

Posted in Research | Post Comments (19) »

A year ago I remember feeling a little melancholy, a little emotional after the MRA conference in Chicago. Yes the conference was great, networking was fantastic and yes I even found time to get a burger at the Billy Goat tavern. The reason I was a little melancholy was that at the end of the conference I knew I wouldn’t be on the national MRA board anymore. After six years of sharing hours and days of board meetings with friends like Colleen Mezler Moore, Jon Last, Ed Sugar, Steve Schlesinger, Amy Shields, Kim Larson, Merrill Shugoll and many, many others I knew that those days were over and it was time for new leadership.

Being on an organizational board and representing the industry is one of the most important positions I have ever held. I always took it very seriously and was honored to represent the membership. Over the years I have been on a number of boards which has included:

• A.C.Nielsen Center
   
• American Marketing Association
   
• Baylor University
   
• University of Georgia
   
• University of Texas at Arlington

To me there is nothing like being around total strangers who share a common goal, join together on a board and accomplishing things — it’s a wonderful feeling!

• What boards have you been on or currently on?
   
• How was/is the experience?
   
• What advice would you give people who are thinking about joining a board?
   
• Was the experience as rewarding as you thought it would be?

I look forward to hearing your comments.

Posted in Research | Post Comments (11) »

Today I only need your attention for 30 seconds, 10 seconds to read this posting, 10 seconds to think about your answer and 10 seconds to type in your comment.

Here goes please take 10 seconds and let me know what are the first words that come to your mind when you hear the words marketing research?

I truly look forward to reading all of your comments.

Posted in Research | Post Comments (13) »

I remember when I first started in the research industry I would sit in the back room of focus groups and manually move the video camera. It may sound boring to most of the readers but to me I enjoyed every second of it because it gave me an opportunity to see some great moderators. Even though I never went to RIVA or the Burke Institute for training I feel I received some amazing first hand training from doing that. I also really enjoyed the interaction of the clients in the back room. Most groups would have chatty clients and once in awhile would be evaluating the moderator and allowed me the opportunity to hear what was important to them. I also believe this training has enhanced my presentation skill set and also how to manage a meeting.

I have been around some terrific moderators in my day. That list includes (in alphabetical order):

• Saul Cohen
   
• Reva Dolobowsky
   
• Stacey Hurwitz
   
• Diane Iseman
   
• Louise Kroot-Haukka
   
• Dr. John McNichol
   
• Amy Shields
   
• Merrill Shugoll
   
• John Sibley

Here are my questions:

• What makes a great moderator?
   
• What secrets or best practices are you willing to share?
   
• With so much going on do you manage the back room?
   
• Who has the best moderating training?
   
• How do you handle difficult respondents?
   
• Clients – when you are looking to hire a new moderator what do you take into account?
   
• Do you eat something special before the group?
   
• How mentally tired are you after the session?
   
• What qualitative blogs or websites do you visit regularly?
   
• Are there other people that could be of help?

Here’s something that I think would be a good resource to help people, a book by Robert J. Morais called Refocusing Focus Groups.

Here are links to it on Amazon.com and Paramount Books (the publisher).

I am really excited about hearing from moderators and their experiences and yes feel free to post a little information about yourself and if you are available for subcontracting.

Posted in Research | Post Comments (13) »