Benefits of online panel and communities in market research

Online panels and communities offer new research opportunities for market researchers. They are the most cost-effective method of gaining insight into your target audience, monitor competitors or even conduct ad hoc research.

One example is a large European retailer that operates around 2,500 stores across Europe. The company wanted to measure customer satisfaction with the service at all its UK stores. Rather than using a traditional type of mystery shopping programme – where a team of assessors visits each location – they used an online panel to capture real-time data from customers as they visited one of their stores. Customers were then asked to give feedback on their experiences during the visit, from whether staff had been friendly, to how long the queue at the tills was.

At the same time, another retailer wanted to gain insight into how the impact of an economic downturn was affecting their customers' shopping habits. The company used a panel survey conducted by email to find out what products people were buying less of, whether they were buying lower-priced brands or simply spending less on their weekly shop.

A cosmetics manufacturer wanted to understand the attitudes towards its product range amongst younger women. An online study targeted young female bloggers who are passionate about make-up – especially those who review products on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Questions asked during this interview included whether they had tried any new or innovative products recently, and reasons for liking or disliking a specific brand.

Online research offers many benefits over traditional techniques:

• Quicker and easier to reach members of the target group;

• Members stay in touch with the research panel throughout the duration of their membership;

• Immediate access to results, with questionnaires completed in minutes not days;

• More cost effective than face-to-face or telephone interviewing—no need for interviewers, call centre facilities or travel costs;

• Suitable for large samples;

• Immediate access to results (especially through internet panels).

However, before you can get started on your online research project there are some key points to consider:

• Panel recruitment – how will you recruit members to your panel? There are a number of different routes, including advertising through search engines (Google Adwords), banner ads on other websites (Opinionmatters), or paying for listings with consumer panels that can be found via Google.

• The right incentive – incentives must be high enough to motivate potential respondents but not too high as to cause complaints. Any financial rewards should relate specifically to the research project and what is gained by participation (not 'cashback').

• Screener questions – these are used to find the best respondents for your study, so give careful consideration as to what you ask in order to gain an accurate reflection of your target audience.

• Privacy and Data Security – respondents must be able to trust that their identities remain confidential, personal details are not passed on without permission and that data is kept secure. Trust can build quickly from a company's online reputation so it's important to have a system of checks and balances in place.

• Respondent moderation – there will always be some degree of 'noise' in online surveys, where respondents give unclear or irrelevant answers. To minimise this impact the research project should use appropriate question validation protocols which flag up ambiguous or unacceptable responses for closer inspection. This helps avoid wasting valuable time chasing unsuitable respondents through the data collection process.

This is all you need to know about Online Panel and Communities in Market Research.