research services
Custom online Market
Research Communities
communities providing your
stakeholders with
“ready access”
How many times has a stakeholder come to you urgently in need of consumer input? And how many of those times did you wish you had “ready access” to consumers to get your stakeholder’s questions answered quickly?
Online communities are the perfect solution for these situations. Online communities give your stakeholders the information they need to move forward swiftly and confidently with their strategies and tactics.
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things online communities
(and market research)
Pioneering Online Communities Research for Over 20 Years
We consider ourselves pioneers of online communities; we created our first online community over 20 years ago. Over that span of time, we’ve built hundreds of custom communities for clients, providing them with “ready access” to consumers.
Engaging Discussions, Quick Insights, Iterative Learning
key benefits of online research communities
The agile nature of communities—that is, getting insights quickly—is not the only benefit of this method. Communities are great for iterative learning as well as understanding attitudes and behaviors over time. In addition, they’re an excellent way to deep dive with your consumer – inviting a connection that naturally builds empathy. Online communities also allow us to deploy a myriad of tools for interactive activities, providing different angles with which to understand consumer opinions and attitudes while observing behavior in real-time.
custom-built to
best fit your needs
Online communities can accommodate online and even in-person qualitative methods. Within these broad research areas, we blend many specific methods and tools to meet your custom research needs, including:
- Discussions (online, webcam, and/or in-person)
- Video and/or image mark-ups
- Heat maps
- Shopping missions
- Concept tests
- In-person shop-alongs
- Digital and in-home immersive ethnographies
- Video journals with live video chats
- Virtual shelf set exercises with video mark-up
- Collage/imagery activities
- Passive digital metering
- Geo-location
- System One tools to enhance survey or qualitative
activity, such as eye tracking, facial coding, implicit
reaction tests, metaphor elicitation, etc.
C+R Communities
high-touch,
interactive,
and “always on”
Communities are the perfect choice when you need to immerse yourself in your consumers’ world. Whether you want to understand what makes them tick, what they think about new product ideas, or how they use a particular product or shop, communities provide an easy venue for consumers to share their behaviors and feelings with you. All of our communities are custom-built to meet your specific research needs.
long-term communities
Long-term online communities are ideal when you need to address multiple research objectives on an ongoing, iterative basis through both qualitative and quantitative methods. Communities allow you to dig deep into consumers’ lives – learning who they are and what they want and need – through rich discussions, pictures, and videos. We typically include a mix of quantitative surveys, online qualitative discussions, and activities such as mobile missions, video journals, webcam interviews, and digital metering.
Engaging with a community over time naturally leads to smart, empathy-driven business decision-making. And of course, long-term communities provide quick, easy access to target consumers when you need answers to your stakeholders’ burning questions.
pop-up / micro communities
Our clients love the flexibility of pop-up communities (we call them micro communities). These communities are perfect when you have one specific research objective that needs to be addressed over the course of a few months or multiple related questions for one targeted audience, such as B2B, generations, and multicultural cohorts.
keeping community members engaged
Ensuring that community members feel valued and engaged throughout the life of your research project is critical. We have a number of different engagement programs that do just that. We’ll work with you to design a program that’s right for your community.
Whether it’s incentives, member spotlights, meet the team threads, or share-backs, we’ll custom-build a program that guarantees you get the strong participation rates and rich insights you need, and community members walk away feeling proud of their contributions.
featured communities
case studies & examples
Expert Knowledge
online research communities
featured resources
Guides
custom online communities and panels: a comprehensive guide
Webinar
Micro Communities: Ideal for Generational Viewpoints
Guides
Communities and Panels: Unique and Tailored Solutions for Diverse Audiences and Insights
In addition to communities,
we also offer:
long-term panels
When you don’t need high touch interactions with consumers on a continuous basis, custom panels are the natural choice. Custom panels provide you with a profiled database of pre-recruited individuals who can be easily segmented and quickly accessed. Panels are an especially good choice when you’re simultaneously engaged in heavier quantitative research for certain types of B2B segments.
Hybrid Communipanels
This solution is best when you need a more cost-effective approach – when your primary need is quantitative research (the panel side), but you also would like to include some qualitative from time to time (the community side). Think of Communipanels as the best of both methods – communities and panels.
How do CommuniPanels Work?
On the community side, to be included in your research, consumers “pass” specialized qualitative recruitment criteria. These participants then engage with our researchers on a consistent and ongoing basis. Using in-depth activities, we really get to know consumers and understand their lives.
The panel side is reserved for quantitative activities that often need more respondents. Activities can include short or longer simple surveys and incorporate innovative exercises and tools to keep respondents engaged (such as sorting and markup activities).
