Online Marketing Research Versus Traditional Research – Which One is better?
We are more than one year into the pandemic and the world has certainly changed, most of the businesses had to adapt or become redundant and there are many that have not only survived but even prospered during the last 12 months. Several of our clients wanted to get to know their customers more intimately by gaining fresh insights into the new consumer behaviours and with that a question that we were asked frequently was whether we could do online research solely instead of the traditional face to face surveys?
The answer is of course we can, and we have been for many years but at these complex times it seems to make more sense than in the past. So, does this mean that web surveys or email questionnaires can satisfactorily become substitutes to all face to face interviews and focus groups?
Well lets’ briefly look at some of the pros and cons :
The Main advantages of Online Only Surveys:
- Cost affective: They are cheaper especially in large number as hundreds if not thousands of respondents can be reached directly and in time affective manner. This is the main driver for most clients, and it has become increasingly so. Respondents are also getting used to such surveys since they can be react to them easily even on their mobile devices
- Data collection and analysis: When it comes to collecting the data the information with online surveys it is usually transferred directly into software which can analyse the data quickly, doing away with cumbersome questionnaire forms and the manual data entry process that we see in many traditional surveys
- Response rate: Can be good if there are suitable incentives to answer online questions and where personalised emails are created rather than just general web questionnaire that respondents are asked to fill. The more personalised the experience the higher the response rate and the better quality of the responses
The Main Disadvantages of Online Surveys:
- Representative sample: More difficult to get the sample of the population required by the marketers. Most respondents are likely to be the tech savvy type hence not necessarily the representative profile of the target group which may be required in some cases
- Response rate and quality: Response rate and quality generally not as good as face to face since many respondents may give up filling survey halfway through or complete it because of the incentive promised or maybe even chose to answer very differently from what they are thinking or feeling. In face to face or physical focus groups (safety permitting) there is much more of the non-verbal signs which can be picked up by the trained interviewer or the professional moderator and this allows for further probing of the respondents
- Better at measuring Attitudes & Perception rather than Behaviour: As alluded earlier many clients would very much like to know how their customers have changed their behaviour regarding certain product or service, the most common online surveys do not capture this well and only few specialised online survey tools can help in explaining and predicting consumer behaviour.
Our recommendation:
Here in Oman depending on the brief received from the client a proposal would normally be given to create and launch a customised online survey, this is normally geared towards providing the best fit for purpose solution the client needs. But we would still like to look at the client’s problem much more holistically rather than just recommend one methodology such as an online or a telephonic survey.
No one technique can be better than the other if a full 360 degrees understanding of the consumer is required. Therefore, we would always highly recommend a combination of both traditional and online surveys to gain those all-important insights into the mind of the consumer.
