Conversations for Research Rockstars

Planning your first multinational survey research project? Let's make sure you avoid 3 common newbie mistakes that can cost you money, time, and (frankly) credibility. These are three common, REAL WORLD mistakes-- let's help you to avoid them! Multinational market research projects are always fascinating learning opportunities, but they can be a bit tricky. Start by making deliberate decisions abo...

As market researchers, we often have projects where we are gathering data about emotions. But identifying and describing emotions can be tricky. This Conversation will help researchers who have experienced the common challenge of how to accurately report emotion-related research results in a way that will be useful to research clients. Emotional content relates to many types of market research stu...

Want to feel more confident in your ability to optimize survey data quality? In this Conversation, Research Rockstar instructors Kathryn Korostoff and Julie Worwa share some of the key steps professional survey researchers take to optimize data quality. Even if you are new to professional-level market research, or feel uncertain about your statistical knowledge, these topics will help amp up your...

Please enjoy this conversation with Kathryn Korostoff and Jeffrey Henning as they tackle the question, "What did we learn (about our own skill/knowledge needs ) in 2021 that we should leverage as we plan for 2022?"  As Market Research & Insights professionals, what do we need to know to be effective in 2022? And what knowledge gaps exist that warrant prioritization? So, what are the hot skills for...

The Work from Home (WFH) phenomenon has impacted Market Researchers from two very different angles: first as employees/workers ourselves, and second as research methodologists. In this episode, the discussion tackles both: What does ongoing full or partial WFH mean for our profession, our teams, our collaborations, our career paths? What skills may need to get amped up in 2022 to be successful in...

Welcome to Part 2 of our 4-part series: Prepping Your Market Research & Insights Team for 2022 . As Market Research & Insights professionals, what did we learn in 2021 that we should leverage as we plan for 2022? Part 2 of our series focusses on the question: "What did we learn about improving survey data quality in 2021 that we should leverage as we plan for 2022?"    This episode covered importa...

Welcome to Part 1 of a 4-part series: Prepping Your Market Research & Insights Team for 2022 . What did we learn in 2021 that we should leverage as we plan for 2022? Part 1 focusses on the question: "What did we learn in 2021 about research methodology choices that we should leverage as we plan for 2022?"   Hosted by Research Rockstar Lead Instructor Kathryn Korostoff, with fantastic guests, and t...

Professional survey researchers document their sampling plans to ensure a high-quality data collection process. If you want reliable survey data, you need to make careful decisions about sampling. In this Conversation, Lead Instructor Kathryn Korostoff shows you how to document your sampling plan in a way that will thrill your clients, stakeholders and other collaborators--while mitigating data qu...

If you do survey research, should you learn SPSS? What if you have colleagues who normally do the data analysis for you, might it still be worthwhile for you, as a market research professional, to learn SPSS? The answer is, "it depends." Here's a short Conversation or those of you who have been debating it. Not all survey researchers need to learn SPSS, but it is a worth consideration in specific...

How to do professional-quality survey research? Learn the key steps in the process of planning and conducting survey research in 11 steps. Professional survey researchers know that each of these steps, in turn, actually consists of even more granular steps—but start by learning the major steps and you will be on your way to conducting survey-based market research that will yield reliable, objectiv...

For Market Researchers being offered a long-term WFH option: should you? Many Market Research & Insights professionals are being offered the work from home or hybrid work from home/in office scenarios as long term options. What's the career-oriented market researcher to do? Would choosing a 100% work from home scenario impact your career? Your visibility with upper management? What tips and tactic...

For many people in the Market Research & Insights profession, the fun part of our projects is delivering the results in written reports. This is where we really get to shine: we get to show that our methodology has resulted in useful and usable information. The challenge? We're under pressure to deliver these reports very quickly. How do we write reports that are going to ignite insights when we m...

Market Research & Insights professionals often need to support business clients on projects that may benefit from more than one methodology or data source. What do we need to know about the many data options available to help our clients make informed decisions? Primary and secondary research, quantitative and qualitative, predictive and prescriptive data, cross-sectional and longitudinal data, tr...

Online qualitative research is a hot methodology and can be very powerful. But it can also be challenging, especially for market research professionals working on ideation projects. In this conversation, Kathryn shares some tips for how to get great ideation while using online qualitative methods.

Surveys can be used to learn a lot about your target market's attitudes, behaviors and perceptions. But only if you analyze this market research data correctly. In this real-world example, we see an-all-too common error. Don't let this happen to you! See the case study origin here:  https://bit.ly/3cgQ7KU

Market Research eLearning Options with Special Guest Stephen Griffiths. Kathryn and Stephen discuss the many options for learning about market research and advancing professional skills, including both free and paid options. Please be sure to check out Stephen's related podcast on Digging for Insights: https://diggingforinsights.com/22-2/ And for handy links to the sites mentioned, please download...

Survey researchers often use online panel providers to fulfill their data collection needs. Need 500 working moms to take your survey on vacation planning? Need 2,000 luxury car owners to take your survey on brand perceptions? You might be getting those research participants from an online panel provider. In this conversation, Kathryn Korostoff interviewed online sample expert Andrew Moffatt of Op...

Opinions on the accuracy of Net Promoter Score (NPS) as a customer loyalty measure vary widely. But like it or not, the reality is that a lot of organizations use NPS. It has become a standard key performance indicator (KPI) that many business executives embrace. So it's not going away anytime soon. The question for those of us who care about data accuracy, is how can we augment or possibly modify...

Are you looking to plan training for new market researchers? Or training to help a team develop professional-level survey research skills? Or qualitative research ones? How about a training plan that would advance use of new research methods? Or advance consultative skills? In this episode, Kathryn shares training plan tips and 3 examples. Conversations for Research Rockstars is produced by Resear...

Getting your Market Research & Insights team ready for 2020? Inform your plans by considering the key strategic issues your clients face. In this Conversation, host Kathryn Korostoff shares her research on key challenges faced by marketing executives and how the Market Research & Insights function can prepare to help. The referenced infographic can be downloaded for free here: https://www.research...

Question: How much do Market Research & Insights professionals need to know about data privacy? Answer: As much as most marketing-related professionals need to know these days, especially those who (like us) ever collect or store data. In this Conversation, Kathryn shares some basic definitions and links to curated resources. Including a free instant download: https://www.researchrockstar.com/priv...

In this episode, Kathryn covers important considerations for senior-level market research & insights professionals who are planning the next phase of their career. If we want to advance and become a consultative advisor to c-suite executives, we have to be able to address their sources of pain. And a big source of pain for c-suite executives is achieving ROI on their many and varied investments in...

Survey researchers know: mixed-mode data collection is gaining popularity in professional market research. And for good reason: it can address known survey data quality issues. Market researchers have several data collection options--even if most of us default to online surveys. But, ideally, once a given market research survey project's objectives and sampling goals are finalized, the next decisi...

A key part of our success in the market research & insights profession is based on how well people comprehend and retain our results. And a huge aid to comprehension and retention is data visualization. That's why we teach a course on data visualization and one on infographics. It's also why I was thrilled for the opportunity to co-present with the amazing Daren Jackson from DisplayR. We held a fr...

Critical thinking is a skill market research & insights professionals use to ensure our conclusions and recommendations are truly excellent. In short, critical thinking is the objective analysis and evaluation of a topic in order to develop a factually defensible judgment. While in the field of market research we don't often refer to the precise phrase "critical thinking", it is widely acknowledge...