OutsideIn Strategies is going mobile.....

The world is going mobile and so is OutsideIn Strategies. This is a very interesting series by Carrie Robbins @ Greenbook on the changing research market in a mobile world:

"The 2010 Globalpark industry survey predicts self-completion using mobile devices to be the fastest growing methodology in 2011, which is the first time since 2004 that the study has not predicted the web to be the fastest growing methodology (Macer & Wilson, 2011). The recently published 2011 GRIT[3] report supports this, predicting an increase in the use of mobile methods over the next year. 54% of those surveyed reported they would conduct mobile surveys, 31% would conduct mobile qualitative research and 29% would conduct mobile ethnographic research over the next year (Murphy, 2011: 26). In a predictive market exercise, mobile surveys ranked 2^nd after social media analytics among emerging methods that will gain the most market share over the next year (Murphy, 2011: 28). These figures are quite promising for the future of mobile.

The benefits of mobile research are reported to be convenience for participants, improved participation rates, getting closer to the ‘moment of truth,’ reaching more of the population, obtaining faster turnaround time, capturing geolocation data, increasing accuracy of data collected, reducing costs, and allowing for more personal ways of reaching participants (Macer & Wilson, 2009b). Interestingly, the most popular benefits of mobile research have to do with increasing the quality of research and are based on the respondents’ point of view, rather than focusing on the needs of the market research firms. A respondents’ positive experience during a research project is now the main concern."

In the near future penetration levels will rise and the process behind mobile methods will become increasingly seamless and standardized. Next Blog post will look at Radian6 and how their social media monitoring tool applies to Qualitative Research.