Conducting Market Research on the Internet

Background:
Research Options Inc. is a Massachusetts-based market research consultancy. The company was formed seven years ago by Mr. David Hoyle. Mr. Hoyle has more than twenty years of market research experience. This document has been prepared in order to share our Internet survey experiences with those who may be considering this medium for primary market research.

Q. Why use the Internet to research professionals and consumers?

A. If you are involved in any industry, you already know how difficult it is to get even a few minutes of a busy professional's or even a consumer's time during the day. Today's fast-paced environment means that people are racing from one appointment to the next. Their day is filled with pagers, phone calls, voice mails and an increasing workload of related paperwork.

In order to get these harried professionals to respond to a survey, or participate in a discussion panel, one needs to continually come up with new approaches to facilitate this participation. That is why, over the years, research firms have gone from using mail surveys, telephone surveys and in-person focus groups-to disk-by mail, broadcast fax and telephone focus groups in an effort to increase response rates amongst these hard-to-reach target groups.

Market Research => a progression...

Tried and True	The Nineties	Today's Methods
Mail Surveys	Facsimile surveys	Internet surveys
In-person interviews	Depth Interviews	Broadcast Fax
Focus Groups	Mini-groups	Video conferencing
Convention Research	Telephone focus groups	On-line groups

Now, the widespread use of the Internet is providing researchers with another medium to affect information retrieval. Responding to a survey via the Internet allows the professional or consumer to respond to the survey at a time of convenience to them-the ability to provide feedback on their schedule!

An additional benefit of conducting research via the Internet is the ability to "embed" numerous questions within one survey that is transparent to the respondent. That is, we recently conducted an Internet-based survey that had about 75 individual questions. If this had been a paper and pencil survey, one might have expected many respondents to avoid filling out the document just because of the perceived volume of questions.

However, in our Internet version, the respondents only saw one screen of questions at a time, and depending upon how they answered a particular question, skip patterns took the respondent to additional questions further along in the document. The average respondent only ended up completing about 20 questions based upon their previously supplied answers.

In summary, some of the advantages afforded by using the Internet for health care-related market research include:

• The convenience of letting respondents complete the survey on their own time, whether in the office or home.
• The ability to program in numerous skip patterns and multi-layer questions, which are transparent to the respondent.
• The ability to survey health care professionals globally-without regard to time zones and other problems with international surveys.

Q. What kinds of research can you do via the Internet?

A. Really, the Internet should be thought of as a conduit or medium that allows you to conduct your traditional survey work. That is, the Internet is being used to conduct everything from secondary data searches and short, closed-end surveys-to on-line discussion groups.

Q. But, what if I have something I want to show respondents?

A. Here, the answer is as it has always been when this question comes up-if you really need a health care professional to touch/feel your new product/prototype-then you obviously have to get that product into the respondent's hands. This usually means conducting in-person focus groups or individual interviews.

However, if you can describe the concept in detail, and then show either static photos or a moving video of the product/prototype that you believe will accurately convey the idea at hand; then the Internet still remains a viable option for this type of research.

We recently conducted research for a major health care manufacturer where we showed two videos of new product options. The videos were integrated into an-Internet survey and physicians were asked a number of questions about each product-and allowed to go back and replay each video a number of times if needed to allow for a comparative judgment to be made.

Q. How expensive are Internet-related surveys or group sessions?

A. The short answer here is the response you would probably receive about any research project-it all depends! Any research bid (whether Internet-related or otherwise) is going to depend on a number of variables including-how many questions are being asked, are they closed-end/open ended, do you have a list of respondents with fax numbers/e-mail addresses, how strict is the screening criteria, what type of incentive must be offered for the target audience, etc.

However, in general, we have found that the Internet surveys we have conducted have been less expensive to implement than telephone surveys. On-line discussion groups tend to be less expensive than in-person groups due to the lack of moderator/client travel costs.

Q. What are the response rates like for Internet-related surveys?

A. As with traditional research methods employed within the health care industry, the rate of response varies according to: the target audience being surveyed, the interesting nature of the survey/discussion group, the amount of incentive being offered, etc.

Our experience has been that over the last two years (as more and more health care professionals have become Internet-savvy) Internet survey response rates have climbed equal to those of the more traditional research methodologies.

Q. What are some of the pitfalls/problems I may encounter when using this medium?

A. As with any new medium, the Internet offers both opportunities and challenges when gathering feedback from health care professionals. For example:

1. When we started doing Internet surveys a few years ago-the responses were skewed toward the younger, more "computer-literate" physicians. This problem seems to have resolved itself in a short time frame, but today, response rates can vary by specialty. We recently did an Internet survey of surgeons from five different specialties. It was surprising to see how the response rates varied by surgical specialty.

2. One has to ensure that the survey posted can be easily accessed by the more popular browsers on the market today. That is, when we first started posting surveys on the web, some respondents were unable to access the survey depending upon whether they were using Netscape, AOL, Explorer, etc. As much as possible, your survey must be designed to accommodate whatever software the user plans to use.

3. When showing videos of new products, the trade-off's must be made between security and accessibility. More specifically, one can show video images of new products using fairly simple programs like RealTime/QuickTime, which most respondents can view. However, if security is a real concern, and the client does not want any respondent to be able to easily download images of new products under development, it may be advisable to display the product video using a more advanced viewer like Shockwave. But, in our experience, not as many respondents can access this type of video without taking the time to download new software.

4. When doing on-line discussion groups, some health care professionals type responses faster than others, some have modems that work faster than others. An experienced on-line moderator can quickly recognize the differences between a physician who is not being an active participant-and one who is just getting adjusted to the technology.

Q. Isn't there software I can buy to do the surveys myself?

A. A number of companies have started selling "off-the-shelf" software to conduct surveys via the Internet. These packages often have standard forms included for posting questionnaires on a company web site in order to gather customer satisfaction data, market information, etc.

This software represents an inexpensive alternative to going through a research firm in order to develop a more customized survey approach. If you have a set of questions needing answered that are quite basic (and that are probably similar to what other companies might be asking of their customers) then this type of software may be appropriate for you. If you believe you have specific research needs that might not be easily addressed from a standard survey package, or if you will not have the internal personnel needed to implement and tabulate the returns-then you may want to consider an outside custom research firm.

Some considerations before purchasing an "off the shelf" survey package:
1. Having someone learn to use this software can be an expensive use of their time-especially if you are only going to do a couple of surveys.
2. Just posting a questionnaire to a web page is not the difficult challenge. What can be challenging is:

• Knowing how to screen qualified on-line respondents in order to ensure the validity of your decision-critical data set.
• Knowing how to properly word and design the question formats in a user-friendly manner.
• Knowing how to use the appropriate rating scales and coding schemes to produce the data discrimination desired.
• Knowing how to design the results page so that there will be maximum readability and effectiveness of results for the end user of the survey data.
• Knowing how to make a "standard" questionnaire into an interactive document that takes full advantage of the Internet's power.

Q. Is there anything else I should know about conducting health care market research via the Internet?

A. Yes. Think of the Internet as the means to an end, not the end itself. This medium should be thought of as one more research methodology, which might be appropriate for your data-gathering needs. And, it does not mean that one has to solely use the Internet without consideration of other methods. We have conducted combination mail-Internet surveys, broadcast fax-Internet surveys, and Internet surveys with telephone follow-up. The important consideration is which methodology-or combination of methodologies is going to produce the results you need-in a cost-effective and timely fashion.

And, finally, we at Research Options believe it is important for you to deal with a company that has market research expertise in the health care industry-not just a technology firm. Our professionals can direct you in choosing the methodology that will elicit the responses you need-from the true decision-makers for your product or service.

For additional information about Research Option's capabilities (whether for Internet-related research-or traditional focus groups, convention booth surveys, broadcast fax surveys, etc.) call:

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