I came across this new mobile software service that would be really helpful in allowing professional firms to undertake consumer research either a) to inform their future strategies or b) to obtain material on which to base thought leadership-type promotional campaigns using White Papers or articles and blogs.
Upinion – an instant mobile market research tool – allows you to send out questions to the mobile phones of your chosen demographic group and get real time answers for market research. Rather than describe the system, I thought I’d share a demo that I asked them to run. Basically, they recruit consumers (who are paid when they answer questions or take part in a focus group – Upinion will even source suitable consumers based on the demographic criteria you provide).
As the system is still being tested the demo was done with a sample 250 respondents living in the Surrey area. They can geofence the participating respondents so that your questions can be directed at consumers in a particular area.
I typed the question into a mobile phone. I asked: “If you needed a solicitor, would you:
a) Go to your local solicitors firm
b) Respond to a TV ad
c) Ask a friend where they go
d) Google it
We set the number of replies needed to 30. All questions are moderated by a team in Holland but this was instantaneous. As I watched, within a couple of minutes the number of responses clicked to 30. And then the pie chart below appeared on the screen.
There are all sorts of filters which I played with – interestingly, men were more likely to phone a friend whereas women were most likely to Google it. Based on this response, your marketing budget would be best focused on Google SEO/PPC strategies and supporting client word-of-mouth recommendations! Obviously, you would plan out the questions you wished to ask – and the results you received – as part of your Content Management Plan if you were using social media as the main method of distributing the results and your commentary.
It’s a powerful tool and takes the pain out of designing a survey and emailing it out as you would with the excellent free SurveyMonkey tool https://www.surveymonkey.net/. And somewhat cheaper and faster than using services like OnePoll http://www.onepoll.com/.
Upinion prices start from £250 pcm for 200 instant answers. And they are looking for suitable beta test customers at the moment!
Further details are available here: http://upinion.com/uk/
There’s also a Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UpinionUK?fref=ts
