Agile Research is a constant topic in modern online quantitative market research. But not all customers I speak to understand exactly what it is and its impact on many different industry decisions. Today I’m breaking down what it is, why it’s important to modern marketplaces, and what teams should look for when choosing a research partner.
What Is Agile Market Research?
Agile Market Research is utilizing technology to empower research in condensed timeframes. Traditional insights collection used to take weeks or months to create a survey, collect data, analyze results and determine actionable next steps. In today’s fast-paced, online economy, almost every industry is experiencing trends and demands that move fast. Agile solutions match the pace of research with the current speed of the world, and as a bonus, may also open the door to a more diverse pool of respondents.
The way people engage in a survey-taking environment has changed over time. Like the rising popularity of Instagram Reels and TikTok videos, respondents now want to engage with easily consumable surveys. Agile Market Research solutions are adapting to this new environment in order to engage survey respondents via the methods they prefer online. No matter what you believe is shrinking the world’s attention span, it’s happening, and Agile market research is pivoting alongside digital market trends.
What Are the Benefits of Agile Research?
Because Agile Research surveys are shorter, we see higher response rates. Forget writing a 30-minute study; respondents are flocking to quick surveys that take under 10 minutes to complete. What I like about Agile is that it is more of a holistic view of how we market researchers are adopting to survey respondent preferences, in turn improving engagement. We are meeting each other halfway, which is essential for innovation in the market research industry. The most considerable risk we face in modern market research is not accessing the people integral to our insights: diverse consumers.
Is Agile Research Just for Quantitative Market Research?
You may think that Agile Research is only a solution for quant. But there are definite agile market research methodologies that allow for more in-depth yet cost-effective qualitative approaches too. Cell phone technology has unlocked new ways to conduct user research anytime. There has been an influx of video and voice insights solutions that rely on apps or community platforms to source respondents. Respondents complete certain activities and/or provide real-time feedback, such as in-store shopping experiences or product placements. With geo-fencing on mobile, stakeholders know when consumers are in a specific location and can collect real-time unfiltered feedback and insights.
Factors to Consider Before Starting an Agile Partnership
When evaluating Agile platforms or solutions, things to consider include speed, cost, customization options, and engagement model. What do you want to spend your limited time doing? Should more of your sprint be spent writing the survey, or should you focus on analyzing the results?
When adopting Agile, some platforms will offer more templated solutions, while others provide more customization. Templated solutions often mean giving up custom research approaches for quicker data collection to enable faster, actionable results for stakeholders. Agile market research solutions that allow customization can offer more specific results tailored to your business needs.
Fast Data Can Still Equal Good Data
A long-standing concern for researchers is fraud and poor quality responses when conducting online research. These concerns are valid because poor quality data can lead to unusable data or misguided business decisions. Today’s modern solutions combat fraud automatically with link-hashing, deduplication, device fingerprinting, IP-geo checks, and other standard techniques.
In our endless pursuit of data quality, PureSpectrum has taken its approach to data collection and fraud detection a step further through a complex but easy-to-understand scoring system – PureScore™. PureScore™ is an advanced machine learning algorithm built on respondent behavior, device fingerprinting, and billions of data points a year. The model created by data scientists works by finding patterns among behavior, including screening consistency, completion rate, and group behavior based on demography. Respondents with a low PureScore™ are prevented from taking surveys on the PureSpectrum platform. This means that our users can have the speed of Agile but receive data quality they can trust.
Does PureSpectrum Offer Agile Research?
Yes, PureSpectrum offers templated and custom solutions that partner with our customers based on their needs. We combine technology-first solutions with industry expertise, allowing us to provide personalized methodology without sacrificing speed.
Ready to learn more about PureSpectrum’s Agile Market Research abilities? Reach out to me below:
About PureSpectrum
PureSpectrum offers a complete end-to-end market research and insights platform, helping insights professionals make decisions more efficiently, and faster than ever before. Awarded MR Supplier of the Year at the 2021 Marketing Research and Insight Excellence Awards, PureSpectrum is recognized for industry-leading data quality. PureSpectrum developed the respondent-level scoring system, PureScore™, and believes their continued success stems from their talent density and dedication to simplicity and quality.
In the few years since its inception, PureSpectrum has been named one of the Fastest Growing Companies in North America on Deloitte’s Fast 500 since 2020, and ranked for three years in a row on the GRIT Top 50 Most Innovative List and the Inc. 5000 lists.