Derham Marketing Research |
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Derham Marketing Research reduces the turnaround of their research projects by up to a week per project, and receive record response rates from their online surveys by utilizing FormArtist software
Derham Marketing Research and its clients see tremendous benefits from bringing their web survey facility in-house, by utilizing FormArtist online survey and forms software. They also see further benefits from extending the use of the software to the areas of online sales promotion and marketing communications.
Situation
Derham Marketing Research Pty. Ltd. was established in 1996 by Philip Derham and co-Director Sue Derham to ensure that client investment in research enables their clients to understand the opportunities, the needs and the potential, and so then act! By undertaking timely, reliable, cost-effective research, Derham Marketing Research enables its clients to strengthen their businesses.
The client information needs are paramount to Derham Marketing Research, and the most apt research tools and techniques are deployed to ensure their clients make decisions based upon the best available information. The company carries out market research and so is results-orientated, and uses the best possible techniques and tools to understand market behavior.
Before introducing FormArtist into their organization, Derham Marketing Research were looking for a web survey tool to use for their client campaigns. The specific challenge that they faced was to overcome a dependence on using outside web survey support. Web surveys were previously conducted by external field companies, utilizing outside web survey creators and the external field companies' in-house data processing groups.
The problem with this method of conducting surveys was that Derham Marketing Research had no control over the delivery of their surveys, no easy measures of response rates, and limited understanding of response speed and ways to better manage response generation. Awareness of the findings of a research project was only achieved at the end of the project rather than at any time during the project, and all data was supplied in either pre-determined tabular reports or in SPSS files some time after completion of the project. Also, acting as an intermediary for their clients rather than as the principal was not ideal for them.
Dependency on limited resources, having no control over the availability of those resources, and having to compete with other clients for use of those resources, led Derham Marketing Research to search around for a better alternative. In particular, they were looking for a solution that would provide them with clear and effective reporting facilities to ensure that clients were well equipped to act quickly as a result of their research investments.
Solution
Derham Marketing Research carried out a web search for ‘web survey software', assessed six different packages and trialed three of them, testing them for some weeks. They chose Quask's FormArtist software over and above the other two packages they tested, as they felt that the other packages appeared to be designed more for computer programmers rather than for reasonably savvy package users. They found the other packages to be generally ‘clunky' to use and did not produce easy to use or attractive looking surveys. They felt that they were ‘boffin-for-boffin' programs, not tools to assist clients understand needs and opportunities. One had its own analysis software that it claimed was better than SPSS but that required another skill set, which would have meant investing in training time. In the Australian market, SPSS is the more commonly available package, and Derham Marketing Research were looking for a solution that fully supported SPSS to enable them to easily transfer data for analysis and reporting.
After a rigorous selection process, Derham Marketing Research purchased the Professional edition of FormArtist from Quask which provided them with all the functionality they required and more, and which fully supported SPSS . It was purchased for the market research side of the business, to be used by two people – one working on survey design, the other on survey analysis.
Implementation
Philip Derham, Director, was responsible for purchasing and implementing the FormArtist solution. It took Derham about a week to get fully up and running on FormArtist, and they had their first survey running and being completed in less than a week after that. They have been using FormArtist continuously as a survey tool since then.
Says Philip Derham, “The support provided by Quask has been outstanding. They provided rapid advice prior to purchase, and their support team have been very fast and helpful in responding to any queries we've had. I'd say it is the best service we've received since working at a company with its own in-house technical support. We get email responses overnight and, if working late Australian time, advice the same night.”
In terms of training, very little training needed to be allocated, and consisted of a combination of ‘just do it', and advice and assistance from an outside IT developer who had assisted them in testing the FormArtist program, and who was very quick to understand its potential.
Benefits
Says Derham, “As a direct result of using FormArtist, we have saved money, kept our costs down, increased control over our own destinies, and so improved performance. In terms of quantifiable benefits, we save on average 2 days at least in turnaround of a project, and often up to a week. Reporting can be the same day, also saving up to a week. Electronic files have saved paper and clarified the reporting procedure, and the capacity to copy and paste, has saved further re-handling and ensured accuracy of any information carried across to our clients' own systems.”
“We now go straight to FormArtist and have ‘client-ready for approval questionnaire drafts' in a one step process, rather than producing a draft questionnaire in Word that the client approves, then creating a web questionnaire that the client approves, so saving a lot of time and effort. At the same time, once the client approves the questionnaire, we rename the tick-boxes etc. and have ready-made table headings and graphic reports and tables ready for export to the final presentation or report. The integrated named objects that carry over into the standard reports have made these savings possible.”
“FormArtist has been well received by our users, and they see its standard 600 by 400 pixel size forms as small and un-intimidating, and so attractive to both our clients and to respondents, as experience has shown them to be. The small size surveys on their own work well, and when embedded, allow rapid answering while remaining always anchored in a web page.”
“In terms of responses, we have received response rates of up to 68% on campaigns,
which I think is good. The key benefit for both respondents and clients, however, has been the capacity to
add in open-ended questions where relevant, and so enable respondents to comment– often at some length -
when they're thinking of a particular issue, rather than trying to remember to send an email separately at the end.
These answers have proved to be very extensive, thorough and detailed, and have helped clients to identify precise areas
and procedures for improvement. It is like telephone open ended answers but better and rapidly transferable to
clients for action.”
Derham Marketing Research will continue to use FormArtist for client market research surveys. They currently embed the surveys in a Front Page Form that is designed to be similar to the client's website format. This Form has all the relevant privacy and contact details so that, at any time during the survey, the respondent can contact Derham Marketing Research or check that what they say will be private, will be.
They have also used it as a corporate promotional and sales tool. For this, they prepare a draft survey on an area of interest to a number of prospective clients and embed the survey in a unique Front Page for each client with a couple of comments on the advantages of the survey method, and email them the link so that they can take a look at the survey. They then wait a day or so, follow-up with a phone call, arrange a meeting and sell in the normal way. Derham Marketing Research find this to be an effective way of generating new enquiries, and will continue to use FormArtist as a direct lead generator for their business.
They also are about to use FormArtist as a basis for their regular e-newsletter – The Derham Marketing Researcher – which they will send out via an email notification to clients. The email will contain a link to the FormArtist form, which in this case will be their e-newsletter.
Explains Philip Derham, “We have found FormArtist to be extremely effective not only as a web survey tool for our research projects, but also as a sales promotional tool and a marketing communications tool. We will continue to expand the use of FormArtist in all these areas of our business.”
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