In the article Tapping Into Customers’ Online Chatter, Wall Street Journal reporter Aaron O. Patrick details a topic we’re going to focus on at our next conference — using blogs as virtual focus groups.
Blogs and other messages posted on the Internet by individuals are becoming an increasingly popular way for people to share information about products, offering companies a trove of consumer feedback they previously could get only through expensive and slow surveys. About 1.4 million Internet messages were posted each day in March, up from 600,000 a day two years previously, according to Technorati, an Internet search engine for finding blogs.
That is driving agencies that mine Internet posts for customer information and enlist blogs in marketing campaigns to develop innovative new products.
“By listening to what people are saying online, we are getting an understanding of what people really think,” says Gard Gibson, a VML partner. “The moment you ask someone for their opinion I have created a bias because of the natural human instinct to please.”
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CA 05.30.07 at 7:29 am
I do believe primary marketing research firms will need to change their value proposition soon. The Web 2.0 has leveled the playing field between them and other organizations utilizing their services. I initially wrote this article (http://www.iqi-sm.com/blog/index.php/2007/04/28/marketing/is-this-the-beginning-of-the-end-of-primary-marketing-research-companies/) and gave it a title for effect - but as I read articles like this I am getting convinced that primary market research firms will need to change or die.