But in order to fully understand how to pull it off, we’ll look at three examples of effective crowdfunding campaigns that you might use for your website.

How Did Oculus Rift Get 9,500 Backers in Months?

Usually, tech companies require a lot of money to start. And if a tech startup can make it through crowdfunding, practically anything can. That’s why our first example is Oculus Rift.

Oculus Rift first started its crowdfunding campaign in 2012 on Kickstarter. The campaign was a huge success. It raised $2.4 million from almost 9,500 supporters. The campaign’s original technology, fervent following, and early adopter market were its main success drivers. At the time, virtual reality technology was still in its infancy, and PC and console gamers were enthusiastic about the Oculus Rift’s promise to provide immersive gameplay experiences.

A large part of the supporters came through social media and through Oculus Rift’s own website. They were gamers who were checking on the progress daily and were mostly informed of news on the website.

Key takeaway:

Oculus Rift also raised money from backers on their website, outside of Kickstarter. They encouraged more individuals to invest in the product by giving early access to it at a reduced cost. Moreover, notifying everyone on their website would bring in more traffic and better control. 

You can do the same with the help of Publir’s solution. It’s easy to set up your own private crowdfunding place on your website.

How Pebble Raised Over $10,000,000

Pebble Technology is another crowdfunding success story. 

With 68,929 supporters, their wristwatch campaign on Kickstarter amassed a total of nearly $10.2 million. The unique product design, early adopter market, and strong social media presence were the main drivers of this campaign’s success. One of the first of its type, Pebble’s smartwatch attracted a lot of interest from tech aficionados. Here’s the actual campaign.

This is literally the best single piece of physical product among all the crowdfunding projects examples, which drove the campaign toward success. People simply wanted to be the first to come to possess this smartwatch. Pebble also collected more money online by giving backers access to exclusive perks. They gave early access and bespoke engraving possibilities for the more serious backers.

Key takeaway:

Pebble offers a unique product that everyone wants to have. They managed to reach a wide audience through their website, social media, and Kickstarter. Moreover, they offered very exclusive perks for their physical product, such as engraving for the backers. That was going to become impossible for anyone else who was late to the party and simply bought the product instead of backing the crowdfunding campaigns.

Indie Companies Get Funded Too

Not all profitable crowdsourcing initiatives come from large businesses or IT behemoths. A smaller startup called Glitch collected $274,000 from 4,520 backers on Kickstarter. The business offered a cutting-edge platform for developing and exchanging interactive online projects. 

A dedicated user base, an emphasis on innovation and experimentation, and a desire to offer a new platform for creative expression on the web were the main success elements of this campaign.

Additionally, Glitch raised money by giving funders early access to new features and exclusive items. They kept communication on Kickstarter secondary and always released new info a few days before on their website.

Key takeaway:

Glitch noticed an existing problem and offered a solution. The most important thing is they had set a reachable goal and managed to reach it easily and on time in order to start their business.

Summarizing the Key Takeaways of Successful Crowdfunding Campaigns

From Oculus Rift, we learned that you can place the backing cost at a lower price than the product itself after launch. This would entice users who would usually buy the product to back you up and save money on their part.

Instead of offering a pre-emptive discount, Pebble was promoting a physical product, and they decided to give backers something special that normal buyers would later miss out on. The engraving for each backer enticed everyone who would normally want to buy the product to back it up instead.

And from Glitch, we learn the most important advice: to have merit and not to overestimate the backing power you are aiming to amass on crowdfunding platforms. Because if you fail to surpass your goal, your campaign will be in vain.

Final Words

Crowdfunding can be a potent tool for startups and small businesses looking to generate money and realize their ideas. Moreover, it can also help you amass an audience that you never expected to have.

The success of these three campaigns demonstrates how cutting-edge goods, a devoted following, and a robust social media presence can assist business owners in reaching their financing objectives. Your crowdfunding campaign will have a higher chance of success if you adopt these effective tactics. 

Launch your crowdfunding campaign right away and learn from Oculus Rift, who also crowdfunded on their very website. Do the same with some help from Publir’s solution.

The post 3 Case Studies of Successful Crowdfunding Campaigns to Replicate for Your Website first appeared on Publir.

When thinking of a merger, one should consider the impact on customers. Mergers and acquisitions may have significant benefits for the customers. For instance, mergers may bring upgrades within the company, bring new market innovations, and transfer technology between the companies. As such, there are many factors that companies should take into consideration before entering into a merger, as there is high consumer impact and chance of failure. Here are some challenges that merging companies face:

1. Overestimating Cost Synergies 

Synergies happen when two organizations merge in anticipation of cost savings and increased revenue. As such, the consequence of the transaction is increased cost savings and revenue growth. Sometimes, companies overestimate these cost synergies, sometimes by billions of dollars. To avoid such overestimation of synergies, follow a conservative approach. Take a conservative estimate of your cost savings. 

2. Loss of Team Culture 

Sometimes, when a big company acquires or merges with a smaller startup, the employees may lose a sense of team and team culture. Usually, the startup culture is more team-oriented, and employees feel that they are a part of a bigger goal. They lose the sense that they are working for something they have big stakes in. This affects their motivation to work and engage with each other. They become an ordinary part of a bigger company, which drastically affects their productivity and creativity. Despite what people think, employees do not receive large amounts of money during acquisitions (so, it does not benefit them directly). It is just the owners who get the most out of acquisitions. 

3. Lack of Planning Around Integration

One of the biggest challenges media companies face during mergers is the lack of proper planning around integration. Often between negotiations, companies ignore what the business operations of the merged company will look like. An unplanned acquisition can have disastrous consequences, as executives may have to figure everything out right from the beginning. This slows down the entire growth process. Integration is not an afterthought rather, it should be considered while merging. 

4. Losing Trust of Stakeholders

Human Capital is a crucial part of modern businesses. Sometimes, businesses neglect this aspect which leads to a disastrous merger. Higher management may be enthusiastic about a merger, but it does not mean all the other executive members and staff are excited too. Sometimes, mergers may result in the loss of trust of important stakeholders. The companies should be transparent about their mergers with the staff and consider how the merger benefits them. 

Poor Timing: The Case of Dotdash and Meredith

About a year ago, Dotdash, the publishing unit of InterActiveCorp (IAC), made a decision to acquire Meredith, the publisher of BetterHomes, Gardens, InStyle, People, Entertainment Weekly, and 40 other digital brands. The purchase price was around $2.7 billion. Both companies joined to become Dotdash Meredith, the largest digital and print publisher in the US. At this time, both companies were recording 25% digital revenue growth. However, the acquisition was timed poorly as both companies had slow traffic compared to the explosive growth of digital audiences during the pandemic. There are three major challenges that led to a poorly timed acquisition – 

1. Advertisement Markets: 65% of Dotdash Meredith’s digital revenue goes to premium and pragmatic advertising across a range of different industries. This includes home decor, beauty, consumer packaged goods, and retail, all of which were hit really hard in the third quarter. Most advertisers responded to changing consumer expectations and spending patterns by cutting down ad spending, some by 25% vis-a-vis the previous year. 

2. One-Time Costs: When the acquisition was announced, the company bore high costs associated with the messy acquisition and restructuring. It spent around $60 million in real estate impairments, restructuring costs, severance, and other costs. All of these are one-time costs that are limited to the 2022 financial year. 

3. Integration Execution: Dotdash had the experience of acquiring nine entities before Meredith; however, this acquisition was different. More than 90% of Meredith’s digital audience had to be moved to a common technology platform from which Dotdash Meredith would function. However, this process took longer than expected. It also resulted in many eCommerce and ad-serving challenges that drastically affected the revenue in August and September 2022. By reducing ad volumes on migrated sites, Dotdash Meredith has consistently improved ad performance and reached CPM equivalence. As such, the company is expected to experience a stable audience. 

As noted in the above discussion, mergers and acquisitions are complicated business decisions that require a lot of planning and expertise. They come with significant challenges and complications that must be addressed during the merger. 
For major media companies, digital offers a host of new challenges and opportunities. It is a niche space with constantly evolving consumer needs and expectations. As experts in the programmatic advertising market, Publir offers a one-of-a-kind unified platform specifically built to maximize earnings for digital content creators. We provide complete solutions for Ad Optimization, AdBlock Recovery, Subscriptions, and Crowdfunding. Curious to learn more? Visit us here or email us at sales@publir.com to get started today.

The post Modern Challenges of Merging Media Companies first appeared on Publir.

Brand Anatomy and its significance

Brand anatomy defines the brand in terms of its body, soul, and mind. Brand, as a product or a service, is a concept, conceived and conveyed in words, visuals, colors, graphics, and emotions to reach the intended customer. Brand anatomy carries the brand’s legacy, including the values it cares about, interests it caters to, and ideologies it supports. Well-drafted brand anatomy shapes its personality to make it unique in the crowded marketplace, where brands compete for their identity. 

Important Functions of Brand Anatomy 

Defines

Brand anatomy unveils the basic structure and features, including what it stands for in the market. When we utter the brand name “Uber”, with the tagline “Move the way you want.” This defines its business line, stating it is a rider.

Adds Value

Apple tops Statistica’s list of brand value with $263.4 billion, followed by Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Several factors including brands behavior in the market and consumer’s perceptions towards it influence the brand value and its market share. Market share of Facebook for example suffered heavily in Q3 of 2021, following issues surrounding antitrust suits and paper leaks of the “whistle Blower” Francis Haugen. Its brand value declined following consumers’ negative perceptions. 

Fulfills your Promises

Brand names like Amazon, for example, allow the consumer to perceive the promises it made through its marketing communication, which ensures an easy online shopping experience and speedy home delivery of products purchased online, easy checkout, and a valid refund policy. These promises are inbuilt components of the brand’s anatomical structure and both the employees and the leadership must internalize these promises and should stick to them when it reaches the customer.

Shapes Consumers’ perceptions and experiences

When a customer buys a product or avail of a service they express their opinions as reviews or through repeated purchases. If the brand fails to fulfill the promises of its exchange or product return policy, the customer may approach a consumers’ forum or stop buying it again. A brand platform with solid anatomy honors the promises it made and delivers what it promises to drive the exceptional customer experience. 

Shapes the Brand Identity

Brands express their identities in the crowded marketplace using their logo, color, graphics, images, and visuals they project. Brands distinguish them using the elements mentioned above and communicate with customers through their commercials and other marketing communication, which are registered and copyrighted assets the brands own. Companies brainstorm to frame strategies with their think tanks to build solid brand anatomy.

Distinguishes and Highlights special features 

Brands convey their unique selling propositions (USP), which is an inbuilt component of its anatomy. While Netflix emphasizes delivering the best selection of TV shows and movies possible as its USP, Amazon Prime stresses unlimited free access to select items from its site in over a hundred cities. Brands can make a difference to their customers through such expressions and the services they offer accordingly, is part of the brand’s basic structure. 

Establishes Brands’ Market position

While Tesla, Ferrari, BMW, etc., are considered premium or luxury car brands, Mini Cooper, Chevrolet Malibu L, and Honda are classified as cars for middle-income groups. It is the brand’s anatomy that distinguishes a particular car as a premium category VS cars for the middle-income groups. Factors like product quality, price, and features position these car brands as SUVs, luxury, affordable for low-income groups, or cars for adventures like Formula One. Brand anatomy defines these features to position them as a product for a particular class or community.

Resonate with the messages the brands like to convey

Brand anatomy voices the message the brand would like to convey to its audience. Consider the brand names like Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and the University of Barkley. They have already established their positions as institutions that promote innovation, groom entrepreneurs, and nurture students as formidable, independent, and self-reliant individuals. Institutions convey these messages through their brand images, features, activities, and gestures. These messages are embedded in the company’s tagline, positioning statement, brand promise statement, key messages, and marketing communication. Organizations work meticulously in evolving at a messaging strategy that helps them to get emotionally connected with their existing customers and to attract new customers.

Brand Anatomy Reflects Ideologies

According to a NielsenIQ report, sales of paper towels soared high in the US, reaching $3.45 billion during the first half of 2020, up 28% compared to the first half of 2019. Legacy paper towel brands like P&G’s Bounty, Georgia-Pacific’s Brawny, and Kimberly-Clark’s Viva have shared these profits, leaving serious ecological concerns behind, as they rely on the virgin pulp for making these paper towels. They are adding pressure to the already strained environment. Is there a correlation between the product sustainability report and “Brand Anatomy”? 

As the climate crisis is daunting the communities across the globe, brands have realized their social responsibility and have pledged to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Consumer awareness to this extent to boycott the brands that intensify climate crisis is emerging gradually.

Consumers’ Perceptions to Brand Statements

According to new Forrester research data, only 34% of consumers trust brands’ commitment to the climate crisis, and YouGov research findings have revealed that 68% of British consumers are skeptical in approaching brands to enquire about their commitment to the climate crisis. However, 74% of consumers expect brands to act firmly to reduce the climate crisis. 

How Brands are Reacting to Public Demand?

Brands are expressive in revealing their policies, attitude, and stance towards racial discrimination, inclusiveness, and diversity. Brands with a global reputation have started restructuring brand anatomy to win public trust. European companies, especially within the retail and financial services sectors have started engaging chief sustainability officers and diversity officers to retain consumers’ trust. 

Agencies’ Contribution 

Market research agencies are gearing up with a brand sustainability index to gauge whether or not the brands are adhering to the norms, such as brands’ stance on the fight against tobacco and alcoholism, greenhouse gas emissions, abuse, inclusiveness, and sustainability policies. 

Clean Creatives, is one such organization that exposed a list of 90 ad agencies and PR agencies holding clients that violated climate norms since 2008. The report listed companies, including WPP, Interpublic, Dentsu and Omnicom, and several independent agencies.

Employees Take Pride to Work for Brands that Honor its promises

Agencies and brands are also reluctant to work for brands that promote tobacco, alcohol, and substances that violate communal harmony, thanks to activism, increased consumer awareness on the ill effects of substance abuse, and growing public opinion against such brands. The Marlboro Man of the 1950s that sells cigarettes is no longer an iconic model for Americans today, as they are aware of the tobacco-related cancer deaths. Agencies are not ready yet to say a “Big No” to brands that fuel oil spills and climate crisis, as they dear revenue losses

Applicants in search of job and career opportunities are seriously examining the brand anatomy and statement related to its commitment to society. They are concerned about companies’ diversity and inclusiveness policies before accepting a role. Companies like Invitae, General Motors, Salesforce, Genentech, etc., have not only made explicit inclusiveness and diversity statements but also taken initiatives to include more women and people of color in the tech world and business.  A 2021 Pew Research reported that 76% of Gen Z considers climate change one of their biggest societal concerns, and 37% consider it their number one concern. They are not examining whether or not the brands have won awards, holding prestigious clients to serve. They are rather worried about the planet that remains sustainable for the generation next. 

How to Assess Brand Anatomy?

It is possible to assess Brand anatomy based on its stand, which is reflected in its mission and vision statement, followed by brand positioning statement and market proposition statement. The entire marketing communications, starting from brand logo, color, and the product’s appearance, and its packing offer important clues to assess band anatomy. 

How do companies Frame Brand Anatomy?

Companies start with a brand definition, painting the larger picture of their vision, mission, values. To have strong brand anatomy, brands develop a strategy that is strong, clear, and positions it as a unique entity. Brands must be quick to adapt to the ever-changing marketing landscape.

Brands must pose questions like where we are today, what is our market position at present, and where are we heading to shortly? A clear and satisfactory answer to these questions frames brand anatomy. Brands build a platform that reflects brand anatomy with all essential components to tell the audience a story that helps audiences to understand, and relate to the brand. Companies must convey these values through their marketing and business process and communicate clearly without any ambiguity

 Conclusion

The business must evolve a clear-cut brand statement to mature and remain sustainable in the market. Brands with a clear vision and purpose alone can win customer loyalty. According to Amy DeMartine, VP and Research director at Forrester, “Customers will only trust brands that honor their promises. Customers believe that brands should lead the change when it comes to burning social issues. For more on brand values and positioning, read our article on how cultural intelligence promotes brand loyalty.

The post Brand Anatomy: A Road Map to Understand Brand Journey in the Crowded MarketSpace first appeared on Publir.

What is Market Research All About?

Market research is a process that lets businesses know more about the end-user of the products and services it offers. It allows a brand to create the profile or persona of its user using tools to collect useful customer information.  

Why do you need market research at all?

• The market is a dynamic entity that changes constantly and evolves every day.
• Socioeconomic, political, and cultural factors influence markets and consumers, who make buying decisions.
• You need to know where your product or service stands in the market, where hundreds of others are competing to reach your potential customers. 
• It provides insights on the unique needs of your audience so you can make decisions related to your product, including price, promotion, and the place, from where your customers can get it (3Ps).
• It provides a roadmap to help you reach your customers effectively by mitigating the challenges in your way.
• Provides insights on factors that influence customers, leading to conversion.

Types of Market research

There are two types of market research; primary and secondary research. Both serve a purpose depending on the overall goals of your research.

Primary Research

Primary research helps you to get to know more about how your product performs in the market, who your target audience is, and the geographical region in which you sell your products and services. 

You can conduct phone or email surveys, conduct polls on your social media platforms, or engage a professional agency to prepare questionnaires to collect information, based on the size of your audience and the type of information you need. 

Doing the back-end legwork allows you to approach the research with a specific set of questions to explore measurable consumer behavior and to identify potential challenges to reach them and will try to overcome those challenges. 

What types of primary research should you use?

• Close-ended, quick surveys
• Multivariate, exploratory surveys
• In-depth studies
• Observatory studies

Close-ended multiple-choice surveys are generally used to elicit the basic demographic information of your target groups, such as age, gender, income, education, and professional background. 

Multivariate, exploratory surveys use exploratory questions to dig into details beyond basic information, including customers’ opinions on your product, likes and dislikes in varying degrees and scales from 1-10, and trace customer expectations along with suggestions to improve it further. YouTube, for example, asks its viewers constantly what they would like to watch on the channel using an exploratory survey. The findings will be helpful to enhance the user experience. 

In-depth studies are conducted over an extended period, covering huge sample data for a detailed orientation. It collects qualitative information from users. For example, Mozilla did an in-depth study spanning 10 months, speaking to millions of YouTube users. It revealed detailed information on how the channel violates its algorithm. 

Observatory studies 

Observatory studies are participatory research where the researcher participates in the buying and consumption process and remains as a neutral, participant-observer to collect unbiased, first-hand knowledge on your customer. If Netflix wants to measure the consumption pattern of its existing customer, the researcher should participate in person with families to try to understand how they watch. Is it collective or individual viewing? Who controls the TV remote? Do children influence parents in picking the movies/programs? Does the viewer allow ads to run or bypass them? Participatory observation studies provide rich qualitative information on the user.

Secondary Research 

While you commission primary research to map the performance of your product, secondary research is information available for you in the public domain as open-source or beyond the paywalls. You can bank on secondary research for information on your industry, including your competitors, public policies, and the latest trends emerging in your specific market. Major organizations and government bodies regularly conduct research at a massive scale and publish it for citizens on budget allocations, changes in the labor market, and the changing demographic composition within different provinces, states, and countries. This information can help support project funding requests. 

Sources of Research Information

Public Sources

The U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor & Statistics, both offer nationwide statistics and analysis on the industries and job market and most of these sources do not charge you to access information.

Private Resources

Private sector entities, including major business houses and research organizations that take up sponsored research projects, publish vital business trends for free as well as for a subscription. Research agencies like Pew, Gartner, or Forrester provide authentic research information.

The Internet 

The internet offers several avenues for researchers and businesses alike. While open-access sites provide free information for all, paid sources offer restricted additional information that you’re unlikely to find for free.

Internal sources

The data-driven modern-day business collects metrics on customer behavior using integrated automated tools like CRMs that pump in ample insights on your existing customers, such as their purchasing patterns, spending power, customer expectations, average revenue per sale, and customer retention rates, among other things.

Important Research Tools and Techniques to Conduct Market Research

Interviews, focus-group discussions, and observation are the major research tools used to collect customer information.

Interviews

Interviews conducted in person or through virtual mode enable face-to-face interaction with the end-user. A well-structured, open-ended questionnaire helps the researcher to collect detailed customer information. You can use interviews to collect exclusive, individual opinions on your products or services that you do not want to share in public, yet use it to improve your product quality or customer experience. 

Focus Groups

If you are keen on introducing a new product or service to a new audience, you need to get multiple perspectives from the group. You should identify your prospective customer by taking their age, gender, linguistic and cultural traits into account, and then invite a diverse mix of the group for a brainstorming session or discussion, using a structured, open-ended questionnaire in hand. Record the entire session and sum up to draw insights from the discussion.

Participatory Observation

Participatory observation involves fieldwork, interviews, observation, and interaction with customers in the environment where they consume your product. It traces elements like the socioeconomic and cultural background of the customer to understand their media consumption behavior, purchasing habits, and usage.

Get Into Action

Having understood the basic research methods and techniques, you can now jump into action and conduct market research. But how do you go about it?

Set your Research Objectives

What do you want to explore out of this research? This is your research objective.  You may want to know the music preferences of Hispanic youth, aged 18-24. You should frame your objective as “Music Preferences of Hispanic Youth Aged 18-24 in said state or province.” You may need to narrow down your study to a specific geographical area by identifying the region that is predominantly Spanish. You can apply the findings to the larger population, as research studies are time-bound and focus on representative samples.

Build your target group’s business persona

It’s important to answer a few questions before you begin creating marketing materials for a specific project. Answer these basic questions before you begin, as they relate to your business. Not every piece of demographic information may be important for your purposes.

 What do you know about your target group?

• Age
• Gender
• Schooling/educational level
• Employment status
• Family background
• Music preferences
• Ideological & religious beliefs
• Sexual orientation

You need to know your audience’s persona and behaviors before you get into action. 

Identify your key informants

Amazon is aiming at expanding into health care technologies. It has FCC permission to test a device that monitors the sleeping habits of people using radars, as the intention is to develop a contactless sleep tracking device. 

How does Amazon get into action to pilot test its utilities, once the device is ready? It may choose to study the working population that operates in night shifts and their sleeping patterns in New York City’s Manhattan area. American Community Survey estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau revealed that in 2005-2009, 1.1% of Manhattan workers arrived at work between 12:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. These were “night-shift” workers. 

By handpicking a few companies with night shifts, the researcher can draw a sample of 10 each from 10 such companies to collect data on how the new device acts and tracks sleeping patterns, by linking these sensor-based devices to a monitor.

Ways to Identify Key Informers

• If you are an educational technology device marketer you can recruit students, teachers, parents, and institutions for your study. 
• Pick from your customer base, who are already using your product, including those who made a recent purchase.
• Select informants using your competitor’s product.
• Prospective customers that are observing your product and yet to make a purchasing decision can also be part of your study.
• Call for research participants in your social media account.
• Engage a contest, online quiz, or an event, inviting a set audience to participate.
• Announce coupons, incentives and recruit informants.

Depending on your research objectives, you can decide whether you need qualitative data or quantitative information. Observatory studies, group discussions, and interviews are qualitative research methods. Surveys gather quantitative data. Your research needs such as pre-testing a product before launching it are different from studying its impact once it is released in the market. This would equally determine the type of data you are supposed to collect from your informants.

Preparing Research Questions

Be it a phone interview or an online survey, you should approach your informants with a predetermined questionnaire, which may be close-ended with limited options to pick from answers or open-ended questions, that let the informant provide their own narrative response, which may be purely personal and may vary, based on the diversity of the representatives included in the study. Close-ended questions are suitable for surveys and exit polls. In-depth studies use multiple options from 1-5 to pick. All qualitative studies employ open-ended questionnaires for data collection

How to get maximum results from your respondents

• The question should only probe a topic for conversation 
• It should allow the participant to reveal his/her opinion
• Each question should be non-judgmental and not include bias from the researcher
• Questions should be unambiguous and self-explanatory
• The survey itself should not be too lengthy for the informant to digest it

A Template to Conduct a 30 Minute, Interview-based Market Research on Electric Car 

• It should include: Questions on the information such as age, gender, location, etc., must not take more than 5 minutes.
• Questions related to car design, interiors, space, and other utilities.
• Your product-related questions, such as how efficient it is .in reaching destination within the stipulated time
• What is the electricity consumption?
• Are there challenges in re-charging the battery?
• What kind of extension agent support did he get on product awareness?
• After sales-Service in installing it 
• How does the customer service respond when the user is stuck with breakdowns and repairs?
• Loan facilities and recovery
• Maintenance, warranty, and product insurance, etc.
• These questions must be able to elicit responses within the next 15 minutes.

Finally, include questions that do not consume more than 10 minutes, leading to purchasing decisions such as;

• Where the customer did acquired information on the product?
• About competitor’s product usage in surroundings
• Is the vendor’s website provided useful product information?
• What keywords did he use to search the internet, if he browsed the web?
• Are there social media forums that helped him to get information?
• Which medium of communication is highly effective in giving product features, price, utilities, and other information?
• What features of the product attracted him? How did this product provide solutions to his immediate needs?
• What are the future expectations?
• Are there any suggestions to improvise the product to suit seasonal and geographical variations?

The size of the survey or questionnaire should not be too lengthy for an interview, focus group discussion, and observation-oriented studies. You can conduct an exploratory survey with a well-structured questionnaire to collect data from 2000 customers.

For exploratory studies, you must use multi-variant answers to your questions.

For example, you are studying a viewer’s opinions on an ad campaign that promotes ‘Microsoft Edge Kids Mode’ as a safer place for children to explore the web

You can arrange questions eliciting parents’ opinions such as;

Web browsing for children is safe with regulatory measures of law-making bodies

• Strongly agree
• Somewhat agree
• Do not agree
• Strongly disagree

Parents can allow children aged 8-11 to view YouTube videos

• Strongly agree
• Somewhat agree
• Do not agree
• Strongly disagree

A researcher can seek answers to a set of general questions before getting deeper into the product-oriented questions like product quality, user experience, and how quickly it loads.  

Topics like online gaming and children’s behavior can be explored posing questions for a small group of parents for a focus group discussion. The researcher can explore aspects like: Whether online gaming leads to; 

The researcher can take professional help in preparing a questionnaire or search the internet for more information.

Wrapping-up

Surveying in a friendly environment yields you the best research outcome,  So,  it’s important to watch the body language and responses of your interview subject. Allow some concluding remarks to end your interaction with a happy note and acknowledge the time and effort of the informant with a thank you email or mention them as sources in your research repoHow and Where Do You Apply Primary Market Research Findings?

• To build the persona of your target group including their decision-making behavior.
• It provides new business leads and clues on your customer’s expectations. 
• You can apply this information on building product campaigns, promotional activities, new product launches, and expansion of your brands or revising your existing product plans.
• How and why do your customers like your product/services?
• Observing user experiences and roadblocks in using your product
• Price research to know where your product stands vs. your competitors in the market.
• For understanding your market segment
• Customer loyalty research
• Brand awareness and brand recall research
• Effectiveness of your promotional campaigns
• Competition and competitor product/service analysis

Technology offers solutions for market researchers in understanding various triggers that swing consumer behavior, and technology makes it easier than ever to reach target audiencesBorderless Access is taking behavioral and emotional research to the next level by studying social media, chat apps, and behavioral data, using machine learning algorithms to understand a respondent’s thoughts, ideas, and emotions by taking inputs from videos, images, text, and sound. 

• Automation provides actionable insights for marketers on where, what, why, when, and which channel/device and the time your consumers are using consumers using and how do they behave, to target them with messages.
• Digital advances like augmented reality, virtual reality, IoT, and Artificial Intelligence are helping the market research industry to collect data from the ever-evolving digital consumers.  
• They are handy in building customized questionnaires, and sorting sample sizes. 
• They figure out the best times to target respondents when their propensity to respond to questionnaires was the highest. 
• The tools enhanced the average engagement time by 25% and reduced the survey turnaround time by 23%. 

Final Thoughts

Data, technology, and new analytical approaches hold the key for the brands over the next five years and marketers are expected to spend $66 billion annually on them for conversions, which is up from $27 billion in 2021. Market research is imperative to understand future market trends and your customer’s ever-evolving behavior. Well-designed market research will answer all your sensitive and complex market-related questions. Agencies and technologies are out here with tailor-made solutions to meet your market research expectations.

The post Market Research in the Digital Age: A Guide and Template first appeared on Publir.

While Lucianne and her team created an excellent editorial product that continued to attract a growing audience, generating a consistent revenue stream was becoming increasingly challenging.

Publir worked closely with Lucianne’s team to create a diversified monetization strategy – a three-pronged approach for long-term success.

Ad Optimization 

We revamped the site’s existing ad layout, introduced lucrative new ad formats, and implemented cutting-edge real-time bidding technology that tapped into leading ad demand sources. The result was a 23% increase in the site’s RPMs. 

Subscriptions

By converting a portion of the regular readership to paid subscribers we were able to augment existing revenue streams by 10% and improve the average revenue per user on the site – A total increase of 467% in RPMs for subscribers, versus the RPMs generated from ads.

Fundraisers

We created a donations mechanism to enable loyal users to support their favorite authors and content pieces right on the site, resulting in an additional revenue stream reliant on direct user support. Fundraising CPMs were up to 12-times higher than comparable ad units during special appeals and on average resulted in a 7% increase in site RPMs. 

By holistically integrating Ad Optimization, Subscriptions and Fundraisers Publir significantly increased sustainable revenue for Lucianne in months. 

“We began our political aggregation web site two decades ago. We were understaffed and running out of money when a colleague suggested we consult with Publir… In six months, we have doubled our revenue and staff.”

Lucianne Goldberg

Publir powers monetization for some of the best publications on the web. Find out more about Publir’s services here.

The post Case Study: A Sustainable Approach to Revenue Optimization first appeared on Publir.