April 2008 GMI Newsletter

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Welcome to the March 2008 edition of our newsletter.

	GMI and TechTarget join forces to build premier online IT panel		Catch up on past GMI Webinar Series events
	GMI doubles the size of its Singapore consumer panel		Panel tip of the month: Three keys to successful gaming research
	DervalResearch identifies top 10 online personas in Second Life using GMI's SLIC		Quirk's GMI byline: They watch, you learn

GMI and TechTarget join forces to build premier online IT panel

GMI has struck a strategic partnership with publisher TechTarget to provide market research professionals with direct access to an even broader community of IT professionals and decision-makers worldwide. GMI built, manages and operates the TechTarget IT Research Panel, implementing modern techniques to create a high-quality double-opted in panel of real IT professionals and decision-makers who actively participate in online research.

Forrester Research estimates that global purchases of IT goods and services will equal $1.7 trillion in 2008, while total global spending on technology goods, services, and staff will reach $2.4 trillion in 2008, an 8% increase from 2007. In order to get timely visibility into how technology buyers are planning to spend that money, firms are increasingly turning to online research. The TechTarget IT Research Panel enables market researchers to gain virtually instant insights into the buying trends and decision-making process for these purchases from a wide range of respondents' perspectives.

TechTarget's own proprietary database of over 6.6 million registered users is derived from the company's 50 technology-specific websites, of which more than 2.2 million corporate IT professionals have agreed to participate in online market research. “The decision to partner with GMI was easy,” explains Dan Waggenheim, vice president, media products for TechTarget based in Needham, Mass. “We have a huge database of IT professionals, and GMI is the panel quality expert. We wanted our panel to adhere to the same rigid standards of panel integrity that GMI applies to its own online panels.”

GMI can confidently deliver completed surveys from IT professionals and technology purchasers in the USA, the UK, China, Japan, India, France and Germany to name just a few.

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Catch up on past GMI Webinar Series events

If you were unable to attend one of the last three GMI webinars, don't miss your opportunity to catch up with the following handy highlight recaps and recordings:

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GMI doubles the size of its Singapore consumer panel

At the ESOMAR APAC Conference held from April 8-9 in Singapore, GMI announced the expansion of its Singapore consumer panel from 40,000 to 85,000 double opted-in members. The panel is uniquely positioned to provide market research professionals with insights into all kinds of consumer opinions from Singapore, from new concepts to new products and services, in real time.

ESOMAR reports that total market research spend in Singapore reached USD $55 million in 2006, 16% of which was spent online, ranking Singapore 8th out of the world's top 10 countries with the highest online research spend. GMI's expanded Singapore consumer panel addresses the growing domestic and international demand from small- to medium-size firms all the way to larger industry players for online consumer research in this sophisticated and highly competitive market.

In addition to age, gender and household income, the ethnic distribution of GMI's highly profiled Singapore consumer panel is in line with the Singapore Census data, enabling researchers to gain a perfect representation of Singapore when seeking consumer opinions, and gather valuable intelligence for enhanced marketing efforts in this market.

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Panel tip of the month: Three keys to successful gaming research

If you're testing out a new gaming product or service, and need feedback from serious or casual gamers, there are three key areas you should take into account before launching your research project.

Read the tip (PDF) »
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About the GMI Gamer Panel »

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DervalResearch identifies top 10 online personas in Second Life using GMI's SLIC

Prof. Diana Derval founded DervalResearch in 2006 to offer innovative and fast-growing companies a new perspective on product development and commercialization. The acclaimed marketing research firm operating out of Amsterdam, Netherlands, helps general managers, marketers and entrepreneurs build winning sales and marketing strategies with product and technology roadmaps, positioning analyses, customer insights, business and marketing plans, opportunity and feasibility studies, case studies, workshops and seminars. Customers include Danone, Bouygues, Sara Lee and Carhs.

In 2007, DervalResearch started collaborating with GMI and experimenting novel market research techniques in Second Life (SL). In September, SLIC was born (Second Life Interview Corner). Powered by GMI's market research software platform, SLIC provides corporate brands with a brand-new perspective on conducting one-on-one research interviews in the virtual world.

“Online communities are a mass media targeted by affinity. Second Life for instance represents a potential target market of 11 million residents worldwide that should not be overlooked," explains Derval, author of the book Wait Marketing. “SLIC is a friendly, cost-effective and powerful tool to get feedback from residents when they are available and roaming in the virtual world. Because they have time, respondents don't feel like they have to rush to share their opinions, and therefore provide more honest answers to surveys. Many SL and real-life brands have expressed interest in this new and innovative way to conduct virtual research."

From August 2007 to January 2008, DervalResearch leveraged SLIC to conduct 171 individual interviews, representing more than 2,000 open-ended answers. The marketing research company detected major patterns in web communities' users, and was able to segment them into Online Personas based on their profile, behavior, motivations, expectations and the connection between their different answers. From Marc the student to Shawn the social worker, DervalResearch was able to identify and document The Top 10 Online Personas. Kim the waitress, Lynette the stay-at-home mom, and Martin the differently abled were the most unexpected Online Personas.

“Product and concept testing takes on an exciting new direction in Second Life,” continues Derval. “SL users are by definition always in interactive mode, sitting on furniture, trying on clothes, or even wandering up and down the aisles of a virtual store. It doesn't take a huge leap of the imagination to move this natural interactivity onto more formal co-creation, and picture a scenario where avatars help design and build product prototypes as part of the market research process.”  

“Our immersive work with GMI in Second Life shows that a lot more is possible than just conducting simple online surveys,” concludes Derval. “As virtual environments themselves are getting increasingly sophisticated, with the right combination of technical prowess and imaginative thinking, marketers and market researchers will be able to provide survey experiences in virtual worlds unlike any we've seen before.”

Pre-order a complimentary copy of the IIR paper »
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Quirk's GMI byline: They watch, you learn

In this GMI byline published in Quirk's Marketing Research Review this month, Vice President Jon Puleston discusses the pros and cons of eye tracking vs. click testing.

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