Tag Archives: Panelists

Cint increases access to medical professionals through new partnerships

Posted on by

Cint, a global provider of market research solutions, has increased its access to the opinions of thousands of healthcare professionals in the US through a new partnership with DMD (Delta Marketing Dynamics) and an extension to its existing collaboration with ImpactRx (a Symphony Health Solutions Company).

The DMD survey panel is comprised of over 5,000 individuals working within retail pharmacies, primarily pharmacy managers or senior level staff as well as 1,300 acute-care pharmacists working within hospitals, the majority directors or clinical pharmacists. The ImpactRx panel consists of a wide cross-section of over 100,000 medical professionals, with particular specialties in primary care, general medicine and individuals working within retail pharmacies.  Also available are other professionals who assist with the overall management of a patient’s healthcare, including nurse practitioners, nurses, office managers and technicians. These new partnerships mean any organization working within the healthcare spectrum, whether pharmaceutical companies or cosmetic brands, researchers or marketers, can obtain the opinions of this audience, simply and easily through Cint’s innovative technology.

Over 100,000 medical professionals across the US will now be within reach to help brands improve varying elements of their business activity, from new product development to forming a marketing strategy. 

Cint’s ground-breaking technology allows brands easy access to the opinions of over 7.5 million people in 50 different countries. Cint specializes in DIY research, whereby marketers and brand managers can deploy an online survey in less than seven minutes to individuals that match their exact profiling requirements. This new panel means brands looking to ascertain the opinions of a specific group of experts in a particular medical field, can do so themselves in a simple, cost effective and transparent way. 

Bo Mattsson, chief executive of Cint, comments: “Many organizations, such as pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers of specialist equipment and public sector decision makers will often require the opinion of a healthcare professional.  However, obtaining an informed opinion from this audience, whether it is a dermatologist, a pain specialist or an optometrist, can be a challenging process, due to the pressures and time constraints on these individuals, and traditional market research methods such as focus groups can be ineffective.

“These new partnerships with DMD and ImpactRx means specific groups of experts can be targeted entirely online and, therefore, they are able to provide their responses and opinions within a timeframe that suits them. Through our open platform, Cint OpinionHUB, researchers can connect directly with these individuals, deploying a survey to a highly targeted demographic.” 

Panel partner spotlight: Embee Mobile, Hiving and eResearch Global

Posted on by

It’s time to shine the light on a few more of our 500 panel partners. This time, we’d like to highlight three global companies that have made it possible for you to access their group members and ask for their opinions.

Embee Mobile Inc. a privately held US company building panels in several countries. One in India has over 12,500 members after being live for only a month! Recruitment is done through Embee’s Facebook app and incentives are given in form of Embee Points.

Hiving is a French company with panels in several countries, including one in Germany with 8,000 members and a response rate of over 40%.The panels consist of general population and used double opt-in recruiting through emails, banners as well as referencing.

The US company, eResearch Global, specializes in online research and has panels in 46 countries available within OpinionHUB. Response rates (RR) average between 30-60 %. To mention a few, you can reach 1,200 respondents in Chile with 52% RR, 2,200 in India with 48 % RR and 1,100 in Argentina with 56% response rate.

To find out how you can Access your target group or to Engage your audience with survey opportunities, connect with us today through learnmore@cint.com

Panel partner spotlight: ArcaMax, Filmow and Glaxes.com

Posted on by

As you may already know, one of the main reasons Cint is so successful is our 500 panel partners utilizing Cint Engage globally. These partnerships are what allow us to reach 7 million unique individuals willing to give their opinions.

We wanted to share some of the panel groups with you so you get an idea of who you can reach through Cint Access.

The publisher ArcaMax currently has three panels with us in Canada, the UK and US. With 12,000 members recruited through emails, their response rate sits around 40 percent. ArcaMax readers receive daily newsletters on topics like recipes, horoscopes and comics.

The social community filmow.com recruits film-lovers in Brazil. On the site they can share their views and comments on films and TV-series. Through the partnership with Cint, now panelists can offer their opinions on much more. Only registered members of Filmow are allowed to join the survey panel and so far over 6500 “movie buffs” have joined. They are ready to answer your surveys in Brazilian Portuguese!

 The German access panel provider Glaxes.com (Untiedt Research GMBH) has made panel groups in several countries available to buyers in Cint Access. In Poland, you can reach 55.000 individuals, 70.000 in Russia and over 60.000 in Germany. Glaxes provides panels in 8 countries all recruited through different local sites devoted to surveys and testing.

 We’ll share news about our panel groups and panel partners on a regular basis – but don’t forget you can get the latest information by using Cint Access!

Time Travelling

Posted on by

Last weekend, I took an early Saturday morning flight over to the “new world.” My aim was to visit both a market research conference and an advertising technology event to clearly see the differences between the two industries. It’s almost like accomplishing time travel.

Cint is in the borderline between market research and cutting-edge technology. Naturally the MR industry can’t jump on every new thing like in the ad industry. The representativeness and volume of research in niche audiences adapted for new technology is way too low. This causes the focus on topics and products in the different industries being completely different. The MR industry appears to still be in the Stone Age, still wanting to peak at social media, mobile and integration over platforms, etc.

For Cint, we feel very much at home in the advertising space since ad exchanges have been around for a long time and this is the way to reach out to audiences. In the research industry, it is still something new and different. Although, as it’s getting tougher to generate value through traditional online panels, reasons most due to exhausting them by not treating respondents with respect, companies turn to river. Most river sources are the same ad exchanges that we see at the ad technology conferences out there.

The difference for Cint to run an exchange in the MR industry compared to the advertising industry is quite large since we have to follow the rules of engagement; pay out incentives and frequency of invitations are a couple for example. There are a lot more “quality” aspects one has to think about which makes it far more complex. We still generate a lot of value from our panels though due to the level of respect we show them, always pay incentives, etc.

I do think the MR industry has a lot to learn from the advertising industry and vice versa. There are effective ways to integrate systems to expand your reach which we take from the fast moving industry. Although you have to understand your audience not to bias your sample frame in the data you collect where the MR industry is far more advanced.

I think there is a threat we stay too much in our own bubble so I invite our colleagues in the MR industry to wander out to other industries to learn what synergies we can get. Cint is in the business to have as a wide a reach as possible and to reach out to consumers in their natural environment. We do this by utilizing trusted brands to which respondents have a high affinity and give them as a high motivation as possible to respond to reach the other 95% that do not belong to traditional access panels. We can all learn a lot from the ad industry and new technology.

STOP This Madness

Posted on by

Guest blogger Charles Pearson, Managing Director of EasyInsites, Ltd.

There is a lot of talk about new market research methodology. More specifically, how we all need to get involved in doing things differently, thinking in a new way, monitoring social networks to understand consumers, abandoning our old ways and the big one – stop fielding surveys! However, correct me if I am wrong, but the main requirement of companies today (which is not much different than in the past) is to be able to quantify a result that is accurate and reliable in order to make better business decisions. In most companies, these business decisions are associated with new product development, programming content, pricing, promotions, positioning, advertising, communication and the like. These business decisions and the resulting research requirements have not gone away, so how is it that we are somehow going to walk away from running quantitative surveys which are the most reliable and robust way in which to obtain these answers?

Small panels are good, but not a golden ticket
Further, when it comes to custom panels and research communities (I use these terms interchangeably), some in our industry advocate small panels — with 300 to 500 members – claiming that this is the ideal number to gleam insights. My question is what kind of insights? These same small panels are often being used for quantitative research and because of the various profiles contained within these panels, and the need to select from these depending on the research objectives, the total number of completed interviews on which interpretation and decisions are being based is often in the single digits! There is a natural inclination to use these small research communities for this purpose because these type research communities which involve a substantial amount of active and on-going moderation and management on the part of the supplier and client are very costly so because of this very large investment, clients want to use them for as many purposes as possible. However, this is very dangerous and likely results in a lot of misleading conclusions being drawn.

Engagement is the key
I am not sure why clients are at all concerned about having panels that are too large. There really is no rational reason for concern if you use the Cint Panel Exchange (CPX) platform to build and maintain your panel database and, if desired, open your panel to other researchers.
This serves two key benefits:

1. Keep panelists sufficiently engaged and active so that they are ready and waiting when the panel owner itself has research they would like to conduct with them.
2. Revenue share helps to offset any on-going costs associated with the maintenance of their panel and their own research needs.

Custom panels are built on engagement
Custom panels can still be highly targeted and specialised even if they seek to be large enough to accommodate a broader base of research needs and requirements. For example, one of the more recent panels that we at EasyInsites have built is for Premier Foods (the largest independent food manufacturer in the UK) – the Premier Chefs panel. It is comprised of chefs across the UK – over 1300 of them currently – who are interested in voicing their opinions regarding their needs and preferences across a wide variety of food and food ingredient/preparation categories.

How the Premier Chefs panel is engaged

Premier Chefs members also enjoy being able to see what other chefs think, something that is accomplished through both quick polls as well as feeding back results including how these results are being used by Premier Foods. Members are also able to obtain other value-add features on the website such as access to a recipe database and the opportunity to view and comment on a Chef’s blog, all of which contributes to improved engagement and therefore responsiveness to research invitations and reduced attrition. Although Premier Foods has and continues to use this panel extensively, they are continuing to invest in further recruitment to double or even triple the panel size in the coming months. They have also now decided to make it “visible” on CPX for those who are interested in running research with this specialty audience. Premier has made the investment, and now the vast array of other companies operated in the Food Service sector within the UK market can benefit by procuring sample from this panel.

Market research as an industry has expressed concerns about relevance and contribution. Whilst it is worthwhile to continue to explore new ways in which we can contribute, I for one think that we should not abandon the tried and true and that we need a shot in the arm of pragmatism and realism. Custom panels that are built to a size that makes them fit for purpose can and should become every company’s reality.

Who is answering your survey?

Posted on by

I entered the market research space around 10 years ago with a naive mindset on how things should be done. For example, how do you treat individuals? Or how do you keep interest up amongst very selective audiences?

It turns out, there’s a lot of common sense behind how to treat people answering surveys. What to do and what not to do. In my mind, the market research space is quite far from understanding the individuals actually taking surveys. Something, you’d think, they should be extremely knowledgeable about since they are in essence guiding companies about user and buying behavior.

I still find it shocking that as a respondent, you get online surveys that take 30-60 minutes to finish. The attention span of someone browsing the web is a lot shorter than someone answering the phone or receiving a survey in the mail.

There are a couple of unspoken truths in the industry.

Imagine if you take random group of 10 people from the street.
Call them up once a day and ask them to answer questions for 30 minutes. Be fair to them and pay them a good dollar for their time.

How many do you think would still answer your call tomorrow?
Maybe 7 out of 10, if you’re lucky. So go ahead and survey them for 30 minutes and pay them another dollar.

Repeat this every day for a full week.

The next Monday how many do you think will answer your call?
I wouldn’t. But then again, I work in the research space and should not have qualified in the first place.

This is the reality for a lot of online access panels. I could guess that the input of the panels is somewhat diverse, talking about recruitment sources and not just buying space in the same ad network claiming they recruit from Facebook. But who will actually stay in the panel after one month?

This is why it’s important to treat individuals in panels with respect. Don’t scare them away with asking them to sit down for over half an hour to answer your questions. I won’t even go into grid surveys and repeat questions where you ask the same things and just replace the brand name -   brand by brand by brand…

So who do you want answering your survey?
Only the 5% of people that can take the abuse described above and still answer surveys for a dollar?
Or do you want to reach people from all types of individuals in the population who are still interested in taking surveys, not only for the incentive but also since they are treated with respect and want to share their opinion and feels it matters?

Ask yourself this next time you see a CPI of $1.25. Also,question if the respondent who only gets 2-4 surveys a month, is engaged enough in the subjects he being asked about to be able to answer effectively. It would also be interesting to learn if he has a strong affinity to panel he signed up with or if it was just to earn that dollar…

Panel Care

Posted on by

I just got off of a panel sales call and it fired me up. It was one of those moments that I love. A moment that re-confirms our panel care practices is, bar none, the best in the business.

Why you might ask. Well, let me shed my impressions on the panel space as it pertains to Cint. First and foremost we care about panelists more than most in the data collection space. We thank them for their time spent with real rewards they can redeem. Sweepstakes are never an option for us when we are engaged in managing the incentive process. Rather, we provide cash for every minute spent. In essence we tell our panelist we value them and more importantly we value their time. What does this get us in the end; happy RESPONDING panelists. I recently did an exercise where I averaged out the response rate of our 600 plus panels . We have an astonishing response rate of over 30%. Some panels are over 50%. This is unheard of, and I know because I’ve been in the business a long time.

Another reason why our response rates are so high is because our redemption levels are reasonable without unnaturally driving “hyper” participation. I can’t grasp how panels get away with “you will get your reward when you reach $20”. What is that saying? Complete 40 surveys to get your reward. Is that really going to happen? Should we be striving toward this with our sampling practices anyway? In this model, one can’t help but send six survey invites a day. Bottom line, toying with people’s time, not valuing their efforts and misrepresenting benefits of panel membership risks our industry’s reputation and the consumer willingness to participate in survey research for the long term.

Honestly I’m frustrated by this (I’m sure you couldn’t tell). What happens when we need respondents in 2014? Will they be responsive? Will we get the work done? Maybe I should just stop now because I know Cint will thrive seeing we take care of our people. But what about the overall pool of responders out there? I could be greedy and just allow us to grow and be one of the few that can sustain for the long term, but I can’t be that way. I care too much about the industry to let everyone destroy our future, the people who take surveys.

All I can hope for is others will soon care and start to question the practice of some panel companies. Let’s hope that “buyer” will say, “please don’t sell that 35 minute study to me for $1.75, all your will do is kill that person for the next time I need them.” Maybe the message will be delivered as people start saying “no” to sample practices that don’t value the actual respondents.

Tom Mitchell-Taverner: A logical evolution

Posted on by

Tom Mitchell-Taverner of Cint Australia give us his view on Cint and the future of market research. Originally written for the Cint newsletter, July issue.

At first glance the Cint Panel Exchange appears to present a dichotomy. On one hand we sell quality online sample. On the other hand we help clients build their own panels so they don’t need to buy sample ever again. How can this be?

The answer lies in what inspired me to join Cint back in 2007 while I was at my first ESOMAR conference in Kuala Lumpur. At that time I had just joined Sydney based Taverner Research as Quality Manager and was learning the ropes of the market research industry – I had also recently returned from a period working as the Quality Manager for an architectural company in London. I had long since put my Architectural career on hold.

From my impartial standpoint at the conference, the Cint Panel Exchange platform stood out from the crowd as the logical evolution in online research. It appeared to be designed specifically to give researchers more choice.

Three years later I found myself in Stockholm, eating varmkorv (Swedish hotdogs) and enjoying a company induction alongside a number of industry leaders including Charles Pearson and Stephen Hughes. I was on my way to becoming the agent for Cint in Australia and New Zealand.

Even now the brilliance of the Cint platform astounds me – a central exchange, a pool of independent panels, and research tools accessible from any web browser 24/7. Cint provides sample buyers with desktop access to sample and a choice from a range of panels (or to sample across them all), making us not only the most convenient but the most transparent panel supplier in the market. Cint also provides a sophisticated panel management solution, one that not only eliminates panel management overheads, but generates a completely new income stream for panel owners and research agencies.

For too long traditional access panels have been siphoning off an increasing share of the global research spend. For savvy research agencies, Cint provides the tools to claw some of this back and have influence once again over quality.

We recently reached 120,000 active panelists in Australia, and are well on the way to achieving 200,000 by the end of the year. Beyond sample size, my plan for the coming year is to make the Exchange the most representative panel (pool of panels) in Australia. Not just nationally representative by age, gender and location, but by social values, interests, cultural backgrounds, and importantly, by motivation for participation.

Cint has the tools and resources to achieve this ambitious goal, not simply through traditional river sampling or advertising, but from pre-existing communities that are not traditionally predisposed to online research.

Not so much a dichotomy, instead a chameleon. Online sample that represents the profile of the entire population, and a platform that can be anything to anyone.

For me, it is the future.

Regards,

Tom Mitchell-Taverner
email: tom [dot] mitchell [a] cint [dot] com
twitter: @CintAustralia
linkedin: Tom Mitchell-Taverner