3 Digital Market Research Best Practices as Told by Beyoncé GIFs

I’ll be honest—I’ve had a file of Beyoncé gifs sitting on my desktop for months and when the opportunity to write this blog came along I might have celebrated with a poorly executed Single Ladies dance.

“What does Beyoncé have to do with conducting market research in the digital world?” you’re probably asking. Excellent question! Anyone who’s watched “Lemonade” 500 times (yes, that’s a normal number of viewings) can tell you that, like many online research methods, she is agile, powerful, and full of nuanced insights.

Let’s see what else Queen Bey has to teach us about online market research.

1. Don’t Forget About Mobile

In 2015, mobile-only internet users surpassed desktop-only users for the first time. The prevalence of consumers who rely on smartphones for everything from banking to survey-taking should only increase as the mobile web becomes a progressively more viable alternative to traditional desktop or laptop browsing.

Researchers have to take mobile respondents into account—whether that means adjusting the scope of the research to exclude mobile users, optimizing stimuli for mobile viewing, or shortening question/prompt text to minimize scrolling.

2. Keep an Eye on Quality

To assume that the quality of online respondents is necessarily inferior to those recruited via phone or in-person is unfair. Still, the medium dictates a higher level of care to minimize under-engaged or misleading online participants.

At GutCheck, reviews of data quality and hands-on moderation play a big role in ensuring quality results, but research design can also be a good way to get those top-notch responses you need. This could include phrasing screening criteria in such a way that respondents aren’t easily led to the “correct” answer, or just keeping studies engaging so that participants aren’t tempted to provide lackluster responses.

3. Move Fast, but Leave Time to Reflect

Here at GutCheck, speed is kind of a big deal, as it should be for most online researchers. Agility is one of the key benefits of online vs. traditional methodology, and it would be counterintuitive not to take advantage of that.

However, when you move so quickly, it can be easy to skip the reflection on lessons learned, an important part of any research process. Different projects and studies dictate different approaches and, when you’re agile, you sometimes execute unfamiliar methodology at the time. Internalizing those brave new approaches to reflect and create best practices is essential.

Take a second. Think about it. Aspire to be as introspective as Bey.

And, because I haven’t used all of my Yoncé gifs yet, here are some of her greatest animated hits:

I hope that was as empowering for you as it was for me.

GIFs aside, if you want to see more best practices, take a look at our projective techniques eGuide.