dsmt - research

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/breatheindigital/4689159475


Digital Strategist’s Mental Toolkit:Research_


This section will cover• Research value, challenges• Client, business and trend research

– How to gather it – free and paid tools– Tools to aggregate and save

Key points_


• Research is a support tool– Focused, not carpet bomb– Use only that data that is applicable– Avoid the stats with big numbers that are irrelevant – Canadian vs US data

Value of research_


Good research faces ongoing challenges• Shift in client desire to spend• Multiple sources• Tiered access to report materials• Time to market• Canadian vs US data

Research challenges_


• Ask for everything• Issues with client research

– Predefined, so no input on the research– Results have already been defined, interpreted– Quality varies

• Clients increasingly looking optimize their research spend

Client research_


• Easy guerilla techniques – directional only– Journals with internally recruited resources– Shared blog resources– Friends of friends – SurveyMonkey and Google survey tools

Guerilla techniques_


Paid (examples)• Forrester • eMarketer • Euromonitor• comScore• Hoovers• Strategy Eye

List of tools: Paid_


Free (examples)• Google

– Alerts– Marketing tools

• StatsCan• Whitepapers• Summaries of paid reports

List of tools: free_


Trend research_

1. Keep your finger on the pulse2. Find the anomalies


Trend research: Tech Sources_

• PandoDaily• TechCrunch• ReadWriteWeb• AllThingsD• Mashable• Technology Review• Fast Company • Wired


Trend research: Sources_

• PSFK• Trendhunter• Cool Hunting• WMMNA• Trendwatching.com


• Evernote – Save everything– Indexing– OCR– Multiple file options

Tracking and indexing_


• Instapaper– Read articles later in text

only format– Tag, archive and search



• Flipboard – Excellent aggregation– Personal curation


dsmt - research

Business

client research

trend research

research challenges

research value

value of research

good research

research results

research spendphoto