The wired bunch: Online surveys and focus groups might solve the toughest problems in market research. But can Internet users really speak for everyone?

American Demographics, June, 1997 by Brad Edmondson

Online surveys and focus groups might solve the toughest problems in market research. But can Internet users really speak for everyone?

When Tee Ann Hunter is asked to participate in a survey, she usually does. "I don't mind market research, as long as I can see or hear the person I'm talking to," she says. She spends $50 on takeout food and $150 on groceries every week, plus about $200 a month on clothes for her three children, so her opinion is valuable to marketers. Yet she may never surf the Net, which could ultimately make her less visible to market researchers.

Hunter has a professional job and computers at work and home, but they aren't hooked up to the Internet or an online service. "The kids can go online at school, but I don't allow it at home because it's too hard to control. There's so much garbage out there," she says. "Myself, I have no need for it. I like to go out and do things. I don't understand people who 'surf' the Internet and send little messages back and forth. Maybe they don't have enough to do."

Meanwhile, millions of Americans discover the online world every year. About 23 percent of people aged 16 and older in the U.S. and Canada have used the Internet in the last month and have access today, according to the January 1997 wave of an ongoing survey by CommerceNet and Nielsen Media Research. In the fall of 1995, only 10 percent had used the Internet in the three months prior to the survey.

As the number of Internet users grows, their demographic profile becomes more similar to that of the average American. About 58 percent of current Internet users are men, compared with 66 percent in fall 1995. About 39 percent of users hold professional or managerial jobs, down from 50 percent in 1995. On the whole, though, Internet users are still an elite group. Fewer than 18 percent of all Americans aged 16 and older hold professional or managerial jobs, for example.

Despite their current bias toward the young, the male, and the affluent, Internet users are seen as a godsend in the troubled field of market research. About 17 percent of marketers surveyed who work in some of the 2,000 largest U.S. companies have used data from online surveys, according to an October 1996 study by the Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO). Most of those who have used online surveys expect to use more of them in the future, and 42 percent of marketers who have not conducted research online expect to try it within five years. "As a researcher, I am agog at the potential for this new tool," says Nick Tortorello, a senior vice president at Roper Starch Worldwide, Inc. and CASRO committee chairman.

Believers in online market research say it is usually less expensive than a survey taken by phone, mail, or personal interview. It can deliver results from a large number of respondents literally overnight. It can find hard-to-reach groups, such as the owners of specific models of products, with relative ease. Almost every form of market research has now been tried online, from the simplest demographic surveys to the most complex focus groups and new-product research.

As firms rush to master this new marketing tool, the opinions of wired Americans are likely to affect more marketing decisions. But can Internet users really speak for everyone? And if they do, who is going to pay attention to people like Tee Ann Hunter?

WHY RESEARCHERS LOVE ONLINE

The quiet crisis in market research is that most Americans now refuse to be surveyed. About two-thirds of households have a telephone answering machine, and about half of householders sometimes use their answering machine to screen their calls, according to a 1995 study by CASRO. When they are contacted by telephone, about six in ten Americans refuse to answer survey questions. This problem is getting worse in a hurry. In a 1988 study, the refusal rate for telephone research was about four in ten. The situation is also grave for surveys taken face-to-face or by mail. The Census Bureau assumes that about four in ten U.S. households that receive a 2000 census form won't fill it out, even though they are legally required to do so.

Online research sidesteps the non-cooperation problem because all responses are voluntary and filled out by respondents at their leisure. There's no need to hire and train interviewers, and no chance that an interviewer's mistake will taint the results. No one's dinner is interrupted by an unwelcome phone call. In fact, the best times to collect online responses include late evenings and holidays. "We put up a study on Good Friday and had 2,400 completed forms on Monday morning," says Steve Cook, senior vice president for Greenfield Online Research Center in Westport, Connecticut. "People go home over the weekend, relax, and return their e-mail."

Greenfield Online has a "panel" of about 200,000 online users. Members fill out a short survey on their demographic characteristics, product use, and computer use; the company draws survey samples from this pool and offers participants cash or the chance to win a prize. "Our panel members are usually research virgins," says Cook. "They refuse other forms of research but participate in online research because it's not intrusive. They feel good about participating. We don't get a lot of pattern answers, which indicates that people take the time to think about the questions. And we get incredible open-ended comments."