The Agency Package; Research Services for Account Coordinators

Before I get too far into this post, I want to add this small caveat:

Prices and suggestions here are dependent on the exact specifics of your project; it could cost more, or less, and we could include more or less research services in your project to help meet your clients’ needs.

We see ourselves as partners to the Agency / Client relationship; and hope to continue to position ourselves as your research consultants moving forward.

Agencies have a specific niche need for research services – you don’t necessarily need our full statistical reports, or our recommendations into the insights collected through research as you will be taking our findings, translating them, and preparing your own report and recommendations to your client. Plus, we are researchers, not advertisers, and can make recommendations to your clients that may not meet your long term brand and strategy goals.

With that in mind, below are how our research services can fit into the agency – client relationship.

Traditional Telephone Research – $4,500 – $11,000; depending on your sample size, our target market, and whether it is a list of customers or RDD telephone surveying. For this price range we help you develop a questionnaire, collect the responses, and provide quick results and some key graphical analysis into the questions that are important to you. Plus, there is no 200 page paperweight to overwhelm your client with!

Focus Groups – $6,000 – $12,000; depending on the number of groups we conduct (2,3,4), who we choose to be your moderator (Account Executives and Lead Creatives can make excellent moderators with some coaching), and the target population.

Focus groups are great for clients who need to hear the recommendations direct from their customers, as it gives them an opportunity to be closely involved by viewing the research process in real time.

Web Panel Testing – $4,500 – $6,500 for about 400 responses within Spokane County (Eastern Washington major metro) or King & Pierce Counties (Western Washington major metro); less than 400 responses if you are surveying only a small sub-segment. Using our panel of past focus group participants we can conduct a quick telephone and online survey, and provide top-line graphical reporting of the findings.

Panel surveying is faster than telephone and even online research in some instances, and can provide your clients the ability to quickly check the water on key initiatives.

Online Focus Groups – $6,000 – $12,000; interestingly, online focus groups cost about the same as traditional groups because many of the steps are similar. You have to recruit participants, retain them, moderate the discussion and rent the online space to hold your group.

Online Focus Groups are extremely appropriate for markets who are highly dispersed, where finding 10-12 people in a market to attend an in person focus group would be extremely difficult.

Ongoing Panel Management – $1,500 – $5,000; depending on the size of the panel, and what we want to do to recruit and retain them. Working with your clients to develop their own “customer advisory panel” is a great way to get them used to leveraging research to make decisions, as well as keeping a group of good customers close for quick surveys, focus groups, online focus groups, or even telephone interviews.

We recommend keeping a panel large enough that your research needs have you hitting each panelist about once a year, so you are not reaching out to the same panelists each time you conduct a quick research project, increasing the accuracy of the research when you do it. Hosting and managing a panel means that some of the other research tools will be cheaper to conduct when you do them as we will not have to spend as much time finding participants to provide feedback.

Online Survey Hosting – $300 – $1000; our online surveys are better than SurveyMonkey. You have no limits on questions, length, question skipping instructions, sample controls, branding controls, randomization… Use a real research tool when conducting surveys for your clients. We can also help you in questionnaire design, and provide unique passwords to control survey participants from samples – allowing you to use quotas!

And, the best part is you don’t pay for an annual subscription. We host the surveys from our web server in our office – offering even the most sensitive of clients the ultimate in data security.

Website and Mobile Usability Testing – $4,000 – $15,000, depending on how many test sessions we conduct. A new product for us, we have the ability to setup workstations with webcams and provide screen captures as recruits walk through your website, an online questionnaire, or a guided testing environment to test how they use websites, and web applications. “Testers” are recruited just like for focus groups, so you can target customers of your client, or people from certain problem segments to ensure your software is meeting expectations.

Intercept Surveys – $4,000 – $10,000. Intercept surveys fit in when we just don’t have lists of customers, and reaching them via telephone is cost prohibitive, and our clients have brick and mortar establishments that allow us to easily find their customers and ask them key questions (and they are willing to let us survey on-site).  Like other survey methods, we will collect the information, compile it, and provide a quick top-line report and summary graphical analysis of the results – no large statistical report.

Individual Interviews / IDI Research – $50 per sound hour of interviews or less depending on how we structure the research and recruiting plan. Interviews are recorded in full audio, and can be conducted using a questionnaire, or via focus group methods using a long form discussion guide. Reporting, if you would like us to provide an Executive Summary report is $1,000 or $1,500 per report.

Customer Data Analysis – $500 – $5,000; depending on the number of data points you’d like us to analyze. Using Tableau, an industry leading business intelligence software tool, we can take your client’s customer data and visualize it; providing insights into purchasing patterns, market segmentation, and more.

Data analysis does require that your clients collect information on their customers! If they are not now, we can work with them on developing programs that collect the right data for future strategic decisions.

Audience Testing – $2,000 to test 100 people, plus any facility, moderation, and recruiting costs if we need to help get participants into the room. A relic from the television and ad testing days, using handheld clickers much like we used to see on major television shows we can ask a group of people to provide answers to questions in real time using PowerPoint. Couple this technology with board meetings, employee groups, or even large groups of customers and you can quickly collect quantitative information in the midst of a presentation or focus group and provide even deeper insights into what the population is thinking.

All of these tools are great. The big question is, what should I use? Here is a quick reference guide to what is and isn’t appropriate for your projects.

Research Objective

Recommended Tools to Use

Client Side Requirements

Determine brand position and top of mind brand recognition within the market
  • Telephone surveys
  • Web Panel Survey
A list and understanding of their top 5 competitors
Develop strategies for ongoing brand strategy and marketing
  • Focus Groups / Online Focus Groups
  • Web Panel Survey
  • Telephone Surveys
  • Panel Development / Management
  • Individual Interviews
An understanding of what their current vision is, and what they think their vision might be going forward
Determine customer loyalty
  • Web Panel Survey
  • Focus Group
  • Online Focus Groups
  • Data Analysis
An understanding of who their customers are; if they know
Testing new price points, or products
  • Telephone survey
  • Web Panel Survey
  • Focus Groups
  • Audience Testing
  • Online Focus Groups
  • Data Analysis
  • Usability Testing
A full description or sample of the new product, service, and appropriate price points they are considering

Many projects may require a mix of one or more of these research projects to provide full analysis of you client’s market, customers, and targets. We are always available to attend client meetings, discuss appropriate research tools for your project, and more – just ask!

Contact Joanne Vega: (509) 324-4272  / joannev@strategicresearch.net