The Handbook of Online Marketing Research: Knowing Your Customer Using the Net [Hardcover]

Joshua Grossnickle (Author), Oliver Raskin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0071361146 | ISBN-13: 978-0071361149 | Publication Date: September 11, 2000 | Edition: 1

The Handbook of Online Marketing Research examines all the latest techniques and trends used to conduct online research, including how to leverage existing sources, online chat-based sessions, email feedback, online focus groups, and much more. Now, just like larger companies, small– and medium–sized companies can learn vital information like the age, gender, and income of its users, and how they respond to different aspects of the products and those of its competitors. With the advent of the Internet, companies of all sizes and budgets can conduct online market research and access all the information they need to know to stay ahead of the competition. This book demonstrates how both large and small companies can take proven traditional market research techniques and adapt them to the Web. The result is an affordable means for businesses to understand their online customers’ needs.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...it'll lead you to the latest demographic data and Net statistics - key ingredients in moving your venture toward new customers." -- Wired, Feb 2001

"...until The Handbook of Online Marketing Research, there was never a better way to help develop the programs to understand and reach those customers." -- Andrew L. Anker, General Partner, August Capital

"Finally, a thorough and comprehensive resource for understanding the role of online marketing research!" -- Jocelyn Ritchie, Director of Research, ZDNet

"The definitive resource for anyone developing an online venture." -- Luke Knowland, Director of Product Development, Eyetide Media, and Cofounder, Webmonkey

"The only way to stay ahead is to understand your users. This handbook will give you the tools and the knowledge to do just that." -- Jeffrey Veen, Executive Director, Interface, Wired Digital

"The only way to stay ahead is to undertand your users. This handbook will give you the tools and the knowledge to do just that." -- Jeffrey Veen, Executive Director, Interface, Wired Digital

From the Back Cover

It's the first rule of business: Know your customer. This adage especially applies online, where hyper-paced development, marketing, and intense competition leave little room for mistakes. Cumbersome and expensive, traditional marketing research methods are ill-suited to this environment. To fill the void, an array of effective and inexpensive online marketing research techniques and products have been developed. By leveraging these new tools, any business of any size can capture reliable, detailed customer information fast, and for a fraction of the cost of traditional offline methods. This book shows you how. In The Handbook of Online Marketing Research, two pioneers in the field share the latest techniques for conducting research online and show you how to gather the vital customer information that is crucial to your company's success. You'll learn how to use the Internet to survey large numbers of consumers quickly and cost-effectively, and how to retrieve levels of information previously unavailable at any price. Authors Joshua Grossnickle and Oliver Raskin explain the fundamental types of marketing research and detail the techniques of sampling, data collection, and questionnaire design that are used to conduct this research online. They introduce a research process designed to ensure that all of your efforts result in useful, actionable information, and explain how to apply that information to all phases of product conception, development, and marketing. Their handbook walks you through: Defining and understanding the market; Developing target markets; Assessing your competition and positioning your product; Developing and testing new product concepts; Creating feature sets and testing interface designs; Measuring ROI. The Handbook of Online Marketing Research opens your eyes to the vast potential of online research and gives you the hands-on experience you need to put that potential to work for your organization. So don't wait. Start using this indispensable resource today!

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 433 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (September 11, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071361146
• ISBN-13: 978-0071361149
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,861,792 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Top resource for reaching and responding to your customers, February 27, 2001

By 

"rhopewell" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Handbook of Online Marketing Research: Knowing Your Customer Using the Net (Hardcover)

This book is packed with good information. I saw the review in Wired,
and couldn't agree more. I've been using the resources identified in
the book and on the companion website. My company did a little
research with some free web survey technology, which wasn't very
useful. Not only does this book explain why (in a way I can
understand and explain to my managers) but it also explains how to do
it right. Lots of good examples thrown in as well. We're gearing up
to run some surveys, and so far, all is well. ... -- I suppose this
book isn't for statisticians, but then, the authors say that up front.
All in all, this is one of the better "how to" books I've
seen for the web.

31 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars How to NOT conduct web surveys, February 14, 2001

By 

"webfielding" (Scottsbluff, NE United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Handbook of Online Marketing Research: Knowing Your Customer Using the Net (Hardcover)

If you are a professional market researcher this book is far too elementary. For instance, you probably don't need standard deviation explained to you.

If you are a web developer, the examples seem downright amateurish. For instance, the authors provide some Javascript code for selecting website visitors at random, with the instruction that you will need to change variables for it to work for your purposes. That's what functions that accept parameters are for: then you can leave the core code alone and re-use it as often as you want.

Worse yet, the authors refer to "Tickle" as an alternative to ASP or CGI. It would seem they have not done their research. It's "Tcl", or Tool Command Language. Yes it is pronounced "Tickle", but the fact that they don't know how to spell it would seem to indicate they have only heard about it and haven't read anything about it, which is further supported by their assertion that Tcl/Tickle needs to run on Windows. This is patently untrue: like Perl (not "Pearl") it was originally developed for Unix and only more recently has been ported to Windows.

This book is especially at its worst if you have both market research and web development experience. For instance, the authors suggest using cookies and javascript for randomizing sample to avoid bias. However, they never mention that users can turn off both of these features. Excluding people who turn off cookies and Javascript would introduce a similar bias as not reaching unlisted numbers in telephone research.

Now that I've bought this book, the only value I can see that I will get from it is for examples about how not to do web surveys.

27 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Online Market Research for Dummies, February 17, 2001

By 

"deernuts" (North America) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Handbook of Online Marketing Research: Knowing Your Customer Using the Net (Hardcover)

At best this book is a very general overview of market research concepts that are not even specific to online surveys. For instance, don't "lead" the respondent.

Its best isn't very good though. For instance, the authors repeatedly refer to Excel as a bona fide analysis tool. No professional worth his or her salt would use such a tool for this purpose.

At its worst this book is full of misinformation about web development. Before I bought this book, I wish I could have read the review that points out the authors' total misconception about Tcl, or "Tickle" as they call it.

Even more incredibly, there is an entry for "Tickle" in the index!

If you are at an intermediate level or higher in either market research or web development, this book is completely worthless.