Corporate culture can help drive business results, but it takes a cultural audit to differentiate which elements of the culture can lead to superior performance.
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Focus Groups
Which Participants to Select
What you need is to listen to a cross-section of your audience to hear what you haven’t heard before from the people who don’t usually come across your path.
Cultural differences and research
Before conducting research beyond your own country’s borders, it’s important to consider a number of cultural differences that have significant implications for the success of the research.
The Top Ten Measurement Mistakes
Measurement is becoming a common performance expectation for communication managers, but many have little formal training in this management process. To help you get the most out of research and measurement, Angela Sinickas lists the ten most common mistakes.
Practitioner’s perspective
Issues to consider for in-house communicators who are considering conducting their own research, whether focus groups or surveys.
Measuring the brand internally
Advertising and marketing lay a strong foundation for perception of a brand, at least until people have contact with a company. Once people buy products or interact with company employees, their long-term impressions will be shaped by their experiences. Employees need to internalize the company brand or its image will suffer.
How to keep focus groups focused
Focus groups often explore a rather broad range of themes. Try conducting focus groups on a very narrow issue: exactly what your audience thinks of a particular communication, either one that’s currently available or one you’re planning to distribute soon.
Offline research: still a good idea
Instead of conducting interviews or focus groups in person, you might choose to have your participants all log on to a chat room set up for conducting a live discussion. The facilitator poses questions online and probes for more details as participants type in their responses.