Surveys On The Go^®, MFour’s trail-blazing mobile research app, continues to ride high with consumers and tech tastemakers alike, eight years after its launch. SOTG’s latest distinction is making CNET Magazine/Download.com's list of the “8 best moneymaking apps to earn cash in 2019.”

Tech writer Joshua Rotter made the picks, so kudos to him for recognizing excellence. We also appreciate his emphasis on data privacy. Rotter noted that in addition to providing an engaging way to earn money while being heard by Fortune 1000 companies as they hone the creation, refinement and marketing of products and services, SOTG users enjoy a guarantee to protect and never sell their Personal Identifying Information (PII).

In fact, a key distinction of SOTG versus many other sources of consumer data is an assurance that app-users’ identities and demographic information will be protected and used only in aggregated form, combined with survey answers from all other participants in a given survey.

We should note that while individual experts’ opinions of Surveys On The Go^® carry weight, the aggregated opinions of multitudes of app users count the most. On that score, SOTG has long been the top mobile survey app, with average all-time ratings of 4.6 stars out of 5 on Google Play and 4.5 at the Apple iOS App Store. 

Why does it matter? The quality of the data depends on the quality of the survey experience and the size of the consumer panel available to take surveys. We always work hard to give the 2.5 million U.S. consumers who have downloaded SOTG the best experience, and we’re always grateful for their participation and support. The best in market research depends on them.

As Pew Research Center has documented, consumer insights research needs to be mobile to reach the representative slices of the public that successful market research requires. But there's a deeper layer of understanding insights professionals must master to get mobile right. Here are some tips as you explore mobile research solutions: 

• Understand why “mobile research” is not a generic term.

• Learn the key differences between the two kinds of mobile – “mobile optimized” (also called “mobile web”) and mobile-app.

• Be aware that “mobile optimized” research is traditional online research conducted on smaller devices. It’s a new vehicle for the same old online research environment.

• Consider data that shows consumers' overwhelming preference for the mobile-app environment over the mobile-web environment.  

• eMarketer reports that U.S. adult smartphone owners’ average daily mobile app usage exceeded mobile web usage by a ratio of 5.6 to 1 in 2017 – 145 minutes for apps, and 26 minutes for mobile web.

• This year, the gap is predicted to grow to 6 to 1 as time spent rises 6.9% for apps while staying level for mobile web.

The decisive takeaway is that when you’re talking about consumers inhabiting a mobile environment, you’re actually talking about people living in the mobile-app environment. Asking them to take surveys via the mobile web is tantamount to not using mobile at all.  

To dig deeper into the differences between mobile-app research and mobile-web/mobile optimized research, check out this blog post, “Mobile 101: Why Native App Technology Beats `Mobile’ Optimized.” Or you can set up a one-on-one demo to explore the whole story about how MFour’s mobile-app solutions can meet your own specific research needs. Just click here.

Consumer insights professionals need to understand today’s consumers in their natural environments, and by now they know that means reaching them on mobile.

Recent readership statistics reported by the Assn. of Magazine Media affirm just how big and necessary the mobile ecosystem has become for anyone who needs to engage consumers. The study shows that mobile devices continue to achieve separation from desktops and laptops as U.S. consumers’ choice for magazine content.  

• The association's Brand Audience Report for March says that 32.2% of the month’s 553.6 million magazine readers arrived via mobile, up 8.5% year over year.

• Only 11.6% of magazine site visits occurred on PCs, down 8.9% from March, 2017.

The report also shows that, of the five most-read publications, three received their greatest audience share from mobile. And all five attracted far more readers on mobile than they did on PCs. Here are the comparisons:

• WebMD Magazine: 59.1% of 60.8 million March readers were mobile; 21% arrived via PC.

• Allrecipes: 60.7% of 46.2 million readers were mobile; 19.9% PC.

• ESPN the Magazine: 43.7% of 96.5 million readers were mobile, 25.7% PC.

• People: 36.8% of 78 million readers were mobile; 8% used PCs.

• AARP magazine: 14% of 49.4 million readers were mobile; 7.9% used PCs.

In fact, of the 116 titles for which the Assn. of Media Magazines provided comparisons, only five attracted more readers on PCs than on mobile: Automobile, Car Craft, Flying, Hot Rod and Street Rodder.  Prestigious titles in which mobile access dominated over PCs include The Atlantic, Car and Driver, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Esquire, Fortune, GQ, Money, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Smithsonian, Time, and Vogue.

Print readership + subscriptions to digital editions of print publications retain an overall lead, according to the study, at 51.3% of total magazine readership. However, that category continues to drop, with a 1.7% year-over-year decline compared to mobile readership's 8.5% rise. This suggests that established mag readers and, perhaps most important, new readers, are turning to mobile.

The key takeaway for market research and marketing is that following mobile consumers into their natural environment is crucial to growth for virtually any business. Which is exactly what MFour has been urging since 2011, when it pioneered mobile market research by introducing Surveys On The Go^® as the nation’s first all-mobile research app.

For insights professionals who are ready to dive into mobile, these are the questions that need fast, authoritative answers: 

• What are the best practices in mobile market research? 

• What are the most advanced capabilities for obtaining the most relevant, accurate and insights-rich data?

• What sample quality and representation should I expect?

• In going mobile, does gaining access to consumers mean having to dumb down my research and sacrifice data quality?

You can get all these answers and more by setting up a one-on-one demo that will focus on meeting your projects' specific needs with proprietary, mobile-only research products such as Path-2-Purchase™ Platform and MFourDIY^®. Just get in touch by clicking here.

You may have heard the story of the football coach who decided his team needed to get back to fundamentals, so he gathered all the players and began at the beginning: “This is a football.”

Today’s Mobile 101 installment is about the fundamental of all fundamentals, beginning at the beginning: “This is a native app.”

Dictionary.com defines “native” as “natural, hereditary, connected with something in a natural way.” So a “native app” is one whose natural and sole environment is a smartphone. It’s been created strictly with smartphones in mind, and designed to give perfect performance on a phone.

Researchers who use mobile have to choose between going with native app survey technology or a “mobile optimized” approach that ignores the smartphone’s own native environment and takes place in the same online space as traditional surveys designed for desktops and laptops.

By going the native app route, you get mobile-specific technology that loads your entire survey instantly into respondents’ phones, enabling them to answer without a connection to the internet. It’s like downloading a gaming app and proceeding to enjoy it without interruption because of the app’s fast-twitch functionality.

Researchers who choose “mobile optimized” over native app are asking their respondents to use their phones like ping-pong paddles. It's not exactly an efficient way to harness one of the most powerful consumer technologies ever devised.

• Mobile optimized surveys don’t load into respondents’ phones. Instead, they depend on users clicking on email notifications to connect with the web page where the survey is housed.

• Questions are served from the web to the phone one-by-one, and respondents volley their answers back, one-by-one. This back-and-forth continues until the questionnaire is complete.

• Each volley can fail if the internet connection vanishes or slows. The predictable result is frustration, dropped attempts, and inattentive responses.

• Surveys take longer, completion rates are lower, and consumers’ overall engagement with survey-taking suffers.

These are the fundamentals of today’s research game. Choosing the right mobile method is up to you – and you need to remember that in-app surveys aren’t just a little different, but different in kind from other mobile approaches. For more information about in-app mobile panel and technology, just contact us at solutions@mfour.com.

There's so much to say about mobile research – we could just fill you up with the facts. Instead, take it at your own speed by sampling our weekly Friday roundup of 3 items from the MFour blog. You can expect information, insights, how-to's and occasional whimsy. Whatever else you do, don't forget to check at the bottom for something to mobilize your spirits heading into the weekend.