Diary studies can help you dig deep into hidden details. 

Since diary studies are extremely immersive, they tend to yield insights that can’t be found by using other “one-and-done” popular market research methods.

Here are 3 major benefits of conducting a diary study:

1. They allow you to test the repeated use of a product or service.
   
   For a product or service that is consumed over a period of time, it makes sense to measure the consumer experience over time as well. This is especially true as that experience may very well be quite different from the first time a product is used versus the tenth time.
   
   
2. Participants are in a natural environment for product consumption.
   
   As market researchers, we’re always trying to reduce the amount of influence on participants for our research. Diary studies have the unique advantage to provide unfiltered consumer insights for two reasons:
    
   1. They’re in a situation where they’d normally consume your product.
   2. Participants aren’t being influenced by a moderator and don’t feel like they’re being watched or swayed in one way or another. This is true even if you’re asking for photos and videos of their consumption. It’s done on their own time, and not monitored.
      
      
3. Participant are not subject to recall bias.
   
   Recall bias can wreak substantial havoc on the outcome of research. Fortunately, participants in a diary study are recording their actual actions in-the-moment and not just trying to remember what they thought about previously.

At the end of the day, the best part about a diary study is that it lets you feel like you are actually “walking a mile” in your consumer’s shoes. Learn all about it in our Definitive Guide to Diary Studies.

Are you working with a mobile survey company?

If you are, you know that fielding geo-intercept surveys to consumers in real-time is powerful. But there are some considerations to make your surveys as effective as possible.

1. Ask a lot of questions.
   
   As a whole, the survey industry shies away from long surveys. We embrace it. We’ve found that consumers don’t mind long surveys, they just want to be paid for them. That’s what we do. We get a high number of survey completions on long questionnaires thanks to a well-incentivized panel and easy-to-use mobile app.
    
2. Keep things as natural as possible.
   
   A clunky experience while filling out a survey in-store can bias the outcome. You don’t want a shaky internet connection, or a poorly formatted survey, to bias and taint the natural experience of the participants.
   
   That’s why at MFour, we don’t just have a “mobile-optimized” survey process, we have a “full-mobile app” that is built to make the experience as streamlined as possible for your consumers.
    
3. Capture additional behaviors.
   
   Location-based surveys are great alone, but there’s more valuable data we can grab for you. For instance, if someone is in a store shopping for a product, wouldn’t it be nice to know what they’re searching on their mobile phone? Think about seeing what a consumer is looking at in-store and comparing to their Amazon usage before, during, and after that trip to the store. 

Not all mobile survey companies can do this, we can.

The answer is that, until now, reliable consumer insights obtained by identifying real people’s actual, validated buying journeys have been out of reach.

The new solution, Path 2 Purchase™ Platform, gives clients a panoramic window on real consumers’ journeys along their paths to purchase, both historically and in real time. The key is a first-party cohort of consumers who’ve downloaded an advanced survey and data-tracking app and can be observed as they move among locations relative to your research. And, thank to proprietary GeoNotification^® technology, you can approach them with a survey at times and places of your choosing.

Path 2 Purchase™ gives you easy, one-stop fulfillment of all fundamental requirements for accurate, validated consumer data. Among them are:

Representativeness: Reach that reliably includes groups that are hard to access with online surveys. There’s strong representation of Hispanic consumers (20%), African Americans (14%) and Millennials/Gen Z, including ages 18-34 (66%).

Quality Experience: The consumers  you’ll reach are gathered around and engaged by Surveys On The Go^®, the highest-rated consumer research app. It earns glowing reviews and a 4.5 stars out of 5 rating on the Apple iOS and Google Play stores that reflects some 100,000 individual ratings. There’s no better indicator of the kind of smooth, rewarding panelist experience that’s at the heart of obtaining accurate, trustworthy data from representative respondents.

Right Research Environment: Apps are the mobile environment of choice, accounting for 92% of the time U.S. consumers spend with their smartphones. Meet them where they want to be met, with an excellent app experience that secures the engagement and panel stability needed for trustworthy consumer insights.

For a one-on-one demo to learn how Path 2 Purchase™ and its first-party consumers can power your specific research needs,  just get in touch by clicking here.

Here's your Friday roundup of 3 items from our blog to keep you up to speed on mobile research as you head into the weekend.

Whatever else you do, don't forget to check at the bottom for something to mobilize your spirits and get you humming.

Talking Technology With 1,000 Millennials

Trump v Clinton Mudsling Splatters MR

Follow Facebook's Lead...Into Mobile

And here's a Friday tune to send you smiling into your weekend.

To learn how you can harness MFourDIY™ and its sophisticated yet easy-to-use capabilities, tune in to one of our webinars. The next one, Wednesday, Oct. 19 at 12 p.m. PST, will  give you a good introduction. The title is “MFourDIY: Getting Started." To sign up, click here.

MFour’s App Tracker shows the apps our panelists use, and lets you target surveys based on each Android-using member’s app profile.

These articles in USA Today and Forbes reported data we collected on motives, demographics and experiences of respondents who have the Pokemon Go app.

App Tracking can work for you in looking at lifestyles, behaviors and how a company’s app stacks up against its competitors’.

We’d love to brainstorm ways to make App Tracker generate data and insights you need. Please get in touch to chat and learn more.

NextGen DIY mobile design means no more Monkeying around with antiquated panels and platforms

Dive in at mfourdiy.com

MFour Mobile Research launched MFourDIY, the next breakthrough in fast, accurate, reliable, easily accessible consumer survey data. It’s a new, cost-efficient way to field all-mobile, do-it-yourself surveys by exploiting the vast capabilities of the phones hard-wired to consumers’ hands. MFourDIY extends the unrivaled clout of Surveys on the Go® to anyone who needs excellent market research that can fully include hard-to-reach demographics such as Millennials, Hispanics and African Americans.

Clients can create a free account, design sophisticated surveys and access more than a million consumers via the Surveys on the Go®, mobile smart phone app. Check out the platform by visiting mfourdiy.com

MFour DIY arrives already vetted by forward-looking brands and researchers who’ve stepped up to field mobile surveys during the platform’s Beta-testing. Their experiences speak for themselves.

• “Easy to program and field.” Derek Turk, Vice President of Ratings & Research, Lionsgate Entertainment Inc.

• "The best DIY research.” Micah Mack, Shopper Insights Marketing Manager, PepsiCo

“We’re democratizing all-mobile research. We’ve got the only all-mobile platform and it’s getting rave reviews,” St. Hilaire said.