Latest Next Gen Market Research (NGMR) Membership Survey Answers:  What’s New? Who’s Who? What’s the problem with Net Promoter Score? [The Next Gen Market Research Blog is BACK Better than Ever!]

About a year ago we took a “little” hiatus to make some tweaks. Well, today I am very pleased to flick on the lights and welcome you back to the NGMR community’s official blog—your resource for expansive thinking and stimulating dialogue complete with a fresh coat of paint!

To inaugurate our revived blog, I have some updated stats on NGMR’s membership and other interesting results from a survey we just completed to share with you down below. (It wouldn’t be a blog for researchers without a survey, now, would it?)

But if you’re a newcomer, you may be wondering what this is all about. So here’s a brief background…

What is NGMR and What’s this Blog About?

Next Gen Market Research (NGMR) group was originally formed by yours truly on LinkedIn in 2007 as a home for market researchers who were, frankly, uninspired by the status quo in consumer insights.

It turned out there were a lot more of us malcontents, disruptors and dreamers than even I imagined at the time. In fact, NGMR very rapidly grew to become the largest professional networking group for consumer insights practitioners on the Web!

Today, NGMR’s membership exceeds 24,000 market researchers worldwide—clients and suppliers—who are dedicated to pushing the envelope, blazing new trails and continuously transforming the field of insights. Ours is the most active community in the industry today. Congratulations!

The original NGMR blog actually started out as my own personal blog, but over time it evolved into “our” blog and it became an important part of our community. In fact, this blog was a perennial Top 10 favorite among researchers and named the Best Blog in Market Research for three consecutive years by New Market Research’s Sean Copeland and also continued to rank as number 1 research blog on Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop Research.

Now then, you’ll notice we’ve made some tweaks, starting with our logo, which, by the way, YOU selected! (Thank you to all the NGMR members who voted.)

But while the look of the blog has changed, the mission hasn’t. This blog exists so that we in insights—as an industry, as a profession and as individual practitioners—can help each other get smarter together!

What Does NGMR Look Like Today?

As we prepared to relaunch the blog, it seemed like a pretty good time to also survey the NGMR community to assess the state of things. Here’s what our membership looks like today… [Note: You can access the demographics below as a single infographic here]

Next Gen Marketing Researchers are Experienced

Next Gen Marketing Researchers are Hands-On

Next Gen Marketing Researchers are Representative (Work at Large and Small Companies)

Next Gen Marketing Researcher Focus Spans the B2B and B2C Spectrum

Geographically Next Gen Marketing Researchers Tend be in The Largest Marketing Research Market (The USA)

Next Gen Marketing Researchers Client Side Representation

 

What NGMR Members Think (In Their Own Words) and the Problem with Net Promoter Score

We don’t survey NGMR members often, and when we do we try to ask as few questions as possible. Trust me when I tell you that surveying market researchers isn’t for the fainthearted. Everyone has an opinion…about the instrument! 😉

For one, we confirmed what I already suspected: market researchers aren’t enthusiastic about the Net Promoter Score (NPS) question.  And they weren’t shy about telling us so.

Example verbatim*:

I already have recommended NGMR to clients. But I hate to see NPS used this way, because it’s too dumb for what you’re trying to find out regarding professional B2B recommendations.

But more important than learning how researchers we surveyed felt about our use of the NPS question, itself, was the discovery that for our purposes—at least in the case of assessing the NGMR group on LinkedIn—the NPS was misleading. It simply didn’t work. Why?

Well, I’ll start by revealing that our NPS was low…very low…heck, embarrassingly low! I knew I hadn’t spent as much time of late moderating the group as I had in the past, but I was shocked when I saw the NPS results.

Fortunately, our survey also included open-ended questions, and I happen to have access to some pretty good text analytics software (full disclosure: I am the proud founder and managing partner of a text analytics software company).

When I analyzed the verbatim comments, what I discovered made me blush. The sentiment was high—extremely high!

Top-2-box (“promoters”) were, of course, very positive as expected. But when I looked at the comments from “detractors” (those who gave a bottom-7-box), I found that the vast majority here, too, tended to say very positive things about NGMR.

It was in their comment explanations that the disconnect between positive sentiment and likelihood to recommend was revealed…

Verbatim examples*:

Not the type of category I would typically recommend. This is little reflection on NGMR

not top of mind

Recommending NGMR to any of my friends wouldn’t make a lick of sense.

Don’t anticipate the opportunity to recco, else I would.

Because I just don’t remember to do it

I’m not too active in any LinkedIn groups, but will occasionally posts or discussions. NGMR is one that I’ll look at more often than some others. Some good information/discussion. But because I’m not all that active in LinkedIn groups, I don’t feel like I should strongly recommend any.

I tell you, these researchers not only followed directions and answered honestly, but they went a step further and took pains to make sure we got the whole story. (I love you guys!)

So, what do NGMR members get out of belonging to this community?

Here’s small sampling of what you had to say*:

Way to stay relevant, and interesting topics.

Because the insights I’ve seen it give others makes me salivate!!!!

inspires confidence

Good source of info on a daily basis in terms of emerging methods & technologies. Well written and interesting – a bonus!

Always good content, not too sales-y

Stimulating discussions and sparks

For the same reason I follow you on LinkedIn! You know your stuff!

We’ve had some great convo s in the ngmr LinkedIn group. I’ve learned a thing or two from those convos.

Interesting viewpoints and information

Useful insight and interesting discussions

Reputable researchers

NGMR is among the larger LinkedIn MR groups and I find contributing and/or reading posts to be helpful in both my job and career. I believe it is always good to keep up with the latest in your profession and NGMR helps to do just that

For me, it’s the best collection of minds gathered in one place to discuss insights, opportunities and best practices around audiences, brands and having a slew of vendors to probe on your ideas.

Fresh, innovative thinking.

Forward thinking content, always relevant topics

*All verbatim comments are [sic]

Not too shabby, huh? These kinds of responses should make us all feel really good about what we’re doing here.

Personally, I’m terribly gratified and grateful for the opportunity to mash minds with you!

What’s Next?

We’re in the process of migrating and curating content from the original blog over to our new home, as you can see, including some of our extremely popular “guru” interviews with visionaries like Dan Ariely, Seth Godin, Al Ries, Eli Goldratt, and others.

You can expect more of these kinds of interviews. In fact, next week we’ll kick things off with our first new interview: a stimulating Q&A with digital media master strategist, Jason Falls. Stay tuned!

In addition, you can also expect think pieces from a host of contributors we’ve lined up, each of whom has something novel to offer our members. And of course, you haven’t heard the last from me. 😉

Bottom line: The NGMR blog will continue its tradition of featuring unusual suspects and unconventional perspectives—both from within and, more importantly, from without the research industry—because we believe that the future of insights will be informed by audacious and, I daresay, unorthodox thinking.

If you’re not already an NGMR member or haven’t subscribed to this blog, I encourage you to join us. It’s going to be a thrilling ride!

Thank you, again, to everyone for making NGMR the largest, most active and most-forward thinking professional networking group for market researchers in the world!

Cheers,

@TomHCAnderson

About Tom H. C. Anderson

Tom H. C. Anderson is the founder and managing partner of OdinText, a venture-backed firm based in Stamford, CT whose patented SaaS platform is used by Fortune 500 companies like Disney, Coca-Cola and Shell Oil to mine insights from complex, unstructured and mixed data. A recognized authority and pioneer in the field of text analytics with more than two decades of experience in market research, Anderson is the recipient of numerous awards for innovation from industry associations such as the Insights Association, ESOMAR and the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF). He was named one of the “Four under 40” market research leaders by the American Marketing Association in 2010.

Tom is also founder and moderator of Next Gen Market Research (NGMR), the most active professional networking group for consumer insights practitioners in the world, as well as contributing editor of the NGMR blog. He he tweets under the handle @tomhcanderson.