Most of us know that the mobile phone industry is on a pretty serious surge of personal use. In fact, think of one person you know that does not have a mobile phone. Coming up short? This is precisely the reason why all marketing researchers should have a strong focus on mobile.
According to the Pew Research Center, nearly two-thirds of adults in the U.S. own a mobile phone of some kind. The statistics show that the majority of mobile usage goes to text messaging and voice calls. This is understandable; but how much of mobile phone usage is being employed for internet or email use? 89% of mobile device users are on the internet at least once a week, and 88% are using email at the same rate. Think about what having this information could possibly do for your research techniques.
The Pew Research Center also found that of U.S. adults who own a mobile phone, 7% are “mobile-dependent,” meaning that they do not have home broadband service and have limited options for going online other than their mobile device. With the inevitable and exponential growth of technology, making mobile phones more streamlined, these numbers are sure to rise in the coming years. New generations are coming along that have never known a world without incredibly intelligent mobile devices, which could mean that desktops may one day become a thing of the past.
Smarter data collection
Now we are able to be smarter about the data we are collecting, and integrate insights with other survey data: survey data from syndicated studies, social media, and behavioral data. There are a lot of great things happening in our industry— we can now capture a holistic view of the consumer without asking (a lot of) questions. We need to use the effects of mobile to our advantage, not just adapt to evolving technologies. 
Although there has been an effort to change surveys, there are still large portion that are incompatible with mobile devices. Moreover, users prefer apps over browsers on their mobile. Survey taking on mobile devices takes longer than on a PC. A 10-15 minute survey on a PC will take 37% longer on an Android device and 43% longer on an iPhone. iPad length of interview is similar to PC, only 6% longer.
As data becomes increasingly integrated, researchers are given more opportunities to boost engagement and shorten surveys. The world of “Big Data” has granted us access to numerous data sources that can be blended with quantitative research. The result is obtaining more insights through fewer questions. This makes writing surveys for mobile users much easier because we can:
- Be less redundant with our questions
- Ask simpler questions
- Break surveys into clear component parts
By bringing in third party data, we have the opportunity make surveys more enjoyable and engaging. This will help us sustain our most valuable assets, the consumers who provide their input. Increasingly researchers are experimenting with leveraging third party segmentations to provide the richness of profile that often was proprietarily developed. Lightspeed has partnered with several leading providers of marketing segmentation data to allow clients the opportunity to both target with and append third party segments based on lifestyle, life stage, attitudes, behaviors and demographics.
