Insights & Resources

Ideas worth talking about

Perspectives on qualitative recruitment, panel quality, and getting closer to the people behind your research.

August 19, 2016

Webinar Recording | The What, When, Why & How of Unobtrusive Observation

Ethnographic market research aims to understand the consumer in her natural environment. Typical ethnographic research requires a skilled interviewer to conduct the research onsite or in the respondent’s home, but a growing trend in market research is to employ a technique known as Unobtrusive Observation, in which the ethnography takes place without the interviewer present.

Immersive Research, Smart Strategies

July 14, 2016

Why Focus Groups are Thriving in a Digital World

Recently, technology has given marketers many new and innovative ways to tap in the customer psyche and create a stronger, more visceral understanding of the marketplace. And while these new market research tools have great promise, none has yet taken the place of the traditional focus groups in delivering valuable insight. As shown in the

Immersive Research, Industry Insights

June 16, 2016

Better Together: Using Qualitative Research for Better Quantitative Research

Recently, L&E Research hosted a webinar with guest speaker David F. Harris, Founder of Insight & Measurement. David is the author of, The Complete Guide to Writing Questionnaires: How to Get Better Information for Better Decisions. (Click here to view the recording of David’s Webinar.) David wrote his book to address the following concerns about market research

Smart Strategies

June 2, 2016

The Potential of Technology and Observational Research

Can you observe the future? What about the past? Can you observe something you haven’t seen? Watching a movie or reading a book can let our brain contemplate these issues – but not experience it. So until recently, the answer has been mostly ‘no’. Observation has always been about what is happening now, and

Immersive Research, Innovate & Evolve

May 16, 2016

L&E Webinar Recording | How to Write Better Screeners to Get the Right Respondents

Take the time and struggle out of writing screeners and start getting the right respondents for your qualitative research. Screeners are ultimately short questionnaires. But unless they are written extremely well, the quality of respondents will suffer. On May 13, 2016, L&E hosted a webinar with David F. Harris, author of, The Complete Guide to Writing

Insight Integrity, Smart Strategies

May 3, 2016

How to Choose a City for Your Market Research Project

One of the most critical elements to ensuring market research project success is to make sure you have the right respondents. Whether your project is qualitative or quantitative, if the participants do not have the information you need – or can’t express it – you’ve lost not only a battle, but the war. In addition to clearly specifying

Inspiring Environments, Smart Strategies

April 28, 2016

Why Qualitative Research is Necessary to Add Meaning to Big Data | New eBook

“Businesses are drowning in data but starving for insights. Worse, they have no systematic way to consistently turn data into action.” -“Digital Insights Are the New Currency Of Business”, Forrester Research, April 2015 “Big Data” is the term used to describe how advancing trends in technology will change the way information is delivered to businesses.

Industry Insights

April 14, 2016

In Qualitative Research, Size Does Matter!

In qualitative research, variety is the spice of life. Moderators are particularly sensitive to the number of participants in their groups. Some firmly believe that twelve is the right number. Others are more comfortable with eight. The reasons for these preferences include: CONTROLLING THE GROUP. Each moderator has their own style and way of handling group

Smart Strategies

April 7, 2016

Asking Better Questions for Better Market Research

You know the expression “Garbage In, Garbage Out?” Well, that applies to marketing research as well. One of the key pieces in any research project is the questionnaire. Whether it is in the form of a survey, a moderator’s guide or a one-on-one interview, the questions you ask are a critical success factor for developing

Smart Strategies

March 18, 2016

Webinar Recording | Mobile Research in 2016: An Update

Research participants have spoken: They are demanding that research is mobile friendly. However, too few researchers are listening. There is a growing gap between what participants are demanding and what researchers are offering, just as there is a growing gap between what is possible and what researchers are doing. This webinar provides a 2016 update

Industry Insights, Innovate & Evolve

February 18, 2016

Start with the End in Mind: Make Sure your Research Leads to the Right Decisions

“There is nothing like looking if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.” – J.R.R. Tolkien All marketers struggle with scarce resources to address business challenges. Perhaps in no other marketing area are resources quite so limited as

Client Impact, Smart Strategies

December 3, 2015

GRIT Commentary: Killing the Error of Omission

We are wrong and we know it. Marketing research has always been plagued by error and assumptions; random sampling almost never is, all kinds of bias – observer, response, fatigue, scale. The list of issues goes on and on. Just as importantly, marketing research has been wrong by omission; that is to say that we

Insight Integrity, Smart Strategies

October 24, 2015

L&E Workshop Video | Serve Your Customers Better with User Experience Research

With the explosion of user experience (or UX) in the business world, more companies are trying to incorporate UX research methods to better serve their customers. However, one test size does not fit all. Without employing the right series of research methods, companies can end up with an incomplete or misleading picture of their users.

Innovate & Evolve, Smart Strategies

October 7, 2015

Integrated Marketing: Getting Maximum Impact from your Marketing Tactics

By: Steve Henke, President & Founder of Harpeth Marketing Imagine you work for a small-to-mid-size firm with a small – but active – marketing program. You have a solid website, you blog weekly, send out a monthly email blast, post to social media daily (LinkedIn and Twitter) and even produce a webinar once each quarter. Pretty

Smart Strategies

October 1, 2015

Webinar | Doing it Right: Tips & Tricks for the Top Marketing Tactics

All market researchers are doing some level of marketing in an effort to grow their firms. It’s imperative. But are you doing it right? Are you maximizing the impact of what you’re doing? How do you go from ‘OK’ results to ‘awesome’? On September 30, 2015 L&E hosted a webinar, Doing it Right: Tips & Tricks

Smart Strategies

July 22, 2015

Workshop Video | Writing Shorter Questionnaires: Save Money AND Get Better Data

Everyone knows how important it is to keep questionnaires short, especially with so many respondents now taking surveys on mobile devices. If the questionnaire is too long, respondents drop out or start making up answers to get to the end. Well-written, shorter questionnaires mean better data at a lesser cost. On August 21, 2015, L&E

Insight Integrity, Smart Strategies

June 22, 2015

L&E Workshop – Observing Consumer Behavior: Past, Present, and Future

The study of consumer behavior has existed for more than 50 years. How consumers think, what drives them to purchase one product over another, which consumers are the target demographic – these (and more) are topics you need to consider when creating and marketing products. Consumer researchers have long used principles of psychology to study

Industry Insights, Smart Strategies

June 4, 2015

Play with All of Research’s New Toys, But Don’t Dismiss Qualitative Research

“If you could do only one type of research, would it be qualitative or quantitative?” I was once asked this question in an interview for a corporate job. I paused at this question for two reasons. First, because it was a bit ludicrous. Second, it made me think about the role of each of these

Industry Insights

May 21, 2015

Workshop Video: Marketing to Kids in a Tech-Forward World

Getting and keeping traction with kids requires an understanding of how they think and act, and what they respond to in product development, marketing, and communications. Kids are not just small adults; they are fundamentally different in the way they process information, in their social needs, and in the way they evaluate products. On May

Smart Strategies, Your People

May 13, 2015

Insights from Qual 360

By guest writer: Jen Ignacz (This post originally appeared on the Topp blog) As a UX researcher, I have found out over the years that there are far fewer qualitative researchers than quantitative researchers in the business world. This makes sense based on the ratio of qualitative and quantitative research conducted in businesses; according to ESOMAR

Industry Insights

April 30, 2015

Moderator, Teacher, Traffic Cop, Idea Protector, Listener: Conducting Qualitative Research with Kids

Everyone knows kids are different from adults. But have you ever thought about how those differences translate to marketing research? In the early days of marketing research (let’s say the “Mad Men” era), marketers assumed that you couldn’t do research with kids because they were too unpredictable and unreliable. So marketing research – and hence,

April 22, 2015

Understanding Consumer Psychology for Better Insights: Workshop Video

L&E recently hosted the workshop “Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Understanding Consumer Psychology for Better Insights” led by Jason Rogers. Jason is Product Expert and Lead Trainer for Noldus, the leading expert in observational behavior in both laboratory and natural settings. Consumer Psychology – or understanding how and why consumers behave the way they

Industry Insights, Smart Strategies

April 14, 2015

L&E Workshop Video | Growing Up Digital: Marketing to Kids in a Tech-Forward World

Call them Generation Z, iGen, or Digital Natives, today’s kids are the first generation born into the Internet-connected world. How they use technology to interact with brands, and how marketers use technology to reach them, makes them uniquely different from any previous generation. And yet, there are timeless truths associated with how kids develop, what

Smart Strategies, Your People

April 7, 2015

The Power of Qualitative Research: Part 3

In our latest eBook, Applying Qualitative Research to Marketing Challenges: Better Insight, More Success!, we explored how qualitative research addresses common marketing and business challenges, such as developing new products or better understanding your brand. For each of those challenges, we included a case study to illustrate how qualitative research provided important insights to marketers. Because

Smart Strategies

April 2, 2015

The Power of Qualitative Research: Part 2

Case studies are a great way to expand our thinking about qualitative research and how it can be applied to different business decision making challenges. To follow-up our new eBook, Applying Qualitative Research to Marketing Challenges: Better Insight, More Success!, we present two additional case studies that demonstrate how qualitative research addresses common marketing and business

Smart Strategies

February 17, 2015

The Power of Qualitative Research: Part 1

In our new eBook, Applying Qualitative Research to Marketing Challenges: Better Insight, More Success!, we discuss how qualitative research can be used to address common marketing and business challenges and provide several case studies to illustrate real-world applications of qualitative research. As a follow-up to the eBook, we have identified some additional case studies that further

Smart Strategies

December 30, 2014

L&E Research Celebrates 30 Years of Serving Clients

1984 was an important year, with many new products, brands and marketing campaigns introduced. To name just a few: Apple introduced the Macintosh computer with an iconic TV ad that aired during the Super Bowl. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were introduced as pizza-eating crime-fighters in their own comic book. Alex Trebek began hosting Jeopardy! Wendy’s famous

December 30, 2014

L&E Research in 2014 – Resources for YOUR Success

December 30, 2014 What a year! 2014 marks our 30th year in business and it was an eventful year for us – opening three new facilities, launching a new website and blog, revamping our Client and Participant Portals, and continuing L&E’s tradition of giving back to our local communities. But what are we most excited about? We are really thrilled about what we’ve done

Smart Strategies

December 4, 2014

L&E Research Named to the Inc. 5000 List for 2014

December 4, 2014 L&E Research, a Raleigh, NC-based business founded in 1984, has been named to the Inc. 5000 list for 2014. It was ranked as the 753rd fastest growing private business in the United States and, as an operator of focus group facilities, one of the very few in the Market Research industry.From 2010

November 20, 2014

L&E Research Celebrates 30th Anniversary

November 20, 2014 L&E Research, a Raleigh, NC-based business founded in 1984, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. Started by Lynne and Ed Eggers in 1984 as a two-person, home-based business, L&E has grown to become one of the largest fieldwork firms in the U.S., operating eight focus group facilities in seven cities.The Eggers’s early

November 1, 2014

Saving Money on Focus Groups

Some marketers seem to think that the best reasons for conducting focus groups is that they are fast and cheap. So, is it any wonder that they have sticker shock when they learn how much their project will cost and how long it will take to do it right? Those types of misconceptions can lead

Client Impact, Smart Strategies

October 24, 2014

Building a Great Partnership with your Moderator

If you’re doing qualitative research, then you’re working with a moderator. As much as their skill and experience, the way you work with them – before, during and after your project – will determine your project’s success. Our new eBook, Getting the Most Out of Qualitative Research: 35 Tips for Building a Great Partnership with

Client Impact, Smart Strategies

August 14, 2014

L&E Research Increases Secondary Market Stronghold

August 14, 2014 L&E Research is proud to announce AIM Research’s Baltimore, MD and Columbus, OH branches are now part of the strategically growing L&E family.With these latest additions, L&E Research offers market research services in seven cities to broadly cover the eastern half of the United States, including the mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Southeast and Florida

Inspiring Environments

July 20, 2014

5 Things You Need to Know About Hotel Security

Are you safe when you travel? CBS News Travel Reporter, Peter S. Greenberg, shares 5 things every traveler needs to know before checking into a hotel. 1. In-Room Safes Are Not As Safe As You Think. Per Peter, under Innkeeper Laws in every state of the United States, hotels are not liable for anything that

Inspiring Environments, Smart Strategies

July 20, 2014

L&E Research Now Provides Market Research Services in Cincinnati, Ohio

July 20, 2014 L&E Research announced on June 1st, 2014 that they are expanding their market research offerings by adding the former QFact Research facility in Cincinnati, Ohio to their growing list of secondary market options. L&E Research has been providing market research services in the Southeastern part of the country for 30 years.This Midwest

Inspiring Environments