New Marketing Research Platform Changes the Way Companies Communicate with Customers
Gongos’ metaCommunity™ Offers Long-term Insights, Options
AUBURN HILLS, MI – September 12, 2007 – Gongos Research today unveiled a powerful new marketing research platform that blends the dynamics of online social networking with the added precision that comes with large-scale quantitative research. A Gongos metaCommunity™ is a hybrid of two Internet-based research approaches – private online communities and custom Internet panels – and represents the next generation of marketing research in the Interactive age.
An evolution of Gongos i°Communities, which host hundreds of consumers primarily for gleaning rich qualitative insights, a metaCommunity enables companies to engage thousands of consumers in a long-term exchange of ideas. In this “community of communities,” members become a constant resource from which to conduct quantitative surveys and qualify for smaller, targeted communities for more in-depth qualitative initiatives.
Companies benefit from the high-level of engagement and strong sense of community resulting from Gongos Research’s pioneering and motivating reward system that includes an intrinsic philanthropic component. All of the features of the metaCommunity generate an impressive 30% – 40% response rate, producing high-quality, real-time insights for clients.
“Companies are ready to make consumers a virtual part of their research team,” said Greg Heist, research director and product development manager for Gongos Research. “Gongos metaCommunities give companies the flexibility to bring consumers into the decision-making process in near real time.” Heist recently authored the white paper “Beyond Brand Building: How Web Communities are Changing the Way We Do Research.”
The distinguishing benefits of a Gongos metaCommunity include:
- Creates a high level of respondent engagement, resulting in authentic insights, higher response rates and lower drop-out than consumer access panels
- Offers quick turnaround for statistically rigorous quantitative and in-depth qualitative research
- Enables longitudinal learnings, unlike point-in-time research events
- Allows for long and short-term relationships with multiple consumer segments and countries for multiple products and brands
- Offers an effective way to reach low-incidence populations
- Activates cost efficiencies with one platform to conduct multiple research methods
“A metaCommunity is a highly advanced research platform that can be used to launch a wide spectrum of studies,” adds John Gongos, president and founder of Gongos Research. “As a trusted research partner, we leverage the steady stream of insights from our online communities to add value to the traditional research our clients are already conducting.”
Long-time Gongos Research client, General Motors, will present on its experience with Gongos’ online communities at the American Marketing Association’s Marketing Research Conference in Las Vegas on September 25, 2007. Joyce Ann-Lindbloom Salisbury, manager of Global Product Research for General Motors will speak on the way online research communities provide a powerful way for organizations to interact and learn from consumers.