In today’s market, “one size fits all” has become an obsolete concept -- customization is the way to go.  Consider for example the innovation of Apple's iTunes store: It allows you to purchase just a single song, rather than being required to buy the entire album. Similarly, from giving consumers the ability to tailor their preferred design features on the latest model of a Toyota car to purchasing only their favorite pair of Converse tennis shoes, most companies  now recognize that they must offer their customers the option to purchase products that are precisely tailored to meet the customer's needs and preferences.

What do Harley-Davidson, the Parthenon Group,  and the Atlanta Gas Light Company have in common? When strategic planning officials at all three entities needed actionable business intelligence, they chose MarketResearch.com.

We've all heard that the best way to improve search engine ranking is to create great content. Google and other search providers have been working hard to tailor thier algorithms to highlight fresh and original work, so what does this mean for SEO and how do you get your website seen?

The answer to that question is that SEO is still very important but past best practises once designed to 'game' the system through high density keywords and such, are now designed to help craft your great content in a way that your customers will find it.

If you are unsure of how to increase SEO ranking for your website, investing in quality and timely market research could help focus your online marketing strategy to your customers needs. Getting to the top of search engine results pages (SERPS) has become much more than keyword stuffing and black hat SEO.

Are you flying blind on market research? What is your market research strategy plan? How do you find a quality market research report? Knowing where to locate reliable high quality research for your industry is essential for the continual growth of your company.

During the past decade, the arrival of new technology has increased opportunities for small businesses to improve efficiency by developing targeted e-mail campaigns and other digital-based initiatives. Within the past few years, Big Data has also emerged as another tantalizing possibility for small business data strategies -- if also one that is rife with challenges:

• Can a 50-100 employee company with limited capital genuinely expect to develop a sustainable revenue growth strategy from Big Data?
• Can small businesses craft Big Data-based initiatives that are cost-effective? 
• How would such a strategy take shape?
• For brick-and-mortar small businesses offering consumer goods, especially, does it make sense to devote precious financial and employee resources toward wrestling down Big Data?
  
• What kind of market research exists to help guide small companies that are eager to utilize Big Data?
  

Can Big Data positively impact revenues for mid-sized and small business data strategies? Last week we asked when the market research community will develop strategies and tactics to define terms for Big Data's use across industries:

As market researchers confront the era of Big Data, it is time to ask key questions about its usability, its potential to affect how they do their work -- and how it impacts the customers who purchase their work. Google, of course, is a major player in the Big Data landscape, but smart business-owners know that accurate, reliable market research tailored to their specific needs requires far more specificity and targeting than the search engine giant can provide.

Last year "Big Data" emerged as a topic of awe in the popular press and became a savvy talking point. But beyond the conventional wisdom that is taking shape, market research experts who have long practiced data-collection and big data analytics -- if on a smaller scale -- are questioning if this will be the year that the ‘firehose of data’ directly impacts their field. Even big data healthcare companies are wrestling with the implications of utilizing the vast amounts of information available to them. 

Everybody likes to talk about the weather. It’s a fair bet that commenting on it and speculating about it account for a fairly significant percentage of the world’s conversations on any given day. There is an oft-quoted saying (attributed to many different comedians and broadcasters) that if you have no other information, no research, you can fairly accurately predict the weather tomorrow by simply saying that it will be substantially similar to the weather today. And you know what? You’ll be right a lot.

In a continuing effort to hone our quantitative market research analysis skills and lend our methodological expertise to some of the most pressing questions of our time, the analysts at MarketResearch.com offer an occasional post on quantitative research challenges.

Today’s challenge, literally under the heading of “Navel Gazing,” is to determine as accurately as possible the amount of belly-button lint produced daily in the United States.