I was looking for a movie late last night/early this morning and while I was flipping channels a news report caught my eye. Given the current state of the world this was a refreshing reminder on the benefits of looking beyond appearances with no preconceived prejudice. I thought I would share this and maybe it will bring a smile to others on a gloomy winter day.

Despite economic concerns, businesses will continue to invest in key marketing programs in the coming year, according to the 2009 Marketing Outlook survey conducted by Zoomerang and released by StrongMail Systems, Inc. the leading provider of commercial-grade solutions for marketing and transactional email.

Results from the Zoomerang survey show that more than half (51%) of the nearly 1,000 global business leader participants plan to increase their marketing budgets in 2009 to focus on programs that yield a higher return on investment (ROI), such as email marketing and search, while many will decrease spending on costly, less targeted programs like advertising and trade shows.

StrongMail’s 2009 Marketing Outlook study found that only 37% expect to see a decrease in sales in 2009 due to current economic conditions; 22% believe their customers will spend about the same in 2009 as in 2008; and 19% think their customers will spend more next year.

Respondents across industries, with strong representation in retail, financial services, technology, and media and entertainment sectors, indicate that they plan to direct marketing budgets towards more personalized programs that will enable them to compete more effectively for customer dollars. As such, nearly three-quarters (73%) of companies that plan to increase marketing budgets in 2009 will bolster email marketing programs, while 44% will add dollars to their search marketing campaigns. Those professionals decreasing budgets in 2009 will cut spend on marketing programs that don’t typically generate as lucrative a return, such as advertising (29%) and trade shows (19 %), whereas only 4% of the companies surveyed plan to cut their email marketing budgets.

Nearly all businesses (81%) will either use the information available to them via customer databases, analytics tools or other resources to send more relevant emails to customers and prospects in 2009, or are currently considering tools to help them do so. Additionally, a significant number of organizations plan to experiment with new programs in 2009 to raise visibility and increase sales, like offering free-trials, promoting product giveaways and integrating social media strategies.

One great analytics tool you can use in your customer outreach program is online surveys. Whether you are already using online surveys or are just now considering them be sure to visit the Zoomerang Customer Satisfaction Survey Center. The Center is designed to help you get the most out of your online survey experience with the many survey templates available that you can easily customize, as well as the proven tips and suggestions offered  regarding both survey creation and deployment. Zoomerang wants you to have the most successful survey campaign you can in order to give you the insight you need on exactly what your customers are thinking.

 This is a very common question people ask before sending a survey. You can follow these steps and the chart below to determine how many people you need to interview in order to get results that reflect the target population as precisely as needed.

Identify the size of your target population

If your entire target audience is 2,000 people or fewer, send to as many of them as possible. If the target population is at least 2,000 people, consider sending to a subset. Use the information below to identify how many responses you need.

Determine the accuracy you’ll need

You’ve heard a “plus-or-minus” figure reported along with polls. This margin of error, or confidence interval, indicates the accuracy of the data. If a survey result is 60% with a 5% margin of error, that means the true value lies somewhere between 55% and 65%. Confidence level is the next measurement that will impact the number of respondents you need. This measures the certainty that the survey results are within the margin of error. Most researchers use a 95% confidence level. When you put the confidence level and the confidence interval together, you can say that you are 95% sure that the survey results are within the margin of error (between 55% and 65% in the example above). The wider the confidence interval you are willing to accept, the more certain you can be that the whole population answers would be within that range.

Estimate the number of completed surveys you need

The chart below allows you to estimate the number of completes you need when you use a 95% confidence level. Select your approximate Target Population and choose your margin of error.

Note that once your target population exceeds 10,000, the number of additional respondents needed grows quite slowly.

 If there is a segment of your target audience that you would like to analyze - such as companies of a certain size for customer satisfaction - aim for a minimum of 75 respondents among that group. For example, if you know that large companies are 40% of your total customer base, then you will need approximately 200 total survey respondents to get 75 large companies. If you weren’t planning on surveying at least 200 people based on the chart above, you would need to increase your number of completes in order to analyze the large companies.

Send the survey

Remember, you’ve determined the number of completes you need. To estimate the number of survey invitations you need to send, divide the number of responses you need by your estimated response rate. Survey response rates vary based on your relationship to the survey recipients, survey length, topic, etc.

You can find more information on response rate, and tips for improving yours, in the posts “What is a typical response rate for a survey?” and “12 Tips To Help Increase Your Survey Response Rates”

I came across an article posted at Lab Spaces on a study regarding decision making that brought up a very interesting promotion aspect I was quite impressed with.

A recent research study by Akshay Rao, a marketing professor at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, shows that decision making is simplified when a consumer considers a third, less attractive option.

Volunteers had their brains scanned while they made choices between several sets of equally appealing options as well as choice sets that included a third, somewhat less attractive option. Overall, the presence of the extra, “just okay” possibility systematically increased preference for the better options. The fMRI scans showed that when making a choice between only two, equally preferred options; subjects tended to display irritation because of the difficulty of the choice process. The presence of the third option made the choice process easier and relatively more pleasurable.

These findings should be something the retail industry in particular should take under consideration, especially during the current economic slowdown. As Rao explained “Retailers interested in helping ease the pain of consumer decision making may introduce decoys, loss leaders, or other products similar to the ones they really want to market. It will make the focal product look more attractive. Plus, a frustrated customer struggling to choose between two equally attractive options may decide not to buy anything — the introduction of a third option may be better for everyone.”

I am going to start to apply the three options technique to everyday situations; I see the possibilities of utilizing these findings as virtually endless, whether it is dinner decisions, what movie to watch, where to go on vacation, etc…  . When I need input from others, I will be sure to include the two that are most preferred by me along with a reasonable decoy. Using this approach should make the actual process of deciding more pleasant, resulting in a decision that was made with less irritation involved (be it consciously or subconsciously).