Tag Archives: market research

Cure the Back to School Bookstore Blues

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The college textbook screw-o-rama has aggravated students and parents forever. You buy an expensive textbook at the campus bookstore. At the end of the term you sell it back practically unused (in my case, anyway) for pennies on the dollar. The next day it’s on the USED shelf for 75% of the original price!

Well, put down the gun, mom and dad – and pick up the Kindle! According to a recent USA Today article, book giant Amazon has announced:

…students can rent tens of thousands of textbooks from its online Kindle Store, which Kindle users can access on the e-reader. Amazon said its rental prices are as much as 80 percent lower than the list prices for the books.

Now, cheaper is one thing, and I am all for it. But if you remember standing in line at the bookstore to buy and resell your books, every term, four years straight…that’s hours of precious human capital that went to waste! Time that could have been spent drinking beer and not studying!

What do you think? It’s back to college time!Does it make sense? Is your (or your kids’) school participating?

All About the Cashout!

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Have you ever wondered how the MindField Online cashout process works? Mind if we tell you anyway?

MindField Online bean-counters collect all of your cashout requests throughout the week. Then, first thing Monday we process them and either send you a check, deposit into your PayPal account, or send you an Amazon.com redemption code via email.

Now, the Amazon.com option is pretty new, and it’s proven to be pretty popular! So, it’s taken us a couple of weeks to get a good, smooth system down for processing those requests.  But here we are! As of Monday, August 22, all Amazon.com cashout requests will be up-to-date, and will be processed weekly just like the checks and PayPal requests.

Once again, an Amazon.com cashout will come as a form letter with a redemption code number delivered via email from [email protected].

We hope you are enjoying the new Amazon.com cashout options. More MindField innovations will be coming your way in the future!

MindField Fans Speak (again!)

Time to update our satisfied Facebook fan comment page for August. Check it out, including this gem from Kirk: “MindField is the best reliable survey company out there. I started about 3 years ago and I love sharing my opinion and testing new products, and the incentives are great! I have never had a problem with them – they are trustworthy!”

Follow this link: Panelist Reviews

The Sound of Savings

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You won’t hear it with the human ear, but the next time you are in a big chain store, Shopkick may be calling out your name!

According to a recent article at Forbes.com, Shopkick is a location-based customer loyalty app like Foursquare or Gowalla, but with an important difference:

…it doesn’t use the phone’s GPS. Instead, Shopkick uses a different technology. It plugs in a small box inside each participating store. The box emits a high frequency sound that humans can’t hear. When the Shopkick app is opened, it recognizes the sound so that it knows that the person is actually in the store.

The bottom line is engagement. Remember a few posts ago we were talking about the difference between TV ads that are just on, shooting dumbly out into the atmosphere, versus web ads that tease you and make you click? If you click the web ad, you are already interested in the product. That’s engagement, and the same principle applies with Shopkick. You physically go into the store, you turn on the app, and you wait for the deals to come to you. And Shopkick claims a success rate of 45% that, if it’s true, is a really high number!

For now, because it requires hardware, Shopkick is mainly in large chains like Target, Best Buy, Macy’s, Disney and so on. Foursquare uses existing satellite tracking, and it is popular with smaller independent stores. But of course, they are looking into copying Shopkick’s success. Hopefully the winner will be YOU.

So have you used Shopkick? What do you think?

Get ’em While They’re Young

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…in the pursuit of new customers, companies are shifting their marketing strategies to target a younger and younger demographic. First, “youth marketing” was the buzzword. Then, it was fine-tuned to the “tweens.” Now, newborns are the new base.         Beneath the Brand Blog

Yes, newborns.  A few years ago, some genius figured out that while a child must learn language and verbal skills in order to communicate their preferences, they are forming preferences even before that. Really, it goes all the way back to Walt Disney: ever notice how you can tell who’s the hero and the villain just by the way they are drawn?

And speaking of Disney, they are jumping into the marketing-to-babies thing in a big way. Now, at nearly 600 maternity hospitals in the US, Disney gives away “cozy, adorable bodysuits — often decorated with famous Disney protagonists —[for free], so long as Mom is willing to sign up for email updates from DisneyBaby.com, the new corporate initiative.”

Meanwhile, Ronald McDonald is one of the most recognizable figures to even the youngest kids – and Ronald is taking a lot of heat for supposedly wrecking your kids’ health and making them fat. So, there’s a downside. Anyway, there are further examples in the article online. So what do you think? Good? Bad? Dumb? Inevitable?

You Can’t Hide from These Deals!

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Heard of location-based marketing? It’s been around for a few years, and it’s growing. And a 400 pound gorilla just entered the game!

Basically (very), in location-based marketing you sign up with a retailer somewhere in town. Using GPS or something, they know when you are physically near the place – say you are grocery shopping a mile away – and they send you a text or email with a coupon or some announcement about today’s special.

A lot of tech companies are in this field, including a start-up called The Dealmap. And Dealmap just got PAID, yo!

In a strategic no-brainer, Google has acquired The Dealmap, a startup that shows on a Google Maps-powered map just where you can find all the Groupon-like daily deals in your geographic area.                                                                             Venturebeat.com

Which is great news if you love deals, and you are familiar and comfortable with Google Maps. Bad news, I guess, if you are worried that Google is taking over every aspect of the internet! What do you think?

New Amazon.com Cashout Option!

Check out the brand new Amazon.com cashout option for MindField Online Panelists!

That’s right, starting now, in addition to our check request and PayPal cashout options, you can also choose to get your dough in the form of an Amazon.com Gift Card*! Whether you just hit your $5 threshold, or you’ve been saving up, you can request an Amazon.com Gift Card* at no extra cost to you. You receive a gift card code via email, you enter the code number at Amazon.com, and you go nuts!

We hope you enjoy this new convenience…let us know!

And now the legal mumbo-jumbo!

*Amazon.com Gift Cards (“GCs”) sold by McMillion Research, an authorized and independent reseller of Amazon.com Gift Cards. Amazon, Amazon.com, the Amazon.com logo, and the Amazon Gift Cards logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. GCs may be used only for purchases of eligible goods on Amazon.com or its affiliated website Endless.com. GCs cannot be redeemed for purchases of gift cards. Except as required by law, GCs cannot be reloaded, resold, transferred for value, redeemed for cash, or applied to any other account. See www.amazon.com/gc-legal

No Escape from Ads?

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Watching TV, it seems like there is a commercial every 5 minutes. On your PC, it’s hard to escape the pop-ups. By comparison, your mobile device is sort of an escape from Ad-madness – but maybe not for long.

According on an advertising exec quoted in a recent article in Adweek, advertisers know that:

There are over three times the number of mobile subscribers as there are TV subscribers, he said. Globally, it’s the most adopted technology and media channel in history. The engagement rates are higher. And inventory, thanks to 24-hour access to users, is unmatched.

Engagement rates means that, unlike the TV that blasts ads at you without your consent, online you choose to Click Here, meaning you are interested in the product on some level.

So, far, mobile ad spending is a drop in the bucket compared to TV, but a lot of advertising geniuses expect that to change. The question is, how will you feel when there’s just as much advertising on your mobile as there is on TV and PC? Let us know!

*  BTW, the art department spent literally minutes on the opening picture!

Marketers Targeting Smartphone Moms

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I see a young mom at the grocery pushing a fully loaded cart with a 2-year-old boy in the seat. Standby for the screaming tantrum, right? Except not. All is at peace…because the kid’s watching cartoons on mom’s iPad.

About a week later, I saw this article on WashingtonPost.com that says that moms with smartphones:

…are becoming a new kind of shopping force online. A decade ago, these women were single and childless 18- to 34-year-olds who captured the hearts of Madison Avenue marketing executives with their voracious consumer appetites. Now, they are older and often in charge of the household wallet.

 Apparently, advertisers have been studying the habits of regular “desktop moms” for years, coming up with new ways to grab their attention. But now, mobile moms are busting out, becoming the fastest growing segment of smartphone users. And they are among the Web’s biggest spenders, either buying directly from mobile apps or researching products that they buy later.

So what’s your favorite way that your mobile device interacts with your shopping habits? Research? Couponing? Purchases? Or simply shutting up your 2 year old? Let us know!

It’s That Time Again…

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Time once again to update our ever-expanding collection of positive reviews from MindField Online Internet Panels Facebook fans, including this gem from Diane:

If anyone is wondering if MindField is the real deal and really does pay you real money, I’ve made quite a bit of money from them. I cash out and I get my check within 4-6 weeks. It’s real! Thank you, MindField!

Check out the newest comments on our Panelist Reviews page! Here’s the link…