Drones have become a hot and controversial topic in recent years, with businesses such as Amazon testing package delivery via drones through their Amazon Prime options and Domino's testing pizza delivery in select markets, to local law enforcement using drones to track suspects and monitor emergency situations. To the casual observer of this recent phenomenon, it seems like drones would only be practical in recreational settings. But, as the above examples demonstrate, drones are becoming more prevalent in business as companies look for quicker and cheaper ways to obtain competitive advantages over their competition.

Here's tip #1 from our 10 Conjoint Do's and Don'ts: Do consider qualitative research at the outset.

The venerable focus group has been a go-to market research solution since first invented by Robert Merton at the Bureau of Applied Social Research. But, times change and innovation marches on. Today, online communities are clearly a much better choice for many important market research projects. In Part 1 of this 2-part blog post, we'll cover five important advantages of online vs traditional focus groups.

Editor’s note: this post is by guest blogger, Corey Dall, who served as marketing manager for FGI Research for 2 years before starting her tenure as the digital marketing manager for a local bank. This is her reflection on her time here and some of the lessons she learned from our industry thought leaders.

In the 2013 GRIT report, online insight communities sat at the top of the list for emerging technologies that market research clients actually want to use, beating out mobile surveys, social media mining, and text analytics for the honor. (A summary of this is illustrated nicely in an infographic.)

Sign up for a demonstration of SmartSpace today!

Online communities are among the most important qualitative tools driving online market research today. But, how can you use it and prove ROI? Many success stories start with creating personalized studies to gain information about your audience. And with an online community, you can make your own activities, tasks, and discussion forums to gain beneficial findings. Additionally, you can target and engage a specific segment of participants to further mine data and feedback on products, services, concepts, or ads. To do that, follow these 4 key steps for creating your awesome online community: