September 23, 2011

Quick survey for local mobile market research

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By Amy Gahran

At the recent bootcamp for this year’s Knight Community Information Challenge projects, I discussed how new digital media projects serving local community needs can go mobile in useful ways. A good way to start is to do some local mobile market research…

Local is always a key aspect of mobile media, since the characteristics of wireless networks and mobile users can vary substantially from one community to the next.

Some towns, or some parts of town, may have better or worse access to faster wireless networks. Similarly, some people in certain demographics or neighborhoods might be more or less likely to have the latest smartphones. Also, people often are influenced by local peers in their preferences for how they use their cell phones.

If your mission is to serve your entire community, going mobile is essential. Gartner has predicted that in the next couple of years, most internet access in the U.S. will occur on mobile devices.

“Going mobile” means offering content or engagement through a variety of channels supported by cell phones. Native smartphone apps are only part of this picture. Some of the most popular mobile media channels are SMS text messaging, e-mail, the mobile web (using the phone’s web browser), multimedia messaging (photos and video), and social media.

The point of going mobile generally is not to try to deliver the full value of your venue. Rather, mobile tends to complement your larger online presence by building awareness, enhancing your timeliness and relevance, and encouraging engagement and sharing.

Last year for Oakland Local (a community news/view site I helped found), I conducted some basic mobile market research. Based on that experience, below is a rough outline for the kinds of questions a community news/info publisher or service provider might want to ask in a survey, to suss out which mobile offerings might work best in their community. I’ve tried to explain how each question yields actionable info for a mobile strategy.

How to conduct this survey

I strongly recommend going out into the field to talk to people face to face,  in the situations where they use their mobile phones. Look for people who are using their phone for something other than talking. Also look for people who are representative of the locations and demographics you most want to reach or serve. Don’t just poll people who already know your news/community site—part of the point here is to use mobile to grow beyond your current audience.

Surveying strangers in the field is more work, and perhaps more daunting, than polling people you know or via online channels. However, it’s really worth the effort. You’ll get to see firsthand what types of phones people have—and how, when, and where they use them. If you ask, people will generally show you what they like or don’t like about their phone.

Bring some gift cards for popular local stores or eateries—a $3 gift card seemed to be sufficient to convince people to spend a few minutes talking about their phone. Wearing a t-shirt or badge advertising your news venue can make it easier to approach potential participants.

When I first did local mobile market research for Oakland Local last summer, I made this process much harder than it needed to be—primarily by asking too many questions. When a survey is complex, it’s harder to get people to participate and it’s harder to clean useful answers from the data. So I’ve pared down my question list below to the bare minimum, to yield the data that will probably be most directly useful.

How many people should you poll? A good goal is about 50, as long as you’re really hitting a fairly representative sample. But 25 is a decent start. This is basic market research, not a scientific investigation. Also, this research should be iterative—done every 6-12 months. Mobile changes very fast.

RECOMMENDED LOCAL MOBILE MARKET RESEARCH SURVEY QUESTIONS:

1. What kind of phone do you have? Manufacturer and model.

It’s a bad idea to ask people whether they own a smartphone—people commonly answer that incorrectly. For example, many owners of simple BlackBerry phones don’t realize they have a smartphone. Conversely, many feature phone owners mistakenly think they have a smartphone because their phone has a web browser and/or a touchscreen.

If you’re doing this survey in person, as I recommended, you can look at the phone and jot down the manufacturer and model. This will also tell you what kinds of networks the phone can access (3G, 4G, etc.) so you won’t have to ask about that separately. (But if the person has an iPhone, ask what generation it is. That info might not be immediately obvious from looking at the device.)

A true smartphone uses an operating system that can run native applications (software designed to run on a specific platform). And that’s all you’re trying to discover with this question: whether it’s worthwhile for you to develop a native smartphone app (a considerable investment).

At this point, the only smartphone platforms that are important to app developers are Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. In the future, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry QNX might also become more viable for app publishers.

Stick to cell phones. Tablets and e-readers offer a very different, more immersive user experience—so while those devices are portable, they’re not really “mobile” media tools. If tablets and e-readers are common in your community, they probably warrant a separate strategy. (The exception is the iPod Touch, which many people use as a cheap wifi-only iPhone without the phone.)

2. How do you pay for your phone?

Answer options:

• Two-year carrier contract
• No contract (monthly bill or prepaid)
• Don’t know / I don’t pay the bill

Knowing how people pay for their phone today can indicate which kind of phone they’re likely to have in a year or two. This can help you plan what kinds of mobile offerings to develop.

People who have a two-year carrier contract probably already have a smartphone or will get one very soon.

People who are on no-contract plans (monthly flat rate, or prepaid) are more likely to own a simpler, less costly feature phones. Unless highly affordable smartphones ($100 or less up front, with monthly costs of about $70 or less) start becoming very common on no-contract plans in the U.S., expect that for the next year or two at least these people will probably remain mostly on feature phones.

If the overall or local economy improves markedly and quickly, smartphones might take over sooner and this question might become less relevant. But if the economic recovery continues to crawl or stalls, expect smartphones to remain the minority in most communities (except highly affluent towns, or college towns) for some time.

This means non-app options (especially the mobile web, e-mail, and SMS) probably should form the core of your mobile strategy for now, since they’ll reach the widest possible audience.

3. Which of these features do you use on your phone, and how often?

Record this answer in a grid. For each, indicate one of these options: Most days, sometimes, rarely, never/not available

• Text messaging (send or receive messages to other people)
• Text alerts (sign up to get news or alerts via text message—from your bank, your favorite sports team, etc.)
• Take photos or video
• Share (or post online) photos or video that you took with your phone
• E-mail (send or receive)
• Access web sites or search the web
• Social media (peruse or post by any mobile means: apps, web, SMS, etc.)
• Watch videos (YouTube, TV shows, anything)
• Subscribe to or download audio or video podcasts
• Download and install new apps

This question will reveal which mobile channels most people in your community are already using for any reason (not necessarily related to news). Whatever is most popular—make sure you include that in your mobile strategy!

This question also indirectly indicates the answer to another question—which inbound mobile channels you should offer to allow people to contribute content, comments, or ideas for your venture. For instance, if lots of people in your community share photos from their phone, then maybe you might want to set up an e-mail address or phone number at which you could easily accept community photo contributions.

Definitely do not ask how people get “news” or “community info” on their phones. It’s more important to focus on device usage preferences than content preferences. People often tend to pigeonhole “the news”—and you want to become part of their overall life.

In another year or two it’ll be worth asking whether people are using location-based services to discover important, interesting, useful, or fun stuff nearby. But for now—given the difficulty with properly geotagging news/info content and integrating it with popular locative services such as Foursquare or Yelp—it’s probably too early for that information to be actionable.

4. When people you know send you links or other stuff to check out (via text messaging, photo messaging, e-mail, social media, etc.), do you tend to check it out on your phone—or wait until you’re at a computer?

Answer options:

• Usually I will check it out from my phone.
• Sometimes I’ll check it out from my phone.
• I rarely or never check out links or recommendations on my phone.

As new Gallup research indicates, recommendations that people receive through their personal social networks are perhaps the most powerful tool to increase and enhance brand awareness and loyalty.

Absolutely everyone who uses any digital communication channel gets recommendations from their social networks—everything from cute cat pictures to huge breaking news stories. Most people also share links or other recommendations with their social circles via digital media.

On most mobile devices it’s a somewhat simpler task to follow a link (read a forwarded e-mail, etc.) that you receive from someone else, rather than send or post a link, picture, etc. for others to check out. So it’s sufficient to simply ask whether people follow links they get on their mobile device.

The more common it is for people in your community to use their cell phone to check out links, content, or recommendations that they receive from people they know, the more important it is for your mobile web site to display reasonably well on a simple mobile web browser—specifically the browsers that come installed on feature phones.

Even if your primary audience mostly uses smartphones, chances are good that they’re also sharing links or content with their networks—and it’s likely that plenty of people in their networks are using feature phones. You want those recommendations to work, because that can help grow your audience.

5. Which digital services do you tend to use most to communicate with GROUPS of people (not just individuals)—whether from your phone, computer, or any other device? (Includes posting, commenting, and reading/viewing)

Record this answer in a grid. Customize this list according to what’s appropriate for your community. For each, indicate one of these options: Most days, sometimes, rarely, never/not available

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Google Plus
• MySpace
• Tumblr
• Foursquare
• LinkedIn
• Flickr
• E-mail discussion lists
• Group texting (GroupMe, etc.)
• Group instant messaging (via BlackBerry Messenger, AOL IM, etc.)
• Other (describe)

Social media is one of the most popular mobile non-voice activities, after e-mail and texting. It’s also one of the most powerful channels for community engagement and personal recommendations. Any local news or community site must have a strong presence in the social media that are most relevant to your community.

I’m defining “social media” very broadly here, as: any channel or service that allows people to communicate publicly or privately with a defined group on an ongoing basis. That’s because the point is to figure out how to build awareness and engagement within groups—not just to get the most Facebook friends.

Whichever social media channels are most popular with people in your community, make sure you have a strong presence there. If most local people are on Twitter or MySpace or Foursquare, you need to be there—actively conversing with people, not just broadcasting. If e-mail lists, group texting, or other more closed channels are popular, you need to be there too (though that’ll take more bridge building to gain access and trust).

And of course, every link that you post on social media should lead to a page that works well on simpler mobile browsers. If it’s a kind of content that simply won’t display well on a feature phone browser (such as an interactive data visualization, a pdf file, a large video, or a Soundslides presentation), indicate the content type in your post so mobile users can decide whether to click. Preventing their frustration is key. Mobile users remember when someone frustrates them.

...These five questions are a very basic starting point. They won’t tell you absolutely everything about your local mobile market—but they’ll probably give you enough information to make better choices as you start experimenting with mobile offerings.

These questions also can be a great starting point for community conversations. After you’ve run through the quick survey, you can ask, “So what do you you really love to do with your phone? Or what really bugs you? Could you show me?” That can lead to some fun and intriguing conversations.

People tend to have very strong emotional connections to their cell phones—positive and negative. The more you understand that connection, the easier it will be to engage with them via the phones in their hands.

The News Leadership 3.0 blog is made possible by a grant to USC Annenberg from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

By Amy Gahran, 09/23/11 at 2:21 pm