Blogs are known to be the interactive hub of your website, as they deliver numerous benefits that you can’t necessarily achieve through other pages.

Blogging is a crucial part of your content marketing strategy for generating organic traffic to your site. Time-consuming maybe, however, your blog offers you the opportunity to have a voice within your particular industry.

Why Should I Start a Blog for My Business?

Sample size has an important role to play in ensuring the findings are representative of the whole population whilst meeting the needs of clients in terms of reliability of data and, of course, budget.

For quantitative research techniques based on statistical reliability the calculation of confidence intervals is used to ensure that the sample is truly representative of the whole. Knowing the reliability of the study means that findings can be defended on the basis of logic rather than emotion.

The box below shows the confidence interval with different sample sizes. By selecting the most appropriate confidence interval (often referred to as the margin of error) you can be certain that the findings cannot be dismissed on grounds of dubious methodology.

Population Statistical Reliability +/- 5% +/-10% 25 24 20 50 44 33 100 80 49 500 217 81 1000 278 88 5000 357 94 For example: a response rate of 81 out of a population of 500 is needed for a +/ 10% confidence interval. If the mean of all the respondents’ scores is 4 on a scale of 1 to 5, the actual range will be between 3.6 and 4.4 (on 95% of occasions). At the more rigorous +/ 5% (217 responses) the range narrows to between 3.8 and 4.2.

]]> https://nixonmcinnes.co.uk/insights/fieldwork-and-data-analysis Sat, 11 Oct 2025 15:50:12 +0000 https://www.1abc.co.uk/blog/fieldwork-and-data-analysis Through our fieldwork partner we have access to a nationwide network of over 1000 interviewers who are all IQCS trained so assuring clients of the quality of our interviewing. All fieldwork is carried out according to the Market Research Society Code of Conduct and Standards.

In addition to this, we have a panel of very experienced consultant interviewers who can be called on for in-depth face-to-face or telephone interviews or where their sector skills or specialist knowledge would provide an advantage.

Data for quantitative surveys is entered into a data analysis software package and produced as tabulations. These tabulations can be exported in various formats such as SNAP, SPSS and Excel to meet clients own analysis needs. Accuracy is ensured by double entry and computer validation of any fields that do not match.

Data analysis training

Many of our clients use SNAP Survey Analysis Software. For these clients we provide tailored training to help them undertake detailed analysis of data from their own surveys.

We work with clients’ own data to help them ‘drill down’ into data sets to investigate specific areas of interest. This can be particularly important when discussing survey results with ‘internal clients’

We provide clients with a copy of the final SNAP data file.

Sheffield offers varied fixed-fee divorce options. Howells is the most affordable at £275 + VAT, while Buchanan & Co (£550 + VAT) and Wake Smith (£500 + VAT) sit mid-range. Graysons and Battens provide all-inclusive packages (£1,212 and £1,500). Larger firms (Stowe, Slater & Gordon, Co-op) charge £450–£750 plus court fees. Some (Prince, Irwin Mitchell, Everys, Taylor Emmet) provide quote-based or consultation-only services.

Australia Dubai India Myamar Thailand Canada Germany New Zealand UK Chile Indonesia, Singapore USA China Japan Slovenia Vietnam Czech Republic Malaysia Switzerland

Tegra Associates is a new network of consultancies specializing in developing franchises outside of its home country. It specializes at present in Europe with partner consultancies in Spain, the Czech Republic, Italy, Slovakia and Switzerland and the UK.

Core Services

Country-specific marketing and promotion

Tailored marketing services, product launches, marketing planning, implementation, product sourcing, and supply, management, branding, business and market roll-out plans.

In-country sales representation

Recruitment, appointment, hosting, management.

Primary market research and market intelligence

Market research and assessment, market scoping, market analysis, feasibility studies, competitor analysis, country and industry briefs.

International franchise development and support services

Feasibility studies, establishing master franchisee and/or Area franchisees, marketing and selling of franchise licences, conversion and translation of franchise agreements and manuals, ongoing project management of franchise development.

Representative office services and facilities

Office facilities, administrative management and support, clerical support, licensing and legal services.

The starting point is a review of your existing marketing.

Marketing audit

This “where are we now” analysis is an essential first step in any project designed to improve your marketing. It includes looking at your existing marketing performance as well as a review of the potential markets for the business. The methodology of the audit is a great way of ensuring that all aspects of the problem are taken into account.

The audit addresses the strengths and weaknesses of your customer acquisition and retention procedures and will vary depending on the markets you are selling in.

Following the audit you will be provided with a comprehensive report showing where there is potential for improvement. You can take these forward in a number of ways:

• In-house implementation
  

  Implement the recommendations uing your in-house personnel and expertise with the option of guidance/mentoring from the consultant who conducted the audit.

• Outsourced implementation
  

  Retain outside support to work with your people to implement the changes or to undertake more intensive studies. Examples are:

  • prepare a marketing strategy and plan
  • assess new markets
  • prepare a promotional campiagn
  • direct actuion in the form of telesales, direct mail etc
  • A customer satisfaction survey to find out why you are not outperforming the competition.

• Training
  

  Training can take two forms: individual skills training or conducting dedicated workshops to thrash out strategy or address specific issues. In-house strategy workshops are a very effective way of resolving conflicting demands upon respources by using a third party to keep discussions on track and maintain focus. There is more information about training in the dedicated section on this web site.

LONGER TERM PARTNERSHIPS

All marketing consultancies have a better chance of making an impact if they work with you over a long period of time. See the Maas section for more information.

Contact us using the form above for our views on making your marketing project come to life.

It is easy to be overcome by the promise of Web 2.0. The view appears to be: “put some relevant content ‘out there’ and new customers will flock to us without having to pay for conventional marketing” . Is this view justified or are they those of commentators with a vested interest in ‘bigging’ up social media?

If in doubt it is always a good idea to reach for the facts. But herein lies a difficulty. Facts seem to be few and far between in the blogosphere. Most of the reports that have come across my desk would make any self respecting researcher squirm. Conclusions are being drawn from dubious sample sizes with few attempts to segment respondents. Perhaps this is the nature of new media but it makes justifying expenditure and effort in this area an act of faith rather than a proven way of improving ROI.

Scouring the many opinions being offered leads to a number of conclusions albeit best described as work-in-progress

1. It’s social not business
Social sites are about people-to-people and not business-to-business. If they have a role to play in business it is more about business-to-consumer than business-to-business. Linkedin goes furthest towards crossing that divide but, to be flippant, often seems to be more about people trying to influence their existing contact list or possibly flagging their availability to headhunters. So, rather than B2B, Linkedin seems to be more about B2C2B.

2. It’s all about content and relevance
People sign up to a social site because they are interested in the person, the group, or the company. If you are trying to use social sites as a way of promoting your business you will need to have a very interesting personality in the company, a special interest to makes your group more interesting than the thousands of other sites on the web, or information that you can provide that others cannot. For most B2B marketers this comes down to explaining something which is not well known or providing information to an audience which is known to you and not to them. Good examples of the use of social sites in this way – although it could easily be done by other means – is an update service or a discussion about issues of importance to a particular industry.

A report published by Base One and B2B Marketing puts a little more flesh on these bones (see chart).

The most influential channels across the whole buying cycle are: web sites/web searches, word-of-mouth, events/seminars and industry press.

The least influential are: Facebook, Linkedin, blogs, Twitter and community sites.

Direct mail and press advertising are firmly positioned between these two blocks with direct mail performing particular well as a way of choosing a supplier. So much for Web 2.0.

If there is some encouragement from the report it is that some social sites are being used to confirm the choice of supplier (as opposed to inform the choice of supplier). In the chart this relationship can be seen from the small up-tick in the Twitter curve. Good old fashioned word-of-mouth approval but on a new platform.

So where does that leave B2B social marketing? If nothing else, the jury is out and showing few signs of wanting to return. But the Internet is fast moving and there is no reason to believe that the position reported in Base One’s survey in April 2022 will still apply in 2023.

November 2022

]]> https://nixonmcinnes.co.uk/insights/mystery-shopping Sat, 15 Mar 2025 02:04:34 +0000 https://www.1abc.co.uk/blog/mystery-shopping We have extensive experience of using mystery shopping to test service levels before and after training courses. Mystery shopping provides an easy to understand method of tracking employees product knowledge and customer care.

It is increasingly used by service organisations to benchmark and measure the effectiveness of staff training. We have used them for a wide range of local authority departments, bus and train operating companies and information service providers.

Mystery shopping enables organisations to measure their adherence to standards set either by themselves or by regulators and to highlight areas where more or different training may be required.