4 Key reasons why you’ll love asynchronous online qual

Online qual is still new to a lot of people in the market research industry.

As such we find that many qualitative researchers, keen to work online, want to understand the benefits of asynchronous, online qual, which Liveminds offers, compared to synchronous research (live online focus groups.) They want to know which of these methodologies will best satisfy the type of brief that typically lands on their desk.

So to help answer that question for people, we thought it would be useful to look at some of the key benefits of a ‘asynchronous.’

1. Depth of response

On average participants give 260 words per day during Liveminds projects. Add in their video comments, soundbites, illustrative images, and you are getting a huge amount of insight and incredible value from them. Why is this?

• Your time with participants isn’t shared across the group, as it is in face to face or live online focus groups, so 2 hours of participant time means 2 hours per participant.
• Participants have the time they need to give considered responses to questions and tasks, meaning they are more detailed and more accurate.

2. Colour & Context

Asynchronous online and mobile qual enables participants to express themselves in writing, but also more creatively with imagery and video. For example, whilst it’s valuable to get participants to tell you about their kitchen and how they usually cook their food, asynchronous online qual offers enables you to see, it, hear it and live that moment with them. Participants don’t recall behaviour, they record it.

You can then easily download participants’ videos and imagery, to add colour to your research debrief, and give your clients the same ‘in the moment’ insights.

3. Flexibility & Control

Participants can now join the conversations when, where and how they want to, meaning they engage more effectively and give you better insights. You can too, moderating the conversations at your convenience.

You can also develop your discussion guide as the project progresses, based on participant responses or catering for last minute client requests. This means you never miss an opportunity to explore an interesting angle.

On the Liveminds platform, you can use one of three different question types -‘private’, ‘group’ and ‘open.’ This means you can seamlessly switch from one methodology to the next, depending on the sensitivity of each conversation.

4. Analysis & Reporting

Although the depth & richness that asynchronous provides creates more information for you to work through, analysis itself is actually faster and more efficient. Here’s why:

• The on-going nature of asynchronous means that you will start to see trends & patterns in responses as the project progresses.
• You can analyse comments as they are made, rather than having to solely focus on moderation.
• Transcripts are immediately available, either as a whole, or ‘filtered’ so you can build profiles, segment consumers or simply have all the key comments to hand, to get a head start with your report.

We hope that helps you create a compelling case to your client or colleagues for experiencing the benefits of asynchronous online qual. We’ll be covering some of the challenges you might face and exploring the pros and cons of synchronous in another post very soon!

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