Research provides a strong foundation of knowledge on which advertising and fundraising campaigns can be built. For many, research can be daunting. ME&V’s research approach keeps it simple and understandable for the client. It’s results-driven. And always money well spent.

While ME&V can provide both qualitative and quantitative, our expertise lies in qualitative research. For clients who require quantitative research, we will locate the best outside quantitative expert and serve as the conduit between the vendor and the client.

Some common research methods ME&V enlists are:

Branding Surveys

A branding survey uses one-on-one interviews to determine what people think and know about a business or organization.

Branding surveys are ideal for a business or organization that wants to change a name, name a product or service, create a new service or develop a tag line. Information is gathered through a series of qualitative interviews to determine what key stakeholders are thinking. This humanistic approach provides an opportunity to “walk in the shoes” of the participants—seeing things from their points of view in terms of their needs.

Focus Groups

A focus group is a small group of people brought together and guided by a moderator through an unstructured, spontaneous discussion about some topic.

Focus groups are fundamentally a way of listening to people and learning from them. There are four basic uses for focus groups:

• Problem Identification
• Planning
• Implementation
• Assessment

"This has been a great experience as we work with ME & V on this focus group. We have learned more about how parents feel about the Metro Catholic Schools and how those feelings can help us become even stronger. By doing that we can also position ourselves to be seen by more parents/guardians as a great fit for their son/daughter's education emphasizing mind, body and spirit for a complete education. The staff have been complete professionals, listening to our goals, doing the research, and are now in the process of presenting a plan that will guide us the next several years."

Jeff Henderson
Superintendent of Schools
Archdiocese of Dubuque

Audits

An audit is an analysis of an organization’s marketing materials and/or communications designed to “take a picture” of marketing/communication needs, policies, practices and capabilities. Such an analysis helps the researchers to uncover necessary data that allows top management to make informed, economical decisions about future objectives of the organization’s communication.

Mystery Shopping

Mystery shopping is a systematic way of assessing customer satisfaction by having research staff pretend to be potential customers, and noting how frontline staff respond to their demands. Sometimes called shadow shopping. 

Mystery shopping is one of the most often-used research techniques to measure customer/employee interaction. Used as a benchmark, mystery shopping can pinpoint your company’s strengths and weaknesses for training operations and policy refinements. Mystery shopping is used not only to monitor but also to motivate and reward performance.

Online Surveying

An online survey is a quantitative research methodology that is placed on the Web for quick e-time response and statistic reporting.

Online surveys are an accurate and efficient means of collecting useful information. Rather than confronting the logistical problems of paperwork and overwhelming inboxes, an online survey Online surveys are an accurate and efficient means of collecting useful information. Rather than confronting the logistical problems of paperwork and overwhelming inboxes, an online survey tool will synthesize information in an orderly and manageable fashion.