|
Advice and
analysis from Tom Dolan Get the Most From
Your Research Questionnaire
VOLUME XXV NUMBER 13 MARCH 28, 2005
With audiences continuing to shrink and fragment even further, it is more important
than ever to have top quality research. You must know as much as you can about your loyal
viewers and your potential audience.
Management consultant Tom Dolan, President of Dolan Media Management, offers this advice
on fine-tuning your research questionnaires in order to get the most out of your research
dollars. Here are some thoughts as you prepare for research projects this spring or
summer.
A winning strategy starts with research
There is a dramatic need for research in today's marketplace.
"Research is critical for stations to operate in this fragmented universe," says
Tom Dolan, President of Dolan Media Management.
"The need to provide unique content is there more than ever, because the universe of
news viewers keeps shrinking. You are not just competing against the station across the
street," he says.
You are competing against all other sources available online and on cable.
"They are finding some local news either irrelevant or not engaging, or they've heard
it all before," he says.
"Market instincts are important, but you need baseline personality and content
research to get you up and rolling, so you can compare where you are now versus where you
were two years ago," says Dolan. Research dollars may be hard to come by, but this is
a must this year. He feels research is the only true way to determine what has value for
the viewer.
"It is really critical data. You base your
whole strategy off of this.
"You're taking two departments --- News and Marketing --- in a specific direction for
probably two years on the basis of this information." |
|
Tom Dolan
Dolan Media Management |
Get the right research team
Whether to stay with the same research company is the first question. An advantage of
staying with the same firm is being able to track the research, so you are interpreting it
reliably.
If you are switching companies, Dolan says someone from the station, who is knowledgeable
about what was in the last study, must be actively involved in designing the new one, so
you aren't starting all over.
Aggressively investigate the background, techniques and results of any researcher or
consultant that you are considering hiring. "Check them out. Treat it like the most
controversial news story you cover," says Dolan.
 They must have a television background.
Dolan says a competent, qualified consultant should have some history at a commercially
successful TV station and should have been a product innovator.
"If there is no one in their company who has an industry background, you may want to
look somewhere else," he says.
Get references.
The researcher/consultant must offer a track record history and other news directors and
other marketing directors they have worked with. Ask who you will be assigned to your
project.
"If it's a research company, you want to make sure you are getting attention from the
main research director, and at the least, that his or her hand is on it in terms of the
interpretation of the data and the findings," he says.
Ask about their methodology.
Dolan believes the most acceptable samples are of 400 people.
"The researchers should set the base target for the 400 to match and model the
Nielsen profile for news viewing in that market's DMA," he urges.
They must show they are able to produce practical, actionable information.
"You should not settle for something like, 'Cover more education.' What does that
mean? Does that mean you should have an education beat reporter and go to the Board of
Education meetings? Probably not," he says.
If viewers say they are concerned about education or they want to see more on education,
they may be more interested in the quantity and quality of the material taught in schools.
"You must ask very specific questions about the methodology, and very aggressive
questions about how they will construct and write the recommendatio ns section," he
adds.
They must be able to offer effective recommendations that you can act on.
"The researchers are in a unique position. They have heard the verbatims and have
listened to the audio tapes. The onus should be on the research firm to explain to you how
to take the findings and turn it into actionable data for the staff. The companies we work
with make this a piece of the research presentation," says Dolan.
Make it a part of the contract that a second presentation be scheduled to
present the research to the staff.
This may be a second day or a second visit to the station.
The questions must be the right ones for your station and your market.
"Over the years, I have found it challenging to get some companies to change their
questionnaire to be market-specific," he says.
Dolan warns that if they recycle the same questionnaire to everyone in order to keep their
costs down, you may not get the quality of data you really need.
When you go to the field, make sure it's a level one. Avoid weeks when unusual events
(i.e. sports playoffs) or extreme weather can skew interest in temporarily hot subjects.
Or some viewers will be unavailable by phone if a hurricane is moving through.
Establish a timeline for accomplishing all these things.
Outline what you need to consider
before beginning
Conduct a self-exam before the project starts.
Develop prep questions to ask yourself and to take into your first meeting with the
researchers.
Dolan suggests that in evaluating the overall goal of the research project, some of the
things you might want to discuss include:
- Are we positioned correctly as a station?
- Are we doing the kind of news people care about?
- Are we positioned correctly to become a brand in the viewer's mind?
- Does your newscast have a sense of mission and purpose?
- Are your anchors in sync with the sense of purpose?
- What is our attitude about viewers? Are we viewer-oriented?
- How has the DMA changed?
- How has the competition changed? Is Fox more of a factor now, or any other prime
newscast?
- Are there morning news differences now?
- Have stations added or expanded shows?
- How has the lead-in and lead-out programming affected viewing patterns?
- Are there transmission issues? Can people see us in all areas of the market?
- Who is getting better? Who is getting worse? Why? Identify your opportunities and
weaknesses
To probe opportunities and weaknesses, researchers need to discover the most watched,
next most watched and to pursue a whole line of questioning as to the reason viewers
watch.
"You can literally write your action plan off of that," says Dolan.
If you are a number one station, you look at ways to maintain your position, solidify
your base, shore up any weaknesses or vulnerable areas and maybe get your loyal viewers to
watch more frequently.
"You always need to look at market geography and where the diaries or meters
are," he adds.
Managers at the other stations look for viewers who aren't being served and for weaknesses
in the leader's lineup.
You may need to do companion research this year on the morning news.
"Most stations are doing a two-hour news block now, but many don't have existing
research on the morning day part," he says.
Dolan recommends looking at the hours where viewers are naturally inclined to watch
more frequently, such as mornings.
"Mornings are a fresh start to the day. Viewers wake up curious about what happened
overnight. They are bombarded with all sorts of sources of news during the day, so the
decision to watch at night is a more complicated choice," he says.
Find your potential strong points
Use the research to develop more dedicated content.
"Probe and test subject areas that will lead to newscast points of difference and
reasons to watch. For example, do viewers prefer more investigations or enterprise of
daily topical news stories of the day or stand alone investigations of special
subjects?" says Dolan.
You want to know what the impact could be if you dedicate more resources to a particular
thing of viewer value.
"The key to the actionable data is to be as specific as possible in these
attributes and not confuse content and presentation," he says.
Take large content areas like consumer, education and medical and probe specifics about
what viewers want, he urges.
"On education for example, making the school board accountable would be a daily news
story, but an in-depth story on what children are being taught would be a special
promotable story," he says.
Content drivers can change with the times, and may surprise news managers.
"You must test what viewers are really looking for," he says.
Dolan favors testing interest levels for the war in Iraq and the war on terror.
There are many local angles to the wars that can be covered, but sometimes aren't as some
stations emphasize brief re-cuts of Washington feeds. Washington suits are talking, while
viewers may seek local stories.
If the study reveals one station is not living up to the viewers' preference score in a
certain subject matter, the competition could exploit it by do more stories in that
subject area to satisfy the viewer appetite.
Are your slogans believable? A major research project may be a time to check.
Dolan points to a station promoting crime information promising to make viewers safer.
"It wasn't believable. Viewers saw through that," he says.
Current perceptions of talent must be documented
"You must decide with your researcher in terms of the value in your newscast in
what category do you put your anchors as credible and authoritative? It's not really a
content driver, but it may be a reason to watch," he says.
Questions about credible anchors and anchors working as a team may need to be in a
different category from the content drivers.
"You must really press them on how they plan to organize these categories of content
drivers and image attributes. Where do they want to put subjects like 'Is the value of my
anchor being authoritative and credible?' or will they test the importance of having an
investigative edge to breaking news?" he asks.
Execute your plan daily
Dolan says useable results should allow you to check each day whether each newscast
contains the content drivers important to your viewers.
In editorial meetings, you should be able to go down a list of six or eight content
drivers. Are you over-skewing crime coverage that day, when viewers say they want to know
more about education?
Depending on the questionnaire, look for the research to show that your newscasts
should excel at explaining why things happen.
"This is an area to exploit in a major way to move up in the market. This finding is
consistent across the board. Pick your research. Pick your market. Pick your company. It's
one of the underplayed strategies," he says.
He adds, "Viewers want you to help their understanding of the story. Some news
managers don't get this. Viewers definitely want it."
For the news manager who is rebuilding, your plan can help:
--- Change the culture starting with the meetings.
--- Address core values.
--- Checklist relentlessly the key elements that make it a good newscast every day.
--- Commit to a special weather plan.
--- Build accountability. Who's specifically responsible?
--- Build a complete parallel marketing plan.
DMM is a management company that partners with stations to help them develop their
management strategy and to recruit the right people to help build better newscasts.
For more information, you can reach Tom Dolan at:
Dolan Media Management
3 North Court Street
Frederick, MD 21701
301-668-1511
http://www.smartrecruit.com |
