Embrace Mobile

FAQ

Embrace Mobile provides a product called MSurvey to the market research industry. It enables survey data collection via via mobile phone. It is used by market research professionals at market research firms, advertising agencies, and brand companies.

MSurvey

What is MSurvey?

MSurvey allows market researchers to collect data from a respondent via their mobile phone.

What kinds of surveys are supported?

The same as are available for offline and online methods: Opinion Polling, Customer Satisfaction, Brand Awareness, and Advertising Effectiveness. Additionally the mobile phone has some unique advantages that enable new survey applications such as live Audience Response for events.

Why survey via mobile phone?

A well designed mobile survey can provide quicker responses, higher rates of response and higher quality results. There are number of key advantages to reaching the respondent via their mobile phone.

Quick Response - The phone is always on and always with the respondent. If the respondent is well incentivized to participate an immediate response can be sought. For example reaching out to political party members after a crucial television broadcast.

Immediacy - The respondent can be reached at exactly the moment that their opinion has been formed. Often online and offline survey mechanisms collect data after the fact, not at the moment. For example, solicit an opinion from a traveler at the moment they step off the plane: 'Welcome to San Francisco. How was your flight?'.

Relevancy – A survey presented at the wrong moment is an interruption and an intrusion. A survey presented at the right moment can be considered both a courtesy and a part of the customer experience. By analogy, for example, a hotel desk clerk who enquirers during your stay as to your satisfaction with your room is considered to be doing a good job.

Context – The mobile phone offers additional contextual information to the market researcher. If the respondent is willing, their device can be enabled to reveal their location and activity with the device. With this additional contextual information respondents can be highly targeted and surveys can be highly specific.

Mobility – The respondent can be reached where they are, not when they get home or to their desk. For example, testing advertising effectiveness at music festivals or sporting events.

Demographics – The mobile phone is the most ubiquitous technology with the broadest demographic reach, more so than the PC or even the landline telephone. And, it is now one of the few ways to reach the youth market.

Why would a respondent participate?

It can actually be more convenient for them than an offline or online survey. They can initiate taking the survey, rather than being interrupted by a voice call. And, they can use time that would normally be non-productive, perhaps when traveling to work on public transport.

How does MSurvey work?

Our system manages the presentation of a questionnaire to a respondent using the most appropriate mobile messaging mechanism for that respondent. It could be via text messages, web pages for the phone, or an actual application downloaded and installed on the phone. To view an example survey presentation see How Mobile Surveys Work.

MSurvey works everywhere?

Yes. We’ve tested it all over Europe and North America. We’ve not launched MSurvey in Asia yet, but there’s no reason why the system won’t work there too.

MSurvey works for every phone?

Yes. Well, 99% of them. Because we started designing and building our products with the premise of first supporting the most simple technology we can provide universal coverage. Of course for phones with more advanced capabilities we also provide an improved user experience through web pages and downloaded applications.

Text Messaging

I’ve never sent a Text message. Why would I?

A lot of people do. In Europe it has universal usage across the entire population. For example, in the UK there are over 100 million Text messages sent every day. In North America it is very popular in the key 18-34 demographic and in older age groups its use is increasing rapidly.

Isn’t Text-ing expensive?

Not if you have it built into your phone plan. For example, in the United States the service provider Cingular offers bundles of text messages at 1c per message. Most people who text regularly buy those bundles as part of their plan.

The respondent still pays though?

Yes, but not much, and just like with an offline or online survey you can compensate them for their participation. In the UK we use Reverse Billed Premium Text for compensation that pays off their mobile phone bill as they Text. The kids love that! We can also send a digital reward, such as a ringtone, or a coupon for redemption at a store.

It costs money to send the survey?

Yes, but we buy the messages in bulk and pass on those savings to you, so they’re relatively inexpensive.

Typing text into a phone is hard.

Yes, it can be tedious. Particularly if you’re not had practice or happen to have have large fingers. So, we design our mobile surveys to minimize text entry, for example ‘yes-or-no’ and ‘1-to-5’ questions work well, but writing an essay does not.

If the phone has a web browser then we can present the survey in a form that provides an improved user experience.

Phone Web Surveys

How do web pages to the phone work?

Most phones have web browsers built in so we can direct the respondent to a web page designed for the phone. It looks much like a survey you would present online.

Phones have small screens though?

That’s why our system detects the phone and generates web pages specifically for that device. We create the web page based on our knowledge of the phone’s capabilities, for example the screen size and the number of colors supported. To view an example survey presentation see How Mobile Surveys Work.

What are the messaging costs involved?

The survey is usually initiated via text message and then conducted over a data connection. Because our surveys are relatively small they consume little bandwidth. In the UK the majority of service plans include limited data connectivity for free, or for a relatively small initial charge. In the US however, data connectivity is not built into every plan, but the majority of people who use their phone for business do.

Phone Application Surveys

How does the application get onto the phone?

Much as we initiate a phone web page interaction we can also send an application. It is downloaded over-the-air and installed on the phone. In a situation where you’re also supplying the device to the respondent the application can be pre-installed.

Why an MSurvey application?

Because we have more control over the device we can provide an even better user experience then with text messages or web pages. And, surveys can be conducted where data connectivity coverage is poor.

Downloading an application is inconvenient?

It’s only a couple of clicks, but this is most often used in situations where there is a dedicated mobile panel. The respondents could be well incentivized to participate, or they could have interests well aligned with the researcher. For example, pharmaceutical trials, polling of party members for political candidates, professional mystery shoppers, or for computer assisted face-to-face interviews.

Using MSurvey

How complex can the questionnaire be?

We support a similar feature set to most questionnaire design tools, in fact we’ve integrated with some so that you can generate a mobile survey questionnaire using your regular tools. We support a dozen question types and also dynamic routing through the questions based on the answers to previous questions.

Does the questionnaire have to be designed for the messaging mechanism?

No, the same questionnaire can be presented through any of the supported mobile messaging mechanisms. Our system selects the most appropriate mechanism for each respondent. We continue to add new mechanisms as they become available.

How do I interact with MSurvey?

You can engage us to run a survey for you. You email us your requirements and our customer service staff will create the survey and operate the system for you.

We also have a self-service option whereby we provision you with an account on our system and you use the administrators web interface to operate the system.

We can also integrate your IT system with ours to provide you with a seamless experience through your own enterprise applications. We provide a REST API for this purpose.

Finally you can use one of our partners who provide a full-service market research offering or fully integrated IT system.

What form are the results data in?

We send you raw data for import into a spreadsheet or data analysis application. We can either send that data at the end of the survey period, as a periodic snapshot, or even on a per answer basis in real-time.

What about snazzy analytics?

We provide some simple charting functionality to aide with campaign management, but most of our clients already have their own sophisticated statistical analysis tools.

What about integration?

If you have IT systems for managing your market research activities then we can integrate our software systems with yours. Increased automation brings lower costs and increased control.

How would we integrate?

We provide MSurvey as a Web Service, which has a REST API. This is a common Internet technology for providing machine-to-machine services over the web. It is relatively easy to integrate with existing IT infrastructure. For example our existing partners were able to get going in about a week .

What can you do for me?

I’m a brand manager...

We’re not a full-service market research firm, but we can directly provide you with our mobile data collection service. You would provide the mobile panel and you would analyze the results. Alternatively we can work with your regular marketing research service provides or we can introduce you to our partners who provide those services.

I’m a market research professional...

You probably have clients who could benefit from mobile market research. You can bundle our data collection services into your full service offering for your clients. We would engage with you under a reseller agreement.

I’m a software vendor...

You can provide a broader offering to your customers by adding our mobile data collection mechanisms to your existing product suite. We would engage with you under an OEM agreement.

I’m an academic / non-profit researcher...

We believe that the broad demographic adoption of mobile technology makes it ideal for reaching people who’s opinions might not normally be considered. In particular the economically and politically disadvantaged. We’re happy to consider project proposals that promote our values.

Can I try this myself?

Provide us with your mobile phone number and your current timezone and we’ll send you a demonstration survey.

The timezone is just so that we don’t message you in the middle of the night.

(You could also join our community of mobile market research testers.)

Do you have a mobile panel?

We don’t supply mobile panels, but we can refer you to one of our partners who does. You can also create your own from your existing customer base, which we can help you with.

Embrace Mobile

Who are you guys?

We are an international team of product designers, engineers and marketers building compelling mobile software products for the Market Research industry.

Where are you located?

We started in Oxford in the UK, but now also have teams in Palo Alto, California and in London.

How did you get started?

We started in 2003 as a consultancy offering deep expertise in innovative product design and development. We’re proud to say that we helped a lot of software startups get going in the UK.

In 2004 we invested in building a robust scalable mobile messaging platform upon which we have built our first business application for the Market Research industry, MSurvey.