#crowdpicker

It's a bit of a year-end tradition, making a resolution to do better next year. Whether it's to quit a bad habit, to start a good one, or to just be a better person in general, many of us take part in this annual ritual. But is this tradition still popular? According to our respondents, it is.

We asked 250 people whether they participate in making a New Year's resolution and it turns out that the majority (59%) does. 

The popularity of things like Cyber Monday seem to suggest that a large portion of holiday shopping will be done online. But is this really the case? We asked 250 people to tell us where they do their holiday shopping, and it seems that the online option isn't quite as popular as its made out to be.

A whopping 65% of our respondents said that they buy their holiday gifts at stores. No wonder the malls are crazy this time of year!

Only 16% said that they buy their gifts online, with 18% doing a bit of both. View the full results. 

This week, we asked our respondents two holiday-related questions. We wanted to find out if people celebrate Christmas and New Year's and whether or not these were their favourite holidays out of the year.

As it turns out, most people celebrate both holidays. Only 3% of our 250 respondents said that they don't celebrate either holiday. 12% only celebrate New Year's Eve, while another 7% only celebrate Christmas. That leaves a whole 78% that celebrate both!

Even though the majority of people do celebrate these holidays, it seems they aren't fan favourites. Only 10% of the 250 people we asked said that Christmas was their favourite holiday. While 47% preferred New Year's Eve, another 44% prefer another holiday altogether.

The holidays are approaching fast and we wanted to find out what people are most looking forward to this year. Was it the presents? The food? Spending time with the family? We asked 250 people to let us know what they were most excited for in this week's case study. It seems that most people are feeling overworked! 33% of our respondents said that they're looking forward to having some time off from work. 18% can't wait to spend some quality time with their families, while another 22% are excited for the food, decorations, and general holiday spirit that comes with this time of year.

Some of our respondents were a bit more materialistic, with 15% choosing the presents are the most exciting feature of the holidays. Another 8% are looking forward to getting some new things for cheaper holiday sale prices. Click to view the full results. 

We asked 250 people what they thought about climate change. Did they think it really was causing the extreme weather we've been seeing in the past few decades? The results were quite one-sided, with the majority of people believing that climate change is the cause of extreme weather patterns. 

52% of our respondents said they believe that climate change is the cause of extreme weather occurrences. Another 33% said that they aren't sure, but they believe climate change is a plausible explanation for extreme weather patterns. That's a total of 85% of respondents that believe climate change exists and could be affecting our weather.

Only 5% believe that climate change is not the cause of extreme weather, with another 10% saying that they're not sure, but they don't believe climate change is the cause. 

The importance of email marketing is shouted from the rooftops in the business world. Many entrepreneurs and marketing experts have emphasized the need to create a strong e-campaign to reach customers. But do these really work as well as it's been claimed?

Many of us (either on purpose or by accident) subscribe to newsletters through giving our email for things we are interested in, entering draws, or signing petitions for things we want to support. We then fill our inboxes with these various e-newsletters from the all sorts of companies and organizations. The CrowdPicker case study this week was focused on how people interact with e-newsletters, and the results are pretty surprising. Almost half (48%) of the 250 respondents said that they have never received a newsletter! Either the marketing teams haven't tried hard enough, or these people avoid giving out their email addresses like the plague! 14% of respondents said they don't read any of the newsletters they receive, with 10% saying they unsubscribe immediately upon receiving a newsletter. 9% of respondents said they either delete newsletters or add them to the spam folder. That's a total of 81% of respondents that don't read or engage with e-newsletters!

Less than 1% of our respondents said they actually read the newsletters they receive, with almost 2% more saying they browse through some newsletters, but rarely read everything. 11% said they do read newsletters, but only if they are informational, and not promotional. 

This week we wanted to find out who would win the battle between print and digital media when it comes to books, newspapers, and magazines. As more and more people get their information through their smartphones, tablets, ereaders, and computers, is print media still surviving? It turns out that it is.

15% of our 250 respondents said that they prefer print media overall, while 22% said they prefer printed hard copies when it comes to books. 10% preferred magazines in print. However, less than 3% said they prefer printed newspapers.

Just 30% of respondents picked digital media overall when it comes to books, newspapers, and magazines. Here are the full results.

It seems that even though digital media is preferred in some forms, print is still surviving when it comes to books and magazines.

We've been talking about market research a lot lately, so we figured we'd break down what the traditional definition of market research is and how this has changed and developed in the last few decades with the advancement of technology.  First, let's cover the basic definition of "market research". Market research is the gathering of information about consumer needs, wants, and preferences. These consumers form a market. By conducting market research, an entrepreneur can determine how to develop a product effectively, based on the market's preferences.

Next, let's look at the distinction between primary and secondary market research.

What is primary market research? Primary market research is when you (or someone you've hired) conduct your own testing and research using a variety of different researching options. You don't rely on other sources as you create your own research results from scratch by setting up and conducting your own experiments. This means that the research conducted is customized to your project and is created based on your specific requirements and structure. 

There are advantages and disadvantages to this type of research. While it is very advantageous that the research is customized for your specific project, setting up and conducting the research can often be very time consuming. There are also a variety of options when determining which type of primary research is suitable for you. Do you want to use surveys, focus groups, interviews, observational research, or do you want to set up experiments and field trials? Choosing and creating the optimal structure and deployment of your research is an important, but often overwhelming and daunting task. It can also be quite costly, whether you're doing it yourself or you are hiring an external person or firm. However, the results can be directly applied to your project and may give you the insights you've been searching for. 

One of the quickest, easiest, and most affordable ways to conduct primary market research is to use CrowdPicker!

What is secondary market research? Secondary market research is when you search for and find other sources that can provide you with relevant information or research results. These sources can include published reports, publicly available statistics, books, journals, magazines, and more. 

Although secondary market research tends to be much more affordable (usually free), and access to it is quick so that you can determine it's value immediately, it is much more difficult to find research that is relevant to your specific project. This means that research you do find will have to be interpreted in order to fit your particular project which can make the results less reliable than those of primary research.