'There's no one right answer' when it comes to new product testing
The 2014 RCA Conference kicked off (appropriately) with an educational session by Turner Research Network about how to successfully launch new products—outlining the qualitative and quantitative steps to take from ideation through launch. Ann Breese, senior vice president Turner Research Network, said the most frequent questions clients ask relate to cost issues on the product testing/survey side.
“They want to know, how can we recruit cost effectively? Where do we conduct product tests? How large of a sample size do we really need?” Breese said. “Product tests can be expensive. If you’re doing a lot of these in a given year, you can build a panel of your own customers that you can source through variety of means, such as online, social media or in stores. You can also build a B2B panel to help get insights on product, or professional opinions if your clients are businesses as opposed to consumers.
“When it comes to how large of a sample you really need, that’s a never-ending argument. It’s always a tradeoff between cost and statistical precision, and frankly, time. But the higher sample size you get, the higher the cost, but also the higher the precision.”
Turner's president and founder John Turner added: “But you always have options! Talk to your team about how much tolerance you have for expense and margin of error. There’s no one right answer; it depends on the assignment.”
