Research Help

Select a help topic from the menu below

Topic 1 - OVERVIEW
Topic 2 - SEARCHING THE RESEARCH CENTRE
Topic 3 - PUBLISHING YOUR RESEARCH

OVERVIEW

What is Available?
The DMA Research Centre is a directory containing details of research conducted by the DMA, its members and research partners. Information about each piece of research is displayed in a pop up, which enquirers can access and where possible download executive summaries and full reports direct from the site.

What is contained in the pop-ups?
A pop-up will contain information about a research document, including the price for DMA members and non-members, and details of how to purchase the document if necessary.

Where the publisher has chosen not to upload their research to the DMA website, a link will be provided to an external website where the research can be bought or downloaded for free.

Restrictions on accessing research
Some research may not be available depending on an enquirer's membership status. For example, some DMA reports are only available free to members, and non-members will be unable to access these reports. In this case a separate link will normally be available detailing the price for non-members and where possible offering an executive summary to download.

Enquirers and Publishers
An enquirer is anyone who accesses the Research Centre to carry out a search of the direct marketing research available.

A research publisher is a DMA member or research partner who has posted details of their research document(s) on the site for enquirers to view. A publisher may add or amend details of their research or remove information from the site at any time.

Notes for Enquirers
If you are new to the DMA Research Centre directory and would like to view the research available then simply return to the Home Page and select your criteria using the search options available in the left hand menu.

Notes for Research Publishers
If you are a DMA member and you wish to advertise your research on this site, or you want to amend research details you have previously published in the directory, then login and select Research Administration on the left hand side. Before being able to publish your research, you will need to be assigned a Research Manager Role by the DMA.

If you are not sure whether your company is a member of the DMA then contact the DMA Membership Department at membership@dma.org.uk or search the membership directory on the DMA site at www.dma.org.uk/directory

Sponsors
If you are interested in sponsoring this directory through banner advertising then email research@dma.org.uk.

SEARCHING THE RESEARCH CENTRE

What research is available?
To view all available research information, simply press the Search button located on the left of the screen. As all default options are set to maximise the results given, and thus the entire contents of the Research Centre will be displayed.

There is no need to login in order to search the Research Centre.

Refining your search
Searches can be refined in a several ways:

1. Whose research would you like to find? You can select one or more options from the DMA, DMA members, and DMA research partners. As a default, all boxes are ticked, maximising your search results.
2. Are you targeting a specific sector? You can select from the drop down box a specific media/sector to limit searches to, such as agencies, B2B or email marketing. As default this option is set to All.
3. There is a keyword search which will limit search results to research with the keyword in the description, title or company name. If you want to search for a specific company's research, enter their name in the keyword field.
4. Are you looking for recent research only? You can select from the drop down box to limit the results to research published in the last six months, one year or two years. As default results published on any date are returned.

REMEMBER: The more specific your search is the more relevant the results will be to you. If your search does not yield any results, try broadening your search parameters or changing the keywords entered.

Sorting search results
Once your search results are displayed, you can sort them by selecting an option from the drop down menu at the top of the screen. You can choose to sort by publication date (default), alphabetical by research title or research publisher, or by separating member only from publicly accessible reports. Within these sort modes, results will also be sorted by publication date. If publication date is the primary sort option, then the results will also be sorted alphabetically by research title.

Selecting a research report
Once a list of results have been presented to you, clicking on an item will open a pop-up containing further information on that report including download options.

Restrictions on viewing research

Some research information may be inaccessible depending on your status; for example, some research reports are not available to non-DMA members. While it is not necessary to login to search the Research Centre, members will need to login to download free reports only available to them. Search results are colour coded to show if the reports are publicly accessible or available only to DMA-members; please see the key at the top of the search results page for details.

PUBLISHING YOUR RESEARCH

Becoming a Research Publisher
To publish your research and administer your information you need to be assigned a Research Administrator Role by the DMA. Individuals who have been assigned this role will see a Research Administration link on the left hand menu once they have logged in. Your DMA Administrator can assign any number of individuals the Research Publisher role via your Company Profile screen on the DMA website.

Logging On
Only those who wish to promote their research need to login to the research centre. You do not need to login to search the research centre.

Enter your individual DMA username and password in the fields provided. This is the username and password you use to enter the members area of the main DMA website.

If you have forgotten your username and password please contact the DMA for further information.

The Research Centre Administration Screen
Clicking on the Research Administrator link brings up your Research Centre Administration Screen. This shows a list of all research that you are in the process of editing, that you have submitted to the DMA for moderation, or that have been published on the Research Centre.

The following is displayed against each research title on your Research Administration page.

1. Name
2. Date created
3. Your company
4. Attachment (paperclip) icon – click this to upload, delete or otherwise manage the attachments for the research details.
5. View (magnifying glass) icon – click this for a preview of what the enquirer will see once your information is published onto the Research Centre.
6. Status icon – this will be coloured white if in progress (i.e. not submitted to the DMA for approval yet), orange if the research has been submitted and is awaiting approval, and green if the it has been accepted and is in the Research Centre. If the research has been submitted to the DMA but has been rejected, the icon will be red. There is a key at the top of the screen showing this information.
7. Submit (envelope) icon – click this to send your research information to the DMA for approval. Once submitted you will no longer be able to access the information until it has been accepted or rejected by the DMA.
8. Edit (notepad) icon – click this to edit the text content of the your research information. See the section below for more details.
9. Delete (dustbin) icon – click this to delete the research information. If the information has been accepted into the Research Centre, then this will remove it.

Research Information Fields
The following fields must be completed for each piece of research you wish to produce:

1. Title of the research
2. Brief Overview. You are strongly advised to give a concise and factual description of your research. If you are not attaching the actual research document then you should provide a link to the document, or webpage containing the document, or contact details for obtaining the document. Alternatively you may attach an executive summary containing the same information. There is a 450 character limit for the Brief Overview section.
3. Publication date. As default this is set to today's date, but please change this to the date that the research was originally published – not the date that it was published to the DMA Research Centre. If not known, please select the last date that the research covers. For example if the research is for quarter 3 2005, an appropriate date would be 30/9/2005.
4. Datacard accessibility. As default this is set to DMA members only, meaning non-members will be unable to access the research information. If this is the case you should create another research entry accessible to everyone, which contains an executive summary of your research and details of how to obtain it. You should set this card to ‘public access'.
5. Cost of the research. Please enter the cost separately for DMA members and non-members. If the research is not free, we ask that you provide a discount to DMA members. Please contact research@dma.org.uk for more details. Note that the cost entered here is for information only and does not affect who can access the research information provided – you can use the ‘datacard accessibility' option to change this.
6. Media/sectors covered by the research. As default this is set to Industry Wide. If your research only covers a specific sector or sectors, untick the box and select the applicable sectors from the list. To select more than one sector hold down the control button.

REMEMBER: The more information you are able to provide the more informative you will be to the enquirer. However you are advised to keep your description factual and concise. The DMA reserves the right to edit descriptions before publication.

Document upload
You have the option to upload one or more documents to a research entry.

Click the attachment (paperclip) icon for the relevant piece of research to open the attachments window. Click the ‘browse' button to search your computer for a document. Once selected, click open and then enter the title (replacing the ‘New title here' text). Finally click ‘attach' to upload the document. You can repeat this procedure to upload multiple documents.

The current uploaded attachments are also shown on the page. To delete them, select the appropriate files by ticking the tick box and press ‘delete'.

While we encourage you to upload documents which are free for DMA members and/or non-members to download, you also have the option of providing a link to a document or website elsewhere on the web. You should provide this link in the Brief Overview field. To maintain the usefulness of your submission, we ask that the link is directly to the document for download, or to a webpage containing the document. You have the option to include your main company website in your DMA profile.

Publishing Your Research Details
When you have entered your research details and attached all documents, click submit to send the information to the DMA for moderation. During this time the status icon will turn orange and you will be unable to edit the information.

One of the following will happen next:

1. Acceptance – your research details will then be published on the DMA Research Centre. The status icon will turn white to show.
2. Acceptance with editing – your details will be published on the Research Centre, with changes made by the DMA, usually for conciseness. It would be unusual for attachments to be edited. The status icon will turn green to show this. If the DMA makes any significant changes you will be contacted and informed of this.
3. Rejection – your details will not be published on the site. The status icon will turn red to show this. Clicking the view icon will display a reason given by the DMA. You have the option to edit your details and resubmit it for moderation, or to delete it.

Making Changes Once Your Research has been Published
If you publish your details and then want to amend them you can do this by clicking the Edit icon. You can also add/delete attachments. Once you have done this click submit to send it to the DMA for approval.

Note that once you begin to edit information that has already been approved by the DMA, it will be removed from the Research Centre and will not reappear until resubmitted and accepted by the DMA.

Click the Delete icon to permanently delete research details from the Research Centre.

Updating Contact Details
The company contact details displayed with your research information are taken directly from the DMA database. You can amend your company details and the point of contact for the Research Centre through your DMA Administrator via your Company Profile screen on the DMA website. If you do not know who your Administrator is please contact the DMA for further information.