Potloc - FAQ | Frequently Asked Questions

What do you do?

Our mission is to enable citizens in creating a local environment that resembles them, providing them with a platform to give their opinions on any topic that might affect them.

Potloc surveys thousands of consumers on their shopping habits, preferences, and opinions. Today’s technology has allowed us to replace costly and tedious phone surveys with participatory geotargeted campaigns broadcasted across social media. Our studies are sold to municipalities, property developers, retailers, and consultancy firms so they can evolve and react according to their unique local citizens.

How did the Potloc concept start?

It all started as a gamble: our co-founders, Louis and Rodolphe, made a game out of predicting whether the businesses in their neighbourhood would survive or die. Eventually, they realized they were able to predict the evolution (and fate) of their local businesses with nearly perfect accuracy. They discovered the significance of local intelligence: residents are capable of predicting and influencing the commercial offerings that are being developed in their local areas as well as providing insights on topics that affect them. This collective knowledge is invaluable to the businesses and organizations trying to understand their consumers.

Why the name Potloc?

Potloc comes from "potluck." In North America, a potluck is a shared meal where all the guests contribute a dish, slowly building a well-rounded spread. Combining these small individual efforts results in a friendly feast where everyone feels welcome. Each citizen makes a contribution to society, and this is the value we’ve chosen to defend by inviting all the everyone (citizens, retailers, cities, governments) to get involved in a communal project. We truly love the sense of community that defines Potloc, and the idea that we’re creating a link between the different players in the market.

Why should I give my opinion?

Your opinions have a direct impact on how businesses plan their services, and offerings. Some of our surveys are about more socially-oriented topics, so you can also help shape policy around you and that affects you directly. The information you bring allows businesses and other organizations to make decisions that aim to respond to your needs as a consumer.

Essentially, you are participating in the conversation; you get your voice to be heard, and you become an active participant in constructing the world you want to live in.

Which information will be circulated?

In our studies, your answers are cross-referenced with the other participants’ so we may extrapolate tendencies, create graphs and analyze the participants as a whole. Each answer is anonymous, and your personal information is (and will remain) entirely confidential. Each piece of information you provide is rendered anonymous and cannot be traced, from your email to your income bracket and all other personal details.

We need your personal information for two main reasons:

We need to ascertain that each participant only completes the survey once so that results aren’t biased with duplicate results.
Your personal information allows us to give anonymous sociodemographic information about the population to those who mandated the survey. For all other information about the conditions surrounding utilizing the shared data, refer to our terms of service. If you want to know more about the nature of the personal data Potloc holds, or if you wish to delete all your personal information from our database, please contact us at support@potloc.com.

How do you poll consumers?

To begin, we build custom surveys and make them compatible for all devices. We then broadcast the surveys across social media, targeting a specific geographic location. Our canvassing can be as broad as a national campaign, or as precise as a 1km radius surrounding the target location. Targeted consumers will see an advertisement on social networks inviting them to give their opinion. Then, they answer specific questions that we created to respond to the needs of our clients. Finally, we process the data to extract local consumer behaviors according to each sociodemographic profile, in addition to compiling a detailed qualitative analysis of the population’s needs.

Who do you survey?

We start by establishing a consumer profile, such as women between 25 and 35 years of age who have been to supermarket X at least once in the last twelve months. Once this population and the geographic area are determined, we push our surveys on social media. Today, over 50% of the world's population uses social media at least once a week. That's 4.1 billion people around the planet that we can reach to give you the answers you are looking for.

Through Facebook alone for example, our clients are capable of reaching every consumer profile they hope to target, whether they are clients or non-clients, no matter their age, their location, or their socio-professional status. Because we use Facebook as a platform and apply our own targeting algorithms, we are able to collect samples that are much larger and more precise than those of our competitors.

Do you buy data from Facebook?

No, we do not purchase our data from Facebook.

We use Facebook to advertise our surveys and to make sure that the targeted population sees our advertisements until we obtain our desired goal of participants. All the information we receive has been given voluntarily by the participants and is rendered anonymous during processing, so that we can provide precise data without compromising privacy.

Do you guarantee an amount of participants?

We always guarantee a minimum amount of participants. We consistently meet our goals and have never had a campaign fail. In fact, we often obtain more participants than our target. All the participants express themselves on topics that concern them specifically.

According to a survey conducted by the French organization Centre-Ville en Mouvement (Downtown in Motion), which they’ve dubbed “the downtown and commerce barometer,” 89% of residents feel a sense of belonging in their neighbourhood, and 97% believe the local commercial offering is related to that sentiment. Consumers respond to our surveys because the topics interest them.

How do you ensure the survey samples are representative?

To make sure the survey sample shares the same characteristics as its population benchmark, we expose our advertisement to a large audience that is representative of the average Facebook user. Our survey is shown randomly across Facebook to different users, and is then completed voluntarily. Our surveys are democratic, and the large number of participants guarantees robust data from one survey to the next.

What about statistical bias?

All studies conducted through a “classic” methodology have biases, meaning the survey method disregards or over-represents certain categories within the population. For example, on-site surveys always reach participants who are in a lower income bracket than the national average, while phone surveys tend to mainly reach seniors or people who stay at home (remember, the majority of Millennials don’t have a landline!). On the other hand, it is harder to reach the retired population with our social media surveys.

Once we have defined our baseline customer profile, we can weigh the answers to make them correspond to the real characteristics of the benchmark population. Thanks to our large quantity of participants, our method offers the lowest possible bias and is capable of reaching segments of the population that are harder to attain with other survey methods.

Who can mandate a study?

Governments, research firms, consultancy firms, municipalities, retailers and commercial real estate agents can approach us to conduct a study on their behalf.

In North America, we work with consultancy firms like BCG, municipalities like the city of Montreal or Toronto; commercial real estate companies like Ivanhoé Cambridge and Cadillac Fairview; and retailers such as Loblaws and Aldo.

In Europe, we work with cities such as Beauvais; shopping centre management companies like Alterea Cogedim and Klépierre; research firms like Roland Berger or Bain & Company, developers like BNP Real Estate; and retailers like Decathlon and Carrefour.

Can you operate everywhere?

Theoretically, we can survey everywhere and everyone. In reality, before each study, our team verifies whether the study is feasible before guaranteeing any success. Our methodology applies to every kind of location, but we have to verify certain criteria before launching a campaign.

Learn more on our sampling capabilities

What purpose do Potloc surveys serve?

Our geolocated consumer surveys allow our clients to better understand their target consumers. Thanks to the information gathered in our surveys, our clients can improve their services and meet the expectations of the surveyed population.

I already use market research, how is that different from consumer studies?

Our consumer studies complement traditional market research. Market studies can take the industry’s pulse and help you better position your company against your competitors. Our studies face the challenges that are unique to your company and survey the potential clientele within your catchment area. We collect information on a granular level, producing high-leverage actions to improve your commercial offering so it can respond to your current and potential clientele.

What value do you add in comparison to other survey methods?

It is entirely possible to conduct surveys via other methods (phone, focus groups, on-site) or with your own tools. However, our survey method offers numerous advantages that are difficult to rival.

The cost of our surveys per participant is up to 5 times less expensive than traditional survey methods, whereas the size and precision of our survey samples are twice as successful as market research industry standards. We achieve this goal through our high response rate, which we obtain due to the voluntary nature of our surveys and our ability to expose our questionnaires to large audiences. Furthermore, as channels continue to evolve, surveys conducted over social media are gaining precision and efficiency.

In Canada, landlines are disappearing: 27.5% of citizens don’t have a landline, whereas nearly the entire adult population holds a social media account, with 84% registered on Facebook.

Our survey method is accompanied by our knowledge of how to treat our gathered data so it can be applied easily:

The capacity to recalibrate your survey sample so it is representative of the target population.
The capacity to cross-reference data to extract the most pertinent insights.
The capacity to sort, treat and organize thousands of comments to distinguish the trends that are relative to your specific challenges.

Our professional teams create studies in a way that makes the data easy to interpret, reliable, and capable of being transformed rapidly into action plans. This process would take you a lot of time on your own since an optimal outcome relies on the experiences of several professionals.

How much impact do your studies carry?

Rather than measure the impact of our studies, we prefer to measure the quality of information we provide. Our studies become arguments that help our clients orient their next business decisions — we try not to make decisions for them.

What is the duration of a campaign?

A campaign’s duration depends on the number of desired participants. In general, most campaigns last around a month.

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