This post was written by Nancy Lazarus, consultant and new contributor to PRNewser.

Communispace President and CEO Diane Hessan highlighted eight guidelines for conducting market research in the future during a presentation at the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF)conference in New York on Tuesday.

She based her tips on in-depth conversations with 100 market research executives, and many of these pointers can also be applied to PR-related research.

After the jump, Hessan’s eight tips.

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Enfatico, the massive full service agency assembled by holding company WPP (Nasdaq: WPPGY) to handle all marketing and communications for Dell, announced the PR division of the company will merge with fellow WPP agency Axicom, a subsidiary of Cohn & Wolfe.

Axicom will serve as global PR agency of record for Dell, in addition to Real Networks, McAfee and Cisco Consumer Products. The agency now counts more than 100 employees. Kelly McGinnis will serve as President, U.S., AxiCom. McGinnis previously led the Dell PR business as Chief Communications Officer of Enfatico for the previous two years. She will report to Donna Imperato, CEO of Cohn & Wolfe Group.

Some will see this as another major blow to Enfatico, which launched with much fanfare, only to be continually scaled back. Last April, Enfatico as a whole was folded into WPP’s Young and Rubicam. “Enfatico will be the poster child for how one firm just can’t do it all,” said Communispace CEO Diane Hessan in a comment on an industry blog.

As one source close to the matter told PRNewser, Enfatico “put the cart before the horse.”

In related news – although not directly tied to this announcement, Matthew Hutchinson, head of PR for Enfatico, left the company in November for an internal post with Qualcomm.

PREVIOUSLY: WPP Head Martin Sorrell Explains Problems Behind Enfatico