Ten Reasons Why Online Surveys are the Future Of Marketing

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Ten Reasons Why Online Surveys are the Future Of Marketing

Customers are tough cookies. They're extremely media aware and increasingly cynical it's a clever marketeer who can get under their skin. Online surveys reinvent the traditional format and offer a unique way of interaction all the benefits of the internet without the programming.

Here are ten reasons why they may be the silver bullet marketeers' need, complete with examples supplied by Martin Day, managing director of Survey Galaxy - one of a new breed of websites making online surveys quicker and cheaper.

1. It's cheap as buttons

Select the right survey website and creating surveys can be free of any charge and the cost to publish is minimal. Useful information harvested from surveys can be reused and repackaged in other marketing and PR for use in press outlets making it a very efficient form of information gathering.

2. It's easy peasy

Anyone can develop an online survey. Survey sites allow people who are interested in the benefits of surveys, rather than technicalities, to side-step the required programming skills and create relevant up-to-the-minute surveys, instantly surveys that are even easier to complete than they are to make.

3. Anyone can play

Once the survey is online it's a simple step to promote it, either through email (with a link enclosed), via a link from a website or referenced by other forms of advertising. Anyone who has the link can be connected instantly to the survey, at a time that's convenient to them, 24x7.

4. We've all got an opinion and we like to give it

Customers like surveys they're not seen as spam, but as an empowering opportunity to make their voice heard and a chance to have an impact on a brand. They can be particularly good for broaching sensitive subjects with concerned employees; a survey asking a workforce on their opinion of change allows the key issues to be raised in a positive way and encourages employee participation. Online surveys allow the message to reach each individual and invite feedback in a manageable form.

5. Get inside their heads

You can lead a customer to an advertisement but you can't make them think. Surveys actively engage the respondents, who think about the question before giving their response.

6. Beautiful relationships start here

It needn't all end at the end of the survey while you have their attention and are in the mood you can ask if they want to sign up for more information or a regular newsletter making the most of the window when you have their interest.

7. If you like this, you'll love

Perhaps one of the strongest elements in a survey is the ability to make inspired or useful connections instantly to other areas. By including links within the survey to websites that offer detailed information you are able to reinforce the marketing message.

8. Subtly does it

Surveys can be used to associate a product with positive attributes. By listing the many features of a product and asking the respondent how important they are, regardless of their response, the product will be associated with the features; if they are rated as important the positive impact is endorsed by the customer.

9. It's not just about selling

A survey is an effective, quick and easy method to promote and gain acceptance for a difficult proposal; maybe a public body trying to gain acceptance and support for a particular scheme. Take the example of a city trying to gain support from the general public for their bid to host a future Olympic Games. A survey can explain each benefit putting the respondent in a much better position to appreciate what the real advantages are that might just combat any negative headlines. As well as promoting the cause, useful feedback is gained that can be used to fine tune the overall marketing strategy.

10. Fresh topics engage interest

Thinking laterally a lively and imaginative approach to surveys can provide the 'hook' to engage respondents. The survey subject can be focused towards a particular group on a subject close to theirs hearts. The survey's marketing message can take the form of a simple brand awareness message by stating that 'this survey was sponsored by brand name', or by finding a link from the subject matter to the product something that is surprisingly easy and highly effective. Discover the benefits of including in your website a Public Survey section as many people who enjoy completing crosswords and doing word puzzles enjoy completing surveys. Having a public survey notice board as part of a website is a low cost and automated method that helps to increase traffic and establish a loyal and returning following. Unlike discussion boards there is no opportunity for people to disrupt the site by inappropriate remarks as the survey results are displayed in summary form enabling them to dispense with moderators free and maintenance.

Many of the techniques and a few more to boot are contained in the following sample survey:-

http://www.surveygalaxy.com/surPublishes.asp?survey_id=956

For an example of a Public Survey area please click on the following link:-

http://www.surveygalaxy.com/surPublic.asp

Martin Day is owner of Survey Galaxy Ltd. For more information visit http://www.surveygalaxy.com

martin.day@gmail.com

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How To Conduct Effective Online Surveys

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How To Conduct Effective Online Surveys

Although they are inexpensive and product fast results, online surveys still need to be conducted properly to be really effective. The key steps for conducting effective online surveys are:

• Identify your objective

• Decide what information you need

• Develop a questionnaire

• Conduct the survey

• Analyze the responses

• Recommend a course of action

* Identify your objective

Online surveys are conducted to find out the characteristics, behaviors, opinions, and knowledge of a particular population. No matter what the subject matter, all surveys are conducted with an objective, to gather information relevant to a specific problem or situation. And the key to a successful survey is clearly identifying that objective upfront. To do that, ask yourself "what problem am I trying to solve?" The ideal objective has a narrow scope and can be clearly stated. The wider the scope, the more complex your survey and the less meaningful its results. Always remember, your survey is only as good as your understanding of your objective!

* Decide what information you need

Once you have defined your objective, identify the information you need to gather to achieve your objective. If the objective is clear and narrow, the information you need to gather will be apparent. Be specific and avoid the temptation to gather "extra" bits of information that are "nice to know" but not relevant to your objective. Once you have identified the information you need, you should explore the possibility of gathering it from existing data sources. With an abundance of information available from corporate databases and public information sources, you might gather the information without even conducting a survey!

* Develop a questionnaire

Developing the questionnaire is undoubtedly the most important part of conducting a survey. The quality of the questions will determine the quality of the results and the effectiveness of your survey. Get tips for developing an effective questionnaire.

* Conduct the survey

Once you have developed the questionnaire, you need to test it on a few people to determine if it is clearly written and can be understood by people representing your potential respondents. Testing the survey might take several iterations, but it is well worth the effort. Once you are satisfied that your questionnaire is clear and unambiguous, you are ready to conduct your survey.

If you are going to distribute your survey through email, make sure that your email message is clear and compelling. A boring message will not get the attention of your potential respondents and decrease your response rate. Additionally, you should also remember the following things:

• Address emails to a single person whenever possible.

• Always use the blind carbon copy (BCC) if you must send a single email message to a group of people.

• Include a valid email address in the "From" field or the recipients will consider your message as spam.

• Provide the URL that will take people directly to your survey, if you are inviting them to the website to take the survey.

• Tell recipients how to contact you if they have a problem or concern.

• Identify the source of purchased email addresses so recipients know who to contact if they want to be removed from the list.

• Ignore the "flame" or "hate" messages you might receive in response to your email invitation. A small percentage of the recipients always take offense to something or the other.

If you are going to distribute your survey from your website, you need to consider how will get visitors to take the survey. If your site has just enough traffic, you can probably place a hypertext link on your home page through which visitors can reach your survey. If you have very heavy traffic, you can use a program on your web server to randomly deliver your survey to some of the visitors. However, if your website doesn't have enough traffic, you should consider sending invitations by email or other traditional methods.

Once you have sent out notifications, responses will begin to come in immediately. For online surveys that invite individual participants (email or postal mail), most people will respond within 72 hours of receiving your invitation. Surveys that rely on passive participation (clicking on website links or responding to indirect advertising) generally take much longer. In either case, you need to decide how long to keep your surve active based on your target audience and how many responses you need to collect. If you are surveying a known group of people (e.g. customers, employees, students, etc) you might need to send out reminders to remind some people to take the survey.

* Analyze the responses

You can begin to analyze the responses as soon as you receive them. Unlike traditional methods, online surveys make it possible to analyze responses without human intervention. Responses are received in electronic format and immediately added to a database. Once in the database, they can be manipulated with a variety of tools, including the survey software, statistical packages, spreadsheets, and presentation programs. The key to proper analysis of online surveys is no different than that for traditional methods. You must be able to filter the data and display results in a variety of formats for effective analysis. And always remember to relate the analysis back to your objective.

* Recommend a course of action

The last step in conducting effective online surveys is to recommend a course of action. With your objective in mind, you should be able to recommend specific actions as a result of your survey. Your recommendations can vary widely depending upon the nature of the problem you are trying to solve. If you cannot identify any actions as a result of your survey, then it is highly possible that your objective was too broad, your information needs were incorrect or incomplete, or your questionnaire was poorly written. In these cases, your recommended action should be to conduct further study.

Web Based Survey Software (http://www.web-based-survey-software.org) 2004

This article has been copyrighted and has been reprinted with the permission of Web Based Survey Software (http://www.web-based-survey-software.org). If you want to reprint this article, please send an email to webmaster@web-based-survey-software.org to inform us and we will grant you the permission. But please ensure that this message appears at the end of the article and proper credits are given.
nick@web-based-survey-software.org

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I am sure you have seen the "Paid Survey" sites that claim
to pay you for your opinion. Question is: Will they really
pay you for just taking simple surveys online?

Well, I did a little experiment. Actually, it was a pretty
big experiment. I researched several hundred of these
companies.

What did I find? You guessed it:

Most were scams.

They want your email address so they can spam you. Or they
require you to accumulate 10 million zillion points before
they pay you. Or they say they pay but don't.

But, as I was weeding out all the scams I would
occasionally come across a legitimate company. It didn't
happen very often, but out of the hundreds of companies I
researched, I found 68 good ones.

Now, let me tell you -- you are not going to get rich doing
surveys online. And, if anybody tells you that you can earn
"thousands" a month -- they are lying to you. (My best
month so far I earned $104.00)

But, on the other hand it's not very hard work either. Most
surveys are short. I did one this morning that took less
than 5 minutes. It only paid $4.00 but for 5 minutes work I
am not going to complain. Yesterday I did one that paid
$10.00. Two weeks ago I did a $25.00 one. And a couple of
months ago I had one that paid $50. It varies. And sometimes
there are very short screener surveys that don't
pay anything -- you have to take the screeners to see if
you qualify for the paid surveys.

All in all, it's not a bad way to earn a few extra bucks a
month.

James J. Jones is the publisher of the Paid Participation eLetter. You can subscribe at: http://www.getpaidnetwork.com/sub
Find out more about Paid Participation programs at: www.getpaidnetwork.com

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