How Online Surveys Aid in Market Research?

make money online with market research



Whether it is the introduction of a new product in the market or trial of an advertising campaign,  Outsourcing market research why India cannot be ignored as it aids in making of smart and perfect decisions. Right from the study of consumer habits, testing of newer concepts, gauging of brand awareness and market size, everything calls for the undertaking of market research. Many leading International Market Research professionals have also seen the potential in utilizing the input from the invaluable source of consumers and decision-makers and are offering to earn opportunities to those individuals who would like to share their opinions to help shape the products and services on offer in the future.

1. Online Surveys Help in Conducting Market Research


Market research for a startup or a Fortune 500 company is beneficial in gaining an instant analysis of market segmentation at a reasonable cost. It also helps in gaining insight about the consumer demography in a specific area along with an assessment of consumer satisfaction including the response that the company is likely to get with respect to the launch of new products.

The success of any business lies in retaining the existing consumers, getting more business along with having complete knowledge about the needs of the consumers. Just making a guess or taking a decision based on gut feeling won’t be of any help when the organization plans to launch new products in the market or wants to convey the perfect marketing message to the consumers.

2. Targeting Specific Audience


Online surveys provide splendid opportunities for those companies who want to attain maximum input from their target market. The only requirement being the existence of a good market sample in the form of consumer list or social followers should be available to the company to carry out the survey. Those companies that send surveys to list of members of a specific target market can rest assured that their efforts will be duly rewarded.

3. Inviting Feedback & Suggestions on Improvements


Just making the consumer fill an online product survey form will enable companies to gain an idea about those insights that are responsible for bringing in improvement in the product, level of satisfaction obtained by consumers and the corresponding increase in sales. For getting genuine feedback from consumers, companies need to ask for direct and specific questions such as the changes the consumers feel should be made in the existing product or what are the specific reasons that are driving the consumer to choose the competitors products? Or which is the favourite competitor’s product of other companies that the consumer is currently using?

4. Ease of Using in Social Media Campaigns


With social media gaining a lot of popularity in recent years, online surveys conducted through reputed social media channels is a great way to make your online presence felt. Likes, tweets and surveys provide companies with a fairly good idea about why consumer prefer or choose a specific product over the other thus enabling companies to take the requisite steps. Also, organizations can keep the dialogue open with consumers through regular blogs featured on their websites. In short, it is a fantastic medium available to most companies as they are able to find the answers they need through online surveys.

No company can afford to do away with online surveys in the current competitive market scenario. In fact, every company should strive to make online surveys a part of their marketing strategy.

Source: Research Services

Online Surveys: Data Collection Advantages & Disadvantages


Online surveys have become the default tool for many market researchers. This is for good reason. Often times the ease of access to using online surveys actually causes issues in itself. Below, we highlight the advantages and disadvantages of this market research method.


Online Survey Advantages


  • Price - Actual dollars spent per completed survey when the only cost of contacting someone was to send them an e-mail is low when compared to other methods
  • Online surveys are accessible to most target audiences. 
  • Online panels available for purchase are better quality than ever and offer inexpensive access to many qualified people
  • Setup - While sometimes this is misused, the reality is that there are many tools that make setting up online surveys simple that are great when used appropriately
  • Meeting the audience where they are. Online surveys can be deployed through various online channels (e.g. web, mobile, email, kiosks for retail environments, etc.)
  • There are usually no cost-based geographic restrictions.
  • Leverages data automation (e.g. input, handling, analysis, reporting, etc.).
  • Supports flexible design - countless question types and formats can work when the respondent sees what they are responding to

Online Survey Disadvantages


At Communication For Research, we know from in-depth experience that online surveys usually should be part of the market research puzzle. However, as with many other technology-enabled data collection methods, online surveys are not a silver bullet or magic wand. It is important to take several factors and variables into account, such as:

  • Why business is distributing a survey (i.e. what is the problem to be solved?).
  • Why someone should complete the survey (i.e. what is the motivation and self-interest for participants to invest their time?).
  • How the information will be used (being upfront and transparent with participants is critical!).
  • The connection between study design and response rates.
  • Timing is everything (it is imperative to deliver online surveys at the right time and the right place).
  • The value and impact of different strategies.
Source: Communications for Research

5 tips to improve your online survey response rate


But getting the target response rate leaves much to be desired by every organization. Reaching to the target customer base and getting their honest response is a tough task, without which you won’t have much feedback to analyze/work with. So here are the top 5 tips as to how you can improve your survey response rate. Here are the top 5 tips to get your survey response rate up.

Get it out via word-of-mouth If you have a restaurant chain or a retail outlet, don’t underestimate the power of word-of-mouth publicity. Oftentimes your customers may not go through your websites to check out a survey to fill out. That is the last thing they would do on the Internet. Hence, train your salespeople to ask customers for filling out the forms. Not only do they interact the most with your target consumers, people remember better when they are informed in this fashion. So don’t hesitate to try this method out, it will work wonders. 

Use social media  People on an average spend around 2-8 hours a day scrolling through Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. You may want to take advantage of multiple features offered by these sites. Advertise your product along with a survey form, and give incentives to entice the viewers. This will spike up your online survey response rate as well as give an idea about the potential customer base you may be targeting in the future. 

Email notification/invitation for more personalized feel The best way to reach out to target customer base is to send email notifications or invitations to fill the survey form. You can have the facility to send reminders every now and then, and depending upon customer preference or products they bought, you can personalize the survey form/email. You may risk losing out a chunk of subscribers from your email list, but all are worth it if you get a better online survey response rate out of your email notifications. 

Keep your questionnaire short, sweet and simple. Sometimes the fault doesn’t lie in the marketing, but in the survey form itself. Complicated survey forms which aren’t compatible with smartphone/tablets/desktop or complex question can also deter a customer from completing the form. You have to make sure your online survey forms are simple to read, easy to load and don’t take too much time. Do test runs before you make it live, and have an honest opinion about it. If you, as a customer, find it easy and quick to fill the form, the job is done. 

Be transparent Always inform your customers about the purpose of the survey. Your customers are sharing some very valuable and personal opinions. They wouldn’t want any of this information to bite them back in the future. So don’t be afraid to mention the security measures to protect your customer’s information. Also, avoid asking for customer identification as much as possible. Most feedback surveys don’t need anything more than an email ID. If you do ask, avoid misusing it blatantly for promotional purposes. Your survey response rate will dip the next time if you bombard your customers with the latest product launch or discounts.

Source: www.feedbacq.co

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