Paid Survey FAQ

A paid survey is a form of research conducted by a market research firm in order to gather information about a specific product or information. Market research companies pay everyday people small sums of money for their participation in a paid survey.

Lately several websites have been popping claiming to pay up to $250 an hour for each paid survey. Advertisements like this mislead people into believing that paid surveys are a way to get rich. The truth is, you can make good money taking paid surveys online. But you will only be paid an average of about $5 per paid survey.

Below are the answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about the paid survey opportunity.

Are Paid Survey Sites Scams? Yes and no. There are several paid survey sites that scam people into paying a fee to join their paid survey site. For the most part, these are a waste of money. Those are the sites that claim you can make hundreds for taking a paid survey. Those types of paid survey sites do not actually send paid surveys. They are just a list of companies you can join that do offer paid surveys.

But there are actually hundreds of sites that will pay you to participate in a paid survey. There are also several free paid survey directories that give you the same information as a paid membership site. There is no good reason to join a paid membership site to take paid surveys online.

Which company sends the most paid surveys That is hard to answer. When you join a paid survey site you will usually be asked to provide some personal information about yourself. They may ask you questions about your age, race, income, marital status, etc. This is so that when a company wants to survey a particular group of people, for example women between the age of 18 and 24 who own a pet, the paid survey company can send the survey out to that group. So there is really no way of knowing who will be needed most.

There are some major companies that seem to partner with alot of market research companies actually do send alot more paid survey opportunities than others. From my personal experience I would have to say that the following companies send the most surveys in general:NFO My SurveyGlobal Test MarketGoZing SurveysOpinion OutpostSurvey SavvySurvey SpotTest SpinECN ResearchAmerican Consumer Opinion

How can I tell the difference between a legit paid survey and a paid survey scam If a paid survey offers to pay you hundreds of dollars per paid survey that is a good indication that it is a scam. Also if you see something like "Take this paid survey a get a free laptop" you can be pretty sure this is a scam. A real paid survey will not try to get you to buy anything or sign up for any other offers. A legitimate paid survey will usually tell you the amount it is paying and the time it should take to complete the survey. Alot of paid survey companies use a "points" system. In a system like this you are paid a certain amount of points for each paid survey you complete. When you get to certain amount of points you can redeem them for a check. NFO My Survey and Global Test Market use this method of payment. If a paid survey application asks you to join other companies or asks if you would like to receive information from other advertisers you can usually be sure that is a scam also.

There is a list of several legitimate paid survey sites listed in the resource box at the end of this article. Who is eligible to take paid surveys Just about anyone. As long as you are over 13 years old. Some paid survey companies will only accept people from certain countries. Others paid survey companies have world wide members.

Christopher Price has participated in hundreds of paid survey panels. Plus several online focus groups, mystery shops, and product tests. He currently runs one of the most respected free paid survey databases online, wahmservice.com.

Are Paid Survey Sites a Scam?

I have heard this question asked on several forums, and it's something I wondered about myself when I first took a look at paid survey companies.
I did a little digging and found that there are a couple of things that may be causing this misconception about paid surveys and paid survey companies.

Income Claims -
The Income claims you find on many paid survey sites may be one of the big misconceptions behind paid surveys. On many of the paid survey sites you will see something similar to this:
"take on line surveys and get paid $4 to $70 per survey!"
"participate in focus groups online and get paid $40 to $140 per hour!"
"{Blah, blah, blah...."
Now these kind of figures can be obtained through paid surveys but they are a bit misleading if you do not read between the lines.
Like the per survey amount, In most cases it will be the smaller amount, you usually only get a larger amount when you get lucky enough to be a part a tightly focused group where there are fewer participants.

The per hour figure is possible too, but you have to understand how they are getting this figure.
EXAMPLE: If you got one survey job and got paid $10 for that survey, and it only took you 5 minutes to complete, you would in essence be making $120 an hour for that 5 minutes.
The way I see it, I really do not believe you will get filthy rich taking online surveys, but I do believe you can make some money doing something that only takes a small amount of your time.

There are two types of paid survey sites
There is really no way of knowing but I think this may be the biggest reason for “paid survey scam” reports.

There are two types of survey sites you will find on the Internet, one is free and the other is not. Some people think that if you have to pay, then it must be a scam because paid surveys are suppose to be free. Read below and see for yourself why this statement is not true.
The first type is a paid survey company site. The Paid Survey Company site is the site that will actually send you the survey and they are the ones that will issue your check. Paid Survey company sites are in almost ALL cases free to join.

The second type of paid survey site is a Paid Survey Membership site and there is usually always a cost involved in joining one of these sites. The Paid Survey Membership site gives you access to a database of hundreds of "free" paid survey companies and give you some information about the companies.

I really believe that a lot of people join paid survey membership sites and when they realize that it is not a paid survey company, but only a database of paid survey companies they feel they have been scammed, but that really is not true. The paid survey membership site has spent hours and hours putting together A HUGE database of companies it would take forever for you to compile on your own, plus many of them update it on a regular basis, and for a one time fee you get lifetime access and updates. It is really just a matter of how much is your time worth?
So are paid surveys scams? In my opinion, although they may not be your ticket to extreme wealth, I do not feel that paid survey sites are scams, but I will let you take the information in this article and judge for yourself. If you would like to get a free list of companies to see what paid surveys are all about you can obtain a list of 50 companies for free at http://www.surveyincome.com

This article was written by Jon Yarbrough webmaster at http://www.surveyincome.com
Feel free republish this article but please do not make any changes including the resource box.

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 2004
About The Author

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

Successful Surveys: 10 Tips for Better Results

Why would you use an email or online survey when you could simply call your clients and customers and ask for their input?

Lots of reasons.
- standardization - easy to get large numbers of responses - easy to tabulate, analyze - easy (and often fun) for your clients and customers - inexpensive - non-intrusive - time-efficient (for you, and for your clients and customers) - protect your customers' anonymity (if important) - professional - no "cold calls" - no answering machines!
And have you figured out how long it would take to have 100 fifteen-minute conversations instead? (I don't have to do the math to know that it's WAY too long!)
So in this article, I'm going to talk surveys. How to find them, how to do them, and how to make the most of your results. Here goes....

1 - Clarify Your Objectives
What's your reason for doing the survey?
You might want to get your clients' input on your products and services, let them know you really care about what they think, or learn what keeps them up at night. (Or anything in between....)
Before you start, be very clear about what you'd like to accomplish. Then, be sure that each question on your survey will get you a step closer to your goal.

2 - Choose a Survey Company
You can write and produce your survey yourself, or (easier) use one of the many companies out there that provide survey services.
These services come at a variety of prices (from free to quite expensive), and with a variety of options (from basic to quite extensive).
Zip around the web a bit to find what's out there, and what seems most appropriate for what you're doing. In your wanderings, you may want to check out:
http://www.EZsurvey.com

or my favorite, http://www.ioxphere.com

3 - Keep it Short
Most often, we're asking survey recipients to do us a favor by filling out our survey - even if the information we gather will help them, longer term.
So be respectful of their time by keeping your survey short (no more than 10 questions, unless absolutely necessary) - and easy to fill out and return.
The easier it is do complete, the more responses you're likely to get.

4 - Mix It Up
Most automated surveys allow for lots of different types of questions, including:
- multiple choice - choose one or more from a list - fill in the blank(s) - rate on a 1-5 (or similar) scale - open-ended questions with a fill-in text box
Try to mix up your question format to keep it interesting. Lots of essay-type questions often seem "too hard" for respondents. Conversely, all multiple choice questions can get a bit boring.

5 - Get it Out There
Sometimes you'll want to limit your survey to a particular group: your clients, people who have bought your book or participated in a particular teleclass, your newsletter subscribers, etc.
Often, you'll be looking for responses from a much broader audience, say, self-employed individuals over 50, or all coaches in North America. In this case, you may want to email the survey link to your list, and ask recipients to forward the survey to anyone they know who fits your category. (You'll want to give them a compelling reason to do so!)

6 - Make Course Corrections
One of the great things about most surveys (Survey Monkey is a great example) is that you can pop in and look at results as they come in.
Here's why that's important: If the answers you're getting don't answer your questions in the way you expected, you'll have the opportunity to revise your survey, on the spot. Revise a question ... replace it ... change the order ... integrate something you learned from a respondent ... add something you forgot.
Get in there, see what's happening, and make course corrections if necessary.

7 - Analyze Results
Once all the answers have come in, look at them carefully. What does the "quantitative" data tell you? Slice and dice the numbers to learn all you can from the responses you get.
If you use a survey service that offers them, check your data in different formats, from pie charts to graphs.
And just as importantly, what "qualitative" information comes through?
- what's the general feeling you get from the open-ended responses? - how enthusiastic were the respondents to share their views? - what's your "gut" telling you?

8 - Use Results to Improve Your Business
One thing I've learned over the years is that people don't always do what they "say" they're going to do on surveys! And in that sense, surveys can be misleading.
In terms of trends, directions, feelings, interests, etc., however, results tend to be pretty accurate.
Net net?
Proceed boldly, but with caution. (Always test before you make a BIG leap!)

9 - Use the Report as a Special Offer
Let's face it, humans are pretty curious. We send in our answers to a survey or questionnaire, and then wonder what all the OTHER people had to say.
Capitalize on this curiosity! You can: - offer the report/analysis as a "thank you" for responding (this will help increase your response) - write up a special report, and turn it into a passive income product (particularly useful for hard-to-get information in a narrow market niche)

10 - Use Surveys Often
They're easy. They give us tons of helpful information. Our clients enjoy them. They're often free. They give us practically real-time answers.

Let's face it ... a survey is a terrific tool, and if you haven't yet, I hope you'll give one a try soon.
Best-selling author Kathy Gulrich helps clients get from idea, to action, to results - more quickly, and more easily - whether they're looking to write a book, develop a new product, or market their product or business. Clients love her direct, no-nonsense approach - and her gentle insistence on great results. Find out for yourself: Check out one of Kathy's teleclasses, or pick up a free worksheet, at http://www.smARTbusinessCoaching.com

Ioxphere is a web survey software

Ioxphere is a web survey software which provide your company with a set of invaluable data gathering tools to let your customer know that you truly care about their opinion

Ioxphere offers the easiest, most in depth web-based surveys currently available: Ioxphere helps fulfill the most important need of any company: Customer Satisfaction.

Feature List

Survey Creation:
Survey wizard for ease of Survey Creation
Survey template library for quickly creating surveys
Question libraries for quickly adding new questions
Ability to add new questions to question library
Unlimited number of questions allowed
Ability to add descriptive text in between questions
Ability to add to help text associated with each question
Ability to make a question required or not required
Ability to reorder the questions before and after publication
Ability to preview questions as they would show up on the published survey
Choice of having questions listed as alpha or numeric
Choice of adding a color background to the question
Choice of having sequential multi-page surveys or Tabbed multi-page surveys
Choice of adding graphic button or form button for the “Next Page” or the “Submit Page”
Choice of color themes
Choice of background colors
Choice of text colors
Choice of different fonts
Choice of adding background logos
Choice of adding individual logos
Types of answer fields supported
Radio buttons
Check boxes
Single select drop down
Multi-select drop down
Single line text fields
Multi-line text fields
Formatted fields (date, currency)
Matrix with scales
Hidden fields
Ability to assign a value to the actual response
Ability to provide conditional branching based on responses
Unlimited number of responses allowed
Availability of data encryption by response

Survey Publication:
Publish survey as a standalone web form on your site
Publish survey as an embedded web form on your site
Ability to take published surveys over the phone

Data Gathering:
All data stored in database
All data available to be downloaded to your personal computer
Publish survey as a standalone web form on your site
Methods for data download
FTP to multiple sites
Email to multiple users
Automate data download by scheduling
Hourly download
Daily download
Weekly download
Monthly download
Quarterly download
Data download formats
XML
CSV
Ability to download portions of the data by mapping only the fields required

Survey Reporting:
Report on min, max, average mean
Report on frequency distribution
Report on standard deviation
Ability to filter reports by responses
Ability to view each response in different format within the same report
Ability to publish reports to your web site
Real time reporting from your web site
Ability to edit labels, titles, and scales
Ability to save reports
Ability to have surveys secured by SSL
Ability to have surveys password
Ability to encrypt response data
Ability to limit survey users by groups
Ability to assign a value to the actual response
Ability to provide conditional branching based on responses
Unlimited number of responses allowed
Availability of data encryption by response