Market Research Ignorance

Recently, I was invited to participate in a focus group for women regarding casual restaurants. The panel consisted of eight other young women who frequented casual restaurants enough to be informed on the subject to be able to properly provide information regarding them.

The focus group started off well enough - the panel conductor introduced herself, and asked us to do the same. She did this to simply create a better group dynamic, not for record collection purposes. She then proceeded to ask us to write down our top five casual restaurants on a piece of paper. Once done, as a group we compiled a listing of these restaurants. There was a lot of overlap, especially with the big popular chain restaurants. The more obscure restaurants were crossed off from the list, and the conductor asked us to focus in on three particularly trendy restaurants. The women in the group then freely began voicing their opinions to the conductor on these selected restaurants. When a crossed off restaurant made its way back into the discussion, the conductor gently guided the group back to the discussion of the top three restaurants. This is where things got interesting.

One of the women in the group could not understand why the discussion could not involve the restaurants crossed from the list. After becoming defensive about her favorite restaurant (which happened to be crossed off), she began questioning the panel conductor and demanded to know what the "real" purpose behind the focus group was. Another woman, who interestingly enough, knew the woman who was at this point irate, joined in. The panel conductor tactfully answered some of their questions until she realized the women had no interest in listening to what she had to say. She then stopped answering questions and asked the women to leave.

At first the women refused, but at the mention of receiving their focus group participation payment in full, started to get up and leave. Before leaving the room, the woman who started the argument asked the survey conductor if the whole point behind the focus group was to answer questions about one particular restaurant chain, because they were the ones who hired the research company to conduct the focus group. The conductor, exasperated with the time that had been already wasted and the obvious nature of the question, loudly proclaimed "But of course!"

Once the women who had been removed from the focus group completely left (although not before voicing their dissatisfaction to the receptionist), the rest of us remaining told the survey conductor she handled the situation well. Throughout the entirety of the event, the rest of us focus participants simply sat and listened...

The situation was rather a disappointing one. Out of the nine women who showed up, only seven of us were left - most of us confused about what had just transpired. The survey conductor was left frazzled and upset and I'm sure the restaurant chain that hired the market research company was also disappointed.

So, what is the point of me telling you this story?

This story is simply a classic example of how a little bit of ignorance can turn a well-intentioned assignment into a needless disagreement. Had the women who were kicked out realized the purpose behind the focus group, and appreciated that the point of a focus group is to literally "focus" on something, they likely would not have caused such a disturbance. Focus groups are not about manipulating panelists - it's about asking questions at the right time, in the correct sequence, sometimes by use of "lead ins". Market researchers companies are professionals at this, as they know when and how to ask questions to receive the type of response they are looking for. As this is their expertise, major corporations hire them to conduct exactly this type of research.

Remember that with survey taking and focus group participation, you are getting paid for your opinions; your opinions on a specified topic that is. It's great that we all have thoughts about products, services, people, places, and things, but the company who has hired the market research firm to conduct the survey is only interested in having panelists answer the questions they need answered - this is why they are willing to pay for this type of valuable information.

Focus group participation and survey taking can be fun and interesting. You quickly discover what your likes and dislikes are, and it's neat to have somebody not only listen, but also pay you for what you have to say. If there is a survey or focus group you feel you would not enjoy participating in - don't! This is why surveys and focus groups are voluntary to participate in. Keep in mind (literally) that you can always save your opinions for topics you would be more interested in answering questions about.

You may also wonder about the sequence of questions in a survey or focus group. Just consider that question sequence serves a purpose, one that may not always be obvious to you as the participant. If you answer questions truthfully and with effort, you will realize you are taking part in a larger system that directly allows you to influence the goods and services of the future.
Make a difference, and have fun while you're at it. Happy survey taking!

Article written by Veronica Dubak - SEO expert, internet entrepreneur, and the owner of the successful SurveyBounty.com free online paid surveys directory. With a comprehensive listing of market research companies classified by region, and background information on the online survey industry, SurveyBounty.com is the legitimate source for online survey information.

Opinion Outpost Review

Regions Of Participation: United States and Canada Minimum Age to Join: Must be at least 18 years old Rewards: opinion points (10 points = $1.00) Average Pay Per Survey: $1 to $10 (10 to 100 points) Url: http://www.opinionoutpost.com/

Program Details and Suggestions

Getting Started. Once you sign up to become a member at the Town Hall, you will gain access to the Opinion Outpost Grand Hotel members area. At the Grand Hotel you can gain access to your contact information, your member profiles and survey history, your opinion points balance, answers to common questions, and a referral page where you can earn extra points for referring your friends. Currently they our offering 10 points for each referral. Our first recommendation is to fill out the ten profile surveys in the members area. These profile surveys are not rewarded, but are quick to fill out, and especially make a big difference in the amount of surveys you receive from opinion outpost.

What to expect? After you sign up and complete your member profiles, Opinion Outpost will email you survey invitations when they have studies that match your profile. Each invitation will indicate the points that you can earn for completing the survey and the estimated time it will take to complete the survey. Most survey average between 10 to 100 points depending on the length of the survey. At 10 points = $1, most surveys pay between $1 to $10 dollars. Each survey starts out with some qualify questions, and if there are still open slots for your profile, you will be allowed to complete the survey. This is why it is a good idea to take the surveys as soon as you can after you get the email invitation. The amount of surveys you will receive depends on your profile and the current studies being conducted, but in general you should expect about four to eight invitations per month. Again, be sure you fill out your member profiles and keep them up to date, this makes a big difference with Opinion Outpost. I noticed a big difference in the amount of surveys I received after completing the profile surveys.

Like GlobalTestMarket, all of Opinion Out surveys are rewarded with points. Once you have accumulated at least 50 points you can go to the Bank in the members area and redeem your points for cash. They will pay you with a check as shown in the example below; you can expect to receive it within 6 weeks by mail.

Advice: Since you may not qualify for all of the surveys, and since Opinion Outpost does not send a large amount of surveys, we recommend that you take all of the surveys that they send you. Opinion Outpost requires that you attempt at least on survey every three months to maintain good standing as an active member. Failure to do so will result in a loss of your accumulated points! So, if you are not getting many surveys, check your profiles section, and make sure they are completed and up to date. The most important advice is to answer the surveys honestly, and to take time to answer them correctly. Rushing through the surveys will often cause you to overlook something and as a result not qualify for the survey. The better your responses, the more likely it is that you will be invited to take future paid surveys.

Review
Scale: 1 = Lowest, 10 = Highest

Quality of Surveys (9)

Surveys are easy to understand
Surveys are pretty interesting, and can usually be completed in 20 minutes or less.

Compensation for Surveys (8)

Compensation is good: $1 to $10 average for completed surveys

Frequency of Surveys (7)

Opinion Outpost sends about 4 to 8 invitations per month.

Timely Payment / Payment Options (7)

50 point = $5 minimum required to redeem your points for cash.
Payment delivered via mail, and usually arrives within 6 weeks.

Survey Panel Member's Area Site (10)

Easy navigation with links for accessing your rewards balance and profiles.
Access to a detailed history of your paid survey results, and current survey studies
Referral page where you can refer your friends and earn even more points.

Overall Panel Ranking (8.2)

Conclusion

Compensation for surveys is good, averaging anywhere from 10 to 100 points, which amounts to $1 to $10 per survey. You can redeem your points for cash when you have 50 points = $5. The frequency of surveys is good, and can be increased by completing your member profiles. The surveys are interesting, and they pay well for the time spent. This is a good panel to join to help add to your monthly earnings for taking surveys. Definitely Recommend!

(source: http://www.online-paid-surveys.net/Opinion-Outpost-review.htm)

Free Online Paid Surveys - What You Need to Know

There are plenty of money making opportunities online with free online paid surveys hailed as one of the simplest and most widely used to earn some quick cash. If you have spent some time searching the web, you probably would have come across dozens of sites that make claims that you can become rich from filling some questionnaires. The truth is, anyone in their sound mind would instantly know it is not possible and these are scams. But a few hundred to thousand dollars is achievable by participating in free online paid surveys.

People actually do make money from doing free online paid surveys. Stay-at-home mums as well as college students are earning some pocket cash from these. As long as you have a realistic view of this income opportunity, there are reliable market research companies you can work with. A few hundred dollars per month would be great for most families as a supplementary income. For the young adults, the money can be used to purchase a new bike, MP3 player or even a computer.

Be down to earth and know that it is not possible to hit $1000 a month within the first month. The clue to making a substantial income is to participate in as many questionnaires as possible. To do so, you need to be a member with more than one or two market research companies. One hint here is to join as many of them and go for the high paying ones. This more or less guarantees you would always have floods of offers for free online paid surveys to do.
Exercise your discretion when picking a market research company to work with. As a market norm, the company should not charge you a registration fee. The worst companies are bucket shops that charge you for joining and never send you a single offer. A genuine market research company just wants your opinion and is willing to pay you for it.

Folks may be upset that after paying online survey directories, they are not getting the questionnaires to start earning with. For a moment, they may feel they are scammed but the fact is, they are not. The truth is, these directories are not the market research companies.
Basically, when you pay the directory, you are paying for a compiled listing of established market research companies. This saves you a great deal of time going through the internet and checking out each company one by one. With such lists, you can get started with earning a good income as soon as possible.

That said, if you are tight on budget and have a lot of spare time, you can search online for the information about each market research company. Set aside a few weekends and register with each company and test it out. Earning a supplementary income using free online paid surveys can really be profitable and interesting.

Visit my site if you wish to find out more useful tips about questionnaire filling for cash and discover the best paying market research companies around.

Davion is a successful online entrepreneur who goes hunting for the hottest income opportunities. Discover where to find the best paying free internet paid surveys at his wildly popular survey blog. You can also find another interesting article on online paid surveys and start earning some extra cash today.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Davion_Wong

Paid survey sites

Everybody has an opinion and now you can get paid to share yours through online surveys!

That’s right. You can visit fun and exciting websites and fill out free paid surveys – for cold, hard cash and even great prizes!

It’s called market research and by providing your input through paid online surveys, you can shape and mold products to come, and help top companies worldwide better products already in the marketplace.

You see, US companies alone spend more than $250 billion a year in traditional advertising, such as television commercials and magazine ads. But by tapping into what consumer’s like you think through free surveys, and learning more about what consumers like you want, these companies can dramatically cut their advertising dollars and reach their goals of developing and maintaining a profitable product line.

Work From Home: Get Paid to Share Your Opinion on Today's Hottest Products with Online Surveys

Make $10-$150 An Hour Taking Fun, Exciting Paid Surveys
It’s an important job, and one you can do in your spare time and from the comfort of your own home. And, with eSurveysPro.com, there are no start-up costs, no obligations, and no strings attached. Just a chance to get money for surveys.

They learn this information directly from you through paid surveys and surveys online.

And, it’s a worldwide trend with free paid survey opportunities available in the US, as well as in Australia, Canada, the UK and many other countries.

So whether you’re a busy mom, on-the-go student or just looking to supplement your income, everything you need is right here, in a single place – with the Net’s TOP 500+ survey companies all here and looking for you and needing you to take free paid surveys.

Because of eSurveysPro.com strong reputation and long-running success on the Net, we have partnered with the best paid survey businesses online and off, providing you with opportunities, resources, and ongoing support you just won’t find anywhere else.

Not only do you receive payment from our survey partners, but you will be provided with everything you need to work from home and to achieve whatever level of financial freedom you desire!

The bottom-line is this: You become the market research expert. Your opinion - your voice, if you will, speaks directly to the company, and, in doing so, helps to ensure consumer’s needs like your own are met.

Best of all, you get paid to do it.

And, before you know it, you too can cash-in on the online market research trend, getting paid to let your valuable opinions be known to some of the most recognizable businesses worldwide.

Are Online Paid Surveys Legit?
Paid surveys are not new, despite all the hoopla. Marketing research firms have been paying consumers to participate in surveys, focus groups and such for some time. But the Web has granted them a more-efficient way to collect data. So, many now conduct legit, online paid surveys and other types of paid, online marketing research.

But many questionable, "middleman" paid survey sites are poisoning the well, by hyping easy money for participating in online marketing research from home. When there's competition for selling an easy-money scheme working from home, you can bet that there's also exaggeration, if not outright scams.


Many questionable middleman sites charge "membership" fees for access to lists of marketing research firms that conduct online paid surveys.

But you can find many for free, by searching the Web. It's how this writer found 60+ to review for this article. It's also likely how the membership sites found most they list. Regardless, some try to dupe you into believing their lists are special. But, according to messages on scam forums, their lists are essentially the same as others. Worse, some also list other membership sites, trying to dupe you into buying essentially the same list over and over again. They include sites that seem to be their competitors, because they earn referral fees or commissions when you click the links or buy memberships. A couple mentioned in scam forums even try to dupe you into buying the same list at other membership sites they own under different domain names. So, natch, these sites have incentive to exaggerate how much you'll earn from online paid surveys.

Other middleman paid survey sites provide free lists. But, many are effectively in cahoots with the questionable membership sites, because they too earn referral fees and commissions by hosting links and ads for membership sites. So, they too have incentive to exaggerate.

If anybody is earning a living from online paid surveys, it's considerably more probable to be middleman-site owners than participating consumers. Of the 60+ paid survey sites reviewed, most "pay" only token rewards in the form of goods, services, coupons or samples. Many pay cash only through sweepstakes. Even if you're lucky enough to win several sweepstakes, it likely won't lead to early retirement. Prizes at most reviewed sites range from $5-200 in cash or goods and drawings are only occasional. Some pay with points that are redeemable for cash or goods. Typically, you must rack up a bunch to redeem them for anything of significance. Most pay nothing or only sweepstakes entries for completing screening surveys, that determine your eligibility to receive certain paid surveys. A couple don't pay much of anything, unless you recruit others as in pyramid schemes.

A few paid survey sites reviewed do pay relatively well in cash. But questionable middleman sites hype hypothetical, best-case scenarios that can't possibly apply to each and every consumer for each and every hour he or she participates. In the real world, the likelihood that you'll often earn the higher of the hyped amounts is slim. Besides the reality that most simply don't pay much, you must be invited to complete paid surveys. To be invited, you must fit targeted demographics. That alone limits your earnings right off the bat, as you can't possibly fit every demographic.

Consequently, despite what questionable middleman sites imply in their "dream job" hype, it's unlikely that you'll earn a living from paid surveys and other marketing research. You might, however, earn or win some extra spending money, or free or discounted goods or services.

Most reviewed paid survey sites effectively promise not to share personally-identifiable information or not to share it without prior consent. It's an industry standard, by which legit marketing research firms are bound. But many membership sites reviewed don't make either promise, or do so only in a limited or wishy-washy way. Unauthorized go-betweens such as membership sites don't have to honor the marketing-research industry's privacy standards.

Consequently, by joining, you might have also rolled out the red carpet for the membership site or its unnamed "marketing partners" to solicit you. (Some who joined membership sites reported in scam forums that they were swamped by spam only minutes later.) Your personally-identifiable information is worth a small fortune to direct marketers, especially since the U.S. Federal Trade Commission pushed for legislation in 2002 to stop unsolicited telemarketing calls. Ask yourself if a few extra bucks, iffy sweepstakes and other token rewards are worth the aggravation of dealing with potentially dozens of pestering privacy invasions that offer nothing for your time.

All things considered, it's no surprise that some of the marketing research sites reviewed disclaim any connection with membership sites. Real paid survey sites pay you, not the other way around.

Avoiding Online Paid Surveys Scams
The bottom line is, if the hype for online paid surveys sounds too good to be true, it likely is. That's the safest way to screen out "offers" that hype big rewards for small investments of time or money. Don't be fooled by:

Testimonials - Ropers and shills typically write these for scams, not satisfied customers.
Documented Proof - Some questionable paid survey sites provide checks and other documental replications as "proof." But just because someone made money at least once, doesn't mean that you will. Besides, with today's computer technology, paid survey scams can counterfeit just about any document and make it look authentic.
Guarantees - Don't believe guarantees that promise the Moon. Paid survey sites can't possibly guarantee you much of anything, except that they'll refund your fees if you're not satisfied. But good luck collecting your refund if it's a paid surveys scam.
The "fine print" at questionable paid survey sites often contradicts much of what their hype implies. (That's how they try to cover themselves legally.) Don't let the hype alone sell you. Read all of the fine print too and ask questions if it's vague or you don't understand it. Think twice about submitting your personal information to any paid surveys site that does not provide a clear privacy policy or arouses your suspicion in any other way. Also read disclaimers, terms, conditions and any other fine print. Avoid sites that don't answer your questions in a satisfactory and timely manner. Be wary of conducting business with sites that list only email or PO box addresses for questions and other matters, as they might be fly-by-night, paid survey scams.

Perform whois lookups to reveal if paid survey sites were registered by proxy. If so, be wary of doing business with them too. Site owners might be hiding their contact information behind proxy services, because they're running paid survey scams. Whois lookups will also tell you if different sites were launched by the same owners (unless they were registered by proxy). If so, be wary about that too. Owners might have launched multiple sites to make their "industry" appear to be more legit, dupe you into buying the same list of paid surveys more than once, or both.

Check with the BBB for complaints against specific online paid survey sites and their owners. But, be aware that, just because there are no complaints, it doesn't mean that all who have conducted business with the sites are 100-percent satisfied. It just means that no one has yet complained to the BBB about those specific sites. More about that is below.

Browse scam forums, such as Scam.com and RipOffReport.com, for messages from consumers who think they've been duped by online paid survey scams. But, proceed with caution. Some messages are posted by ropers and shills pretending to "rescue" those who've been duped by paid survey scams or who are looking to avoid it. For example, the "rescuers" might say that all online paid surveys are scams, except for the "wonderful opportunities" they've found. But, what they don't tell you, is they profit from recommending the "wonderful opportunities". Scam-forum moderators typically remove such messages. But, natch, they'll remain posted until the moderators screen them.

The same goes for sites that claim to screen out paid survey scams, or that rate or rank paid survey sites. Be wary if they link to fee-based middleman sites or display ads for same, as they're probably trying to earn commissions and referral fees by duping you. Natch, sites that pay them the most receive the highest ratings or top-most rankings. Some even go so far as to display phony award logos, hokey rating stars and such.

For more information about avoiding scams, see the consumer advice from the FTC and BBB. But, although both have issued general warnings about easy-money schemes (such as work-at-home and Internet business-opportunity scams), at this writing neither has specifically warned about online paid surveys. That's likely because online paid surveys are a fairly new easy-money scheme at this writing.

Regardless, this writer is willing to bet that it won't be long before the FTC or BBB collect enough complaints to issue specific warnings. According to reputable sources on the Web, local BBB offices have been flooded by complaints against paid surveys sites.

If you've been ripped-off by online paid surveys scams, as indicated you may file complaints with the FTC and BBB. You may also file complaints with the U.S. government's Internet Fraud Complaint Center.