DIY Online Surveys

When considering whether to carry out primary research, a company has two options: it can stay in-house or go to an outside agency. DIY survey software allows the researcher to create questionnaires using an easy template; effectively, this is a ‘questionnaire wizard’. Email addresses belonging to customers or prospects can then be inserted into the software. At the touch of a button, email messages go to hundreds of respondents simultaneously. The recipient can link to the questionnaire from the message. This is an online survey and easily administered via the Internet. Many packages also allow immediate analysis of results; visual displays of data can be produced instantly.

Many of these services are free of charge, and the rest are certainly affordable. We now see that companies, large and small, are turning to this approach to conduct research. Reader’s Digest supplies reading matter, music and financial services, and is a big user of research; the company sees ‘DIY research’ as an integral part of its business. Product managers in many companies, hard-pressed for results, will turn to DIY survey software. Suppliers tell us that their clients are household names such as Nike, Visa, Domino’s Pizza and Gillette.

If you have a Google account you can produce a questionnaire online. Go to Google Docs and click on NEW. Then select FORMS from the drop down box. Here are a few commercial providers of these services along with their websites; most have free trials and instant demonstrations. As one claims, ‘you can begin creating online surveys in minutes’.Google Docs

Advanced Survey CreateSurvey KwikSurveys Make Survey Market Sight Poll Daddy Qualtrics Survey Garden Survey Gizmo Survey Professionals SurveyGold SurveyMonkey Vovici Web Surveys ZipSurvey™ Zoomerang

(Extract with permission from Bradley: Marketing Research Tools and Techniques, Oxford University Press buy HERE from Amazon)