Multi-level marketing research
One of my favorite marketing research vendors is a San Diego firm that specializes in Internet panel surveys. The panel is SurveySavvy.com, managed by Luth Research. What makes SurveySavvy different from most other online panels is that they pay a small amount of cash to every survey respondent, instead of entering them all into a sweepstakes drawing that leaves 99.5% of the respondents unrewarded. This has the effect of boosting SurveySavvy response rates to an amazing 25%-30%, rather than the 1%-2% other panels might achieve.
There's one other cool thing about SurveySavvy's panel rewards. Panelists who invite other people to join the panel also receive a cash incentive ($1) when those referrals complete surveys! What a fantastic way to build a panel with the "snowball" method.
When I was employed by ICR, I never promoted the SurveySavvy panel here. While we partnered frequently with Luth Research, they were still our competition in some ways.
However, now that I'm no longer on the vendor side of research, I have no hesitation to invite my readers to take advantage and sign up for Luth Research's SurveySavvy panel and start getting paid regularly for EVERY survey you complete with them. If you click this link, you may register for SurveySavvy as my referral, so I'll also earn a dollar when you complete a survey!
If you like the experience SurveySavvy offers, you can then start to build your own pyramid of referrals, so that you too will earn money even when you're not personally completing research surveys.
(Disclaimer: I have already earned a few hundred dollars over the years with this program, and Luth Research has not asked me personally for this endorsement. It is my personal recommendation.)
Labels: Internet panel, Luth Research, MLM, paid surveys, referral marketing, snowball sampling, SurveySavvy.com
posted by Gregory Kohs @ 9:44 AM
8 comments
8 Comments:
Have you checked out Peacock Nine? They get about 40% response rates and really are pushing the envelope.
I am an strat planner and I should know. They are THE firm in Chicago.
Best,
Cam
Shouldn't we be concerned about professional respondents? How reliable can the results be when the respondent's only motivation is cash? Response rates of 45 - 60% are not at all unheard of when you have a properly recruited and engaged panel, where motivation to participate (and provide thoughtful responses) is intrinsic and stems from the respondents eagerness to contribute to a brand or category, rather than simply extrinsic (cash). Just my two cents.
You should be more concerned that you're asking them questions because when you ask them questions you don't get the voice of the consumer, you get the voice of the inquirer through the question being asked - a form of bias that will lead you astray. But I know/have a solution.
asap. thanks for the tip!
Reliability of results is a complex process that not only depends on who is answering the survey or if they are being honest, but if the question is designed to produce answers that are reliable and valid measures of what one tries to research.
In other words, a good survey sample provides:
- replicable results
- meaningful answers (can corroborate correlations with similar questions)
- people understand it in a similar way
- answers provide useful information
...whether you have too many highly educated people or hispanics than your sample frame, is not as important as there are weighting procedures that somewhat can correct for this.
Luth has been great! More high quality panels than a lot out there!
What is the point of these surveys? Companies have been executing them for years, through endless cycles of management turnover. Yet despite the expertise McKinsey & Company reports that despite solid balance sheets and healthy bottom lines senior management is disappointed and wonders where business growth will come from.
It makes me uneasy that Calle & Company would take credit for "product launches" (http://callecompany.com/_wsn/page2.html), after merely consulting with the companies that actually launch the products. So, if I win the contract to mow the lawns at the headquarters of Exxon, Wal-Mart, and Chevron, might I say "It's no coincidence that America's three largest companies depend on my insights into environmental management practices."
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