Online Surveys

The farthest reaches of this quantitative research methodology is only limited by your Internet reach. Almost all the businesses are reaping the benefits of online surveys and research. Market research companies utilise online surveys to gather data and obtain opinions about products and services. You get real-time feedback from your targeted market in fastest possible manner.

Online surveys can be conducted on large groups of verified users using online communities and forums. There is no dearth of places on the Internet where thousands of people congregate to exchange ideas, network with each other and find opportunities. Highly niche groups can be chosen for market research. The demographies are varied because these days practically everyone is on the Internet. Using online forums, social media platforms, user groups, email groups and the age-old bulletin boards, massive amounts of data can be gathered and intelligence drawn from it. Every age group, every income group, every gender and every interest group under the sun can be found on the Internet.

One of the biggest powers of online survey research and using online survey as a research method is that there is massive amount of data on the Internet. When we talk in terms of physical world (the non-Internet world), the number of respondents may be a few hundred or a few thousand, but on the Internet, depending on your reach, the number of respondents can go as high as hundreds of thousands, and sometimes, even millions.

Online market research is not limited by geography. You can cover almost the entire world (just to give you the perspective). As mentioned above, every possible niche exists on the Internet, if you can find it. There are online communities for every interest group and every ethnography. Hence, online survey research is one of the first choices for businesses as well as research companies when they want to do quantitative research within their targeted markets. The market research among online communities is so much in demand that there are survey sites dedicated to providing just online survey services.

When to use online surveys to gather data through online communities

Online surveys can be used for multiple purposes and not every online research project needs to be comprehensive. For that matter, you can even use a Twitter poll or Facebook poll to quickly get opinion on a small thing like your website logo or your brand colour. Such surveys are just a matter of clicking or tapping one of the radio buttons.

Smaller online surveys can also be used as precursors to bigger surveys. Smaller surveys, before bigger surveys, give you an idea of how well your bigger survey will be received.

Sometimes you can conduct a small survey to prepare your marketing presentation.

The key is having the right audience. This is the biggest challenge faced by businesses. It is very easy to upload a survey using one of the survey websites but how many people can you actually get to your online survey link? This is why, it makes sense to partner with a research company that has the needed reach and already has a database of prospective respondents among whom your online survey link can be promoted.

FG Connect can help you conduct large-scale online surveys and gather and analyse big data

FG Connect routinely provides professional online survey services to its clients in the UK, the US, the UAE, and beyond. Our researchers and staff have extensive experience in creating customised survey interfaces for the web and help businesses conduct meaningful online research surveys. They have complete understanding of online market research requirements and the technologies involved. We can create an engaging experience for survey participants to grab their attention and encourage them to give you high-quality feedback.

A big part of conducting online surveys is creating the front-end and back-end interfaces. The front-end interface includes forms to accept feedback and navigational schema in case there are multiple forms. The back-end interface is the processing of the feedback and the saving of the data. We have the needed programming expertise to achieve this.

Our technicians will design and deploy highly attractive and distraction free forms. The forms will be based on the questionnaire prepared by our team of researchers in close collaboration with you or one of your representatives. To minimise errors, questions and their respective answers will be formed in such a manner that the respondents can give their feedback in as little effort as possible and most of the data gathering processes will be automated. All the questions will be logically arranged to keep the thought process of the respondents streamlined.

Another important aspect of conducting online surveys is promoting your survey so that maximum number of people can participate. Once your online survey interface has been programmed and deployed, we can scour through prominent online communities like online forums, message boards and social media platforms to reach out to your target respondents and encourage them to participate in your online survey. We can connect with online influencers to boost your online survey campaign further. We can also use PPC campaigns and various Internet marketing tools to accentuate your survey link so that maximum number of people can access it. Email marketing is also one of the most potent tools to engage people and get them to your online survey research link or landing page.

Hence, we don’t just handle the technical part of it, but also the promotional part. Although, you can reach a bigger audience on the Internet, you need to promote your survey interface enough to enable maximum number of participants to leave their feedback. They will also need to be engaged during pre-survey marketing and promotion. We can provide you a complete package including survey interface creation and programming, deployment, data handling and survey marketing.

Advantages of online surveys in research

There are numerous advantages of using online surveys for research purposes among online communities and web-based community platforms. Because of these advantages and benefits, all survey companies and market research companies use online surveys. Some advantages are listed below:

• Faster implementation: Although the requisite technical know-how is required in many cases, the implementation of online surveys is faster compared to surveys conducted in the physical world. With various outreach tools and marketing methods, you can quickly reach out to thousands of participants and seek their opinion.
• Accurate data gathering: Your online survey interface (front-end and back-end) can be designed and implemented in such a manner that even through minimum input from your participants, you can gather maximum amount of data. This minimises scope for human error.
• Easier scalability: Online market research through online surveys can be easily scaled according to your data gathering needs, the nature of your product or service, and the size of your target market.
• Faster data availability and analysis: The data that you obtain is already digitised. Through back-end programming, most of the validations are already implemented. You just need to download your data and analyse it using either custom-built tools or off-the-shelf survey software applications.
• Greater sense of anonymity, if needed: People readily provide feedback due to a greater sense of anonymity afforded by the web. Many people create their online presence through pseudonyms and handles that do not reflect their real names. This makes them comfortable enough to articulate themselves unhindered by inhibition. This way, you can get more data for your research project.
• More accessibility: An accessible online survey interface makes it possible for maximum number of people to participate in your online market research project hence, giving you a deeper insight into your target audience. Even those people who cannot visit a central location or who cannot use pen and paper, will be easily able to participate in your online survey. An accessible interface also means that people will be able to leave feedback for your online survey using multiple devices including PCs and laptops, mobile phones and tablets.