Are paid surveys a scam? I don't think so. Keep reading to learn why.
I first heard about doing surveys online for cash about two years ago. I had taken a couple of marketing courses in college and knew that companies frequently spent millions of dollars on advertising and new product development.
Have you ever heard how much companies will pay for a 30 second spot during the Super Bowl? Those ads cost millions. Legitimate paid online surveys allows you to collect some of this marketing cash.
Prior to spending that kind of money on advertising and product development, companies want to know what consumers want, how they would react to certain features or benefits of a new product, and of course, they want to know if consumers would even be interested in purchasing their new product.
To get this kind of information companies organize town hall type meetings, do test runs of their products in small markets, and even hire companies to canvass a community with pollsters. Have you ever come across a survey taker in the mall? Believe me, it takes a lot of money to organize and conduct a survey.
That was the old fashioned way. It took a lot of time and money to conduct polling. Somewhere along the line in the late 1990s, companies began to realize they could get polling data from consumer over the Internet. While it seems crazy that a company would be willing to pay you $25 to fill out a form, the company is actually saving time and money by paying online survey takers to provide them the information they need.
Now you can take advantage of these programs by simply getting involved and answering the survey questions honestly and in a timely manner.
What in the world does timely and honestly mean? And how does it relate to my success in making money with online surveys.
Timely
In the good ole days (about 15 years ago), companies had to hire, train, and pay pollsters to canvass neighborhoods and malls for consumer information. This process took weeks, if not months, and cost a pretty penny to execute.
Fast forward to today. Using the Internet a company that needs survey data feeds surveys to survey providers, that in turn feed the surveys to your email inbox. Literally overnight the company receives responses and is able to move their new product development along. This all happens in hours and days, rather than weeks and months.
Your "timely" response to the survey is a critical link in both the company's need for consumer information, and the contractual terms the survey provider agreed to when they received the survey offer. So, if you let the survey set around in your inbox for days before responding, you may be disappointed to find your efforts for this survey do not qualify for payment.
This is where a lot of the grief and anguish comes from in this business. People fail to realize they must submit the surveys within the time frame required by the company. This timeframe is not visibly apparent to you in the survey, so in my experience, the best thing to do is make sure you check your email daily and if a survey is offered to you, complete it that same day.
Now what about this "honesty" thing?
Honesty
Consumer data is only relevant to a marketing company when it is accurate. To ensure they are receiving accurate consumer response survey writers frequently place "test" questions in the survey.
No, a survey is not a pop quiz. What I mean by test questions is that some questions are worded specifically to test the validity of your answers. If your survey responses do not pass the "validity" test, your survey will be rejected. Which means no payment.
So, how do you avoid this problem? You avoid this by reading the survey questions and answering them honestly--not just clicking on bubbles and racing through the form as quickly as possible.
For example, question number 10 on a survey may ask you what year you were born. Further into the survey you notice a question that asks your age. Guess what? That's a validity test question. If you give and age that doesn't relate or equate to the year you were born (which they learned in question 10), your survey may not be accepted for payment./p>
Bummer. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.
You can avoid these problems by responding to surveys in a timely manner, and doing your best to answer the questions honestly. If you do that, the question: Are paid online surveys a scam? will not apply to you. Click here to discover how to get paid to do surveys using the best paid survey provider I know of online.
