Have you heard of surveymonkey or boomerang?  Most likely you have received more than one email message asking you to take a survey and providing you with a link to it. 

There are many options available today for conducting your own research—either for free or at a very low cost.  There are examples below this article of survey software readily available online. The first list includes products to help you create and conduct your own brief survey for no charge. All these companies also offer more enhanced survey software capability for modest fees. The second list links to survey software products with relatively low cost options. You can even add a single question to your own website for a simple poll you’d like to offer visitors. Most have varying degrees of support for the user based upon pricing packages you can select.

There has been a proliferation of these products in the last few years, and I’m sure the ones listed here just touch the surface of opportunities out there. That gets us to the ‘boon’ in my initial query. What’s available to everyone these days is really fantastic. It frees you to conduct your own marketing research at no to low cost.

I am most familiar with surveymonkey and have used it when teaching research classes at various universities in the region. It’s a way for students to learn quickly by making it feasible to conduct a survey, see the results, and analyze and report on the results all in one term.  I’ve also conducted brief surveys using online software for other information needs, such as to poll program attendees to get their assessment of the event. For the high-tech entrepreneur who is strapped for funds, looking to cut corners, wanting to avoid the expensive of a full-service research project, and needing quick results, it’s a real boon. It gives you an advantage and the means to conduct primary research and collect important data on your new venture.

So where does ‘boondoggle’ fit into this picture? While this term is often used to describe an unnecessary junket, it can also be used to describe a quagmire, and that’s my intent here.  As a researcher, my philosophy is and always has been that it’s better not to conduct any research rather than do a poor job of collecting and/or analyzing data. When someone does not know their results are incorrect, bad decisions can happen.

That’s the catch. Anyone can create a questionnaire. However, it’s not always as easy as it looks to create a good questionnaire—one which is totally objective; does not have leading or inappropriately placed questions; is clear, understandable and concise; and more.  Thus, with this free and low-cost software so readily available, it’s easy to get sucked into believing that you’re getting great data when you may actually be getting misleading or incorrect data without even realizing it.

I am not implying that an entrepreneur should never use these tools without engaging a professional researcher to conduct a full-blown survey. Rather, I am mentioning them here to make you and other readers aware of these products. 

However, I am also hoisting a big cautionary flag and would advise you to utilize professional resources to help test a draft questionnaire and revise it until it’s a worthwhile survey instrument that can really benefit you. Also, at the back end, it may be worth the extra time and expense to have a researcher evaluate the results. The incremental cost will help ensure that you are interpreting the results correctly and not coming to any misinformed conclusions. You can cut your costs by asking for a topline or summary report rather than a full, detailed analysis. After all—if you make important business decisions and act based on erroneous knowledge, this may prove to be much more costly in the end.

FEEDBACK:  If you’ve used any of these online tools, it would be great hearing about your experiences with them as well as inform this blog’s readers.

NOTE:  I am not endorsing or recommending any of the following products and have no vested interest in any of them. They are listed for illustrative purposes only.

Pat Lovenhart, November 29, 2007, ©

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