Top Viral Marketing

Archive for January, 2011

Online Surveys – A Cheap Way To Have A Successful Product Launch

A product launch can easily cost a company millions of dollars. Obviously the manufacturer thinks that the product is a good idea but what does the marketplace think?

What exactly are the odds of a product being successful in the marketplace? Before you invest millions of dollars wouldn’t you want to have some idea? One way that companies have developed to help predict the success or failure of a product is to get their potential customers to take online surveys. And more advertisers every day are taking advantage of this relatively low cost of doing market research that can prevent them making huge marketing and production mistakes.

Online surveys give companies immediate feedback on their ideas products and services. Surveys help them to answer the question regarding the level of demand for their idea or product. Surveys also enable them to tweak their offer many times if necessary until they are either comfortable that their idea is worth going forward with or is one that should be dropped. And often times it lets them do this at a fraction of the cost it would have taken to produce the product and market it.

Online surveys have one other advantage. It lets companies build up an email list of potential customers who have expressed an interest in what they have to offer.

From the user’s standpoint paid online surveys give them a chance to make a little money. If they are also interested in the product that they are evaluating as they should be it let’s them keep up on the latest innovations on that product. For example if you are a Linux guru and love working with it you might be the perfect candidate for a company about to promote a new Linux software add on. And it’s even sweeter for you if the company is willing to pay you for your opinions.

The typical marketing survey form will ask a potential buyer a series of questions such as: What do they like about the product? What do they dislike? If they like it the survey will likely as if they would be willing to pay for such a product and if so how much. If they dislike the product a good survey will dig deeper to get answers as to what specifically they do not like. If enough people express similar reservations about the product this gives the company a chance to modify the product before it goes to market.

A survey may also ask about their buying patterns. For example how often do they buy a new car upgrade their software or buy pasta? It helps the company gauge the size of their potential market. A company may have a product that they believe only appeals to men. If their survey reveals that it has an equal appeal to women as well they have potentially doubled their market size. And of course it works in reverse as well. They may think they have a product that both men and women will enjoy and sadly find that only men are interested in it.

Paid online surveys are a win/win for the company and user. If you’re a user the key thing is to get on the right notification lists so you’ll be aware of the online surveys that are available.

About the writer:  Eric Bayne is writer and researcher for http://www.retirementplanhelper.com . To learn more about making money with paid survey sites as well as other ways retired workers can make money please visit his website.

Online Market Research Surveys: Measuring The 4 Ps

Online surveys are giving marketing professionals dynamic tools to help measure analyze and grow their business. The latest Internet survey software provides valuable insights into how customers make decisions. It helps businesses make smarter choices about the four “P’s” that determine success in the marketplace: product price placement and promotion.

New Product Surveys: Design Test Design

Savvy business owners know that marketing should begin long before their products hit the stores. Marketing should begin with the product itself and with an indepth understanding customer’s needs and preferences.

Powerful new questionnaire software gives businesses a revealing glimpse into the minds of potential customers. Market research surveys can help a business rethink product design or maybe just fine tune it a bit. In simple terms these surveys can help a business give people what they want.

New product surveys try to get at the perceived needs of customers. They ask questions like:

• “How much cargo space do you need in your truck?”
• “How many watts does your backup power supply need to generate?”
• “How often do your drive on icy roads?”

Questions like these can help a business decide if its product line meets the needs of potential customers or if there are gaps in the line that need to be filled. Questionnaire software allows a business to sort responses by age gender location income and many other variables. This enables a business to target products to the needs of specific market segments.

New product surveys also try to determine the benefits that are most important to customers. Take vitamins as an example. Are customers mainly interested in vitamins that will help them feel better or boost their memory or improve their heart health? Questionnaire software uses sophisticated ranking questions to help isolate the benefits that people care about most.

New product surveys also help a business learn what features are important to customers. If customers show little interest in a particular feature a business may decide to offer it as an option rather than a standard part of its products. On the other hand if a feature shows up on a survey as being very popular a business might decide to include it in all of its products and emphasize it in its marketing campaign.

Conjoint Analysis: Examine the tradeoffs that customers make when purchasing a product

Conjoint analysis serves many purposes in market research but it is especially useful in making decisions about price. Heres how it works. Suppose a traveler is thinking about booking a hotel room. Two hotels next to each other offer rooms at the same price but one hotel has an indoor pool and the other does not. If the traveler enjoys swimming he will probably pick the hotel with the pool since there is no difference in price.

Our traveler does a little more research and finds that the hotel that does not have a pool offers room service which sounds wonderfully selfindulgent. Now our traveler has to make a decision. What does he value more a pool or room service? Suppose our traveler then learns that the hotel with the pool is offering a ten percent discount. Now things are really getting complicated.

Conjoint analysis enables a marketer to examine the tradeoffs that customers make in buying a product. It allows a marketer to see which features of a product are most valuable to customers and how much extra they are willing to pay for a particular feature or combination of features. The purpose of conjoint analysis is to determine what combination of variables is most influential in a customers decision to buy.

Conjoint analysis also helps a marketer set an optimal price for a product. It allows the marketer to see the point at which price outweighs benefits in the consumers mind. Although this type of analysis sounds complicated internet survey software makes it simple. The most sophisticated systems enable marketers to create online surveys using an intuitive wizard interface. They present the results of the analysis in a variety of formats that help marketing professionals make informed decisions.

Placement and the Purchase Process

Market research surveys can also provide valuable information about how people prefer to shop. Do they typically buy certain types of products online or do they prefer to visit a store? If they like to shop in person do they prefer nofrills discount stores or stores that offer advice and greater customer service? Do they buy from catalogs? If they do do they mail in their orders or use the catalog to shop online?

The purpose of all these questions is to discover how people feel about the purchasing experience. Sometimes two companies might offer virtually identical products but one company is much more successful because it provides customers the kind of purchasing experience they find comfortable. For example some car dealers advertise that they do not haggle over price. They know that some people are uncomfortable with the sort of price negotiations that are common in the car business.

Purchase process surveys need to focus on specific types of products. For example some people routinely buy DVDs in discount stores but they would go to an electronics store to buy a DVD player. A welldesigned online survey can isolate customers purchasing preferences for different types of products.

Purchase process surveys can also help businesses improve customer service. For example a survey might reveal that customers find a businesss website difficult to navigate. Businesses can use this type of data to make the purchasing experience more pleasant and convenient for customers.

Promotion: Advertising Effectiveness Surveys

Advertising effectiveness surveys help a business make the most of its advertising budget.

Advertising decisions have become extremely complicated. Many people especially young people spend more time online than watching television. But are online ads as effective as TV ads? And if a business decides to use TV ads which of the hundreds of cable channels should it focus on? And what about the print media and outdoor advertising? What place do they have in a wellplanned marketing campaign?

The answers to all these questions are different for different products and for different segments of the market. Marketers need reliable data to make informed decisions about their advertising budgets. Fortunately online surveys provide an economical way to gather and analyze this information.

An advertising effectiveness survey can determine how consumers react to an ad what they remember how they felt afterwards how the ad can be improved and if the ads intention was served. A sequence of surveys can measure brand awareness before during and after a campaign. As with other types of online surveys the results can be analyzed by age gender income and other variables to ensure that ads are reaching the correct demographic group.

Some businesses rely on sales performance to gauge the effectiveness of their advertising. They assume that if they are doing better than their competitors their ads must be working. This approach ignores the fact that sales are determined by a multitude of factors including price quality and competition. A business may be doing well but more effective ads could make its performance even better.

Boosting the Bottom Line

Online market research surveys are an inexpensive economical way to improve every phase of marketing: product design placement positioning and promotion. Surveys can tell a business what it is doing wrong or right and how it can do better. An investment in a wellplanned online survey can pay for itself many times over in increased sales and a healthier bottom line.

About the writer:  Jaime Brugueras Ph.D. is founder of Mineful.com a market research and analysis software that caters both the powerful and occasional user. Mineful’s webbased software tools cover a range of marketing applications from data collection to advanced market analysis including segmentation survey research and predictive analytics. Sign up for a FREE unlimited time trial at Mineful.com.

Network Marketing- Recruiting Means Following All Leads

Network marketing is great opportunity to make money while working from home. But many people have a hard time moving past selling their products to the recruiting stage. You need to find and recruit people who are serious about network marketing and who are going to continue the circle by doing their own recruiting to be successful within this industry.

Come up with a recruiting strategy that matches you who are and what youre comfortable doing. Talking to personal acquaintances is a good place to generate leads. Talk to relatives friends coworkers and anyone you know though other groups such as your fitness class. This group of prospects and leads is often referred to as a warm group which means you already know them so talking to them about your product and network marketing wont be difficult. Every person on the warm list has his or her own set of acquaintances that you dont know. The reference they give you to these people about you your product and your business is a lead you can act on. Make sure you dont let any of these leads slip through your fingers.

Make sure you carry business cards and brochures with you at all times. Create something unique and catchy that is going to generate interest. Brochures should have information not only about the product you sell but also about network marketing advantages and why people should consider finding out more information about your team. Consistently pass out your cards and brochures. The more you hand out the more likely you are to get those phone calls or emails from interested people. Frequent places where there are lots of people. Consider having a booth at trade shows and fairs that only displays your product but information about your company. Youre there not just to make a sale but also to create leads to follow up on.

Lastly make sure you have an online website. Your website is just like any other tool: a way to make sales and to provide people with information about network marketing. Follow up every sale with a letter not only thanking people for their business but also giving them information about the advantages of network marketing.

About the writer:  Mac Barlow is a successful online marketer who builds home base businesses and network marketing companies. Do you wish to learn more about being financially free visit my site www.macbarlow.com