Can Outsourcing Online Surveys be Cost Effective?

To determine if outsourcing online surveys can be cost effective, we first need to understand exactly what is involved in the process, as well as the benefits and drawbacks it entails.

Why use online surveys?

Online surveys are very much on trend within the marketing world right now, simply because they are one of the most effective ways to learn about your target customer base, allowing you to better identify your niche within a crowded marketplace and tailor your goods towards them. Online surveys are generally done via email or social media, wherein you ask relevant questions to your prospective customers regarding certain key factors that connect to your products or services, to make sure you’re giving them what they want and helping you work towards achieving maximum brand power.

Compared to focus groups or on-the-street market research, digital methods allow surveyors to efficiently reach out to a larger audience within a shorter period of time, giving you more data to work with.

Why outsource?

Outsourcing simply involves delegating work to a third party. This means if you don’t have the time or resources to carry out a task, you can call in a professional intermediary to take care of the legwork for you. In the case of online surveys, this allows you to focus on the core of the business instead, whilst letting the experts gather the information you need.

Is it worth the money?

Obviously, nothing in business is free, and so you will have to pay the surveyors for their time, but given how much more efficient they are – due to their experience in the specific task at hand – the time necessary to organise and conduct the surveys will usually be greatly reduced, often meaning lower costs for you in the long run.

With any survey, reaching out to the right people is of vital importance, or else the data gathered will be rendered useless. Professional surveyors already know how to successfully identify and target a specific group, saving you the cost and HR hours that would be necessary to recruit people to do this in-house.

What are the benefits?

Put simply, some of the main advantages in outsourcing online surveys include:

• The ability to allow experts to conduct them as efficiently as possible
• The manpower saved which allows you to concentrate on the core of the business
• The faster return on the results, allowing you to start implementing your findings sooner
• The money saved from not needing to recruit new staff or to purchase additional resources for a one-time survey.
• The additional money saved from not having physical handouts to produce. This is also better for the environment.

Are there any drawbacks?

As with anything in business, it’s equally important to weigh up any potential disadvantages, so you can be sure it’s the right method for your company. In this case, they can include:

• The need to give the surveyors a good brief as to exactly what information you need from the survey, so that you get the desired data and ensure important questions aren’t overlooked, since they aren’t directly involved in your business and won’t have prior knowledge about your everyday workings.

• The uncertain reliability of some individuals surveyed, unless they have been well-vetted and form part of a wide cross-section of participants – though in the case of a professional survey, this should be the case.

Conclusion

All in all, it comes down to whether you think the benefits outweigh the relative few drawbacks, which in most instances, seems to be the case. As long as you opt for a well-established and reliable firm to conduct the surveys on your behalf, it seems possible to get better, faster results for a lower price. What’s not to like?

from Finance Girl http://www.financegirl.co.uk/can-outsourcing-online-surveys-be-cost-effective/