how do I find people for my survey?

June 10, 2008 2:05 PM

How can we easily and cheaply find people to fill out our survey? We have been having issues even with a prize.

We have setup a quick and dirty survey just to provide some initial data. We didn't have the time or money to spend designing a great survey, but we needed some quick data so we spend about and hour and threw something up on SurveyMonkey.

We are giving away 5 ipod shuffles, but have been having issues getting people to fill it out. We have emailed our friends, but have still have under 100 responses. With a)a quick survey b)emails going out to our friends we are already dealing with so-so data. The hope was if we get enough responses it would be somewhat useful as long as we were realistic about the quality of the data.

So how else can we get people?

1) Tried a few contest sites, but they all wanted a link back and such, which won't really work for surveymonkey

2) Tried some cheap google ads, but not getting much clickage (which is understandable I guess...they are probably not looking to fill out a survey)

3) Posted a request on our facebook and myspace pages.

4) We did contact an actual firm to send us people, but they wanted like $3,000. This will be worth it later, but at this stage we have better ways to spend the money.

So any other thoughts? How can I find people to fill out my survey and give away some ipods to people other than family or friends?

posted by UMDirector to work & money (21 comments total)

maybe try craigslist?
posted by alpha_betty at 2:10 PM on June 10

try a nano or a Touch as a grand price.
posted by By The Grace of God at 2:10 PM on June 10

I know I'm always skeptical of "Fill out a survey and win an iPod!!!" emails or notices, so if your attempts look like that kind of spam or popup that we see every day, it's not going to work well.
posted by zephyrian at 2:16 PM on June 10 [1 favorite]

Have cash as a grand prize. I will always stop to fill out a survey if there's a possibility of cold hard cash.
posted by triggerfinger at 2:32 PM on June 10

If you post the link to your survey in your profile, I'd be happy to fill it out.
posted by lioness at 2:34 PM on June 10

I should be clear: we are locked into the iPods. We have already started the survey with the shuffles and would have to restart if we changed what we are giving away.

So if you are concerned about the fact that "giving away an ipod" is a typical spam come-on...what do you suggest we do to combat that? Assuming we are indeed stuck giving away and ipod shuffle
posted by UMDirector at 2:36 PM on June 10

Honestly, some context for "we" would be good here.

Is there some reason you can't reveal what the organisation is? Do you guys have a website? Who are you looking for respondents? What is the survey topic?

Etc.
posted by DarlingBri at 2:39 PM on June 10

Honestly given that I know at least one spam harvester is using various ipod products to pry emails out of people's paws, I'd consider a different prize.

Also, have you considered ads on things like web comics. People who like their free comics often feel guilty enough to donate clicks to ads to help feed starving webcomic artists.
posted by Phalene at 2:41 PM on June 10

We is my boss, myself and three programmers.

We are an actual funded company, but funded small and trying to stay below the radar until we have our beta completed. Hence trying to find some information without doing a link to our webpage or any of that stuff. Even the survey is a bit general, but does provide some useful info.
posted by UMDirector at 2:46 PM on June 10

Last time I visited Mechanical Turk, there were a lot of 'Go to this site, then take this survey, then enter the code we give you' come-ons.
posted by box at 2:47 PM on June 10

Yeah a friend suggested the turk. I think next time we may investigate that option along with survey software other than Survey Monkey, as it seems a bit limiting.

Not sure if its because of this thread or not, but we suddenly had 10 more people fill it out.

If it was anyone on here...THANK YOU guys (and gals)...you are FANTASTIC!
posted by UMDirector at 2:57 PM on June 10

Are you or your programmers active on any listserves, Google Groups, or the like where you discuss topics relevant to the project your survey is for? I am usually happy to help provide pilot data for people on the academic listserves I subscribe to.
posted by redfoxtail at 3:08 PM on June 10

I work in internet marketing, so maybe I can offer a few tips. Your site may not be converting successfully because:

1) free ipod scenarios are, like everyone else has said, everywhere and usually scammy.

2) the page really doesn't look very professional. It doesn't look *bad,* but it doesn't look like it represents an organization that has the means to provide 5 Shuffles. It looks homemade and a little outdated. Do you have any control over the design? Maybe look at some really slick sites that have forms and see what they're doing design-wise. For example, the color scheme could use a do-over. The checkboxes might actually get clicked if they look like plain white boxes with plain black checks instead of these bubble things. Users like to know what to expect.

3) People like to know how much work they're going to have to put into it. It's nice that you have a progress bar, but you don't say that it IS a progress bar. I just see a percent and a black bar, and I almost didn't see that. For a minute, I wondered what it was, and I design those things all the time. Maybe something like "X pages left" or "X questions remaining" with the bar would be even better.

4) Inspiring confidence in your visitors will help a LOT. You need a privacy policy right there on the first page. I see that you're telling us you only need the email for the survey, but you're not promising us that you won't sell our email address to other people, and that sentence at the top isn't enough. It would also help if people knew just a little bit more about the company/product that needs this data.

5) Narrow the width of your content. It spans the width of the entire screen. Whether they realize it or not, most people don't like the effort it takes to move their eyes that much, and sometimes they'll just quit early for something as simple as that.

6) People like pictures, too. A good quality picture of some Shuffles would serve as a visual reminder of the end goal. Also: shiny buttons. People like the shiny. Get people's attention (just don't be obnoxious about it - that's what the spammers do)

Some of those things seem really minor, but they can all affect conversion (getting people to finish the form) significantly. You need to get people started first and then keep them from losing interest once they've decided it's worth even starting.

In short: work on the design, help your visitors trust you, call attention to the incentive, make it all look easy.
posted by katillathehun at 3:15 PM on June 10 [1 favorite]

katillathehun:

You make some really good points....many of them will require us to switch providers next time, which we already are considering. I am going to make some other changes as I can...unfortunately Smonkey limits the amount you can change once you have launched the survey...argh.
posted by UMDirector at 3:27 PM on June 10

Post the survey in forums related to your topic, assuming it's OK with the moderators.
posted by desjardins at 4:06 PM on June 10

You said you've advertised it on your own facebook page, but did you consider buying an actual ad on facebook?
posted by jacalata at 5:15 PM on June 10

I may be totally clueless, but did the OP post a link to the survey? I am confused how katillathehun was able to make all those educated critiques...
posted by radioamy at 5:42 PM on June 10

The OP posted a link in a comment, and it was deleted.
posted by box at 6:04 PM on June 10

Well, it looks like some comments were deleted, but, yeah. The OP did link to the survey at one point. Would it be possible for the OP to post a screen cap instead?
posted by katillathehun at 6:07 PM on June 10

OK well at least I'm not going crazy!
posted by radioamy at 7:31 PM on June 10

What's the survey about; what kind of people are you looking for; how many people are you looking for?

The best way to get people to answer a survey is for it to be something that they're interested in. If there exist such people, find their forums / chats.

If you're just doing marketing research, then you need to be straightforward and look professional. I have to look at your email/ad and think that you're not a spam collector. Give an actual address and phone number, make a firm and prominent pledge to not ever share email addresses.

If you set a cap on the number of people who CAN fill out the survey, then the prize might look more appealing. If you're polling 10k people and have 5 shuffles, that's not worth it. But 500 people and 5 shuffles I might do. Think about what you're going to do with this data and how many people would be really needed.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 6:23 AM on June 11