Free Advertising is Still Effective

Although they are largely wrong, many webmasters would probably say that free advertising is dead and gone. While it’s probably true that paid advertising is more effective, free advertising is far from dead.

There are many forms of free advertising, such as forum signatures, viral ebooks, and article marketing, which is indeed proof that free advertising is not dead. But for the purpose of this article, we will be focusing on one simple, easy method only, using free classified ad sites and forums.

When it comes to using free advertising, it’s mostly just a numbers game. Naturally, the more ads you have out there in circulation, the better your results are going to be. And there’s no shortage of places to post your ads. One good thing about a lot of free ad sites is that you can post your ads over and over again. At many of the free advertising forums you can move your ads to the top of the list with just a quick reply, making things much quicker and easier for you.

It’s easy to find sites to post your free ads. Simply go to your favorite search engine and look up terms like free classifieds, free ads forum, post free ads, and so on.

The real trick to effective free advertising is to simply do it on a consistent basis. If you track your results, you’ll quickly learn which sites and what times are the most effective for placing ads. Knowing where and when to place your ads will be a huge time saver and will make your job a whole lot easier.

In the end, your offer will largely affect your success when it comes to free advertising campaigns. Advertising something that has wide appeal and is also free, will likely yield the best results. A lot of the traffic at most free advertising sites is comprised of other advertisers, who are there to post their own ads, so having an offer that appeals to them is a good idea. If you happen to be offering something related to advertising, or even better, free advertising, you chances of success can be greatly boosted.

While posting free ads might not be the absolute optimum way to generate traffic, it certainly can be effective enough to start pulling in some nice targeted traffic, particularly if you make the effort to do it on a consistent basis. And combining this method with other forms of free advertising, such as using forum signatures, social bookmarks, submitting articles, etc., it is quite possible to get a brand new or unnoticed site off ground in just a few short months.

Tips to Writing Effective Surveys

How to create a survey using Survey Galaxy

Designing surveys is considered easy; but is it? The reality is that writing surveys is easy but writing surveys that will be effective is a little bit more difficult. The following are twenty tips that if followed will help you with your survey questionnaire design and help you write effective surveys.

1. What is the purpose of the survey?

There are many reasons for conducting questionnaires. By phrasing the questions and structuring the answers surveys can be used in a multitude of ways and for a variety of reasons. When compiling a survey don’t lose sight of its purpose.

2. Title the survey

The title of the survey is an opportunity to instantly summarise a survey’s objective and encourage respondents to participate. Respondents need to invest time in completing the survey so encourage them that the investment they make will be worthwhile.

3. Keep the survey as short as possible

Every question that is asked should be asked for a reason. Minimize asking questions that will provide you with ‘nice to know’ information and concentrate instead on ‘need to know’ questions.

4. Use plain English, avoid jargon and acronyms, maintain consistency and don’t ask questions that may result in ambiguous answers

Care must be taken in wording a question. If a question can be interpreted in more ways than one then there is a risk that any analysis of the survey results will be worthless or at the very least misleading.

5. Don’t have long questions

Try to use short sentences wherever possible. Long questions can cause a respondent discomfort and lead to them abandoning the survey.

6. Ask only one question at a time

Avoid confusing the respondent with a question like ‘Do you like athletics and tennis?’

7. Don’t influence the answer

Do not load the question. ‘Should irresponsible shop keepers who sell alcohol to children be prosecuted?’ is unlikely to have any value.

8. Ensure that the selected answer format allows the respondent to answer the question being asked

Ensure that the respondent is able to answer how they really feel or they may abandon the survey. As a last resort consider the benefit of including a “Can’t say”, “Don’t know” or similar response option.

9. At the same time that you compile the survey consider, when the survey is complete, how the compiled data is going be analysed

Appreciate that questions that allow for a free text open ended response, such as when asking the respondent for their comments, is likely to be difficult to score and/or summarised. Consider grouping answers. For example “How long have you worked here?” – ‘less than 1 year’, ‘between 1 and 6 years’ and ‘more than 6′.

10. Try and ensure that the questionnaire flows

Group questions into clear categories as this will make it easier for the participants completing the survey.

11. Target your respondents carefully

You may want to target a specific group, in others a cross section. If you can’t easily control the respondents consider including questions/answers that will allow you to filter out respondents who don’t fit your target profile.

12. Allow respondents to expand on their answers and/or make comments

By allowing respondents to make additional comments you will increase their satisfaction level and the comments will also give valuable feedback on the specific questions and/or the survey as a whole. Keep in mind though that for a large sample collection it may be difficult to analyze free text open ended responses.

13. If you are conducting a confidential survey ensure that your pledge for confidentiality is honoured

If you have assured the respondents that the survey is confidential ensure that the individual data is not to be shared with anyone and the information is not going to be used for any other purpose. Confidentiality must be maintained and any contact information deleted after the survey is complete.

14. Consider the advantages and disadvantages of allowing respondents to be anonymous or identifiable

If your respondents are to be anonymous then appreciate that you will be unable to follow up or match “pre” or “post” surveys. Allowing people to remain anonymous will however allow people to respond without possible peer pressure.

15. Carefully consider what the best response format will be

It is good practice to maintain a consistency in the format used for responses. When creating your survey keep in mind that when analysing the data single selection radio buttons are easier to analyse than multiple selection check boxes. If a radio response can be used do not use a check box.

16. Inform the respondent as to how much time the survey will take to complete

If the survey appears to be a stream of never ending questions then respondent drop can increase. It is good practice to give an indication as to how long the survey is likely to take so that the participants can determine the best time to complete the survey.

17. Inform respondents of the survey end date

Try and encourage your invited respondents to complete the survey as soon as possible but advise the respondents of the survey’s end date so that they have the opportunity to schedule the necessary time.

18. Trial the survey

Before publishing a live survey publish the survey as a trial to check for questions that are ambiguous or confusing and to ensure that the survey is aesthetically pleasing.

19. Before publishing the survey proof read the survey several times

Check more than once that the survey is grammatically correct and makes sense. If possible get someone else to proof read the survey before you publish, if no one else is available then take a break before checking again.

20. Say ‘Thank You’

To complete surveys respondents have to devote their time and should be thanked either in a covering letter, at the end of completing the survey or in a follow up letter. You may even want to consider an incentive such as a reward or entry into a prize draw.

To get started there are numerous survey software websites to choose from.

How Important is Market Research?

Market research is an essential part of any business that wants to offer products or services that are focused and well targeted. Business decisions based on good market research can help minimise any risk and should pay dividends in the longer term. By making market research part and parcel of the business process and conducting market research throughout the life cycle of a product or service market research will bring the following benefits:-

• Market research will help you better communicate – Your current customers experiences are a valuable information source, not only will they allow you to gauge how well you currently meet their expectations they can also tell you where you are getting things right and more importantly where you are getting things wrong. By asking you take the guesswork out of customer services and demonstrate to the customer that you care.
• Market research helps you identify opportunities – If a new service is planned and you want to know the attitudes people have then market research can help, not only by evaluating the potential for the new idea, but also by identify the areas where a marketing message needs to be fine tuned.
• Market research will minimise risk – Market research can identify what is needed for a new service and product and ensure that the development of a product matches demand.
• Market research creates benchmarks and helps you measure your progress – Unless you measure you will not be able to properly gauge how well your business is performing. Early research can identify flaws in your service or areas where a product needs to be improved, by conducting regular market research it will identify if improvements are being made and, if positive, will in turn help motivate a development team.

Considering the benefits that market research will bring to any organization it is perhaps surprising how few businesses invest sufficient resources to gather good intelligence that will help them improve business. Many may think that market research takes too much time and effort but that is just not the case anymore as through the power of the Internet online survey software is readily available and vital market research data can now be gathered in a quick, simple and cost effective manner.