The Benefits of Using Online Research Tools and Online Survey Software

In previous articles, I have discussed the importance of conducting a business research when starting a business and why it is important business organizations develop an on going research culture to keep their business abreast of modern marketing changes. And in this article, I shall be shedding more light on online researching tools and software with special emphasis on their benefits in conducting a business research.

Benefits of Using Online Research Tools

These tools include the use of online forms, questionnaires, SEO analytic software such as SEOmoz and other applications for conducting a competitor’s research. The benefits include;

• Speed– The information base needed to conduct an online market research is fixed in one place—which is on the World Wide Web—and all one needs to access them are a personal computer and an internet connection. This eliminates the need to travel around seeking for information thereby wasting quality time.
• Affordability– This benefit obviously covers both conducting a research online with the above listed tools as well as using online survey software because creating a questionnaire for online distribution costs next to nothing. With a Microsoft word application, a business organization can easily create the needed materials for distribution while most survey software comes free or at very affordable update prices.
• Accuracy– The ability to receive information directly from your audience eliminates the high tendencies of errors when conducting a research and the use of online research tools such as questionnaires and customer reviews, provides a market research with the exact information or data it needs directly from the “horses mouth.”
• More Honest– A survey conducted for market researchers showed that the average marketer believes that customers are more upfront and honest when filling a survey form through the internet. This is because the computer acts as a third party, thereby screening the customer from seeing the reaction on an interviewer’s face when they have unpleasant things to say.

Benefits of using Online Survey Software

There are numerous online survey software on the internet which allows researchers conduct quick analysis as well as create or draft questionnaires without needing to bother about the form designs due to the in-built templates this software’s have. Examples of survey software include; survey monkey—surveymonkey.com–, Google analytic etc. and they benefit a market researcher in the following ways

• Easy to use for researchers– The user interface and learning curve of most online research software are quite lean which makes mastering their use very easy. This allows for quick designing of questionnaires and the collection of data thereby speeding up the design process.
• Easy to design– The use of survey software eliminates the need of a graphic designer or to learn how to use certain software to design the form style you need because online software provides the researcher with unlimited graphic designs, images, formats and templates which can be used either for free or at an affordable cost.
• More selective– Although research results might be best served by surveying a wider audience, there are some product researches that require the need of selecting specific individuals who operate in a certain business niche. And online survey allows you to send request forms to those select individuals needed to make the market research a success.
• Flexibility– The use of survey software allows for flexibility in designing templates as well as carrying out quick changes to your question formats when needed. This comes at little or no cost when compared to the manual form of reprinting hard copy questionnaires when errors need to be addressed.