With our one-time-surveys, you have access to all of the features of whichever plan you choose while only paying a one time fee. We realize that not everyone is in favor of pay as you go monthly plans and so the one time fee surveys are a very good alternative.

What is so amazing about this? Well, you get access to fabulous features and analytics to create that one particular survey and then you still have access to the data collected indefinitely. It’s Awesome! You can collect your data and analyze for as long as you want! We’ve created these options especially for people, companies or organizations who do not conduct surveys as a part of their regular day-to-day business. These are organizations that may, once a year or every couple-of-years, need to make a survey. What do you get with the one time Pro and Ultra plans? You get an unlimited number of questions, an unlimited number of responses, a huge variety of question types, editable CSS and themes and the ability to import your contacts from your e-mail. What is your only requirement to continue to access the data? Just sign in at least once every 6 months so that we know that you are still using your account. The costs are also very reasonable. For details, please visit our pricing page.

While you edit your survey, you can see a real-time preview of your survey on your right side. If you’re not completely satisfied with the order of the questions, it’s very easy to re-order them quickly:

There are small minus buttons throughout the editor that allow you to delete unwanted items with the click of a button!

If you decide to re-word an individual question, you can just click on it and then modify it in the “question options” tab that becomes active on your right side.

Finally, “copying/pasting” your survey or “duplicating” your survey is also very easily done. This is especially important if you are creating a brand new survey that is just slightly different from your old one:

Ultimately, these features for editing and reorganizing your surveys will help you save a considerable amount of time and help you to develop an effective survey.

Submitted by Paul DesBarres, President of Nova Insights Market Research & Consulting in Kentville, Nova Scotia.

When many people think of market research, they think “polling” and about those supper-time telephone calls. However, it is much more than that. Yes, it includes polling, and it can include telephone calls at supper-time. However, many do not distinguish between market research and telemarketing, but they are very different. Telemarketing is sales, and that’s the only goal of the person speaking to you on the phone. Market research interviewers are after nothing more than your opinion. Your telephone number was likely randomly generated to be a representative of the general population or some segment within the population. You get to provide your opinion to influence businesses and other organizations in their decision-making. I am “in the business,” so I may be a bit biased, but I’ve always viewed this as a privilege to have my opinion count toward helping an organization better serve the market.

My view of market research may not be “representative” of the population, as many dread the ringing of the telephone for a survey, and many will not answer the phone if they see a number they don’t recognize. With the development of call screening tools (e.g., caller id) that have helped reduce response rates of telephone surveys, the reduction in the proportion of landline phones, and the growing prevalence and comfort with the internet, the market research industry’s techniques for collecting opinions have had to change.

The home landline is no longer necessarily the best way to reach a representative sample of the general public. Fully 84% of Canadians and 81% of Nova Scotians access the internet. According to a recent Nova Insights survey, 7% of Nova Scotians do not have a landline in their home. This increases to 13% among males, and 12% among 18-34 year olds. By trying to interview by telephone, we would necessarily be under-representing important segments of the population, and likely ones that have a different perspective than others on some topics.

Online research can be answered 24/7 at the convenience of the respondent. Respondents are not interrupted on the spot and put into a hostile mood for the interview; they have time to be thoughtful in their responses. Sensitive topics are answered more honestly since there is no “live” interviewer to provide perceived judgment. Plus, online research can be much more cost effective and results can be gathered more quickly since it does not rely on live interviewers.

I have an uncle that is aged 83 and has spent his entire career in market research, watching it progress from door-to-door to telephone using paper questionnaires, and then to Computer-Assisted-Telephone-Interviewing (CATI). Some traditional researchers like this ask about the traditional value of random telephone sampling?

Random Digit Dialing (RDD) has been a staple in the foundation of research for many years. The theory is that this random approach will provide a representative sample, not influenced by any other selection method, or even those choosing to list or not list their telephone number. What has happened in the last several years is that those having a landline phone, then choosing to answer that landline phone from unknown callers, and completing a survey on the spot has become much less representative of most folks out there. While this has been happening, computers have become increasingly prevalent (especially among key segments like 18-34 year olds that are difficult to reach on a landline) and so has high-speed, “always on” internet.

Most general population online research is conducted among panels of consumers (or professionals) recruited to be opinion-providers. Those panels are designed and managed to be demographically balanced. The other important aspect of these panels is that they are used for research only (not sales/spamming), so they include willing participants that can complete the survey at their convenience. These panel members have agreed to provide their opinions when it works for their schedule (no commitments or obligations), and they are compensated for each survey (usually about $1 per survey).

The overall panel is balanced, as mentioned, and it is large–usually 200,000-400,000 Canadians. Invitations are sent to replicates within this large sample. A replicate is a randomly selected sample within the overall panel, and due to this random selection, it is also balanced. Multiple replicates may be used throughout the data collection process.

What has happened is that telephone research has become less representative, and online has become more representative over time. They have essentially begun to meet in the middle.

Telephone research certainly has its place, and I still use it extensively. For example, it is the only option for some lower incidence studies for which there is not sufficient online sample available. The availability of opt-in online sample is growing quickly, but is still limited in many respects. However, when there is sufficient availability, it works well and is cost effective. My firm, Nova Insights, used an online methodology that allowed us to be the first to project an NDP majority in Nova Scotia, and the results turned out to be extremely accurate.

As a side note, a common strategy in the U.S. (and growing in Canada) is to use a telephone methodology that incorporates a wireless phone component to attempt to reach that group. Those on the wireless phone must be compensated, and there is a high refusal rate, so this is a very expensive method. Its success in overcoming the developing industry challenges is uncertain at this time. I am not convinced.

I understand the hesitation some have in accepting online survey results. Some view it as those pop-up polls on websites. However, scientific research conducted by professional firms use methodologies that are much more complex, structured, and reliable. There needs to be more education around the changes taking place in the market, and therefore in our industry. Those in our industry have, for the most part, embraced the changes, but we are still trying to educate our clients and the media.

Many of our loyal customers have been referring their friends and colleagues to our site since our very beginning and we appreciate this greatly. You Rock!

In order to help facilitate the referral process and even give you some form of a reward in referring new FluidSurveys users, we’ve teamed up with ShareASale so that we can offer an easy way for affiliates to work with us. For more information, please visit the FluidSurveys Affiliate Page.

#6 Keep your overall survey short and to the point

Long story short-  keep your survey to a reasonable number of questions and pages. If you can do your survey in 50 questions instead of 60 or 8 instead of 10, why would you write those extra questions as a time waster for both you and for your participants?

#7 Be careful with question wording

Keep in mind that depending on your topic, your participants may not be as up to date on modern web lingo or idioms. So, to be most effective, use proper grammar and make sure to define terms that may not be known to your respondents.

#8 Tell your participants how long it will take to complete your survey

If your participants know before they begin the survey that it will take a certain amount of time to complete the survey, they will know whether or not they can complete it or if they have to wait and do it later.

#9 Make sure to proof read

Spelling and grammatical errors can not only lessen the legitimacy of your survey but also confuse your participants.

#10 Know how you are going to analyze the data

By knowing in advance what type of data you will need in order to do your analysis, you can create your survey in a way to get the correct format of responses.

We want you to have a great survey-making experience so here are some survey design tips from us to you

#1 Make sure your questions are concise and to the point.
If your questions are too wordy or complicated your participants may not grasp what you are asking.

#2 If you have to limit your number of participants, choose them wisely
If you chose to do a survey on medical supplies but all of your participants were school teachers they probably would not give you the best results.

#3 Make your questions interesting and thought provoking
If your participants are entertained while taking your survey, they will be more likely to enjoy taking it and in the future look forward to helping you out again.

#4 Change the color scheme of your survey
If you choose a color scheme that matches your website or a color scheme that matches the questions you are asking,your questions will resonate more with your respondents.

#5 Try to limit the number of text boxes you put into your survey
Lengthy, wordy and roundabout answers can be avoided by offering specific choices in either a multiple choice or drop down answer question. By allotting specific responses to your questions, the participant will be much more content upon completing the survey. Answering open-ended questions can take a long time and can lead to respondent fatigue.

We promised a FluidSurveys update and now its here! Not only has our software been updated but also our website. Our new website updates include a revised homepage and a very detailed features page. Our features page includes an easy to use search engine so you can quickly look up the specifics on a particular feature that you are interested in. Our software enhancements include:

• The Survey editor has a 10x speed increase (especially useful for people using IE6)
• There is now API Access to FluidSurveys.  Where you can change the width of the columns of matrix questions in “real time”.
• Brand new advanced branching interface – more effective, more powerful, and with more options.
• Updated Natrix Question allowing for more intense surveying
• With the quiz question you can now Create Tests / Quizzes, Show Scores, and even Show Correct/Incorrect Answers.
• 3D Matrix on Steroids – Spreadsheet Question – Create Multiple Column Questions and include a different question type in each question.
• Updated and More Robust Survey Invite Tool.
• + many other enhancements….

We are happy and proud of the advances we have made in our software. However, as always with new updates we are still working out the quirks if you have any questions or concerns please send us an e-mail and we will look into it ASAP. Enjoy all of the new updates!

The following case study presents how a market research company in Nova Scotia (Nova Insights) used FluidSurveys to conduct election polls.

Paul DesBarres, President of Nova Scotia-based Nova Insights Market Research & Consulting, savors the moment his small public-opinion research firm predicted an NDP victory in the recent provincial election:  “No one ever thought we would have an NDP majority.  The major media outlets couldn’t believe it…they wouldn’t trust the online results.”

In the election, dissatisfaction with Premier Rodney MacDonald led to Darrel Dexter’s emergence as head of Atlantic Canada’s first New Democratic Party provincial government.

The success of Nova Insights’ polling is due to a combination of traditional survey rigor with its new use of online survey techniques — a movement which, according to Mr. DesBarres, reflect the ‘tipping point’ that the use of technology has reached in society.

“Today 81% of adult Nova Scotians are online,” said Mr. DesBarres, “and the number is growing fast.  Traditional phone-type surveys suffer because an increasing number of people are on cell phones and not on land-line phones, and in any case they are not as comfortable talking with a live interviewer about some subjects.  People would rather do a survey online, where their answers can be done at their convenience, and in a more considered way.”

Mr. DesBarres also credits his survey tool, FluidSurveys, for providing the flexibility and methodological rigor to efficiently collect information from the public in an unbiased manner.

>> Click here to Read the Rest of this Case Study

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Over time our customers have approached us on various occasions asking us for Market Research Consulting Services. We’ve decided to formalize the services that we offer and differentiate them from our Online Survey Software offering. We now offer a variety of services:

• Project Planning: The most crucial aspect of any project is the development of the research objectives. We can help guide clients through this process.
• Survey Design & Validation: In an entirely consultative process, we will develop the methodology and materials with you.
• Launch & Management: Our team has the ability to perform all aspects of data collection and management.
• Analysis & Reporting: Our experts have extensive experience in dealing with research data, including multivariate analysis that can uncover important themes and relationships that are not immediately visible through simply bivariate analysis.
• Managing the Results: The survey may be over, but the work is just beginning. Our team can assist you in communicating the results and determining exactly what type of action planning will be most effective.

For more information on the services we offer, please refer to our services page or simply contact us.

FluidSurveys has developed a quick and easy solution for embedding your opinion poll into your blog or website (instead of just providing the link to navigate away from your page).

Once you have signed in to your FluidSurveys account, the list of surveys you have created will appear.

Above that list are various tabs the first being survey, second is ‘polls’ click on ‘polls’.

Then click on ‘create a new poll’. Then fill in the boxes with the appropriate information.

Once you have created the poll you wish to embed into your page, click on ‘publish’ at the bottom.

When you have published your poll you can preview it. If you are happy with your publication, click on ‘options’ above the poll.

Once you are in ‘Options’, Copy and paste the html code provided into your blog or webpage.

Very quickly and easily your blog or website can have added interest because of your poll.

Try out the sample poll I have just shown you how to create:

Click Here to take this poll…

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