Part Four – Online Surveys Must Cast a Wider Net and Pay Incentives

When we look outside the radio industry for other businesses using online consumer surveys to guide strategy, there is no shortage of confidence in the online survey approach. Wherever we looked – Food, Cosmetics, Travel, Clothing, Pharmaceuticals, Political – it seems everyone else is doing online research and is supremely confident in the results. So what are they doing that Radio is not? Two answers stand out. Broader panel recruitment and paid incentives.

In the past few weeks we have looked at many examples of online research conducted for other industries targeting consumers and professionals. Several incorporate intricate multi-media in their surveys. A large supermarket chain uses virtual store shelves and a shopping cart. Coors Light showed a storyboard for a potential TV spot. Levi’s used photo images to test preferences for pocket designs and preferred fading of blue jean colors. Southwest Airlines tracked brand association to different traveler benefits. GlaxoSmithKline probed doctors on heart disease. If you think it’s hard to find radio listeners to do a music test, imagine how hard is it to get high paid, busy cardiologists to sit through an hour long pharmaceutical survey. But these surveys are all done online and the confidence level in the results at these major corporations is extremely high.

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