According to a speaker at a CASRO® (Council of American Survey Research Organizations®) conference this past fall, online surveys surpassed telephone in terms of overall market research survey volume in 2005.

I recently learned about a company in this sector called InfoSurv (a full service market resrarch company) and I also had an opportunity to speak with its President Jared Heyman:


Please tell me a little bit about yoruself (and your company) and your background

I’m a fourth generation entrepreneur. I’ve known since I was a child that I wanted to own my own business, and plan to start several businesses in my lifetime. In the late 1990s, the online boom was changing several industries - including market research. Through my internships at Bain & Company and a small tech firm called Collective Technologies while I was studying marketing at the University of Texas (Austin), I saw how using the Internet could leverage and empower market research at a level never before possible.

In 1998, I started Infosurv as one of the first providers of online, Web-based surveys. Now Infosurv is a leading global marketing research firm based in Atlanta. We help our clients execute the most accurate, most actionable survey research possible with a combination of talent and technology that’s simply unmatched in our industry.

What is your product (also talk about various versions if applicable)

Research, marketing, and human resource professionals turn to Infosurv for:
- Customer surveys (http://www.infosurv.com/customer_surveys.htm)
- Employee surveys (http://www.infosurv.com/employee_surveys.htm)
- Market surveys (http://www.infosurv.com/market_research_surveys.htm) and in general,
- Online surveys (http://www.infosurv.com/online-surveys.htm)

What target market is the product geared for?

We serve four main markets:
- Corporations and large companies that need to efficiently survey their employees or customers
- Communications firms, including advertising, public relations, and marketing agencies, that need to get a quantified understanding of a situation - for example, researching new product development directions or new advertising concepts
- Associations that need to survey their members
- Government and non profits

What user pains does your product solve?

When it comes to survey research, there’s traditionally been a trade off between gathering data in a timely and cost effective manner while at the same time gathering complete information.

In the past, the broader your respondent sample, the more time it takes to collect a statistically valid number of surveys, and with that greater time comes greater cost. By leveraging proprietary technologies and processes, Infosurv’s team of research specialists - any of whom have advanced degrees - are able to help our clients actually experience better, faster, AND more affordable research.

We help them design the tool, focus the audience that needs to respond, incent response, and then, of course, synthesize the results into actionable knowledge.
In short, we help our clients make more informed decisions through better, more affordable research.

What is the cost of your service?

I’m so glad you asked! We’re one of the only survey firms that actually publishes our pricing. Our clients, like Harvard University, MasterCard, and Merck, demand the best, but that doesn’t mean they have to pay "an arm and a leg" for it.

You’ve probably noticed that many research firms have what I call a "black box" pricing method- they price by the project, and you can’t tell where the number comes from. We’re extremely transparent with our pricing, and we’re quite proud that we provide details. Our current price sheet can be downloaded at http://www.infosurv.com/brochure.html.

To push this point a bit further, we’ve developed an extensive buyer’s guide for professionals shopping for research services. It really helps you understand how research pricing is structured. Whether you go with Infosurv or not - and I hope you do of course - you’ll gain a better understanding of the metrics underlying the pricing of outsourcing your survey research. You can see our detailed competitive buyer’s guide for market research at http://www.infosurv.com/buyers-guide.html.

Along those lines, I’d also like to share a specific case study with you that hasn’t been previously published. Although each of our clients is unique, the experience of National Safety Council (NSC) serves to illustrate what our clients tend to appreciate about the Infosurv experience.

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