Survey Research Is Affordable

Far too often, small companies that are trying to make a name for themselves in the industry shy away from survey research – or any type of research – for a variety of reasons. Cost is easily one of the most common reasons. Companies assume that the research itself will be incredibly costly, often when any revenue is hard to come by. But the truth is that anyone – even small businesses – can not only benefit from research, but can afford it fairly easily.

Before even beginning, however, companies need to remember that everything they do within their company is based on return on investment. They spend money on employees, supplies, products; all of these are designed to earn the company money, even though the company loses money when it initially spends it. It's important to remember that whatever the cost of research, if you run your research well and institute your programs properly, you'll always earn back more money than you spent, and potentially put your business on a path toward long term success.

Even with that qualifier, however, the truth is that survey research can be very affordable as long as you know where and how to cut costs. Some examples: SurveyMethods – Of course, the SurveyMethods platform is one of the lowest priced platforms in the industry. You can run numerous surveys for only $39 a month, or less depending on the functionality you need.

In-House Survey Creation – Many people think you need to outsource your surveys, but survey design is very much about logic. You can often easily create and run your surveys in-house with only some light training. Convenience/Customer Sampling – There are some low cost survey samples and panels available for your research, and you can also utilize convenience sampling (for basic research), or use emails from a customer list for more advanced research.

Right there you have saved almost the entirety of the cost of running the survey. In addition, when you use survey software that is designed specifically to make creating a program simple, you save time as well. That's why there's simply no excuse for small companies to avoid performing research, simply because of the cost.

There are always low cost options, and several ways to save money. And, for every dollar you do spend, you're also likely to achieve a fairly high return on investment. All in all, running a survey isn't costly, and should become a part of every business.