Customersat provides on-line research for customer satisfaction and employee surveys. I discovered this supplier after buying a new Norton product and completing a survey they designed and coordinated. Looks very good. www.customersat.com

InsightExpress is one of the largest on-line market research sites and is owned by NFO, a leading consumer research company. You can conduct custom studies for as little as $450: www.insightexpress.com

Itracks provides quality primary research data fast using a patented online focus group facility and custom online surveys. www.itracks.com

Keysurvey provides online survey software for businesses. Try the "Quick Tour" demo to better understand how easy the process can be, what you can tailor to your business, and how reporting is done. The site also provides several full samples of questionnaires. Annual pricing ranges from $650 to $2,500 based on features selected. As with all online surveys, beware of possible limitations and sample bias that may not be appropriate to your research needs. www.keysurvey.com

MarketVision provides innovative design, execution and interpretation of marketing research and information to deliver fresh consumer insights and market knowledge to clients in North America, and their subsidiaries worldwide. www.marketvisionresearch.com

National Family Opinion is the leading consumer survey site for studies about consumer products. Their database includes thousands of households. By answering occasional on-line surveys, you can earn points for products or charitable donations. In 2002, panel members rated over 300 existing products, 5000 new product ideas and gave feedback to over 200 companies. To join go to: http://join.mysurvey.com/nfo

Perseus Development Corporation lets you set up on-line surveys easily and affordably: www.perseus.com Click on "sample surveys" on the home page for examples.

Q&A Research, Inc. of Novato, CA is an excellent example of a high quality provider of primary qualitative (i.e., focus groups and in-depth interviews) and quantitative (i.e., attitude & usage studies, concept and product testing, packaging tests, segmentation studies, satisfaction & loyalty studies, advertising persuasion measures, etc.) research. Visit their web site for examples of what focus group facilities are like. Local residents can sign up to join their database to be considered as participants in research studies. You can also click on to "request a bid" which lays out the parameters needed to properly order and conduct primary research studies. www.qar.com

Survey Gold provides affordable, easy-to-use survey software that enables you to conduct surveys online, on the phone or in person. SurveyGold makes it easy to produce professional surveys and analyze results. The outright individual costs are as low as $149 for one person/license for the basic version. "Site" licenses for entire organizations are also available and reasonable. There do not appear to be any recurring annual fees--even the temporary server storage space for results from your surveys is included in the purchase price, as are periodic upgrades. Impressive client list and third party reviews. Free trial. www.surveygold.com

SurveyMonkey provides "intelligent survey software for serious primates of all species". SurveyMonkey has a single purpose: to enable anyone to create professional online surveys quickly and easily. A basic subscription is totally free and includes all of the basic features of SurveyMonkey. It's a great option for individuals, students, and anyone who doesn't need the advanced features of SurveyMonkey. Unlike other services, there are no annoying banner ads on your surveys. In addition, all of your survey responses remain absolutely private. Please note that basic subscribers are limited to a total of 10 questions and 100 responses per survey. Additionally, it may not provide you with the analytics you need to interpret or analyze your results. You may want to upgrade to a paid survey for this. www.surveymonkey.com

WebSurveyor allows users to develop and field secure, reliable, do-it-yourself online surveys. Their wizard-driven interface, comprehensive survey question libraries, standardized response options, and customizable look-and-feel all add up to deliver an online survey solution that's easy to use. WebSurveyor was rated #1 by PC Magazine for ease of use. They also have a "Try it FREE" offering. www.websurveyor.com We can personally recommend this service. It provides easy to use software and analytical tools that many competitors either don't have or charge a premium for.

ZipSurvey™ online survey software by CorporateSurvey.com is a web-hosted survey application developed by I/O psychologists for business and HR consultants, market researchers, professionals, students or anyone interested in creating online surveys quickly and affordably. Use ZipSurvey™ to create online surveys, feedback and evaluation tools, questionnaires or create other online forms for data collection, analysis and reporting. With our intuitive online survey software, you can begin creating online surveys in minutes. In addition, their staff of Ph.D. consultants is available any time to assist you in creating your online surveys. They also have a free 30-day demo for up to 25 questionnaires. www.zipsurvey.com

Zoomerang positions itself as the premium global online survey software that business, organizations and individuals use to create professional, customized surveys. Zoomerang offers zNonProfit for nonprofits and zEducation for educators and adminstators. These discounted offerings include all of the powerful features that have made Zoomerang zPro the world's leading online survey tool, at a discount. Zoomerang "Basic" allows users to easily create and send shorter, less complex surveys and view survey data online, for a limited amount of time, free of charge. http://info.zoomerang.com

Secondary Research Links

3SC Environics Survey assesses human social values by asking questions about your view of the world, and about your personal goals, wishes, hopes, dreams, and expectations. There are no right or wrong answers to such questions so please be as honest and as complete as you can be when filling them out. The survey is approximately 30 questions long and takes 10 to 12 minutes to complete. When you have finished it you will be classified into the social values tribe you show the strongest similarity to and be given a more detailed profile of your tribe. This survey is a much shorter version of the standard one Environics uses to diagnose people's values and tribal memberships, and so it has some (known) error surrounding it. However, it successfully classifies users into their proper tribes more than 7 times in 10, on average.a worldwide network of people who get paid for sharing their opinions and ideas in online surveys. Win money in monthly drawings just for being a member. Win money in drawings when you fill out a screener (a short questionnaire). Earn cash each time you complete a survey (a longer questionnaire). http://3sc.environics.net/surveys/3sc/main/3sc.aspww.acop.com

American Consumer Opinion is a worldwide network of people who get paid for sharing their opinions and ideas in online surveys. Win money in monthly drawings just for being a member. Win money in drawings when you fill out a screener (a short questionnaire). Earn cash each time you complete a survey (a longer questionnaire).www.acop.com

American Demographics is an indispensable tool for marketing strategists. Readers gain vital insight into the connections between age, education, geography, income, wealth, lifestyles and spending, and find clues as to what consumers want and what they're likely to want tomorrow. Every issue includes cutting-edge marketing techniques, helpful diagrams and usually exclusive data that help readers to maximize opportunities in key market segments.The magazine's on-line site with research supplier listings, and more. www.americandemographics.com

Arbitron is an international media and marketing research firm serving radio broadcasters, cable companies, advertisers, advertising agencies and outdoor advertising companies in the United States, Mexico and Europe. Arbitron’s core businesses are measuring network and local market radio audiences across the United States; surveying the retail, media and product patterns of local market consumers; and providing application software used for analyzing media audience and marketing information data. Arbitron Internet Broadcast Services measures the audiences of audio and video content on the Internet, commonly known as webcasts. The Company is developing the Portable People Meter, a new technology for radio, television and cable ratings. www.arbitron.com

For Behavior Scan information: www.infores.com/public/us/prodserv/us_prd_testing.htm

BoardReader is a search engine for message boards. Founded in May 2000 by engineers and students from the University of Michigan, Boardreader uses proprietary software that allows users to search multiple message boards simultaneously, allowing users to share information in a truly global sense. www.boardreader.com

California Statistical Abstract: www.dof.ca.gov/html/fs_data/stat-abs/sa_home.htm

The U.S. Census Bureau: www.census.gov. A wealth of information essential to most businesses.

FreeDemographics provides free unlimited access to US Census Data. Perform quick accurate market analysis in an easy-to-use web environment.www.freedemographics.com

2002 Economic Census by state, city and county. This data is published every five years: http://www.census.gov/econ/census02/data/us/US000.HTM

2007 Economic Census by state, city and county. This data is published every five years: http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DatasetMainPageServlet?_program=ECN&_tabId=ECN1&_submenuId=datasets_4&_lang=en&_ts=246366688395

U.S. Census Bureau Quick Facts by state, county. Some of the data is now available in free color map formats. To check these out, click on "thematic maps". Or, if you are on a county page, click on "Browse More Data Sets for x County", then scroll down to"Geographical Quick Links" and select "Map". At this site, you can see visual representations of major cities, towns, zip code areas, and key geological features of your choosing. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/

Dun & Bradstreet Corporation: www.dnb.com

The Federal Information Center. Useful consumer-oriented information on a variety of products. www.pueblo.gsa.gov

Find/SVP, an information company: www.findsvp.com Scan their free report abstracts for valuable information.

The Gallup poll people: www.gallup.com .

Green Book. A WHO's WHO for finding suppliers of over 400 types of marketing research services including: advertising, brand, media and product research, analytical services, computer services and programs, interviewing, surveys and technical services. Also has a directory of focus group facilities.
www.greenbook.org

The Hartman Group is a full-service consulting and market research firm offering a wide range of services and products focusing on the health and wellness markets. www.hartman-group.com

Hoover’s Online, stock information on public companies: hoovweb.hoovers.com

Information Resources (IRI) is a leading provider of retail sales data, particularly market trend and share information from mass outlets (food, drug and mass merchandisers). IRI data is based on computer scanning. Their Behavior Scan markets provide an excellent way to test market consumer products under real conditions, allowing manufacturers to test formulations, pricing, promotions, advertising, and packaging. Outside the US, IRI provides similar sales information in almost 30 European, Central and South American countries. Many business articles in leading publications rely on IRI data for factual support. www.infores.com

Manta enables you to find the business information that you need about markets, customers, competitors, suppliers and other critical business data, for a fee, including business information such as company profiles & industry market research reports and features D&B company profiles, Datamonitor industry reports, and Snapdata market research reports. www.manta.com

MarketResearch.com is a clearing house of sorts for secondary market research studies on many products and services. Brief free abstracts may provide certain key facts of interest. Almost 2000 reports are available on FOOD alone! Common prices for these reports are $995-$5,000 although they vary widely: www.marketresearch.com

Marketresearchworld.net is a source of some helpful information on marketing research, particularly for students. www.marketresearchworld.net

Mapstats shows free maps of a limited number of demographic characteristics by state, county, federal judicial district, or congressional district. Click on the link here and then select "thematic maps".www.fedstats.gov/qf/

NPD tracking services provide a comprehensive overview of product movement and consumer behavior in each industry tracked. Through their unique combination of consumer insight gleaned from our online consumer panel and point-of-sale information collected from retailers, distributors and other channel partners, NPD tracking services are the gold standard for information on what is selling, where, to whom and why. www.npd.com

National Center for Health Statistics: provides key statistics on birth, death, marriage, divorce and other social indicators in the US. www.cdc.gov/nchs

Pew Research Center, the Center is an independent opinion research group that studies attitudes toward the press, politics and public policy issues.They are best known for regular national surveys that measure public attentiveness to major news stories, and for their polling that charts trends in values and fundamental political and social attitudes. http://people-press.org/

Polk is the longest standing curator of automobile records in the United States. While its primary business focuses on the automobile market, its access to driving and registration records makes its databases extremely useful to many marketers. www.polk.com

Portrait of America does public opinion polling. www.portraitofamerica.com

PRIZM (now part of Nielsen) is a geodemographic "lifestyle" segmentation system based on the concept that "birds of a feather flock together" (that in major respects, you are similar to your neighbors). For the past 30 years, it has been used by marketers to better target their marketing programs, to pick better retail sites and to improve their media planning. To test their search tool to find the profile(s) for a given U.S. zipcode, go to "you are where you live" and follow the directions. Visit www.claritas.com ; check out their "free resources". There are some helpful free tutorials to help you understand PRIZM at www.claritasuniversity.com

Quirks.com provides resources to help marketing professionals with their marketing research needs. Designed as a companion to their monthly print magazine, they feature over 1,000 case history and technique articles in an article archive, an interactive researcher forum, free marketing research job postings, and the most comprehensive directories of custom research providers found anywhere. www.quirks.com

Researchandmarkets.com is another clearing house for secondary market research studies: www.researchandmarkets.com

Roper Center contains huge databases and polling archives: ropercenter.uconn.edu

Roper Starch media and public opinion research: www.roper.com

Simmons is a leading provider of media and marketing research for agencies, advertisers and media vehicles. www.smrb.com

SPINS collects the most comprehensive marketing information across the entire Natural Products supply chain. Mass market data is gathered in conjunction with AC Nielsen. www.spins.com

University of Michigan documents center. This site has a huge depository of easily actegorized and accessed statistics and facts. www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/stats.html

The VALs (Values and Lifestyle) people, experts on psychographic segmentation. Review their classification system and see how you would be classified, by taking their quick 35 question on-line test. Are you an Innovator, Thinker, Achiever, Experiencer, Believer, Striver, Maker or Survivor (many people fall into two categories, which will be indicated in your results)? To find definitions of these profiles, click on "the VALs Types". Please note: this site is updated periodically and both access and output may differ slightly from what is described here. As of May 2003, the direct link below worked. When finished, to read the detailed descriptions for your category, click on "the VALs Types". Among the marketing applications, VALs profiling has resulted in better targeting and positioning; better advertising and promotions; and, better screening of direct-mail lists and focus group participants.www.sric-bi.com/VALS/presurvey.shtml

Yankelovich is a marketing consultancy specializing in lifestyle trends and customer targeting solutions. www.yankelovich.com

Other Research Links

Knowthis.com is a "marketing virtual library" which provides tons of links to various sites on many practical topics related to marketing. This direct link goes to the market research page: www.knowthis.com/research/marketingresearch.htm

Marketing Research Association. www.mra-net.org

Perceptual maps. These are very useful tools which enable marketers to visualize differences among brands, as consumers see them, across two or more attributes (like long-lasting, price, ease of use, etc). These are typically generated from consumer survey research, but can also be drawn "qualitatively" as a tool for understanding market segments. There are at least two types of these maps: one which plots several brand positions on only TWO attributes (which is what I ask marketing students to do, for simplicity). The other approach plots several brand positions on several attributes. This site explains the latter in simple, clear terms: www.surveysite.com/newsite/docs/tutormap.htm

ResearchInfo.com provides lots of free information on market research. www.researchinfo.com It also has links to demos, freeware and shareware applications that are of use to market research professionals, as well as links to the home pages of those who offer them. www.researchinfo.com/docs/software/index.cfm

Survey System sells a complete software package for working with telephone, online and printed questionnaires. It handles all phases of survey projects, from creating questionnaires through data entry, interviewing or email or Web page Internet surveys to producing tables, graphics and text reports that make you look good. Unlike spreadsheets, databases or general purpose statistics packages, The Survey System was designed specifically for questionnaires. If you do market research or public opinion polls or measure employee satisfaction or association membership opinions or otherwise need to know what people think, their software can help. www.surveysystem.com

SPSS is a leader in predictive analytics technologies, having produced predictive analytics software that enables customers — corporations, academic institutions, healthcare providers, and government agencies — to better focus their operations. www.spss.com

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office: www.uspto.gov. Lets you search for trademark availability, FREE.

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