BuzzDash is a social polling site that can track trends and opinions without masquerading them as being scientific. Anyone can build a poll and post it on their site/blog.

The comments capability is pretty cool and adds the ability for respondents to justify and rationalize their comments. I see BuzzDash as a cheap and effective way to collect feedback from a wide group which is pretty Market Research 2.0! So, is BuzzDash cool?

MarketingProfs have published an article titled Seven Rules for Achieving Higher Online Survey Response Rates

In essence the rules mentioned are;

1. Make a good first impression
2. Do not assume that people will want to answer your survey and will respond just because you send an invitation.
3. Avoid biased questions
4. Do not ask too many questions, focus on the aim of your survey
5. Don’t spam your audience
6. Spend some time developing your survey
7. Share the wealth

What is not explicitly said but does come through loud and clear to me is if you wish to get a good response rate you need to sell your online survey. Whether it be for customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction or any other type of feedback you need to be able to clearly communicate to your respondents why they should answer your survey.

Your respondents are busy people and if you can clearly communicate why they should answer your survey and what will be done with the results, the more likely your sample group will buy into the concept and provide you with quality feedback.

Remember you do not just want people to complete your survey, a room full of monkeys could do that for you (while they are taking a rest from writing Shakespeare). The ability of your online survey being able to meet it’s goals is the honest and well thought responses from your respondents.