Work From Home & Paid Surveys Blog

The Ultimiate Checklist for Mystery Shoppers

This is a featured guest post that we are publishing today. It’s a really good post on how to make money with mystery shopping which is a question we get asked almost daily from our visitors and email subscribers. We hope you enjoy a little break from all of our online paid survey posts. Enjoy the post!!!

Follow this simple to do list daily to get the shops you need to keep you working. After a few weeks, you’ll find you may be turning down shops because you have enough.

Apply with Companies

The first thing you need to do when starting out as a mystery shopper is to apply to as many different agencies as you can find in your area. Simply put the more shopping agencies you are a member of the more likely you are to find consistent work.

Try keep passwords and usernames the same or very similar, it’s very easy to start losing track once you have joined a large number of agencies.

Keep a log of these passwords and the companies contact details and website address.

As soon as your are accepted to a new agency check for jobs in your area, if there is a large amount then you know that agency is one to keep a close eye on.

Keep a constant check for new companies coming onto the scene, that could be as simply as checking Google daily and looking at the paid advertisements on the right hand side. New companies are likely to come in and advertise heavily that they are around.

Create a favorites list and use it

Most internet browsers have a ‘favourites’ or ‘bookmarks’ function so that you can save your favourite websites. Make use of this a when you visit a new site stick a bookmark on it, have a couple of different folders in there for agencies that you have been accepted to and ones you are waiting on confirmation.

Another method is to create a Google+ account (new Google social network) and they have a ‘like’ facility built in. This means as you are searching around Google and see a site that you like you can simple click the +1 button and it will be stored in your account.

Either way when you log onto your computer in the morning you can just run through each website checking to see if any new jobs have been posted in your area.

Use your email wisely

The majority of work that will come your way will be directed to you via email, this is the most convenient way for agencies to contact you and a lot of the time it will be a first come first served mentality.

Get yourself a separate account that you only use for mystery shopping, Google Mail is ideal for this kind of thing as they make it very simple to set up and it’s extremely easy to use. This also can tie in with the above tip of using Google+

If you use any type of smart phone you should be able to get email alerts directly to your phone which means that you will always be one of the first to answer the application giving you the best chance of success.

If you are interested in more information about mystery shopping jobs then please visit us at MshopUk or please let us know if you are interested in other work from home opportunities

Filed Under: Mystery Shopping Tagged With: mystery shopping

Valentines Day Infographic Driven By Marketing Research

As every reader of this blog is aware, Valentines day is quickly approaching. In fact, it is fifteen days away, so guys, make sure you start making your plans now.

I wanted to share this infographic with everyone today because this is the type of information that is collected via marketing research (aka: free paid surveys). Companies who make a lot of their revenue from Valentines day eat this kind of data up, because they need to know what men and women will be spending their money on each valentines day.

As you can see from this graphic, the typical Valentines gifts are as follows:

Candy – $30 Billion Dollars
Flowers – $6.2 Billion Dollars
Greeting Cards – $10 Billion Dollars
Chocolate – $17 Billion Dollars

If I were a greeting card company, I would be doing additional marketing research to find out what kinds of cards might be a hit this season and start producing those.

As you can see, marketing research plays a huge role in how businesses develop their products and marketing plans. That is why paid survey companies are legitimate and will continue to pay for completed surveys.

Filed Under: Infographics Tagged With: marketing research, Paid Surveys, valentines day

The Top 25 Make Money Online Blogs To Follow In 2012

As you well know, there are a lot of ways to make money online. You can see some of these way in our blog post The Top Ten Ways To Make Money Online In 2012. Because more and more people are looking for ways to make money online every single day, we decided that we would put together a nice little list of blogs that you should be following on a regular basis to help you in your quest. Some of the blogs are general “make money online” type blogs and some of them are more themed like “paid survey” and “focus group” blogs. Either way, they are all really good and provide a lot of value to the end user. So here you go: The Top 25 Make Money Online Blogs To Follow In 2012.

General Make Money Online Blogs

This is our list of general make money online blogs. These cover many aspects, not just one way to make some cash through the internet.

Can I Make Big Money Online

Paid Survey Blogs

This is our list of paid survey blogs. As you can see, there aren’t many quality paid survey blogs, actually only three in addition to ours.

Survey Inferno (Shameless plug)

Get Paid Surveys

Survey Survival

Paid Surveys Authority

Internet/Affiliate Marketing Blogs

As we have blogged before on our site, these are some of the best internet marketing/affiliate marketing blogs you can find on the internet. If you have a little cash to invest in starting a blog, you can make some serious cash by promoting affiliate offers and blogging on a regular basis.

Focus Group Blogs

Focus groups are very similar to online paid surveys as you are taking some time to answer marketing research questions for money. These are the top focus group blogs you can find online.

Focus Group Tips

Paid Focus Groups Live

Free Publicity Focus Groups

Mystery Shopping Blogs

Same as paid surveys and focus groups, mystery shopping is another great way to participate in marketing research and get paid to shop. Here is a great list of blogs to help you learn how to mystery shop.

Secret Shopping Blog

Mystery Shoppers Manual

Mystery Shopping Learning Center

Beyond Hello

Mystery Shopping Blog

Filed Under: Make Money Online Tagged With: affiliate marketing, focus groups, internet marketing, Make Money Online, mystery shopping, Paid Surveys

The History of Marketing Research

If you do a search in Google for the word “paid surveys” you will find some negative information regarding them. I think a lot of people talk poorly of paid surveys simply because they don’t understand where they came from. They think, there is no way someone would pay me for my opinions… this is far too good to be true. I think they might also talk poorly because they have had a bad experience with one of the companies who offer these surveys. Let’s face it, we all have bad experiences every day, I even had a bad experience today at Wal Mart, this doesn’t mean that Wal Mart is a scam, does it? If that were the case, every company, online or offline would be a scam. It just simply can’t be.

My goal in this post is to try and help everyone understand where paid surveys come from and why they are a legitimate way of making money on the internet.

I studied marketing research a lot when I was in college and it really has a fascinating story that all started in the late 1920′s. The idea of marketing research was developed by a man named Daniel Starch. During this time, advertising was just barely getting its start in the United States. The process of advertising back then was a lot different than it is today. At that time, copywriters would write what they thought an ad should be, publish the ad, and then they would hope that their readers would like the ad and then act upon the information provided.

A few years after advertising started, Daniel Starch came up with a theory… in order for advertising to be effective, it first had to be seen, read, believed, remembered, and then acted upon. Shortly after he developed this theory, he developed and launched the first marketing research company that would poll people in the streets. He would stop people and ask them if they read certain publications. If they did, he would then show them the magazine and asked the people if they remembered or recognized any of the ads found within them. After collecting this data, he then compared the number of people he interviewed with the circulation of the magazine to figure out how effective those ads really were. This was pretty much the birth of surveying also known as marketing research.

As the years past, many marketing research companies began to emerge. They would follow Daniel Starch’s example of polling people in the streets and over time, they worked to improve his techniques. Some time later, a man by the name of George Gallup developed a system that rivaled Starch’s system, it was called the aided recall. This system was different in such that is prompted people to recall the ads seen in publications without actually showing them the ads. This system went on to help measure the effectiveness of radio and television ads, not just ads in printed media.

In the late 1980′s, a Utahn named Ronald Lindorf founded what would grow to be the largest marketing research companies in the USA. This company was named Western Wats. What made Western Wats and grow at a rapid pace was the leveraging of current technology, the telephone, to conduct survey research. At this point there was no longer a need to go out on foot and interview people in the streets. Representatives in a call center, or in the beginning, Mr. Lindorf’s basement, can collect all of this data by simply making a telephone call. Because of this great efficiency, the number of surveys collected each year could help businesses really gain an understanding of their target market and ultimately improved the marketing research model again.

Over the last ten years, marketing research has taken yet another lengthy stride in terms of how data is collected. Yes, data like this is still collected via survey research, however, it is mostly collected via online surveys that are emailed to their recipients. Western Wats (renamed to Opinionology and recently merged with SSI) is now one of the largest marketing research firms in the world and collects a fair amount of their data via their online survey panel called Opinion Outpost (one of the companies we endorse at Survey Inferno). Instead of their agents having to cold call individuals, anyone interested in participating in these surveys can sign up for free to receive them and freely share their opinion. This method of collecting data is much less intrusive and the quality of data collected is much higher since people can participate on their own schedule.

So the last question is, where do these companies get the money to pay for completed surveys. It is actually quite simple, Fortune 500 companies all over the world, pay these online marketing research firms to collect the data. In turn, these firms “spiff” their participants with a monetary incentive for a completed survey. Each survey is typically worth a few bucks up to $15 or so. I’ve even completed a survey worth $50. It took about two hours, but well worth it.

I hope this helps you understand how paid surveys came to be and why they are legitimate so you give them a chance. It will be very interesting to see what marketing research evolves into over the next 5-10 years. Whatever it ends up being, I’m positive that it will be easier to collect and there will be more paid survey opportunities than ever.

If you are interested in getting started with paid surveys, we recommend starting with the following companies: Opinion Outpost and Global Test Market. We also recommend signing up for our 100% free, ten step email training to help you learn how to maximize your earnings from paid surveys. You can sign up here.

Filed Under: Market Research Tagged With: Daniel Starch, George Gallup, marketing research, Opinion Outpost, opinionology, Ronald Lindorf, ssi

Few Other AMAZING Resources To Help You Make Money Online

As most of you already know, there are many ways to make money online, not just with paid online surveys. I outlined this in my blog post about how people are going to be making money online in the year 2012.

Today, I wanted to talk about a few different websites that provide a ton of free information on other ways to make money online. They aren’t per say, places to go to make money online, but are educational resources that will be very valuable to you if you take some time to really read, ponder, and execute the tips provided.

John Chow dot com

John Chow is one of the original “make money online” gurus and has been teaching others how to make a living from the internet for many years now. He dedicates a ton of time each day to craft very informational blog posts that are easy to digest and very actionable. One thing I really like about John is that he uses a lot of pictures and videos to teach. It makes is much more interesting and holds my attention for much longer. He is truly a great resource!

John Cow

John Cow is kind of a rip off of JohnChow.com. Although he is a ripoff (by rip off, I mean riding on the fame of John Chow), he still provides a ton of great tips and information for the average guy or gal trying to make ends meet by earning money online. This John hasn’t been online as long as Mr. Chow, but his focus is a bit different, mostly focusing on blogging, SEO, PPC, and other ways to make your money. Definitely a resource that you need to check out today.

The Keyword Academy

The Keyword Academy is a community run by two individuals, Courtney Tuttle and Mark Butler. These guys are really smart dudes and I look up to them a lot. They take a different approach to the whole making money online game. Their business model and site is dedicated to helping people learn how to start “mini sites” or blogs online, filled with lots of very targeted content, and supported by paid ads. These are sites that are should sustain themselves over time and help you earn a recurring revenue stream. I’ve actually done a few of these types of sites myself, and they are a great way to earn some extra cash. If you have a few minutes, I would definitely check them out.

I hope that this post has been helpful for you. If you have other ways that you like to make money online, please share in the comments below.

Filed Under: Make Money Online Tagged With: john chow, john cow, Make Money Online, the keyword academy

Five Things I Want To Buy With The Money I Make From Taking Paid Surveys

By now you already know that you can make some good money simply by taking paid surveys. Now, what you decide to do with that money is up to you. Some people use it to supplement their income to help provide for their family, some use it to buy cool stuff for themselves. I typically donate all of mine to my church to help the needy individuals and families in my area, but recently decided to taking a month or two of earnings and actually by myself some things I’ve been wanting for awhile.

Here is my list of the top five things I want to buy with the money I make from taking paid surveys in November and possibly December (can’t decide since it’s almost the holidays and there are a lot of people in need).

iPhone 4s

I’ve been an Apple fan for as long as I can remember. I have a Macbook and iPad, but no iPhone. I’ve never taken the dive and gotten one simply because it hasn’t been a phone that my current carrier offers. I think I’m about ready to switch carriers and will need some cash to fund the new phone.

BOB Stroller

My wife and I just recently had our second child and of course, she wants to start exercising to lose the baby weight. She likes to run outside, but we currently only have a single jogging stroller. She would love one of the new BOB double seat strollers, so I think this makes my list.

LoveSac

I’ve always wanted a LoveSac to help fill some of the empty space in our living room. During the holidays they typically have sales, so I might buy one this year.

Nintendo Wii

Now that my oldest son is four, he is starting to like playing video games. The Nintendo Wii is a very family friendly unit and there are a lot of games the he and I can play together. At Costco, they have a bundle that is $149.99 that includes the unit, a few controllers, and a game. I think this would be a worth while investment.

Mini Fridge

Again, now that we have a new baby in the house, someone has to take the night shift and it ain’t my wife. She tends to pump her breast milk in the evening and I get up once a night to feed the baby. I think I want a mini fridge in our room so I don’t have to go all the way down stairs and get the milk to heat up. I can move the bottle warmer into the room as well so it is easy to get the job done.

There are a few others that didn’t make the list, but I think that these are some worth while things to purchase with the money I make from completing paid surveys. What will you buy?

Filed Under: Paid Surveys Tagged With: iphone, love sac, mini fridge, nintendo wii, Paid Surveys, stroller

Opinionology Merges With Survey Sampling International (SSI)

I’m not exactly sure where I’ve been over the last few months, but I was on LinkedIn last night and saw that a an acquaintance of mine who used to work for Opinionology (Opinion Outpost) now worked for Survey Sampling International (SSI). At first I wondered if he left Opinionology and went to work for a competitor, but upon further research, I found out that the two biggest marketing research organizations in the world actually joined forces to create the largest and most powerful marketing research company on this planet.

The companies received approval to merge in July 2011 and Opinionology merged into the SSI brand. Their goal was to create the most innovative and comprehensive marketing research organization by collecting survey data via phone interviews and online survey panels. They also have offices in every time zone so they can provide world class support to both their research clients and survey respondents 24/7.

For many survey takers, the question has been asked, what is going to happen to Opinion Outpost? As of right now, it will continue to run as Opinion Outpost, but under the brand SSI. They recently underwent a site redesign to make the look and feel more in line with the SSI brand, but nothing has changed other than increasing the number of paid survey opportunities as they are now able to tap into SSI’s client base.

If you have ever been thinking about joining Opinion Outpost, now is the time!

You can read the full press release of the Opinionology and SSI merger by clicking here.

Filed Under: Market Research Tagged With: Opinion Outpost, opinionology, Paid Surveys, ssi

Top Ten Ways To Make Money Online In 2012

We’re 82 days away from the New Year… That kind of freaks me out.

At Survey Inferno, we’ve helped almost a half a million people over the last six years make money online with paid surveys, if you as me, that’s pretty impressive. One thing that sets us apart from other paid survey sites online is the fact that we are truly committed to the success of our visitors and members, we are committed to your success and aren’t a one and done shop like the other guys.

Because of this, we have spent a considerable amount of time over the last six months to research and develop a list of the top ten ways to make money online in 2012. These are legitimate, proven ways to make money on the internet and all but one of them outside of paid surveys (our expertise). So without further ado, here are the top ten ways for you to make money online in the year 2012.

Freelance Content Writing

Over the last few years, there as been a growing demand for online content writers. Did you know that there are websites and networks out there were you can offer your writing services and get paid for it? Most of the opportunities are for writing 200-300 word articles, mostly for search marketers and bloggers. If you want to make more money than the average freelance article writer, it would be smart to develop an understanding of keyword research, search engine optimization, and content marketing. Our favorite and most reliable network we tested out was iWriter.com. Writers get paid 81% of the price of each piece of content written and payments are issued via PayPal on a weekly basis.

Become A Virtual Assistant (VA)

As with freelance content writers, the demand for virtual assistants has been growing over the last few years. There are actually entire books written on how to become a (VA), so this type of online job is definitely worth pursuing. To find these types of opportunities, you can advertise your services via freelance websites like Elance or oDesk, or you can also reach out to potenital customers directly and let them know how you can help them in their business. It is also a smart idea to look into resources such as AssistU, which provides training and direction for new virtual assistants. Virtual assistants typically make between $15 to $35 per hour depending on their experience and availability.

Write Online Reviews For Pay or Perks

This type of online work typically gets a bad wrap, just as paid surveys have over the last few years. Truth be told, there are thousands of businesses online who build new products or services and need willing people to test what they have to offer and write an honest review. Most companies looking for reviewers present two offers to individuals, one, a free product or service in return for a review, two, some monetary reward for testing and offering a review, or in some cases, both. If you are looking for something to review you could start by searching popular mommy blogs on things they are reviewing or you can sign up for a service like PayPerPost. We’ve seen product or service reviewers earn anywhere from $10 to $100 per review depending on what they are reviewing.

Become An Online Tutor

If you are educated and are looking for ways to make money online, tutoring people online is a great way to make some extra cash. Working with companies like e-Tutor, Smart Thinking, and Tutor.com, you can find individuals needing your services and pay pretty decent. If you like help others learn, and have the ability to set aside a certain number of hours per week (anywhere from 2+ hours), you can generate a nice supplemental income. Online tutor pay is based on the subject you are tutoring on and the number of hours spent tutoring. Many online tutors earn anywhere between $500 to $1,600 per month. In most cases, there are also bonuses and performance incentives.

Make Money On eBay

There are many different ways to make money with eBay. The three most popular ways are by going to Garage Sales, Estate Sales, or Abandoned Storage Unit Auctions and buying stuff to resell. If you are dedicated and have a few bucks to get started, you can make some decent money this way. The most difficult part of this method of making money online is the time investment needed to traveling around to find the stuff to sell. Depending on how much money and time you have to invest in purchasing items to resell, we’ve seen people make around $500 to $2,000 per month. The pros (like the guys on Storage Wars), however, make upwards of $20,000 per month.

Become An Online Juror

Never heard of online jurors? Neither had we until we started doing our research on high quality online jobs. Online jury pools are starting to become very popular as more and more people are pursuing higher education, especially in the legal field. New lawyers, right out of school, need to practice and get real experience before they hit the real world. Online resources such as TrialJuries.com stage mock trials where new lawyers can get their practice. Online jurors get paid anywhere between $5 to $70 depending on how complex or time consuming the case is. It’s fun and easy to get involved and the more you participate, the more you asked to join other juries in the communities.

Learn WordPress, Then Offer To Install Plugins & Upgrade It

Anyone who blogs frequently and has their blog installed with WordPress knows how difficult it can be sometimes to upgrade to newer versions and install new plugins. This blog runs on WordPress and every time we upgrade it, something always breaks. Same thing often happens when you install plugins that conflict with WordPress installation or theme. There are people out there who you can hire to install WordPress, upgrade it, and also install plugins. They typically charge $5 to install or upgrade plugins and $50+ to install or upgrade WordPress itself. The demand is there for this to be a full time position so the possibilities to earn are limitless depending on how fast you can work. You can find customers by contacting blog owners directly, get references from bloggers who already have hired you, or check out services like Fiverr.

Interview Industry Experts & Sell The Interview

Interviewing industry experts is a newer way to earn money online and will definitely become more popular in 2012. People we have talked to have said to have made around $600-$800 per interview and try to get 2-3 per month. The trick here is to find a pain point that people are experiencing, interview an industry expert, as the expert questions around the pain point and then selling the interview to bloggers or others in the industry who are interested in the content. This one is a little more tricky because you have to do some leg work to find people interested in buying the content in every industry, but they are definitely out there.

Submit Websites or Blog Posts To Social Media Websites

Submitting websites or blog posts to social media websites is not very exciting work, but this type of work is in high demand from bloggers and small businesses trying to gain visibility online. This type of work consists of setting up accounts on all the major social bookmarking sites like Digg and Reddit and then bookmarking your clients websites or latest posts to help them get more traffic and backlinks. The real money comes to those who set up legitimate profiles, build relationships and grow your following because the links from these profiles bring more traffic and credibility. One of our team members used to do this full time and made around $50 per submission package. Each submission package was about 20 bookmarks.

Take Paid Surveys

Lastly, paid surveys will continue to be a viable way to earn money online in 2012. More and more big corporations are looking to collect data about their customers and potential customers and will continue to spend in this market.

If you truly want to make money online and create a life where you can work from home and spend more time with your family, then it takes some work and effort on your part. These are the top ten ways that YOU can make money online in 2012… Enjoy!

Post Author: Steve Anderson

Filed Under: Make Money Online Tagged With: ebay, freelance writing, online juror, online reviews, online tutor, Paid Surveys, social media, virtual assistant, wordpress

The Skinny On Scarborough Research

How many of you have ever heard of Scarborough Research? I’ve been in this business for a long time and up until a few weeks ago, I had never heard of them before.

About three weeks ago, my wife got a phone call from a marketing research firm who collects their data via phone interviews and surveys that are sent in the mail. Since we are both busy… and the call came at 10pm when we were just laying down, we asked that they remove us from their calling list. Well, long story short… they didn’t, and in fact, they mailed out a survey to be completed the very next week.

When my wife opened the survey, they offered her $50 to fill out the survey and sent it back. Because I have never heard of the organization before, I thought, what the hell… let’s give it a shot and see if they are legit. My wife took the survey, mailed it back, and six days later got her check. I was very impressed that one, the check came, and two, how fast it came. Scarborough Research is legit!

Now here’s the thing. I don’t know how they got our information or how to get signed up with them to start taking their surveys, but this is something you need to pursue. I will be doing some additional research on their company and if anyone can just sign up. If you would like to help with the research, you can visit their website by clicking here.

Please share any information you have about the company and if you can sign up somewhere in the comments below.