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Money Management

Making Money with Online Paid Surveys

By Jason Stilwell, http://www.MoneyInCollege.com
06/06/2007

Around the world, companies spend over $250 billion a year trying to convince consumers to buy their products and services. About $800 million is devoted to market research. That's why your opinions on goods and services are so important and as highly paid for.

Before launching a new product or service, companies are willing to pay for online paid surveys that enable them to improve their products or services prior to releasing them for sale. Today, more people have Internet access worldwide and you have the opportunity to make money online by completing surveys for companies that need your opinion.

Companies are paying billions of dollars to market research firms to conduct online surveys. Then, those market research firms pay money to anyone that fills out their surveys online. Understanding how people think and buy products and services helps companies improve their products and services and make more money. That's why companies are willing to pay people good money for online paid surveys because you help them to increase their profits.

Everyone can do surveys online and get paid. Paid surveys are the perfect opportunity for students, stay-at-home moms, and anyone who is looking for a part-time job.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Companies that need a survey hire hundreds of market research companies. Then, the market research companies look for the participants to complete the online surveys. The participants are paid by the market researchers, in the form of a check or through PayPal. Then the market research companies analyze this data.

To gain the access to the market research companies you should subscribe to a paid survey database. For a small, one-time subscription fee you are given an access to a comprehensive list of market research companies that will pay you for completing surveys online or participating in online focus groups. Depending on your profile, you will qualify to complete different online paid surveys for cash and other rewards. 

You can select the time to complete the surveys and which surveys you want to do. You will get paid to give your opinion either in person, over the phone, or online. These require more effort on your part, but the cash payments are much higher. You will get to participate in other kinds of studies including trying new products or watching movie trailers before they are launched.

To get started all you will need is Internet access and an email address. After registration you will get access to the information which provides the inventory of marketing companies that are looking for people like you to complete online paid surveys, participate in focus groups, review movie trailers, get paid to test new products or even drive a car.

Advantage

Online paid surveys are a very interesting and easy job. Everyone can do surveys online and get paid. You need only access to the Internet and an email address. You can select the time to complete the online paid surveys and which surveys you want to do yourself.

Disadvantage

You have to pay a fee for most of the paid survey database services. But this is a one-time subscription fee only and the most reputable companies offer a money-back guarantee. So you have zero financial risk.

Free Programs vs. Buy-In Programs

Thousands of people sign up with research companies every day and most of them are not at all serious about it. They know that they want to make money but are not willing to do anything about it and these people are the ones that can give paid surveys a bad name. Research companies are looking for the serious people. When you buy into a survey program or database you are proving that you really want to go somewhere with online surveys and many companies look to you as a quality participant, therefore offering you the best opportunities and the most money.

There are two ways to get to the front of the line of quality and quantity of surveys without spending any money of your own. You can take your time working with a few companies, participating in just about any opportunity that they send your way in order to build a reputation with the company in order to get the best options much later on down the road. This could be a slow and frustrating process and I do not recommend it.

You can sign up with many free survey companies and then choose to participate in only the opportunities that are the most beneficial to you all while building your reputation. You will be able to do this because your email inbox will fill with requests. Most of them are low paying, but others vary.

Facts & Advice

Sometimes companies will send unwarranted email that could be considered SPAM. You should to have a separate email account as you will get a lot of new email, but remember that if you use a spam filter you also will not receive most surveys. So your spam filter should be turned off.

The fewer survey companies that you sign up with, the fewer opportunities you will have sent your way. More is always better.

You should join several of the free paid survey or rewarded surveys which you can find below. They are reputable and best of all, free to join.

You might choose to pay for "Paid Survey Database services," but never pay to take a paid survey or be on the company's waiting list.

You should visit each Paid Survey Database Services site and read about how they work.

Be wary of paid survey database services that give you more options than information and audience. They will sometimes spam you or are just out to get referrals. Those paid survey services are no good.

Find out as much about the survey company as possible, or just sign up with the ones I have provided at MoneyInCollege.com.

Most paid survey databases offer a money back guarantee. This is good because it may take some time to start getting the good surveys.

Consider the survey companies that have higher-quality websites and charge a one-time fee.

You need to carefully read each actual paid survey you sign up for. Sometimes they will auto-fill a check box that allows them to sell your email. Be sure to uncheck it.

Visit most of the paid survey services and then determine the best of them to go with. Be sure to sign up with a few of the Highest Quality Paid Surveys programs around. These are very reputable organizations that want your input and reward you for it. College Cash's Paid Survey Sites will help you to find the best of them.

Step By Step: Paid Survey Companies

You can make a bit of money with just about any survey company. But nobody wants to make "a bit" of money, right? You want to make a lot! Read on.

I explained the pros and cons of survey companies above but some people need to have me lead them to water, so let me break this down. What to do: Decide that you are going to make a lot of money with paid surveys. Set aside 10 minutes right now to make that happen for you. Drop everything else for just a few minutes. If you can't do that much, you are really not serious at all about wanting to make money, this site is not for you and you should leave now because you're sucking up all my bandwidth.

Ok, now that you have made up your mind you need to follow these very quick and simple steps to make sure that happens for you. Do them as you read them.

1) Set up an email account just for survey companies. Don't pay for one. Just go to Yahoo!, MSN or Google. Turn off the spam filter in the email settings. Also, write down the address and password. It's easy to forget this stuff with a new account.

2) Sign up for ALL of the free paid survey companies that you see at MoneyInCollege.com. There are many reasons you want to do this, read on.

3) Most offers you receive are not opportunities to make good money, and few are opportunities to make the big money. So, always make sure the ball is in your court by having many options!

4) When you check your inbox, sort the paid survey opportunities from everything else and then sort them by highest to lowest paying. Junk the other emails. Do not mark them as spam. They are not spam, but do not pay, so they are useless to you.
5) Set aside 30 minutes a day to do the highest paying surveys, if you can get to the others, great. If you can't, don't worry about it.

Most any company (in any industry) will not pay you until you reach a payment threshold (usually $25). This is one way of sorting the real serious people from everyone else. Keep at it and you will hit these thresholds quickly and with many companies at once. That means you could get about five checks in a row for $25 or more. That's good stuff!

If you follow these instructions to the letter, you will make money with survey companies while not spending a dime of your own money. It may take a week or two to actually hold the money in your hand, but this is a simple, fast and effective way of earning money. I can't make it any easier for you than this. Good Luck!

Jason Stilwell is a business and marketing student in the beautiful state of Michigan. He started MoneyInCollege.com with the sole purpose of showing students worldwide simple, fun and effective ways of making extra money in college and to connect you with others who share in this interest. Check out MoneyInCollege.com for more info.


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