oThe development of a survey in a password-protected area of your website. oPurchase of an opt-in e-mail respondent list. (Opt-in lists are available from companies like Survey Sampling, Inc.) Make sure sample size is proportionally related to size of population you are targeting. oSend broadcast e-mails to members of list. The e-mail will instruct recipients to click on link to take them to password-protected survey. An incentive will help boost response rate. oUpon completion of survey, database of answers can be queried to pull information based on selected variables. The data can also be exported to a statistical software application for further analysis. oUpon completion of survey, a new survey can be developed using online administrative screens provided by high-end survey developers and process starts over again.

The advantages of online market research survey are numerous. From development time to delivery of results, these surveys present distinct advantages over traditional research methodologies.

Online surveys can also be designed to appear in a pop-up box at specified locations on a website. Such surveys will ask visitor if they have a few seconds to take survey and then proceed to ask them a few questions about their site experience to that point. By asking a series of questions company can ascertain if site is well received by visitor. If not, survey should provide specific clues to improve your site.

To summarize, online surveys offer following benefits over standard surveys:

·Speed of set up - using web-based administrative screens, online surveys can be set up and delivered quickly. ·Data entry - Respondents do data entry, so no data entry staff is required. Additionally, accuracy is greatly improved since no data is being rekeyed. ·New designs and concepts can be presented online. Respondents can view new products, packaging and other offerings online while they are responding to survey. Standard surveys required mailing package concepts to respondent in advance. The costs associated with printing, postage and data entry, combined with time inefficiencies, make online surveys far superior in most instances. ·Results are tabulated quickly for fast analysis. ·Early results are showing better response rates. One company that has typically surveyed their employees in past by traditional means has seen a response rate improvement from 25 to 50% since moving their surveys online.

The opportunities to learn from your customers using Internet are enormous. By surveying your customers, prospects, and employees online you can uncover opportunities and address issues faster, more accurately and at greatly reduced expense.

Various email programs allow you to filter messages and act upon keywords you select. When an email is received that matches keywords, next player in this double-play combination automatically stores message in a special mailbox that will be used in third part of this process.

When email has been transferred to this mailbox, you can then capture information you wish, and place it in a file or data base. Once there, you can use this for follow up purposes. You can do this final step manually, depending upon your time available and volume received. If you get a large number every day however, you may wish to invest in some software that can do this for you.

Sure, you can use autoresponders that automatically follow up with multiple emails for you, but for most part, they are becoming passe. I call these "nag notices". Many times, they create opposite effect of what you hoped for, and some people simply block all email from domain that sends them.

To follow up yourself, you must have an email account that allows true "Post Office Protocol" (POP). If your ISP doesn't support this, you can get one for about $5 per month. Combine this with some free software from Eudora, and you are in business.

Anyone will tell you that "follow up" is one of most important things you must do when trying to do business on web. This "double-play" can be difference you need to win marketing game.