As an entrepreneur, your most valuable assets are your time, money, and feedback from your evolving customer base. Survey apps present a unique opportunity to earn extra income, conduct free market research, advertise cost-effectively, and understand your target demographics‘ needs – all on your own schedule.
This definitive guide examines the top 31 survey and rewards platforms from an entrepreneurial perspective so you can leverage these apps to fuel sustainable business expansion.
Choosing the Best Survey Apps for Your Venture
With hundreds of survey apps now available, narrowing down the selections may seem daunting initially. However, by prioritizing the factors below as an entrepreneur, you can zero in on the options offering you the most value:
- Reward Rates: Apps with the highest average payouts per survey/task maximize your earning potential.
- Relevance to Customers: Look for apps with user demographics and survey topics closely matching your business’s target customer profiles.
- Advertising Options: Certain apps provide special offers to advertise your company to their membership base.
- Business Analytics: Select apps providing data and analytics on user responses, enabling unique market research.
- Scalability: Ensure the app has mechanisms to support higher survey volume as your business grows without rate drops.
- Mobile Experience: Favor options offering intuitive mobile apps to easily tap into audiences on phones/tablets.
While no one app will check every box, balancing these factors allows entrepreneurs to capitalize on these platforms most effectively.
Top 10 Survey Apps for Entrepreneurs
Based on the ranking criteria above, these 10 survey apps stand out specifically for entrepreneurs:
- SurveyMonkey – Robust suite of surveying/analysis features plus enterprise-tier services to scale over time.
- Survey Junkie – Huge panel and strong mobile experience ideal for consumer eCommerce shops.
- Dabbl – Specialized support for advertising testing with target groups relevant to your brand.
- MindSwarms – Video-based surveys capture authentic reactions perfect for concept/product validation.
- Zappi – Platform tailored specifically to market/customer research critical in early startup stages.
- Google Opinion Rewards – Massive existing user base to tap for feedback as you expand your reach.
- Surveys On The Go – Rewards incentivize participation for restaurants/retailers with local physical customer bases.
- Streetbees – Story-based questionnaire approach fits younger-skewing startups focused on digital experience.
- Prolific – Rigorous screening and targeting capabilities help isolate the exact customers you want to hear from.
- Crowdology – Unique approach to crowdsourcing ideas can uncover innovation opportunities.
While this list highlights apps offering distinct advantages, entrepreneurs should experiment across multiple platforms to determine what works best for their needs as they scale their operations over time.
Maximizing the Business Impact of Survey Apps
Follow this five step methodology to start leveraging survey apps to accelerate your startup’s growth:
1. Define Your Goals
Outline what specific information and outcomes you hope to achieve via surveys. Do you want to assess a new product concept? Improve messaging effectiveness? Gauge demand for a prospective offering? Understanding your goals ensures you choose the right apps and survey strategies from the start.
2. Survey Design Best Practices
Well-constructed surveys yield higher quality insights versus sloppy or leading questions. Keep it brief, avoid jargon, test flow/logic, and always incorporate demographic questions to enable drilling down into results.
3. Target Survey Distribution
Once your survey is created, targeted distribution via platforms matching your ideal respondent profile saves tremendous time versus mass blasting. Filter survey app panels by attributes like age, location, interests etc aligned to your customers.
4. Analyze Results
Scrutinize survey results to uncover trends, exceptions, correlations and insights you can act upon. Look at both at an aggregate level and broken down by different customer groups. surfaced via filtering on key demographic criteria.
5. Take Data-Driven Actions
Close the loop by making research-backed decisions on product development priorities, messaging adjustments, new customer targets, partnership opportunities and other growth levers informed directly by the survey findings.
Maximizing Earnings from Survey Apps
Beyond fueling market research, survey apps also provide a consistent revenue stream to reinvest back into your core startup. Follow these tips to maximize your profits:
- Cash Out Frequently – Transfer earnings as soon as you hit minimums rather than letting points accumulate to prevent losing any.
- Take Advantage of Referrals – Referring business contacts can generate 10-30% of their survey earnings passively over time.
- Enable Location Triggers – Localized survey triggers when passing stores/restaurants prompt specialized retail/restaurant feedback opportunities.
- Complete Your Profile – Provide extensive demographic/interest details so algorithms can match you with better-paying surveys.
- Follow Your Calendar – Periodic app notifications alert you to time-sensitive surveys with quotas nearing limits that tend to pay more.
- Set Earning Goals – Consistency and goal-setting are key to generating substantial side income over time.
Final Thoughts
As online activities become increasingly mobile, survey apps continue to provide startups and entrepreneurs low-cost avenues to generate money, conduct market research, and directly engage their evolving customer base wherever they are.
By identifying the apps purpose-built to power growth – not just earn rewards – small business leaders can tap into data and insights unavailable to previous generations of entrepreneurs.
Just remember to remain vigilant of scam apps, read privacy policies and terms closely, cash out earnings regularly, and keep your survey content, targeting and distribution strategies focused on obtaining genuinely useful feedback matched to your current business needs.
Used strategically, today’s survey apps provide invaluable tools for cost-conscious entrepreneurs striving to sustain scaling with limited resources in the modern digital era.
