Speaking of surveys and of listening to your clients, MAR is currently asking for your opinion in our 2009 Member Technology Survey. The survey should take about 10 minutes to complete and your responses will go a long way toward helping us target our educational and member benefit offerings in 2009. As an added bonus, we’re giving away a free Flip Ultra camcorder to one lucky respondent*.

The Internet age has brought a myriad of ways to reach out to people using new tools like social networking websites as well as tried-and-true methods like surveys. Despite the unglamorous nature of a survey, it’s still an effective way of getting feedback on your performance and improving upon that data. There are many tools for online surveys and we’ll look at a few free and inexpensive options that can help you gain valuable insight for your business.

There are two main distinctions between online survey tools; those that people fill out on the vendor’s website and those you can ‘embed’ on your own website. All offer a free trial period to get a feel for the service, easy methods for building and sending surveys and data analysis of the survey results with easy-to-read charts, graphs, cross-tabulation and more. Let’s review them.

Zoomerang - www.zoomerang.com - One of the oldest and most prominent online survey tools, Zoomerang offers the bread and butter of online surveys. Although they have fallen behind as of late in terms of the features they offer, Zoomerang still has a compelling product. They are one of the few that offer phone-based support in case of problems. Although all surveys must be taken by visiting the Zoomerang website, they do allow you to distribute a survey via mobile phones (only available in Premium package). They offer many predefined survey templates but do not give many options for styling your own survey (beyond adding your logo) with custom colors and layouts to match your existing branding. A new feature allows you to import an existing survey from the next vendor in our roundup, SurveyMonkey.

Wufoo - www.wufoo.com - If you’d rather keep visitors on your own site you should check out Wufoo. This survey tool allows you to seamlessly embed a completed survey on your own website to retain your company’s look and feel. They also offer a vast amount of customizable features to match the look of a survey to your company branding, although it may take some HTML and design savvy to take advantage of the more advanced options. Wufoo can also integrate with Paypal to act as a secure online checkout for products and services. All-in-all, Wufoo offers enough ease of use to be great for the novice and enough advanced features to keep even the most tech-savvy user entertained.

PollDaddy - www.polldaddy.com - Although PollDaddy offers larger, more complex surveys along the same lines as Zoomerang, SurveyMonkey and Wufoo, they really shine in their “micropolls.” A micropoll is basically a small (usually single-question) survey that can be embedded seamlessly on your own website. It’s a great way to solicit feedback from visitors who wouldn’t otherwise take the time to fill out an entire survey. For an example of a micropoll in action, check out the homepage of BayStateRealtor.com and scroll down to the “Realtor on the Street” section on the left. PollDaddy also has integrations with Wordpress to easily add micropolls to your blog. PollDaddy offers basic features for free, including their micropolls, but you can’t analyze the results unless you purchase a Pro package.

Engaging your website visitors is one of the cornerstones of any successful social networking and website strategy. Not only does it give visitors to your site a sense that their views are heard and valued, but the information they provide can be critically important toward defining future goals for success in any industry. And here’s a tip to get more responses; let clients know you want their opinion to help improve your services. You might be surprised how candid people will be, and if clients know you’re trying to improve yourself they will respect you even more as a true professional.