I haven’t heard much from or about Google Consumer Surveys in the past couple of months, then all of the sudden, I received an email from them last week. It looks like they’re expanding the capabilities of their service… with longer surveys and mobile respondents (by the way, no change in pricing). A tough competitor just got tougher.
But in addition to the product enhancements, I was also intrigued by the email itself for two reasons…
- That I actually got one. My guess is that it’s going out to all of their Gmail subscribers.
- That they’re offering a $75 discount on your first survey. They want to make it as easy as possible to give them a try.
This is a very similar scenario to owning a Focus Group facility and watching the encroachment of bulletin board and webcam interviewing platforms. The difference is, none of those platform providers have the power (read: deep pockets) of a company like Google behind them.
So, here’s the question… “Are you ready?”
Have you set aside time to think and plan on…
- What this means to your business?
- How you will compete?
- How you will differentiate your firm from them?
- How you might need to change your business model?
Difficult questions to be sure… but it’s an exercise you MUST go through if quant research and panels are a part of your business. For better or worse… Google is not going away anytime soon.