Tag Archives: referral program

Get All Your Shopping 411 with QR Codes!

Look familiar? You may not have paid them much attention, or known what they were, but these funny-looking symbols are the latest thing designed to improve your shopping experience.

They’re called QR scan codes (for Quick Response), and they are the 21st century answer to the traditional bar code. But while the bar code is designed for the seller – to improve efficiency in pricing and inventory – the QR is all for YOU, baby!

All you need is a smartphone with a camera, and an app that costs little to nothing to download. When you’re out shopping and you see the QR code on the label or on the display, turn on the app, point your camera and…that’s it. You are taken to a website that tells you all about the product.

There was a fun little article in the New York Times this week about shoppers in the Home Depot and Lowe’s using QR codes to learn how to select and care for trees for their yards. Which is funny because that is exactly how I used mine!

Another time I was heading downtown for a day of activities. I had one of those local weekly entertainment magazines, but wasn’t thrilled about carrying it around all day. Then I saw the QR code at the top of the “What’s Happening” section. I zapped it, and now I had the entire listing stored in my phone.

So check out the article, and look around the next time you are out. I bet you start noticing these things everywhere! Have you already tried QR codes? Tell us about it!

Marketing Goes Mobile

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Do you engage in m-marketing? No, I didn’t stutter. It stands for mobile marketing, and you likely are engaging in it more often than you think – and enjoying fewer of its benefits than you could be. Intrigued? Read on…

According to an article at AllThingsDigital.com:

 With the age of the PC declared officially over–smartphones outsold PCs for the first time in 4Q 2010–American retailers are all asking the same question: When will the m-commerce tipping point arrive? The answer is, it’s happening now. But to emerge as true mobile commerce winners, smart marketers will still need to overcome numerous barriers to mass consumer adoption.

Those barriers include a basic ignorance of what m-marketing is all about. It’s more than just purchasing online, it’s the whole shopping experience: searching, reading ads, comparing, downloading coupons, and so on. There are vendors at every step of the way trying to make the process easier for you (and make a buck, naturally.)

Technology is also a question mark. Many people think you need a full-blown touch screen iPhone to do this stuff, and that’s not the case. Second is cost: people assume that they can’t afford the data plan that this requires. Today, the wireless companies are at war with each other, and those costs are coming down.

So, what do you think?  How much of this process do you take part in? Are you finding that it improves your shopping experience? Are you burning up minutes in your data plan? Let us know – but no brand names, please!

A Word from the Panel

Once again, we have updated our collection of positive Facebook fan comments page here at the blog. We call it Panelist Reviews. After seven months, and more than 7700 Facebook fans, it’s really gratifying to see the nice words keep coming. So THANKS! Check ’em out here!

Smartphones for Smart Shoppers

There’s a reason why search companies, advertisers, payment processors and local merchants are so interested in smartphones. It’s because they’re turning out to be powerful and popular tools for people looking to search locally, act quickly and improve their shopping experience.

That’s the setup for a recent article at GigaOm.com. A recent survey of over 5,000 smartphone users* turned up some interesting statistics on these three points, Searching Locally, Acting Quickly, and Improving the Shopping Experience:

  • 95% of smartphone users have searched for local retailer info
  • 88% act on that info within one day
  • 77% visited search engines to get their info
  • 79% use their phone while in the store
  • 75% use their phones in the store to make their purchases

Think about that last one… you’re in the store browsing the selection of, let’s say, vacuum cleaners. You are visiting some online consumer site that compares all the models in front of you. Then, you skip the checkout line altogether and make your purchase online!

Confused by all of this “digital online window shopping?”  You aren’t alone. Everybody from Google to Wal-Mart to Sally’s Cat Toy Emporium is trying to get a handle on this new way of shopping! All we can say is Stay Tuned!

* Including many MindField Online panelists…so, while we would love to hear your thoughts on online shopping, please don’t talk specifically about the survey!

There’s an App for That!

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Once upon a time (like, two years ago!) “apps” were the fried mozzarella sticks you ate while you were waiting for your dinner at Friday’s.  Well, no more. Today apps (for application software) are the hot convenience item, thanks to the explosion of smartphones.  Personally, your humble author has music, movies, maps, job search, games and weather apps clogging up his smartphone – but there are a million more out there.  As the popular tagline  goes, whatever you need to make your daily life a little more convenient – “there’s an app for that!”

According to mobile app developer ShoutEm.com…

  • 5 billion apps were downloaded in 2010. By 2013, it will be over 20 billion!
  • The average smartphone user spends over 11 hours a month using apps.
  • iPhone and Android owners use an average of 15 apps
  • Blackberry owners use an average of 8 apps
  • The top categories of mobile apps include social networking (Facebook, etc.) with 60 million users and maps with 40 million users.
  • The highest rated apps are Angry Birds (game) and Google Maps. Seriously, do you know any Angry Birds addicts? They are CONSUMED!

What do you think? Are you an app freak? Which ones are your favorites? Which ones are a waste of time? Anyway, for more fun app facts, and a look at future trends, check out ShoutEm’s infographic here.

New and Improved Survey Invitations!

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UPDATE! A happy MindField Online panelist has given a thumbs-up to the new email invitation. Check it out at the bottom of the post!

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Original post:

Hey gang: MindField Online has refreshed and re-formatted our email survey invitations! This cleaner, more concise invitation emphasizes the information you ARE interested in, without making you wade through the information you usually skip over anyway!

So, here’s a sneak peek at the top section of the new invitation, along with some explanations of the new look:

A: Right off the bat, this is your quick participation link to the survey. Just click and you’re on your way!

B: No guessing about your time commitment… here’s a quick estimate! If you qualify and complete, this is how long we expect the survey to take using standard systems.

C: How much money? THIS much money!

D: Your cashout progress. If you need $5 to cashout, and you have a balance of $4…that’s 80%!

We hope you like the new invitation, and find it informative and easy to use. If you have suggestions for further improvements, let us know!

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We just received an early review on the new email format! Jim in California says:

“…it is absolutely excellent!   Giving real time member status info is a great feature, as is the layout of info describing the study available and the “what’s new” corner.  Moreover, being able to reply directly to the email, as I am now doing, simplifies communication by 100%.  Others require having to login and hunt around for particular page where any inquiry must be entered.  Thank you for all of that.”

Thanks Jim – we think the rest of the MindField Online family will like it, too!

Fabulous Facebook Fans Update!

Hey guys: After 6 months and almost 6800 fans, our post celebrating MindField Online Internet Panels’ fabulous Facebook fans has graduated from “post” into a top-navigation “page!” From now on, “Panelist Reviews” will sit at the top of the page just waiting to be admired. We will keep updating it periodically, and we’ll let you know. Here is the link. And thanks again to the best Facebook fans in the world!!

A Senior Survey Moment…

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From time to time we like to answer some common questions we receive at the MindField Online Facebook page. This time, we will try to answer the question, “Am I getting fewer online survey invitations as I get older?”

In general, makers of consumer products are trying to reach specific audiences. Think about the commercials you see on TV. Who are they aimed at? VERY generally speaking, you tend to see:

  • Cars, beer and electronics for the fellows.
  • Fashion and beauty for young women.
  • Groceries, cleaning products, and childcare for moms.
  • Insurance, health products and pharmaceuticals for older folks.

So, as an older MindField Online member, you are far more likely to survey a term life insurance product than you are the latest smart phone.

On the other hand, there are products that EVERYBODY uses.  Whatever our income, we all drink a certain famous soda pop from time to time. We all use bathroom tissue. We all have to fill up the gas tank.

And whatever our gender, race, income level, education, etc., we each represent a certain percentage of the population. For instance, seniors 65 and older make up about 12% of the general population.  So, even on a very general product, our clients might (but not always) request that we limit seniors to 12% of the survey invitations. Bottom line, there ARE fewer opportunities as we get older, because there are increasingly fewer of us. That’s not MindField, that’s statistics. But we still try to steer as many invitations to you as we can.

Another consideration is timing. We try to rotate our invitations using a number of internal algorithms (that’s fancy computer talk) to give all members an equal chance to participate. So, if our clients are looking for a certain number people like you, but you wait two or three days to respond to the invitation, we may fill our quota and you will miss out.

So, even if this wasn’t the answer you were hoping for, we hope that it helps you understand the invitation process a little better.

Next time, we will look at a HOT topic: “Why do I get invitations, begin the survey, and then get kicked out in the middle?”

Refer a Friend, Earn More Cash!

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MindField Online Internet Panels recently re-launched our Refer-a-Friend campaign. If you would like to get involved and earn more cash, log in and follow this link:

http://mindfieldonline.com/user/refer

There, if you have NOT already activated your referral account you will see the following text:

Cash Reward Referrals

You will receive $1.00 for every friend or family member you refer to MindField Online – once they register, activate their account, complete their profile and begin participating in surveys.

How does it work? It’s simple . . .

  1. Click on the Activate button below to activate your referral account.
  2. Upon activating, use the URL link provided to send to your friends, post on your Facebook page or any other legal website. This is your referral link that will allow us to track your referrals back to you for crediting once your referrals do their part. The more creative you are the more opportunity you have to earn the extra incentive.
  3. Your friends and family will need to click on the link that will take them to our registration page. They will need to follow the same steps as you did to register and activate their account as well as complete their profile questionnaire. As soon as they begin responding to our questionnaire invitations and complete their first survey, you will receive credit for the referral.
  4. As part of our required data quality policies, referrals are subject to ongoing verification.

If you have any questions, please contact our support department at [email protected] or by calling 800-969-9235.

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Once you have activated your referral account you will see the following text:

Cash Reward Referrals

Send the link below to all of your friends, associates, etc. Even put it on your Facebook, MySpace and Twitter sites. By referring your friends you can sit back and increase your earnings. MindField Online will credit your account $1.00 for everyone you refer who fully activates a brand new account, completes their profile and completes a survey.

Sorry, you can’t join multiple times as that would be a violation of our Member Terms and data quality policy. But you can earn a great deal of extra money by referring as many people as possible. So what are you waiting for? Email this link to your contacts . . . IM it to your buddy list . . . post it on your website and let your friends and MindField Online make you extra money!