I have a cow-orker who’s always involved in some sort of “easy money” type deals: phone surveys and the like.
She asked me if I would interested in being a part of a focus group sponsored by the state lottery commission. If involved discussing scratch off games. All I had to do was go to a local hotel and sit around for 2 hours and review a set of scratch off games. There were 10 of us (all men, there was a different group for women) and we were given a sample of a game and asked for comments: like - don’t like - so-so. We then saw the game after it had been played and asked if our opinions had changed.
We were then asked to explain our comments and to give advice on how to make the games more appealing.
At first I was apprehensive, but I figured, hey, it’s an easy $50!
It wasn’t so bad. We all had a bunch of laughs and came up with what I thought were good ideas (if you’re into that type of game).
I haven’t ever been in a focus group. That sounds like the one that I needed to be in. We just recently got the lottery in TN. Since it’s started I have won more than what I expected I would on scratch off tickets. Just this week alone $48 in 2 days. Spent $10 to get it. Then a month ago $25. And the month before $25 in which I turned that into $50. And numerous $2,$3, Free Tickets here and there. How do you go about getting in these studies?
My company was told by a focus group that our products are priced too low, and that we should charge more. Since that is not what we in the stores hear daily from the customers, and since we see similar products priced much lower in surrounding stores, we tend to view focus groups witha jaundiced eye. Corporate, however, seems to love them.
I participated in a focus group about a year ago; it was about how county agencies could better serve the residents; they served free pizza and sodas, and gave us $25.00 Wal-Mart gift cards. Not too bad for an hour of my time. I also do online surveys at mysurvey.com for which I get paid (very small amounts of money, but, hey) and occasionally free products. In the two years I’ve been doing it, I’ve probably earned $100.00.
I got paid a similar sum to spend my night hanging out with a girlfriend and a roomful of others in our age group to taste testing new alcoholic beverages (think Zima and Smirnoff Ice).
I went to a focus group about beer. We sat around watching beer commercials and drinking the product. They gave us three beers over the course of about ninety minutes. That and fifty bucks.
This was about 12 years ago though and I probably wouldn’t bother to go to another. They asked for names of people they could contact for other focus groups for different products afterward.
I can top that. I went to a focus group last November. I got off work early so I showed up early. Half an hour later they told me they had too many participants for the study so they sent me home with $75. I didn’t even have to participate in the study to earn the money.
Yep, I’ve participated in two of these in the past. One was about cars (looking for what image a particular car company projected. I think it was Buick, trying to change their “old man’s car” perception.) and the other was related to HMO’s. It was fun overall and I made $50 on the first and $75 on the second, just for participating in a discussion and giving my opinions. It was really different. Usually people offer me money to shut up.
My parents have a Market Research company. Their focus isn’t focus groups, it’s ethnographic research – watching people at home interacting and using the products. Last year there was a feature article about their work in the Washington Post.
I’ve never been in a focus group… but I’d be interested in doing something like that.
I take online surveys and get awarded ‘points’ for each survey taken and after accumulating so many points you can redeem them for gifts of your choice. Sometimes I’m selected to try out products and tell them what I think about them. A few weeks ago they sent me a box of Trix cereal for my kids to try and then my kids had to answer the survey questions about what they liked and disliked about the cereal. I just tried a new Rice-A-Roni product last week and this week I’m getting a cookie mix to try. I’ve been doing that for about a year.
I’ve sat through timeshare things and gotten lots of free stuff from doing that. When my husband and I were in Branson a couple of years ago we went to 3 timeshare meetings that week and got free show tickets to 3 shows, 3 free dinners, and about $150 cash. Not bad for a few hours of our time.
