Newbie Affiliate Marketing

I would like to update my original post I did on the research panel focus forward online. If you do a search for focus forward you will find my original review. Anyhow focus forward online is your standard paid survey research panel with a twist, they also provide paid online AND offline focus groups. I took part in one of those online focus groups last night, here is my experience which I must say up front was very good.

I received a emailon Monday saying I qualified to be part of one of their a online focus groups. I had to reply to the email letting focus forward know with which state I lived in.

After replying with that information I was sent another email asking me to verify my telephone number. I thought it was slightly strange but in the name of science I did it anyhow. Also in this email I was told I would be sent a link with software I needed to install to attend the focus group and that the focus group would last 1 hour and 30 minutes.

So Thursday comes and I go out to lunch and I get a international telephone call on mycell phone the number which happens to be the telephone number I provided to Focus Forward. I picked it up and the person on the other line asked for me. Wow it was focus forward verifying my telephone number and making sure I would attend tonight’s online focus group (just a FYI the caller was from the UK). Ok that was cool but I wonder what would have happened if I let the call go to voicemail. Would they call back? Would they still let me enter the focus group? Would they leave a voicemail? Who knows.

So later that evening I get a email from Focus Forward with the link to download their software for the focus group and a link that I will use to actually enter the focus group. The software was about 12 megs and downloaded quickly using my cable ISP and wireless connection. Installation was simple but the software needs to access the Internet so if you have a software firewall installed you will have to let the firewall rules to let the focus forward software access the web. Usually this is done by just clicking ok on the various pop-ups after the software trys to run for the first time.

After installing the software and entering the focus group at 7:30pm EST. I was greeted by the Moderator named Paul and there were a few other “users” there as well. After waiting for everyone to enter the focus group it started promptly on time. The topic we talked about was saving money and getting out of debt. I thought that was pretty cool since I need to do both.

How the focus group worked was the Mod would ask simple questions like “What stops you from saving money?” Then we would answer freely. This went on over the course of the focus group along with the Mod posting summaries of possible banking products and asking our opinion if we would be interested in something like that and why or why not. There was no such thing as a wrong answer so you could say whatever was on your mind.

All in all it was a great experience and I would for sure be willing to enter any other focus groups for focus forward offered in the future. A few things to note though.

- You do not know the topic of the focus group before you enter the room, they never tell you in the emails. I think this is done on purpose.

- The software is designed to track if you are inactive in the focus group so if you minimize the screen and have a different one up for any length of time the mods can tell this or if your just plain inactive the mods can also tell this. If either are the case you will either be booted from the focus group or you wont get credit.

- At the end of the focus group the mod stated we would be contacted shortly with our prize. Hmm I the emails I got stated our prize would be $75.00. So I will have to wait and see what my prize is and how fast I get it before giving the final thumbs up.

All in all I am very happy with Focus Forward Online and I suggest this research panel to anyone else interested in paid surveys or focus groups.

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