Representative sample. Simply, the sample size and exact location of the survey taker has to correspond to and fairly represent the size and importance of the area. In our hypothetical example, if the ladies underwear company sells twice as much product in Virginia as it does in South Carolina, then the sample size must match; twice as many samples from VA as from SC.

Now the art and science of exactly how to do this involves statistics, demographic mapping and complex mathematics, but that is what the market researchers and survey makers get paid for. Ever notice in published political polls of say, 2 million voters, there is a sample size of 1,500 - 3,000 voters sampled to make a prediction? And how close the actual vote ends up to the prediction? Well, that's possible through good, representative sampling.

So the point is, that it won't work to ask just anyone. The sample must be carefully selected to be representative. And it must correspond as closely as possible to the reality of the defined target market whose opinion you want to get.

So how does the survey maker find willing volunteers that are part of the target market and located in representative areas?

Ah! That's the question! And it brings us back around to how survey takers get paid.

For one thing, to properly qualify a potentially useful future survey taker, you have to know all about their demographics. Where they live, gender, age, occupation, income level, education, hobbies, etc., etc.

All this takes time for them to enter into an application. Then the future survey taker must be positively disposed to receive and take a future survey, so he gets it back in a timely manner.

Practically the only way to encourage large numbers of people to do all this is to pay them for it, specifically to pay them for the surveys when they take them.

So you see, when you understand a bit about how things work and what drives them, it is not so incredible that people get paid for surveys. In fact, when you understand it clearly, it makes perfect sense!

An earlier version of this information, in an article named,"Inside Paid Online Surveys - What Drives Things?" is a published article written by Jorge Chavez. To open a new page to view the article at ezinearticles.com, Click Here.