It is not surprising to me when I saw this article about “The Hidden Secrets of Online Quizzes” from PC World. Afterall, there is no free lunch in this world where you can take free online quizzes in Facebook, or in niched websites about quizzes.
Online quizzes are no doubt to be entertaining to many of us. They can be treated seriously or jokingly. It may sadden some people if they reveal “bad news”, while energizing the rest with “good news”.
1) Hidden agenda of being an online survey
While we tend to see many types of online surveys for us to take so that companies can find out more about customer behaviours, online quizzes surprisingly can be used as a hidden agenda of doing online surveys! Just imagine the online quizzes are asking questions which may be even to the very intimate level… It is so much more effective than doing online surveys because users tend to assume that these information will not be stored.
This information is very valuable for companies in the relevant industries, and can be sold to them so as to understand the market even better and to react accordingly in their marketing strategies.
2) Hidden agenda of selling relevant products
As you are taking the online quizzes, you are actually revealing information about yourself that you need certain products to enhance your life. With a clever website optimization technique, the visitor can slowly be led into a sales funnel. If the sales funnel is crafty enough, it will not lead the visitors into an online purchase immediately. Instead, it will ask for their email addresses in return for the online results, and to opt in for relevant e-newsletters. Steadily, it will then build a database and lead them into an online purchase.
For example, this is very effective for those visitors who wish to know very intimate health answers, which drug companies can look into sponsoring the online quizzes.
3) Hidden agenda of selling the quiz results
I have ever encountered quizzes which reveal answers partially only when I entered my email address. And I will have to pay a certain amount of money to have a detailed analysis of the quizzes I have taken. This can be really ridiculous especially when I have taken a very long time to answer all the questions, and it makes no sense for me to give up just because I have to give my email address! These online quizzes ought to be punished for not telling us in advance about how the results will become.
Time is really money. Just imagine that you have taken a very long time to answer all the questions, and they will only give you the answers in exchange of your email address and/or money…
Whichever the case is, please only take a pinch of salt if you are having fun playing with online quizzes as they are usually created by people who are not credible enough in terms of their education and experience.
Photo credit: odegaard library
I started learning online marketing since 2007. I have a couple of online projects which I am working on part time with an elite team such as