Market research for social survey matters · Singapore
The opinions that actually matter are the ones people will not say out loud
Beta Insight runs social and community research for the non-profits, charities and public bodies making decisions about how people live. We are built to reach what a person genuinely thinks, not what they are willing to say in front of others.
01
Ask in
public,
get the
public
answer
Most surveys capture the answer a person is comfortable giving. On anything touching money, family, identity, race or politics, that answer is shaped by what they believe they are supposed to say. Researchers call it social desirability bias, and it is the single largest reason a study can be methodologically clean and still be wrong.
The gap between the stated answer and the private one is where the decision actually lives. Policy built on the public answer meets the private answer at implementation, and fails there.
Closing that gap is not a matter of asking harder. It is instrument design, anonymity the respondent can genuinely believe, question order that does not prime, and indirect techniques that let someone report a view without having to own it in their own name. That is the craft in this work, and it is what we are built around.
02 · The technical process
Seven steps between your question and a finding you can act on
Sample size moves the clock. It does not move the method. Every study runs all seven, whether it is twenty respondents or two thousand.
Define the decision
Not what you want to know, but what you are deciding and which result would change it. A study that cannot change a decision is a report, not research. This step is where most of the value is won or lost.
Design the sample
Who has to be represented, at what size, and with what quotas across age, housing type, household composition and income, so the finding generalises to the population rather than to whoever happened to answer.
Build the instrument
Neutral wording, controlled question order so early items do not prime later ones, balanced scales, and forced choice where a comfortable midpoint would let people hide. Every question is written to survive being read aloud to a sceptic.
Reach the private answer
Verifiable anonymity, indirect and projective questioning, and open-ended probes where a five-point scale would flatten a real opinion into a number. This is the step that separates a survey from a poll.
Pilot before you commit
A small run first. Questions that read perfectly on paper fail in the field, and it is far cheaper to discover that at thirty responses than at a thousand.
Field with controls running
Start and finish timestamps on every response, straight-lining and speeding detection, attention checks, bot and duplicate filtering. A considered questionnaire completed in ninety seconds is not a considered response, and it does not enter the dataset.
Clean, weight, analyse, report
Remove what failed the controls, weight back to the population, cross-tabulate by the segments that actually matter, and write plainly what it means for the decision named in step one.
What we throw away is why the rest can be trusted
A dataset is only as good as what was removed from it. Responses that sped through, responses that answered the same way down every row, responses that failed an attention check, duplicates, and anything a bot produced: all of it comes out before a single figure is counted.
That is unglamorous work, and it is the difference between a number you can put in front of a ministry and a number that falls apart the first time somebody serious asks how it was collected.
03
Opinions
that
actually
matter
The organisations that speak for a community are usually the least able to afford the evidence proving what that community thinks. So the community gets spoken for, and policy gets made on assumption.
Good social research changes that. It turns a feeling that something is wrong into a measurement a ministry, a funder or a board has to answer. It gives a grassroots group the same standing in the room as an organisation with a research budget behind it.
That is why this service extends to non-profits. Non-profits exist to help society, so a survey that helps a non-profit helps everyone that organisation serves. A country improves on what it can actually see, and most of what matters is currently invisible.
04
What we
run
Take the whole study, or the single piece you cannot run yourself.
Public opinion polls and surveys
Representative sampling on the questions your organisation needs answered, fielded and verified.
Social research and social experiments
Designed studies on community issues, including experimental designs for the cases where simply asking the question would never produce an honest answer.
Market research for organisations
Attitudes, awareness and behaviour among the people you serve, or the people you have not reached yet.
Research consultancy and advisory
Shaping the question before fieldwork starts, so the study answers what the decision actually needs.
Data analysis and reporting
Cleaning, weighting, cross-tabulation and a written read of the findings you can put in front of a board or a funder.
Survey design and fieldwork for students and researchers
Academic and independent researchers who need a properly built instrument and real respondents rather than a convenience sample.
Respondent panelComing soon
Our own Singapore respondent panel is in beta testing and will open in due course.
05
Before you
commit
The three questions we are always asked, answered plainly.
How reliable are the results?
We use trusted survey vendors who are major players in the market, and every response passes the controls in step six before it counts: timestamps, straight-lining and speeding detection, attention checks, bot and duplicate filtering. We are building our own respondent panel in time to come.
How much does a survey cost?
Cost is determined by the sample size, the length and complexity of the questionnaire, and whether data analysis and a report on the key findings are required. Tell us what you need and we will scope it.
How soon can the study be completed?
This depends on the sample size. We target fieldwork in seven to ten days, then check and clean the data within one to two days. If requested, analysis and report writing take a further two to three days.
Start here
Tell us the question you need answered
We will come back with how it would be run, how we would get past the polite answer, how long it would take and what it would cost.
About us
Everyone deserves a voice in the decisions that affect them
Beta Insight began with a simple observation: the people most affected by a decision usually have the least say in shaping it.
01
Why we
exist
Good decisions, whether in policy, in business or in a community initiative, depend on good data. Too often the data is missing exactly where it matters most.
We set out to build a bridge between public opinion and the institutions that act on it: running rigorous surveys and polls, and channelling those insights into research that informs policy and grassroots action.
We collect accurate, reliable data through market research and public opinion polling, and translate it into insights that shape better policy and stronger grassroots initiatives.
We believe everyone deserves a voice in the decisions that affect their lives, and we are committed to making that voice heard, one survey at a time.
02
Make public
opinion
count
03 · What we stand for
Four commitments, to clients and respondents alike
Transparency
No hidden methodologies and no unexplained disqualifications. We keep both clients and respondents informed at every step.
Respondent respect
We communicate clearly and never waste people's time. Their time and their opinions are valuable, and we treat them that way.
Data integrity
Quality controls are applied to every response, filtering out bots and low-effort answers. Clients get clean data, genuine respondents get fair treatment.
Privacy first
PDPA and GDPR compliant. Respondent identities are never shared with clients.
04 · Founder
Leonard Lim
Director
Leonard founded Beta Insight after a 26-year career spanning classrooms, government ministries, Singapore's national university and emerging technologies.
His experience across both the public and private sectors taught him that good decisions start with good data. Beta Insight is how he makes that data accessible to the organisations that need it most.
Working on a question that deserves real evidence?
What we do
From the question to the finding
Six services. Take the whole study, or the single piece you cannot run yourself.
01
Research
services
Every line below is something we run ourselves. Nothing here is brokered out and relabelled.
Public opinion polls and surveys
Representative sampling of a defined population, fielded through established vendor panels and verified on the way in. The core of what we do.
Market research for organisations
Awareness, attitudes and behaviour among the people you serve, or the people you have not reached yet. Built for organisations that need to act on the answer, not file it.
Research consultancy and advisory
The work that happens before fieldwork: what is actually being decided, what evidence would change that decision, and therefore what the study has to measure.
Data analysis and reporting
Cleaning, cross-tabulation and a plain written read of what the data says, in a form you can put in front of a board or a funder.
Survey design and fieldwork for students and researchers
For academic and independent researchers who need a properly constructed instrument and real respondents rather than a convenience sample.
Respondent panelComing soon
Our own Singapore respondent panel is in beta testing. It will open in due course, and it will carry the same quality controls as everything else we run.
Four stages, whether it is twenty respondents or two thousand
The sample size moves the clock, not the method. Every study runs the same way.
Design
We agree what decision the study serves, then build the questionnaire around it. A badly framed question cannot be rescued by a large sample.
Fieldwork
Seven to ten days for a standard study. Start and finish times are recorded on every response, so speeding and straight-lining are visible rather than assumed.
Check and clean
One to two days. Bots, duplicates and low-effort responses come out before anything is counted.
Analyse and report
Two to three days where a written read of the key findings is required. Optional: some clients take the clean dataset and run their own analysis.
Not sure which part you need?
Describe the decision you are facing. We will tell you what evidence would actually move it, and what that would take.
Our work
The questions that are hard to find answers to
How many people use a mobile phone is everywhere. How people actually feel about a policy that affects their household is not.
01
Social data
nobody else
is collecting
Commercial research goes where the budgets are. That leaves the social and community questions, the ones about how people live here, largely unasked.
Those are the questions we take. The organisations that need the answers are often the least able to commission them, which is precisely why we are structured as a social enterprise rather than a conventional research firm.
02 · Study topics
The kind of ground we cover
Topics only. We do not name clients, and nothing that identifies a respondent ever leaves our hands.
Have a topic that nobody has measured?
That is usually where the most useful evidence is sitting.
Contact
Get in touch
Tell us the question you need answered. We will come back with how it would be run, how long it would take and what it would cost.
Enquiry
Details
info@beta-insight.com
Monday to Friday
9am to 6pm SGT
Singapore