How to Get the Best Results From Your Online Survey
How to plan for the best survey results
Before starting your survey, there are a lot of things to consider.
When you’re in the planning stages of your survey, you need to consider
what question you’re trying to answer. That will influence the questions
in your survey as well as what type of questions the survey will have.
Make sure the purpose is pinpointed accurately before formulating your
questions. If the report will need to be turned into a graph or chart,
that should be considered when forming the survey questions too. 
Decide on what’s important
Each topic that you choose should have a rank that lists the most
important parts of the question at the top. List each question based on
the rank of importance when it comes to answering your base question.
For example, if you’re trying to find out if your new product will be
well-received, the first questions should ask what people think about
that type of product. This will tell you whether the rest of the survey
is relevant or not.
When determining the rank of importance in your list of questions,
don’t provide too much information about the purpose of the survey. It
can create bias that will impact the rest of the questions and skew the
survey results.
What is the demographic profile of your respondent?
You’ll also need to figure out your core demographic. Are you
marketing to children, men under 30 or women over 50? This will
influence the questions you ask, and how you ask them. Children would
need a different set of questions than adults.
Choose your question types carefully
Internet users can have short attention spans. The survey should be
clear and direct. Asking long, essay-like questions can increase the
drop out rate for your survey. Survey respondents like neat, orderly
questions with page breaks and branching to keep them engaged. Branching
will bring the respondents directly to the next appropriate question
based on their answers.
There are many types of survey questions from multiple choice to
rating scales to comment or essay questions. You’ll need to think about
your demographic and the type of answers you need when choosing a
question.
Don’t make it longer than it has to be
Along with short questions, the length of the survey should appeal to
people on the Internet who might skim. While you need answers to your
questions, a serious, lengthy survey can be a turn off for most
respondents. It should take no more than five minutes to complete your
survey. That means limiting the length of your questions as well as how
many you have.
Test your survey — you’ll be glad you did
Once you’ve completed your survey, it’s time to test it with a group
of people who can give you intense feedback. It’s a simple way to see if
the survey works and iron out any kinks in the timing or responses. You
can add a comment section to the testers survey that won’t appear in
the live survey. The test group can provide feedback in the comment
section to help you tweak your survey questions.
Listen to and implement what you learned from the test
When the test group is finished, review their comments and
suggestions and implement any changes before sending out the live survey
to any other groups. Don’t forget to remove the comment section. Take
your time with this part to ensure that the questions are perfect. This
is the last time you’ll be able to change questions. If you change them
in the middle of a project, you’ve skewed the results.
Send the survey when your respondent is online
Your demographic most certainly has a time when they are online.
Single mothers wouldn’t normally be online available for surveys late at
night. If you’re asking questions about whether someone wants to work
for a boss or themselves, you might get a different response on a Friday
compared to a Monday. College students will most likely be unavailable
on a Saturday night. These are things to think about when you release
your survey, especially if you have specific people to which you’re
emailing the survey. Here’s a sneaky tip: Use some of these handy Twitter analytical tools to help you see when your audience is Tweeting the most – and you can send your survey then.
If your survey has complicated questions, is delivered at the wrong
time for your demographic or takes longer than five minutes to complete,
you won’t get the response that you hope to get. Keep this in mind when
preparing and sending out your survey for the best results.
Ivana Taylor is the publisher of DIYMNarketers.com a resource
for entrepreneurs who want do LESS marketing and make MORE money. In
2010 she ranked #21 out of 30,000 influential people on the Internet.
She is the book editor for Small Business Trends, a contributing author
to AMEX Open Forum and has appeared on MSNBC.
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