Building Surveys That Build Business

Successfully creating and building surveys involves effectively combining a number of elements. These include psychology, strategy, precise writing, a solid survey design and efficient project management. These six steps can help.

‍1. Decide what you want the survey to achieve

‍Your survey’s objective guides the entire survey creation process. Clearly state what you want the survey to achieve, then keep the goal in mind as you write each question.  

‍2. Pick the proper contact method

‍Surveys can be done face-to-face, over the phone, via mail, email or online. As the fastest-growing options, email and online surveys are typically the least expensive to launch. Face-to-face and phone surveys generally work well with open-ended questions, while email or mailed surveys work well with true/false questions and those that involve ratings. Make sure you have proper permission from emailed survey recipients to avoid spam complaints.

‍3. Craft questions with care

‍Developing a survey that is simple and easy to understand can take several months. It generally starts with three steps:

• Creating focus groups to cover issues and establish analytical needs
• Writing the introduction and questions
• Testing the survey and making necessary revisions and adjustments

Conversational, simple language is more effective than abbreviations, slang or industry terminology. Define any complex terms you must use. Also remember to write for your medium, as online questions don’t always work over the phone.

‍4. Take time to categorize questions

‍Questions that have similar structures should be grouped together in sections. Perhaps one section can contain yes-no questions while another is stocked with multiple choice. Place the most interesting or easy questions at the beginning of the survey to draw people in; save the more personal questions for the end.Test questions with a focus group, revising or omitting questions that consistently lead to confusion or take too long to answer.

‍5. Try an incentive

‍Many variables come into play when it comes to predicting how many people may respond to your survey. You may be able to boost response rates by offering an incentive, such as discounts or gifts.

‍6. Engage in proper management

‍Proper project management is essential for a survey to be effective. Pick a survey administrator who is detail-oriented and can efficiently reduce errors, optimize responses, gather the data and present the results.

‍Analyzing survey results

‍Analyzing survey results involves extracting key information and presenting it in a way that relates to your original objectives. Charts, graphs and other visuals can help. Discuss how the results can lead you to improve key areas of your business.The analytical process can be timely and complex, but you don’t have to do it yourself. The market research firm of mTAB can do it for you. mTab is dedicated to amplifying your survey results so you can make the most of research dollars while building a stronger business.