Business Marketing

3 Ways to Improve Your Next Survey

Surveys are all about gathering relevant information that can be utilized to analyze the views of a group of people from a target population.

Conducting surveys helps to determine product or service performance, measure customer loyalty, improve the customer experience, collect product feedback, and develop new products. This is the reason that surveys are used in many areas of life including education, politics, health care, and general business.

You may be wondering about the ways you can create, share, and evaluate your surveys. When conducting the survey, it is important to find out which survey approach will get you closer to your goal.

Here are three approaches that you can use on your surveys. Let’s dive right on in!

1. Include Screening Questions in Your Survey

Getting the right respondents is one of the most crucial parts to make any survey successful. Sometimes you want to know what various groups think about a survey topic. Other times, you may need to know what a selected group thinks about a topic. What do customers think about your services and/or product? Are they satisfied? Do you want to know?

What are the screening questions?

Screening questions are questions that can help you to find out about the person taking the survey, and you can determine if he/she is the right respondent whose opinion can help you. You can ask these questions at the beginning of a survey.

Here’s one example of a screening question:

Let’s suppose you want to know your customers’ opinion about a product. However, as a caveat, you only want to gather opinions from customers who have extensively used your product. As such, using a screening question of, “How long have you used this product?” can help you identify those customers who have used the product for at least 3 months, for example.

Many online survey tools allow you to disqualify the respondents who don’t select the answer you want. For instance, if you want to conduct the survey and are looking for baby boomers as respondents, then consider adding a screening question of “When were you born?” or “How old are you?” Include a series of choices in it, and if the respondent’s answer doesn’t come within the baby boomer range, then their respective data would not be considered within the survey.

2. Use a QR Code to Attract More Survey Respondents

Didn’t get the response rate you wanted during your last survey? If so, then consider using a scannable image (QR code) that is linked directly to your survey. This solution helps you get a lot more attention and also makes it easy for respondents to complete your survey.

Sounds great, right? QR codes help to promote your survey on non-digital platforms. It is visual, effective, and an engaging way to share the survey through flyers, mail campaigns, presentations, and business posters.

You can use QR codes in different ways to tap into different types of audience. Many people are concerned about their privacy, and they want QR codes to be more mainstream. Thus, consider adding QR codes on marketing material, product packaging, on brochures and at events.

3. Involve Open-Ended Questions for Unforeseen Insights

Did you overlook something in your last survey? Are you not satisfied with the results? Did you not get the information that you called for? If so, then consider using an open-ended question from your favorite online survey tool to ask what respondents think about a topic. Open-ended questions can be a great catch-all in case you may have missed something with your survey. However, do keep in mind that open-ended questions typically take longer to analyze and are harder to visualize without a thematic analysis.

The more you try the above-mentioned tactics, the more you will learn how to uncover the data you truly need. Always test different and new strategies by involving several types of questions in the survey and by sending them in different ways, such as email, printed with a QR code, or even on your website.

Do you want help in writing the survey and sending them out? Check out Ambivista’s online survey services to get some help in creating a survey that taps into what you care about the most.

For more information, visit: https://ambivista.com/ 

About the author

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Marcus Bolton

Marcus is a survey expert in an online survey and research firm with an intimate passion for writing informative posts on a variety of subjects. Website: https://www.ambivista.com