Tip 1: Consider Your Objectives

Before writing your survey, think about the key things you hope to learn. Craft your objectives as a set of questions the survey data should answer, such as:

1. How do I compare to my competition in terms of service and product quality?
2. Which of these new ideas do my constituents like best?
3. Which potential customer segment would be most lucrative to pursue?

Once identified, visualize the reports you want to create from the survey results. In doing so you’ll ensure you collect all the data needed for analysis.

Tip 2: Outline Your Survey

Next, think about the questions needed to create your desired data. List the questions in a logical order for your respondents. Build a cohesive dialogue that leads them to the answers you seek. It will be critical to get the right people to the right questions. If using skip patterns (aka branching) in your survey, take yourself through every scenario to see if they make sense and get you the data you need.

Tip 3: Know Your Audience

Think about what your respondents know and don’t know at each point in the survey. This helps ensure they see only relevant questions. Also, prior to composing your questions, you should consider:

1. How intelligent are my survey takers?
2. What is their level of affluence and/or education?
3. How well do they understand this particular topic?

Avoid a common error among researchers: don’t assume a survey taker’s knowledge or expertise is equal to yours. Questions you compose may need to be written in layman’s terms, or else you may risk alienating people.

Tip 4: Create Clear and Concise Questions

When composing questions, get specific and get to the point quickly. Provide only the context necessary to allow for informed answers. Tips to improve questions include:

1. Ask direct questions such as “Do you like…” and “Which of these have you ever…”
2. Avoid nuances, and wording that might be interpreted differently given different perspectives and experiences
3. Eliminate leading questions that would influence a survey taker’s mindset and introduce bias
4. Provide balanced rating scales, with either a Neutral selection or a Don’t Know
5. Provide focused answer lists, including only the key items of interest to you
6. Embrace the use of an “Other” answer sequence rather than listing all possible answers (as many will be irrelevant from a business standpoint anyway)

Beyond that, always assume your survey takers are begrudgingly taking your survey – and if that’s true, that’s good! Your goal is to keep everyone interested in your survey until the very end – not just those who may be more “invested” in the subject matter.

Tip 5: Engage Your Audience

The success or failure of your survey (and potentially your business decisions) relies on getting the right data. Once your objectives and question sets are clear, the final step is gathering info from the widest possible cross-section of your audience. Creating strong engagement is invaluable here.

It takes lots of effort to execute a survey, plus considerable time from hundreds (if not thousands) of people. To make the most of this, put yourself in the shoes of the survey taker… would you complete this survey? If the answer is ‘no’ then you may want to rethink your strategy – you likely care a lot more about your topic than they do!

Engagement hinges on many things, but following all of the guidance above outlines a path and provides solid first steps. Some other items to consider along the way include:

1. To help connect with your audience, use a casual or conversational tone. When doing so, make sure there’s no room for misinterpretation (don’t introduce bias).
2. Watch the use of colloquialisms. In some cases they can enhance engagement, but if your audience lacks familiarity they will be a turn-off.
3. Keep text short. Long paragraphs are sure to lead to survey dropouts.
4. Keep answer lists relevant and concise (for the same reason).
5. Always allow an “out” answer selection so you don’t frustrate a survey taker (such as Not Applicable or Don’t Know).
6. At all times, be relevant! Ask the right questions, of the right people, in the right way.

Surveys range from the “short and sweet” to the “long and complex.” Regardless of type, to be successful you need to get out of your head and consider the perspective(s) of your survey audience. By keeping them engaged, you’ll do three key things:

1. Potentially reduce your costs by requiring fewer invitations to get your desired completes
2. Produce better data by retaining survey takers that might have quit otherwise
3. Obtain better insights since engagement leads to more thoughtful responses

The end result will be the widest “read” and most representative data from which to draw conclusions.

The old adage holds true in survey research as much as anywhere else: garbage in, garbage out. The five items above will take you a long way to achieving survey success.