May 20, 2005, Newsletter Issue #100: Surveys Done Right: 5 Tips For Good Response

Tip of the Week

E-communications is all about interacting with your audience and providing them with news and information that they want and value. With e-communications services like those offered by eNews Builder, you can learn what your readers are looking for in an indirect way by analyzing the extensive activity reports provided. You can also get this information in a more direct way, simply by asking your readers to tell you what they think in a survey. eNews Builder offers you the opportunity to survey your audience in two ways – either the format of a quick poll (for a single question) or a questionnaire (for multiple questions).

For the Best Results…

You may have tried surveys before, but were disappointed with the results. The problem might lie not with those who are responding but in how the questions were asked. If you have had the opportunity to work with a research firm before, you know there are proven techniques that researchers use to build the questionnaires in order to get the best response. We’ve taken some of the best survey practices and put them into the tips below so that you can start getting the results you want from your surveys.



Choose the type of question you ask carefully.
Ask yourself this question before you start putting your poll together: Is the question important to you…or to your readers? In a good survey, the answer to this question is both. If you ask a question that is really important to your company, but it is of relatively little interest to the reader, then you can bet you won’t get many answers. If, however, you ask a question that is important to both you and your readers, you should get a decent response and the information that you are looking for.

Write the question carefully.
A question that isn’t asked properly is a missed opportunity. You want to ask the question in a manner that elicits responses that are meaningful to you. For instance, if you want to know if people are going to be spending more in 2005 on products like yours, you could ask, “Are you going to be spending more in 2005?” or you could ask, “Is your budget for xyx products going to increase in 2005?” Using the first question, you may learn they are going to be spending more but you won’t know on what and with whom. In the second example, a single well-written question yields a much more specific and valuable result since you now will know if they are going to be spending more on products like yours. Adding qualifiers like in the second question also helps the reader understand what you are really asking and there is little room for misinterpretation.

Choose the answers wisely.
Taking the question on spending a step further, wouldn’t it be more helpful to you to know how much of an increase in budget will occur, rather than just knowing that there will be some sort of increase? For example, if you rephrase the question above to this: “How much do you anticipate that your budget for xyz product will increase in 2005?” and then list categories of percentages (such as 0-25%, 26% to 50%, etc.), you will have a very clear vision of whether there will be a nominal increase in budget or a substantial one for your product category.

Think succinctly.
Like with any e-communications, you want to build your questions and answers in the most succinct manner possible. Using a few carefully chosen words will provide you with more success than lengthy questions. Once again taking the example above, you could shorten the question to this: “What is your 2005 budget increase for xyz product?” The word count in the second question has decreased from 14 to 9, with over 20 less characters…which, in the online world, could make the difference in whether or not you get a response.

Increase your response by incenting your reader.
If you have a very loyal, interested audience, then you should experience good response rates from your surveys. But if you have a diverse group of readers and need to work a little harder to capture their attention, you might want to think about adding an incentive to the survey. You can set up the survey so that every person who responds gets something, or you set it up so that those that respond get put into a drawing for a larger, more valuable prize. For instance, with one eNews Builder survey, we offered an iPod as a prize in a drawing. In another survey, we had a drawing for an industry report. These incentives caused our response rates to increase by up to 1000%, so if you are serious about gathering information from your readers, they are well worth the investment.

Bonus Tips!

Now that you understand how to put together a good survey, you might consider these other options along the way:


Have fun occasionally and think outside the box! If you have a newsletter that is more instructional and informative than entertaining, you might want to occasionally insert a poll that is lighthearted. For fun, you could ask a general interest question such as “Who do you think is going to win the SuperBowl in 2006?” Or, you could use a poll for a more meaningful issue, such as the poll we ran last month regarding our readers’ favorite charity. We let you pick who would benefit from our holiday contribution. Both of these surveys continue to keep readers engaged and add another dimension to your newsletter.


Use your survey as a sales tool. Finally, keep in mind that with the eNews Builder reports, you are able to see how people are responding to surveys right down to the subscriber level. So if you ask people what new potential products are of interest to them, you are in a sense creating a database of future prospects for those products when you introduce them. Upon their release, you can send an introductory e-communication to those that indicated interest and begin to engage them in a sales cycle.

With these handy tips, you will now be able to develop surveys that are effective and meaningful. Why not try one in your next issue?

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