The result of the study directly depends on how your questionnaire is drawn up. Thus, a questionnaire incomprehensible to respondents with incorrectly constructed logic will reduce the number of fillings and will not bring the desired result. How to create a questionnaire that will satisfy all the requirements? In this article we will talk about how to draw up a questionnaire correctly so that it not only seems interesting to respondents, but also can gather information on the basis of which useful conclusions could be drawn.
Using Surveys in Internet Marketing
Social surveys have always accompanied those areas of human activity where there are goods and services. Therefore, it is not surprising that in Internet marketing this tool for obtaining answers is widely used in various fields. Here is an example of some:
- consumer market research (checking the popularity of a trend, evaluating purchasing power, etc.);
- assessment of the success of a particular product or service (satisfaction with a particular product, customer survey, etc.);
- study of human resources (assessment of working personnel, analysis of employee motivation, etc.).
Most often, the second survey method is used – questionnaires. Typically, profiles are filled out either before receiving the goods (services), or after purchase.
Laddering is also used for various marketing research. But in this case, a full customer feedback is required (often used as an online consultation).
Using Surveys in Blogging
The blogosphere mainly uses questionnaires – it is very difficult to conduct live communication on blogs. It is easier for a blogger to conduct his research by sending out a questionnaire to his subscribers. Of course, not every respondent will answer the questionnaire. But such a survey option requires an order of magnitude lower costs than conducting research using laddering.
What topics do bloggers most often do their polls on? In my opinion, the most popular studies are the following topics of blogging life:
- assessment of the activities of the blogger, the study of his ability to deliver full content to readers;
- study the functionality of your blog, identify design errors, receive recommendations;
- testing of their information products, research of their consumer value for their customers.
Questioning is carried out in various ways, which I will discuss in more detail in the following articles of this topic. You can see an example of one such questionnaire in the last part of this post.
In the future, all the information on creating a survey on your site will be based on the second method, a survey.
How to make a questionnaire
As I have already said, in the questionnaire method, the most important and difficult question is the moment the questionnaire was created. The interviewer needs to not only understand the topic of the study, but also correctly draw up a questionnaire. Below you will see a number of recommendations and my plan for conducting a questionnaire.
Rules for compiling a survey questionnaire
- The formation of research objectives. Before you create a questionnaire, you need to consider the objectives of the survey. For this, it is necessary to draw up only such questions, the answers to which will give an assessment of the study.
- Brevity is not only the sister of talent, but also the success of the survey. Formulate your questions briefly and succinctly – do not add clarifying phrases when everything is clear from the question itself. They will distract the respondent.
- The consistency of the issues. Veiled and meaningless phrases will lead the opponent away from the real answer. This can confuse the question that is responsible for the cause and effect relationship, which will negatively affect the results of the study.
- The sequence of questions. Keep track of the questionnaire questions. If the survey has an incorrect sequence, the interviewer will receive distorted research information. To prevent this, a simple trick is often used – first they show simple questions, and then increase their complexity.
- One question – one topic. It is better for the respondent to ask only one answer in one question. Then it will be considered the only important one. Otherwise, if there are several topics, the focus on the primary question may go to another.
- No clues. In questions of the questionnaire there should not be obvious clues. Otherwise, the study will not be natural – its answers will lead to a distortion of the results. Only an explanation of a complex issue is allowed.
- Use of open-ended questions. Giving the respondent the opportunity to give his own answer, without choosing from the proposed ones, the study will turn out to be more accurate and complete (covers different sides).
Questionnaire survey procedure
Having thought over the research topic and compiled a list of necessary questions in your head or on paper, you can proceed to the stage of creating the questionnaire. Here is my pattern by which I conduct my anchor surveys:
This plan is used only for anonymous surveys. If the questionnaire requires fixing the details of the study participants, then another item “Registration” appears. He goes immediately after the item “Greeting”.
Also, to create a successful profile, I am guided by the following recommendations:
- questionnaire should not contain spelling errors. Otherwise, the respondents’ confidence in the interviewer falls, which may affect the quality of the research results.
- I give all possible answers to each question. If necessary, add a field for the personal response of the respondent.
- Before publishing, I test the created survey. Usually I read aloud everything that is written in the questionnaire. And also I answer questions of the so-called aerobatics sheet.