“If you haven’t asked the question, how will you know the answer?” That saying is a concise summation of the foundation behind conducting a survey to find out information about your customers.
However, survey research is not as simple as asking questions: The correct questions must be asked of the right people. You must first decide what information you want to gather, which then guides you to choosing what questions to ask, how to ask those questions, and of whom.
This article will discuss:
- When conducting a survey is required;
- Offer tips on survey design;
- Explore how to integrate survey results into marketing and PR activities.
When a Survey Is Useful
Generally speaking, surveys are conducted for at least one of three reasons:
- Describe a population
- Explain behavior or attitudes, or
- Explore/discover new, relevant topics.
Goal
The first step is always to establish the goal of that particular survey: what you want to know – like finding more about users, their perception of a product(s), or their requirements and/or the environment in which that particular product will operate.
The topic can be narrowed further to possible questions on who are potential users, how existing customers feel about a certain product, or what the most important issues are when deciding to buy an item in this product category.
Sample and Process
Once a decision is made on the goal, you can then decide on who are the best people to survey. You need to be mindful of biases, such as those of people attending an exhibition, stopping by your booth, and agreeing to take part in the survey. Perhaps a telephone survey by an outside firm would find more precise responses as it would be an independent study that would be perceived by participants as more objective.
Obviously, budget and time issues must be taken into account, as well, and an outside firm route is more pricey than the tradeshow option.
Some surveys may require a collection of data over time (e.g., “How have attitudes toward the Cloud changed over the past year?”). In this case, the respondents would need to complete the same or a similar survey numerous times if you’re going to see whether knowledge or attitudes has changed and the reasons for that change.
There is also the question of how many candidates to survey and the number may impact the validity of results as it would be too expensive, time-consuming, and generally pointless to ask everyone in the market about your product. The quality of data collected from a more focused sample is more precise because you just ask, for example, those individuals who are interested in, experienced about, or targets for your product.
The goal is to find people to survey who represent a cross-section of the total population. If everyone were just the same, only one person would be needed to survey.
Without going into mathematical and scientific discussions on determining sample size, the key is to define a high-enough confidence level and accuracy of representation.
Survey Design
Survey design discussions have filled numerous textbooks. The most significant takeaway is that the queries should be clear and unambiguous to the respondent if they are to provide responses that will be useful to people conducting the research.
For example, avoid questions such as Agree/Disagree with “Purchasing this product will enable my company to expand into new zones, garner extra revenues, and be more respected by employees.” Respondents may not understand whether “new areas” means geographic areas or product lines; moreover, you will not be aware of whether the agreement/disagreement has to do with new zones, revenues, or respect.
During phone or in-person survey, the person administering the study must neither offer any assistance on the questions nor any opinion on the responses given.
How to Incorporate Survey Results
Once the data has been gathered and converted into conclusions and information, it can be used for marketing and PR objectives, and broken down to be used in various formats and for several purposes, such as:
- Sales presentations
- Press releases
- Whitepapers
- Webinars formal reports
- Infographics, etc.
The information can be divided by topic with one report covering motivation for migrating to new services or products, for example, and another examining cost issues related to the migration.
Any text should include visuals such as graphs and charts that clearly display the most important results.
On the marketing side, the conclusions established can be used for business decisions that include product pricing, introductions, branding and messaging. The information should not completely direct decisions, but it can be joined with overall company direction and market needs.
If designed collected and reported correctly, survey research is an extremely valuable tool for gathering information about customers, their attitudes, and market drivers as well as challenges.
When questions are designed correctly and the respondents are cautiously chosen to avoid misrepresentation or biases of the overall population, valuable results will follow. Questions and goals must be clear and concise to avoid being led down the wrong path.
Whether you receive anticipated responses and trends—or not—conducting a survey can be very informative and useful for your marketing, PR, and overall business strategies.
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