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| Online Surveys - They Work Like Magic
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| by David Ehrlich, President, Track Marketing Group |
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| An online survey is an excellent tool to quickly gather information and better understand your member's needs, concerns, and desires. As members see you actively solicit their feedback, you will gain a competitive advantage.
If members can complain to you directly, they're less likely to vent to others. Furthermore, if you respond to complaints, you build incredibly strong member loyalty. On the positive side, many of the most innovative ideas in business came from customer input. Are you listening to your members? If not, someone else will. |
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| Representative Sample
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One common question about online surveys is "are we getting a representative sample?" If you have email addresses for most members you can safely go all electronic.
The risk is skewing your results toward the attitudes of members with known email addresses. To avoid a potential bias due to the non-random selection of members with know email addresses, consider inviting members via non-electronic methods as well. A simple option is to mail a post card inviting members to take the survey on the web. In this case, your risk is a bias based on people who are more comfortable with technology. Least risky is to give people an alternate non-web option for responding such as mail or fax.
We've mailed surveys to members selected at random and offered people the option to respond via web, fax, or US mail. This reduced cost (no data entry on web responses) and provided a higher response. It also gave the client an early draft of results since the web responses came in very fast - many the first day!
The issue of bias in your sample is dependent on what your survey is being used for -- to analyze needs of all members vs. getting the pulse of the issues of the day. If you look at your population relative to their overall comfort and use of technology, then you can decide how much of an issue web bias will be for your specific membership. |
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| Respondent Profile |
| Members with strong attitudes are more likely to respond (complaints or complements). As you increase the incentive, you will start hearing from less passionate members who might not have responded except for the gift/contest. Your results may not change dramatically since these respondents are more likely to score you as average. Additionally, they are less likely to write comments if they're primary motivated by the incentive.
On the web, people have a perception of anonymity and will generally type their thoughts with little restraint. Since you hear directly from the member without any filtering from a person, your feedback may be more candid than a phone interview. |
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| Sample Size |
| When determining a valid sample size, focus on response count rather than percentage. If you hear from 300 people randomly selected, you're in a strong position to determine what most members think about the survey topic. While a survey of US adults could be based on a small group of 1,000, we feel that the information you gain from a sample of even 100 is helpful.
For one member survey, we email invited a population of over 20,000. As we received the results we noticed that the average score did not vary significantly as the responses grew past 300. In this case, our total responses exceeded 1,000 - and in theory the first 300 gave us good insight into the member's feelings toward the survey subject matter. Of course as the responses grew, we received more feedback from open-ended questions and felt more confident stating how "all members" felt about the topic.
If there is a specific member concern shared by many members, you will likely hear about it after the first handful of responses. As you see more reference to a specific problem, you know it is a hot issue likely experienced by others. |
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| Increasing Response Rate |
If you desire to increase your response rate, consider the following:
Email Plus - in general, email invitations get the highest response. Since members are online, they can click on a link to easily respond at their convenience. Also, it's easy to forward the email to the right person. Offering email, fax, and US mail options will increase the response rate. To avoid multiple responses from the same member, add a code to the invite and ask for the code on the web survey. This also allows you to link responses to your database information for marketing or to cross-tab the results with demographic data.
One other factor with email is the concern about web links causing a virus. You can build the survey into the email body or provide the invitation via a method trusted by members -- such as a newsletter or link from your home page.
Reminder Notice & Deadline - a second email and/or fax can be used to remind people that it's not too late. A deadline will prompt a timely response.
Incentive - a prize for all who respond is one option (e.g., t-shirt). A contest with a high dollar gift (such as $300 given to one random winner) will increase the response rate and is cost effective in terms of cost per respondent. You can make the contest entry independent from the survey so people can remain anonymous (simply add contest entry as a link from survey thank-you page).
Number of Questions - in general, the more questions you ask on your survey, the lower the response rate. Only ask what you feel you need to know and will find useful.
Market Everywhere - promote survey on invoices, newsletters, and links from your web site.
Link to Action - consider linking your survey to an online experience such as ordering a product or signing up for a conference on your web site. This way, the experience is fresh in the mind of the person. |
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| Share Your Results |
| Send a thank - you email to all that respond. You can promote something related to the survey topic. A bonus to you - people will read this email to see if they won the contest.
Measure trends over time to see improvements or areas of weakness. Consider sharing summary of survey results to all members. Surveys work like magic - they benefit all members and your organization, including those who didn't take the survey and people love to talk - so give them the option. |
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