Understanding survey data and results is one of the most important steps in the survey process. But before you even begin your analysis, you must have a sufficient number of responses to ensure meaningful statistics. You may realize from the responses to demographic questions that you’re not reaching your desired population.

As you create each survey, it’s important to spend time thinking about the exact identity of your target audience. Another thing to remember is that your survey results will only be as good as the questions you ask. If your questions are weakly worded and constructed, you will likely find that your data is not very useful.

Open-ended questions will provide you with some of the most valuable feedback. But keep in mind that you will need a large number of responses to magnify trends; one or two comments likely do not reflect the majority opinion of your respondents.