If you’ve ever run and managed an online survey, you’ve likely spent time worrying about what questions to ask. While the questions are certainly important, you also need to make sure that your survey reaches a lot of people and that you obtain high-quality data.
Over the next few days, we’ll be discussing the importance of:
- Getting your survey out to as many survey-takers as possible. If they don’t see your survey, how can they participate?
- Ensuring that the data you receive is reliable and of good quality. Many surveys become victims of Garbage In, Garbage Out. In other words, poorly designed and distributed surveys return worthless data.
First, let’s talk about data collection. The most important rule is to collect lots of high quality data — the more the better.
Here are some ways to achieve that:
Beat spam filters
If you’re scratching your head wondering why your response rate is so low, keep in mind that people can’t take surveys they don’t receive. The most likely culprit — too many of your survey invitations are ending up in spam filters.
One of the key reasons for survey invitations getting stuck in spam filters is the MX record mismatch. I’ll spare you the technical details, but it’s very likely your current online survey tool has this problem. If your email is being trapped, and your technical support has no idea why, you must relay your email through your own mail server.
Open all channels
It’s essential to have multiple ways to launch your survey. Sogolytics helps you reach a wider audience through the following ways:
- Text message invites allow people to complete their survey on their smartphones,tablets and other mobile devices
- Send Email invites to email addresses you have on record
- Chain invites allow all your participants to send survey invites to up to 10 of their contacts
- Social Media platforms are integrated with our system so that you can publish your surveys on Facebook and Twitter
- Embed a link to your survey in every website that grants you permission
- Send passwords on postcards via snail mail to those for whom you don’t have email addresses
You see the pattern here; it’s best if you can reach your participants every way possible, from wireless to carrier pigeon.
Most survey software platforms don’t offer Chain Invites, SMS Invites or even Social Media Integration, thereby limiting distribution options.
Sogolytics not only lets you collect data using all these channels, we also make it possible for you to analyze the data individually by each channel or by combining all the channels.
Check back tomorrow to learn about leveraging your distribution channels.
