A survey platform can be used for a variety of purposes, including market research, customer satisfaction surveys, employee engagement surveys, and political polls. Surveys can be used to gather information about demographics, opinions, behaviours, and preferences. The results of a survey can be analysed to identify trends, patterns, and insights that can inform business decisions, product development, and marketing strategies.
Precisely for this reason, surveys are increasingly used for business, both by large companies and small local companies. Creating a survey for business typically involves several steps, and you need the help of a survey platform to do a good job. IdSurvey is a professional survey platform that allows you to create customised questionnaires based on the target audience and provides various data analysis tools.
Here’s how to create a professional survey for companies step by step.
Define the goals and objectives of the survey
Defining the goals and objectives of a survey is an important step in creating the right questions with a survey platform. This step helps to guide the development of the survey questions and determine the overall purpose of the survey.
Identify the problem or issue you want to investigate, this could be anything from customer satisfaction with a product or service to employee engagement within a company.
Based on the problem or issue you want to investigate, determine the specific information you need to collect through the survey. This could include demographic information, opinions, behaviours, or preferences.
Once you know what information you need to collect, define specific objectives for the survey. These objectives should be clear and measurable, such as “to determine customer satisfaction with a product” or “to identify areas for improvement in employee engagement.”
Write research questions that are specific and measurable and that address the objectives of the survey.
Determine the target audience
Determining the target audience of a survey is an important step in creating an effective survey. The “target audience” is the group of people that the survey is intended to reach and from whom you will collect data.
Define the characteristics of the target audience. This could include demographic information such as age, gender, income, education level, location, etc.
Consider the context of the survey and how it relates to the target audience. For example, if you are conducting a survey on customer satisfaction with a product, the target audience would be people who have purchased the product.
Decide on the sample size, or the number of people you want to survey, based on the target audience. Keep in mind that a larger sample size will provide more accurate results, but it also increases the cost of the survey.
Identify the best method to reach the target audience, whether it’s through online surveys, in-person surveys, phone surveys, or mail surveys.
Develop the survey questions with a survey platform
Developing effective survey questions is an important step in creating a successful survey. Survey questions should be clear, unbiased and focused on the goals and objectives of the survey. Here are some steps to help you develop survey questions:
Review the survey objectives to ensure that the questions align with the overall aim of the survey.
Decide on the type of questions to use, such as multiple choice, open-ended, or rating scale questions. Each type of question has its own advantages and disadvantages and will elicit different types of data.
Make sure that the questions are clear and concise, easy to understand, and avoid using jargon or technical terms.
Avoid leading or biassed questions that may influence the respondent’s answer, use neutral language and wordings that do not imply any particular answer.
After developing the survey you will have to carry out a test to see if it works and if the feedback is positive, then you can start distributing it on multiple channels, to be chosen according to the target you want to conquer.
Sponsor the survey
To be able to find target people with your survey, you need to use the right platforms. Online surveys are easier to sponsor because you can use social media and search engines to get the attention of the right audience. Not all social media are the same, on the contrary, they have very different characteristics. For example, Tik Tok is used by a young target, while Facebook is used by older generations.
To sponsor a survey, you can follow these general steps:
Identify a reputable organisation or individual that conducts surveys related to your area of interest.
Contact the organisation or individual to discuss your research objectives and the scope of the survey you would like to sponsor.
Negotiate the terms of the sponsorship agreement, including the budget, timeline, and specific research objectives. Provide the agreed-upon funding to the organisation or individual.
Monitor the progress of the survey and provide feedback as needed. Receive the final results of the survey and analyse the insights gained.
However, surveys can also be advertised via newsletters, the website, a blog or by telephone or in paper form via flyers. There is no way that is more correct than another, however it is important to create a strategy in advance to understand whether it is you want to opt for online marketing or offline marketing. Online marketing has different costs and methods than offline marketing.
Both can also be used, the important thing is to consider the budget available and the objectives to be achieved in order to have good results.
Analyse the results
Analysing the results of a survey is an important step in understanding the data collected and making decisions based on that data. Here are some steps to help you analyse the survey results:
Check the data for errors, such as missing values or inconsistent responses.
Clean the data by removing outliers, correcting errors, and ensuring that the data is in a consistent format.
Use descriptive statistics, such as mean, median, and standard deviation to summarise the data and get a general understanding of the results.
Create visualisations, such as charts, graphs, and tables to help understand the data and identify patterns or trends. Communicate the results of the survey to stakeholders, such as management, employees, or customers.
By following these steps, you can ensure that the survey data is accurate and reliable, and that the results are easily understood. It is also important to consider the limitations of the survey and how the results can be generalised to the population.
David Prior
David Prior is the editor of Today News, responsible for the overall editorial strategy. He is an NCTJ-qualified journalist with over 20 years’ experience, and is also editor of the award-winning hyperlocal news title Altrincham Today. His LinkedIn profile is here.
