After reading about top tips for writing a market research survey, here is a short checklist for you to follow to make your survey correct and appropriate.
Part I: Write the survey
- The survey answers a question about the product you are launching.
- The survey has a brief introduction.
- You give brief instructions about how to answer the questions.
- You ask for the age and gender of each person you survey.
- Each question asks only for one piece of information.
- The language is clear and simple, not using jargon.
- You do not ask biased or leading questions.
- You can score the answers to the questions.
- The questions move from the easiest to the most difficult.
- You don’t make the list of choices too long.
- Check the spelling and grammar.
- You attach the survey to this sheet and show it to me.
Part II: Clean up and pretest the survey
- Correct all errors from checklist above.
- Give the survey an interesting title.
- Space the questions so the survey looks attractive.
- Pretest your survey on at least 2 people (1 man and 1 woman) and ask them whether they understand each question. Attach comments to this sheet.
- Design an answer sheet so the results can be scored.
Part III: Score Sheet
- Once the survey has been designed, decide how to score it. Attach the score sheet to the survey.
Part IV: Administer the survey
- Where?
- When?
- How? Will you mail it out, hand it out, administer it in person or interview people by telephone? How will you encourage people to complete the survey and how are they to send it back to you? What is an acceptable rate of responses?
- Prepare an introduction and write it, then practice it.
- Give the survey or mail it, or phone, or whatever you decided to do to get the data.
- Enter the data.
- Analyze the data – the results should answer the question.
Part V: Write up the report and/or prepare the presentation
- Who will read the report? A 500 page report with hundreds of tables and graphs can look impressive, but be virtually useless if no one reads it, understands it or knows how to use.
- What will the readers want to know? A good rule of thumb is to strive for simplicity, clarity and brevity.
- Will the findings be expressed better with a graph or two than an essay? Are both necessary? Would a poster and a presentation be the best way to report the results?
- What action should follow from the survey?
- What went wrong? What would you do differently next time if you were to do the survey again?
No matter if you are a sole trader or work in the marketing department of a large multinational company, I hope that now you will be able to conduct the primary market research in the form of survey, and present your findings.
