The Main Steps in Conducting a Survey - with examples!

Summary

This workshop teaches advanced principles for conducting successful surveys that can enhance your understanding of customers and boost sales. Key topics include creating effective survey questions, avoiding cognitive biases, and using both qualitative and quantitative data. Participants are advised to conduct interviews before crafting surveys, ask neutral questions, maintain survey clarity, and manage participant expectations. The video also discusses how to minimize biases, such as response bias and undercoverage, and how to incentivize survey participation through ethical methods like offering relevant rewards and engaging target audiences via platforms like Facebook groups.

Takeaways

• 😀 Ensure you conduct interviews before creating a survey to identify key areas to focus on.
• 😀 Surveys should balance qualitative (open-ended) and quantitative (specific, objective) questions for well-rounded insights.
• 😀 Avoid leading questions in your survey to ensure unbiased, neutral responses.
• 😀 Ask questions about the future instead of focusing too much on past experiences to avoid bias.
• 😀 Keep surveys simple and avoid jargon to make them easy for respondents to understand.
• 😀 Ask one question at a time to ensure clarity and avoid confusion.
• 😀 Always have a clear goal in mind when creating your survey questions to ensure meaningful results.
• 😀 Avoid overlapping multiple-choice answers to prevent ambiguity and confusion.
• 😀 Provide a neutral response option (e.g., 'I'm not sure') to avoid forcing respondents into a corner.
• 😀 Ensure logical flow in your survey design to make it easy and enjoyable for participants to complete.
• 😀 Use incentives (like vouchers or free PDFs) to encourage survey completion but ensure the incentive aligns with your business.

Q & A

What is the main goal of this workshop?

The goal of the workshop is to teach advanced principles on how to conduct a successful survey, helping you understand your customers and ultimately boost your sales.

Why is it important to conduct interviews before creating a survey?

Conducting interviews before creating a survey helps you gain deeper insights into your audience's thoughts and behaviors, ensuring that the survey questions you create are well-informed and relevant.

What is the difference between qualitative and quantitative questions in surveys?

Qualitative questions are open-ended and subjective, allowing for in-depth, non-statistical responses, while quantitative questions are more objective and measurable, allowing for statistical analysis and generalization.

What is a leading question, and why should it be avoided in surveys?

A leading question is one that suggests a specific answer, thereby influencing the respondent's reply. It should be avoided to maintain the integrity and neutrality of survey responses.

How can you avoid cognitive bias in survey responses?

You can avoid cognitive bias by asking neutral, clear, and non-leading questions, ensuring a diverse and representative sample, and being aware of biases like response bias, under-coverage, and voluntary response sampling.

What are some tips for asking effective survey questions?

Key tips include avoiding leading questions, keeping the survey simple, asking one question at a time, ensuring each question has a clear objective, and providing neutral options like 'unsure' to avoid forcing answers.

What are the three types of cognitive bias discussed in the script?

The three types of cognitive bias discussed are: response bias (influenced by the way questions are framed), under-coverage bias (when certain population segments are underrepresented), and voluntary response bias (when survey participants are self-selected, leading to a skewed sample).

Why is it important to manage expectations at the start of your survey?

Managing expectations at the beginning of a survey, such as informing participants about the expected completion time, helps increase response rates and ensures a higher completion rate, especially for shorter surveys.

What is one way to ensure a diverse and unbiased participant sample for your survey?

One way is to screen participants by asking questions to ensure they fit your target demographic and have a genuine interest in your product or service, rather than just using family and friends who may have biased opinions.

How can offering incentives help increase survey participation?

Offering incentives, such as gift vouchers or free resources, motivates participants to complete the survey, but it’s important that the incentive is relevant to your business to ensure you're attracting the right audience.