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Promoting Your Online Survey

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Promoting Your Online Survey

by Martin Day

Having created and published your online survey the next
step is to find the right people to participate in it. How many and
who you specifically target will depend entirely on the
survey subject and your specific objectives.

For some surveys such as employee surveys there is likely to
be natural and available list of respondents, for customer
services there may be both a list and a website that can be
used to promote a survey. Small surveys may only need to be
promoted by word of mouth while others will require
considerable effort to form a sample that will provide you
with good market research data.

With surveys coming in every shape and size and with
objectives that can cover market research, marketing and
education a surveys sample requirements can range from
general to specific as the population is sliced and diced
into categories.

Listed here are a number of methods that can be used either
on their own or in combinations so as to complement one
another.

Email

One of the most popular methods of promoting an online
survey is to send emails that contain a link to the survey
to invited respondents using a mailing list. The mailing
list could be a list of employees as in the case of an
employee survey, a customer list for a customer service
survey or a list of medical students from a college for a
survey targeting medical students.

Although mailing lists can be obtained that target specific
groups or business sectors one must be mindful that a survey
invitation could be perceived by the recipient as being
spam.

Where the objective of the survey is gather feedback, as in
the case of a project post-mortem, it would be feasible as
part of the normal correspondence between business partners
to include an invitation to complete a survey with the
purpose of obtaining valuable feedback.

A method that can be useful for organisations such as
charities who wish to target corporate employees is to make
an inquiry to a large organisations CEO or customer
relations department and ask if they would help promote the
survey using their internal email system.

The advantage with using Email is that it is quick and cost
effective and the distribution of invitations can be well
targeted and controlled.

When sending a large number of email invitations, even if
the technology allows it, try to avoid the temptation to
email them all in one go. It is a good policy to send your
email invitations in batches so that if there are any errors
or problems they are identified early and there is an
opportunity to make corrections with minimal impact.

Website

To complement an email promotion or where a suitable email
list is not available another popular method is to use a
single or multiple website to publicise a survey by having a
link to the survey on the website.

This method is ideal for survey publishers who already have
an active website and where the surveys objective is to
gather feedback from unregistered visitors who will not
appear on mailing lists as well as registered visitors who
probably do.

As an example an online store can gain valuable feedback
from the visitors to their website that do not purchase
anything as well as those who are loyal and regular
customers.

With the practice of purchasing mailing lists being on the
decline specialist websites can sometimes offer the
opportunity for a survey to be publicised to a well target
audience. If for example a survey is aimed at young people
then university websites and websites that specialise in
music and club culture will have a ready source of that
social group that can be tapped into. If the publisher of
a survey does not have any control or access to a suitable
website, and depending on the exact nature of the survey, it
may be possible to request assistance from those websites
that do have the volume of traffic from the target market,
or you may want to consider paying a fee to have the survey
promoted on specialist websites.

Organic Search Engine Listing

It is possible by including a detailed introduction as part
of the survey and making the survey available to search
engines that each search engine will index the survey
allowing the survey to appear in relevant search results.

How successful this method would depends on a lot of
factors and where the publisher has a ready sample source
they may not want the survey to be indexed by search
engines at all.

PPC

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising such as Googles Adwords can
also be used to promote a survey by creating an
advertisement that will be triggered by relevant search
terms providing a method of targeting specific groups.

With the sophisticated PPC facilities you are able target
your promotion on an international, national or regional
basis allowing you to specifically target your geographical
as well as interest group.

Surveys are not always conducted with impartiality in mind
especially when they are conducted for the purpose of
sustaining a particular argument. PPC can be used influence
a seemingly impartial survey by directing it at people who
hold certain views thereby ensuring support, or opposition,
to a particular argument. If the intention is to conduct
impartial market research then when using PPC the search
terms used to trigger the advertisement will need to cover
equally both sides of any argument and serious consideration
should be given as to whether PPC is an appropriate method
of promotion; in some cases it will be, in others it will
most certainly not.

The downside of PPC can be the cost, certainly if your
market research is being conducted with minimal funds and
the promotion is competing for commercial search terms,
however in some cases where the required search terms are
non-commercial the promotion can use search terms that can
be purchased at minimal cost.

Telephone Survey

Many online survey websites like www.surveygalaxy.com
provide a facility to allow online surveys to be conducted
over a telephone where an operator telephones the
respondents and through interviews enters the response
information on behalf of the respondent.

As with email, telephone lists can be purchased and also
like email care should be taken as people are developing a
growing aversion to receiving unsolicited telephone calls.

Telephone interviews can prove very effective especially
where you need to conduct a survey where the results may be
skewed if you relied on a cross section of internet users
only. Although the Internet community now represents a broad
section of the overall community if for example a survey was
concerned with peoples reluctance to get online, obtaining
respondents through online methods would be inappropriate.

Forums

Promoting surveys through forums can prove to be effect.
Since forums by their nature often attract like minded
groups of people matching the right forum with the survey
subject can be very rewarding.

However, one should respect the forum rules and forum
members can regard requests to participate in surveys made
by new members as spamming the forum. Where a person has a
history of using a particular forum they can however gain a
good response from their fellow members who are asked to
participate.

Press Releases

Online press release websites can be used to promote a new
survey and can help the survey to establish a good ranking
for general search engine inquiries.

Blogs

Similar to Forums Blogs also offer an opportunity to promote
a survey. The effectiveness is likely to be directly
proportional to the popularity of the Blog and the subject
matter of the survey. Starting a new Blog to publicise a
survey may not prove effective, but using one that has
already establish an audience is likely to generate a good
response.

Snail Mail

The traditional forms of promotion should not be overlooked
and mail shots using letters to introduce and invite
participants can be very effective for certain types of
surveys.

Posters

Posters can be used to grab the attention and invite
interested parties to participate in a poster. Prominently
displayed in areas frequented by the target audience they
can often have a instant visual impact and give the
opportunity to follow up the visual image with well a
crafted headline.

A good example would be for a survey that is attempting to
research a psychological condition where potential
participants who have experienced certain events in their
lives will not be on any lists and across all social and age
groups. A poster could be displayed in public places such as
transport hubs, hospitals and entertainment venues.

Notice boards

Electronic or physical notice boards can prove to be an
effective method of survey promotion. Notice boards can be
of a general or specific nature and as such can be used to
targeted groups of people Direct Company

Approaching a company directly can enable you to tap into a
ready source of suitable respondents. To avoid spamming a
company it is recommended that permission should be sought
from the specific companys senior management, human
resources or customer relations department.

Events

Sporting events, festivals or trade shows can provide market
researchers with a concentration of like minded people.
However, you should not expect people who are attending such
events will be in the mood or position to respond to
surveys. An effective way to tap into this source of
respondents is to hand out business style cards with a short
explanation as to the objective of the survey and with a
link to the online survey.

The size of the card is important as it can be put in a
pocket easily so that when each potential respondent returns
home they will take time to participate in the survey.

Radio

If access is available to any form of radio, air, digital or
online, an announcement promoting a survey can generate a
good response proportional to the number of listeners.

There are many radio channels to choose ranging from
national, regional, local and specialist channels that
generate audiences that can be categorised by age and
interest.

Street

As with formal events there is an opportunity to target the
general public as they go about their normal business.
Although individuals can be canvassed and asked to complete
surveys there and then handing out business card style
notices requesting them to participate in a survey later
could prove more productive.

On Product Packaging

Products can carry a label with a link back to an online
survey. This would be an ideal way of gathering feedback on
a particular product or it could be used just as a vehicle
for promoting a survey that is unrelated to the product.

On invoices and corporate publications

General correspondence that confirms an action such as an
invoice or delivery note can be used to promote a survey and
thereby gather valuable customer relations feedback.

Incentives

The need to give incentives to people for them to
participate in surveys will very much depend on the subject
and length of the survey. For a short survey you may not
need to offer any incentive but as a general rule the longer
and harder the survey the more incentive is required.

Incentives can be in the form of a payment, vouchers, free
gifts or entry into a prize draw. For some surveys such
incentives might be inappropriate as in the case of an
internal employee survey; for these types of surveys some
incentive may be required to ensure a good and timely
response and they could take the form of an explanation
explaining the benefits of participating in a survey such as
it leading to improvements in the working environment.

About the Author
Martin Day is a Director of Survey Galaxy Ltd a web site that allows anyone to create, design and publish online surveys. Martin has provided survey consultancy for a number of Compliance Officers to help develop internal compliance awareness programmes. For more information please visit http://www.surveygalaxy.com />