Lessons Learned on Surveys

 

1.

People will help if you ask correctly

2.

People will offer great insight into their pains and needs if the right questions are asked

3.

This can be a great prospecting and list building process

4.

There are better survey tools available for surveys than Survey Monkey

People like helping other people. Especially when they get to share their expertise. However, they have many things

competing for their time so you must keep this in mind when designing a survey. Keep the survey short and to the point.

Tell them up front that this is a short 1 page survey with only 5 questions and that it should only take them 2 minutes to

complete. If your purpose is noble and if you have something to offer them in return, you will get better results.

To help with c

onversions, the top of the survey told the person viewing the page what we are trying to accomplish and

what we will give them in return

. Notice how I am coming at it from their perspective.

Thanks for participating in this short, one

-

page survey (< 5 mins

). This is to research what applications

accounting professionals like you need most, and what's missing for efficient workflow. We are

currently working on a product to fill these important needs, but want to hear from YOU before we

roll it out so it will

be the best tool you can use in your practice.

In appreciation for your input, we will send you a summary of the survey results. We'll also give you

the opportunity to be a beta tester, as well as get 60

-

days free on the finished application, if desired.

With one email to a friend’s list, I had 96 responses to the survey in 2 days. In addition to the wording on the survey, the

email she sent pre

-

sold the survey and her list trusted her. I was amazed, not just at the response, but how open the

people were

to sharing their needs. While you may want some structured questions with predefined answers, be sure to

allow at least one open question where they can tell you their problems or what they want. I got lots of great answers to

my 2 open ended questions.

On

the next page is the survey I ran. Note that it is 2 pages. I know, I told them it is a single page survey. I didn’t lie,

because they only see one page if they do not want any of the items I offered. Using this approach there is no mention

of an email ad

dress on the first page so people won’t resist taking the survey because they think they have to give up an

email address. However, if they desire any of the items I offered as an incentive, I need an email address to deliver it.

That is where page 2 comes

in.

If they answer yes to question 5, they will see page 2 which asks for name and email address. Note the explanation for

why the email address is needed.

95% of the people responding to this survey wanted at least one of the incentives and

gave me their

name and email address. This means that I now have 92 people added to my list that want the survey

results and want to hear about the progress of the project. I think I need to do this a few more times.

When I researched survey tools, I found a wide varie

ty of price and functionality. At the low end, Survey Monkey is a

popular name. In my research, I came across one called

survs

. As well as having all the needed functionality which

included the ability to add branching lo

gic, it had a great price. I signed up for a year of unlimited responses for $190.

They have a free plan that may suit many and allows double the number of responses of Survey Monkey, so I would

suggest giving them a try.

My one regret is that I did not ask for company size. As a consequence, I can

’

t validate that the firms most resistant to

spending were the real small firms

or segment the market. I

’

ll fix that for the next survey.