What is a Successful Survey Project? (Hint: It’s not just the data)

I bet you already know why you need to run a survey. Well, great — this step is done; just write it down on a sticky pad or a white board.

Refer to this purpose behind the campaign over the next few steps when deciding what questions to ask and what you can do with your data. If you are working on a team, make sure everyone has a copy of this goal (in written format, unless you work with telepaths).

Big Organization Tip: If you are going to be working with upper management or multiple departments, it’s a good idea to get their buy-in to this goal at the beginning. It sets expectations and makes it easier to push back on late additions to your survey during testing and design.

This is a huge question. Your answer has to be specific and should lend itself toward a direct and feasible action. For example:

A. We will decide which new website feature to concentrate on first. (good)
B. We will learn what our customers want out of our website. (bad)
C. Learn why people are leaving our website without buying anything. (bad)
D. Tell IT what parts of our online store to change to reduce abandoned shopping carts. (good)
C. We will send customers who are ready to buy to sales, those that are not will get another marketing message in 3 months. (good)
D. We will produce an executive summary for marketing and compile the other information into a research guide. (good)

So why is (b) so bad? It sounds like an admirable goal, right? Well, compare it to (a), which states what action you are going to take with the data you collect. Learning for the sake of learning is admirable – but learning something with the intent to act on it is far more practical.

Keep the actions you are planning as realistic as possible with the resources allocated for your project. If your actions involve other departments or teams – make sure you get buy-in from them at this point.

This is a great time to build a decision tree, which will outline what actions will be most effective based on your data. That way you can present a clear action plan based on your data quickly when the results come in.

Again, this part of the plan, while important, does not have to take more than a few minutes.

Design your survey questions (refer to our website for design tips) and build your survey carefully. You should do impromptu testing while building your survey and keep an eye out for ‘hang-ups” that might lead to abandonment.

If you are using other elements in your research (email blasts, auto-responders, text messages, etc), you should get these designed and ready too.

Ideally this is not a group effort – or at least not a large group. We suggest you place a single person in charge, and they need to have the authority to say “no” (politely) when upper management asks them to add questions into your project that are unrelated to your goal.

For the love of all things holy, please test your process before you launch it! If it means delaying a Thursday email blast until Monday – do it.

Your testing should be as complete as possible. Invite co-workers, family, friends or a small population from your actual target list to take your survey and submit feedback.

Test your Message: Send your email invite or web-invitation. If you are doing a print survey, get a sample from the printer. Let other people proof the copy and message for errors and comprehension.
Test the Survey: Check required questions, field formatting and survey logic.
Test your Data: Look at your data in an export and in your reporting suite. Make sure you can produce the charts and datasets you need to act on.
Test your follow-through: If you are doing immediate follow-ups make sure your notification system works and those individuals responsible for the follow-ups are prepared to act on them.
The final go-ahead: Does the data you collect meet the needs of your goal and provide you with enough information to make informed decisions which you can act on immediately? If so, you are clear for launch!

Fix any problems you encounter. If you encountered more than a few, you should test repeatedly.

At this point all your dominos should be lined up and waiting for the flick of your finger. Once you launch you should monitor your initial results and follow-up actions closely.

You should have seeds in your invite list. Do quality control checks periodically as your survey is running. If you are running a continuous (or long term) project — this should become part of your weekly routine.

When you have enough information collected in your survey for statistically valid results, you should begin running reports and looking for answers to your goal questions. Tip: try not to run reports before you have enough data – you might get excited about random patterns that appear in small data sets.

When you prepare your findings, concentrate on the goals you set in step 2. Center your report on your action items and recommend the action-plan best supported by your data. There is usually is no need to include extra data – especially if you are preparing an executive summary.

You have collected your research; you have analyzed the results and should have come to a conclusion. That wasn’t too bad…. and it’s all over, right?

Ah, no. Sadly the work is just beginning, but thankfully it might not be you who has to do all of it! Now that you have your conclusion it’s time to act on it – which should be easy, because in step 2 you designed an action plan to go along with your results!

In many cases these action plans will involve other people – so be prepared to follow up with folks who receive your report. A little gentle nudging will help get the ball rolling.