Market research enables a company or organization to gather data information about their ideal consumers’ needs, preferences, and opinions. A common tool used in market research is a survey. Surveys are extremely useful tools and can identify several aspects of a target market.
Surveys have many benefits. They are relatively inexpensive compared to focus groups or in-depth interviews (IDIs). Surveys are also versatile, and can be distributed in many ways, online, email, social media, or paper. Surveys can be distributed to a large population easily, providing a large sample size for analysis. Surveys can also be completed with flexibility, since the participants can complete them during a time that is most convenient for them: at lunch, on the couch, on the subway, etc.
Struggling to obtain survey responses for your market research study? Can any of these 5 tips from our market research company help you boost your sample size?
It is apparent that surveys are beneficial for market research, but getting people to respond can be challenging. Our market research company offers 5 ways to get more people to respond to a survey.
1: Offer an incentive.
Participants are more likely to participate in a survey if they will receive something of value for their participation. An incentive can consist of monetary compensation, coupons or discounts on products or services, or a charitable donation.
If an incentive is not an option, it is crucial for the messaging to make them feel special. Wording such as, “We value your opinion,” or “We want to know what you think,” emphasizes their needs, preferences, and opinions are appreciated and valued.
2: Don't waste their time.
Time matters when it comes to responses. Whenever it is possible keep the survey short, sweet, and to the point, and be honest upfront about how long the survey will take. According to a study, 45% of people are willing to spend 5 minutes on a survey, and 33% are willing to spend 10. Think about if you desire 500 responses. It would be easier to accumulate that number of responses if the survey took the participant between 5-10 minutes to complete than if it were 15 minutes.
Another factor to consider is to route the participant according to their responses. For example, if you are conducting a survey on dog food, one of the first question could be, “Do you own a dog?” If the respondent clicks yes, they would continue with the survey. However, if they click no, they would be prompted to the end and thanked for their time.
Not only does this help identify the ideal target market immediately, but it also saves the participant time if they are not an applicable respondent. It avoids the respondent from clicking through questions about dog food and dog products when he or she has never owned a dog.
3: Technological trends say go mobile-friendly.
A survey conducted by Survey Monkey found 91% of people prefer to complete surveys online verses snail mail. In 2018 mobile devices accounted for 49.7% of web page views worldwide, and 3.7 billion people are using a mobile device. Research supports the importance of making surveys mobile-friendly to increase response rates.
Creating and implementing mobile-friendly surveys include using short text, proper formatting, and choosing a mobile-responsive platform, while avoiding long grids and long lists.
4: Make it fun and engaging.
Although surveys are a common method for conducting consumer research, sometimes respondents can find the surveys repetitive and boring. Making a survey fun and engaging will make the respondent more likely to invest in quality answers. Making the survey more fun and engaging can involve changing the wording of questions, using images, or including a progress bar.
5: Make them feel connected to the survey.
Humans are guided by emotions. Studies have shown appealing to emotions is more effective in marketing than demonstrating the features and functionality of a product or service. The same principle will help to increase response rates for a survey.
Again, think about the hypothetical survey mentioned above about dog food. Which do you think would appeal more to a dog owner?
“Take this 5-minute survey about dog food,” or, “We care about your dog as much you do. Please take this 5-minute survey.”
The second example would appeal to a dog owner’s love for their pet, increasingly the likelihood of them wanting to participate in the survey.
Another simple example could include, “We want to end the frustration of long hold times. Please participate in this brief 10-minute survey and help us improve.” Again, this is appealing to human emotion by mentioning wanting to end frustration.
In Summary
Surveys are a powerful tool that is commonly used to gather data. The value of the survey lies within the responses received. For this reason, it becomes crucial that people participate and respond. By utilizing incentives and appealing to emotions, while using a mobile-friendly platform with engaging content that does not waste their time, a company or organization can gather quality data that will lead to better decisions and better strategy.
Contact Us
Drive Research is a market research company located in New York. We work with clients both large and small to develop surveys and collect responses from both customers and non-customers.
We can assist and manage the entire survey process for your team from start to finish including drafting questions, programming the survey online, sending invitations to your customers, collecting responses from customers and non-customers, and completing the analysis and reporting.
Questions about how we can help? Contact us at 315.303.2040 or send us an email at [email protected]. Finally, you can contact us on our website here.