6 Simple Strategies to Create an Effective Online Survey

Are you trying to get feedback from your customers? Are you trying to find out what your employees think about your organization? Or simply want to launch market research?

Whether you are a business owner trying to get a review of your product or services from your customers, or an organization trying to know what your employees want, or a professional doing some research - launching an online survey is one of the best ways to get data and valuable insights.?

But what if this is your first time creating one? Or you’ve been doing it for quite some time now, but you failed to get the data and insights you needed?

Launching a survey is not just about creating a bunch of questions and sharing them with everyone on the internet.?

To get meaningful responses and actionable results from your survey, you need careful planning, thoughtful design, and strategic implementation.?

Here are some simple strategies that you need to follow to make sure that your online survey yields valuable insights and drives positive outcomes.

1. Define your goals and objectives

Before creating an online survey, you need to be clear about your objectives. To help you with this, ask yourself the following questions.?

• What specific information or data do I need to collect?
• Who is your target audience?
• What do you want to learn from them?

By asking some of these questions, you will be able to identify and organize your survey questions as well as have a clear understanding of the possible outcome that it may yield.?

So take time to analyze what you want from launching an online survey.?

2. Design the survey structure

Whilst creating a bunch of random questions seems like an easy-to-do task, it can affect the outcome that you want to have. You need a well-structured survey to yield accurate and relevant data. Here are the things that you need to consider when structuring your survey questions:

• Introduction: Start with a brief introduction (1 to 2 sentences) about the purpose of your survey, how the data will be used and the assurances of anonymity and confidentiality. This is very important to set the expectations of your respondents as well as their confidence in answering your survey questions.?

• Question flow: You need to organize your questions logically. Start with simple, non-invasive questions before moving to more complex or personal ones. You can also skip logic or tailor the survey experience based on the respondent’s previous answers.?

• Question types: Choose question types based on your objectives. You can use multiple-choice, rating scales, open-ended, or matrix questions. You can also mix different question formats to keep your respondents more engaged.?

• Ideal length: Keep your survey simple and concise to present respondent fatigue. Ideally, your survey should not take more than 5 to 10 minutes to complete. If ever you need to launch a very long survey, make sure to use a progress bar to set expectations from your respondents. You can also give them some bonuses or freebies to keep them engaged in finishing the survey.?

3. Creating clear and concise questions

Another key to creating a successful online survey is creating clear and concise questions. This can also impact the quality of data that you will gather. Here are some of the things that you need to consider when creating clear and concise survey questions:

• Clarity: Clarity is very important with online surveys, which is why you need to use unambiguous language to avoid confusion or misinterpretation. Also, as much as possible keep your sentences short and simple.?

• Relevance: Every survey question should be directly related to your research objectives. It is important to avoid asking extraneous or leading questions that may just take time or yield confusing results.?

• Avoid biases: It is also critical to phrase your questions neutrally to prevent biasing respondents’ answers. Thus, be always mindful of your language which may influence their responses.?
• Avoid double-barreled questions: Each question should address only one issue to ensure clarity as well as accuracy of result. Also, a double-barreled question can confuse your respondents and discourage them from completing the survey.?

4. Design an appealing survey

Did you know that a visually appealing and user-friendly interface can greatly affect the result of your survey? Thus you need to take time in designing your survey to enhance respondent experience and encourage participation. Here are some things that you need to consider when designing an online survey.?

• Layout: Use a clean layout with enough white space to reduce cognitive load. You don’t want to distract your respondents with design elements that don’t directly relate to the survey. Also, group related questions together and use consistent formatting throughout the survey.?

• Branding: Don’t forget to incorporate your brand colors, logo, and imagery to reinforce your brand identity and credibility as well as brand awareness.?

• Mobile friendly: Make sure your survey is mobile-responsive to accommodate respondents accessing it from different devices.?

**Looking for an online survey builder that offers customized branding, is mobile-optimized, and is easy to use? Check out this top list of free online survey builders in 2024. ?

5. Pre-testing

Another critical thing that you need to remember when launching a survey is pre-testing it. Pre-testing allows you to identify potential issues or ambiguities. To pre-test, try to invite a small sample of participants to complete the survey and provide feedback on clarity, relevance and usability.?

6. Launch and analyze

Once you have checked and pre-tested your survey, you are now ready to launch it to your target audience. Depending on your target respondents, you can launch and share your survey on multiple channels such as email, social media, text, or website pop-ups.?

After you’ve launched your survey, collect responses and analyze the data results. You can use different statistical methods and visualization to better understand the results and extra actionable insights.?

Launch online survey within minutes

Looking for an easy-to-use and intuitive online survey? A game-changer in the online survey industry, Tandem Surveys offers easy-to-use and design surveys within minutes. Here are some amazing features that you should try:

• User-friendly and easy-to-use and understand survey builder.
• Get real-time reporting and updates on survey progress with just one click.
• Customize delivery method depending on your need (email, SMS, file, etc.)
• Launch surveys with multiple items with large respondents without hassle.
• Prioritizing security above all so you can be confident with your data
• Customize your survey according to your organization’s branding.
• Organize your survey based on your categories and tags.
• Free features available, no lock-in period, no credit card details needed.
• Work in any timezone and schedule content easily

Tandem Surveys also offer free use and trial. You can create and launch surveys and access basic reporting for free.?

Sign up for free today!

Ready to create and launch an online survey? If yes, share with the community your current project in the comments below!