Writing Survey Questions: 3 Things to Ask

You need to survey your readers to find out what they want, what they need, and what their biggest challenges are. This is crucial information you need to know before promoting any event or teleseminar or informational product.

When we promoted our Law of Action 2.0 mentoring program, we used a survey to help us define what people wanted to learn the most when it comes to marketing their business online. We wanted to keep the survey short so people didn't have to spend time filling out irrelevant information. We included 3 items:

1. One broad question with 10 choices where they were asked to rate degree of severity on a scale
2. One open ended question where they could write in anything they chose
3. One demographic question to define the number of years using Internet marketing

Writing survey questions can be tricky. There's a reason most graduate schools require you to take a year of statistics. Unless you understand the pitfalls of surveys, you risk getting answers that tell you nothing. Keep it simple and make your questions as clear and neutral as possible.

Don't ask too much of people. Reduce the number of questions and choices to as few as possible, but give a wide enough range of choices to be meaningful.




When using what's called a Likert scale, where you ask people to rate their answers, give them a scale of from 1 to 5, or 1 to 10. Anything less than 5 will be ineffective. Use an odd number of choices.

For the survey on Internet marketing challenges, Denise and I and Kathleen Gage contributed ideas, then we edited it, and Denise posted it on SurveyMonkey.com.

Next, it's important to get as many people as possible to take the survey, not just the people already on your list. We also posted about it on our blogs and on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and other social sites.

Here is a copy of our sample survey questions to illustrate how we wrote this survey for this event promotion:

What is your greatest challenge with Internet Marketing?

Rate each one or as many as you wish on a scale of 1 to 5:

1 = never a problem
2 = only a slight problem
3 = a problem
4 = a really annoying problem
3 = a huge problem

1. Time                        
2. Money to implement
3. Knowledge
4. Access to resources such as software
5. I don't believe it can work
6.  Getting help with the tech stuff
7. Managing everything
8. Converting leads into deals
9. Writing content
10. Other….[write in an answer]

OPEN QUESTION:

If resources were not an issue and you could learn only one thing about Internet Marketing and making money on the Internet, what would it be?

What is your level of knowledge about marketing and selling using the Internet?

1 – Minimal – Less than a year
2 – So- so – 1 – 3 years
3.- Pretty good – 3 years or more

What has been your experience with surveys?

Comments

[Increase Sales Coach]

Thanks for the great reminder about the importance of always understanding what your clients want.

It was very generous of you to share your own questions as an example that others can emulate.

One of the biggest marketing mistakes business owners make it trying to sell products and services no one wants. This simple process can prevent a lot of heartache and unnecessary losses.

[Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad]

Oh dear, Increase Sales Coach has stopped by and left a comment. Don't you hate it when you have to converse with a brand name? It's hard. In fact, it's one of my pet peeves.

Increase, what is your real name? I understand why you sign your name that way, but can you understand the problem?

Anyway, Increase, you've given me some good blog fodder... ;-0