Online surveys are supposed to be a brilliant marketing tool that straightaway brings info about customers’ or survey participants’ preferences to the table. Or do they?

I’d like to ask – Why would customers, online visitors, casual surfers opt to take an online survey? What could possibly lead them to do as much? One survey I recently received in my inbox prompted me to take 20 minutes of my time to answer it.

Twenty minutes? I couldn’t spare 20 seconds to do it if my life depended on it. Only an insignificant number of viewers of your call to action would really be in a position to take such a survey. Everyone’s busy, remember?

Online Survey

Yet, if I say at this point that no one really wants to, cares about, or feel otherwise inclined to take an online survey, I would be negating my own behavior. If it was a site, product, concept, or cause that really mattered to me, I might decide to take a survey.

Since it allowed me to offer feedback, I could perhaps do it in the hope of better future service or products. There could be other reasons too, or simply to throw the little weight around. But there would always be that reason to do it.

That reason would then be what marketers should be looking to exploit in constructing an online survey. Much like sumptuous bait. The only difference here would be that few fish would be biting unless you were National Geographic, Apple, or some such.

As you can see, it’s extremely important for the online survey maker to have his finger on the pulse of the market. Survey content would need to be very precisely worded for genuine impact. What features of an online survey would lead your viewer to take it? Here are my suggestions:

1. Don’t ask for twenty minutes, no way. Make five or six different surveys if possible.
2. Offer carefully worded multiple choices to enable fast answering.
3. Also, provide a box to input a unique response not covered in those choices.
4. A lot of figuring and thinking should go into the construction of an online survey. Do it.
5. Offering material incentives for taking a survey reminds one of Ivan Pavlov’s dog. Don’t do it.
6. If you still decide to do it, do it really well. Offer something interesting!
7. Don’t make your online survey a condition to placing an order. Neither before nor after.
8. Make it sound like you would really appreciate the response but don’t overdo it.
9. Make it suitably snappy. Survey questions should be short enough to understand and long enough to fetch the answers that will help you.
10. Make your appreciation of the time spared immediately apparent at the end.

Can you share here what else you do to get your surveys taken? I wish you all the very best surveys and responses! If you happen to require any help with your online survey, just contact us.