Online Survey Builder 101

With the proliferation of of internet based surveys and software solutions and relatively low cost, it has become very easy for marketers and academic survey professionals to leverage the online survey tools in their day to day work. It takes a few minutes to create a survey, publish the survey online, email survey invitations and start collecting results from targeted survey audience.

Here is a mini guide for using online survey and questionnaire design, if you are new to online surveys. Though these guidelines are written from using LeadPro247 online survey solution, the concepts can be applied to any online survey software tool available in the marketplace.

Online Survey Software Basics

1. Fully web based; no need to install any hardware or special software
2. Simple to use; get going in minutes
3. No long term commitments; generally monthly subscription fees
4. Very cheap, compared to traditional methods
5. Can be controlled accurately, depending on the survey objectives

Survey Types and Applications

1. Customer Satisfaction surveys
2. Employee Feedback surveys
3. Prospect surveys
4. Product Research surveys
5. Market Research surveys
6. Marketing Research surveys
7. Nonprofit surveys
8. Academic surveys
9. Higher Education Research surveys
10. Patient Satisfaction surveys
11. Website analysis and feedback surveys
12. Online shopping / ecommerce experience surveys
13. Incident Response surveys
14. Service Satisfaction surveys
15. New product requirement surveys
16. Software feature surveys
17. Webinar feedback surveys
18. Event Satisfaction surveys
19. Behavioral Research surveys
20. Quality surveys
21. Product Recall surveys
22. Social surveys

Key Features

1. Support for multiple Question Types to meet all survey requirements (including open ended question types, ranking, multiple choice, matrix type, geographic info, etc.)
2. Customizable look and feel with simple Themes
3. Fully brand-able to reflect your corporate / nonprofit / academic requirements
4. Use of header and footer across survey pages
5. Include Introduction / Welcome page
6. Include Closing / Thanks You page
7. Include Survey Closed page
8. Redirect to your website after Survey Completion
9. Embed Video links (to YouTube, Google, or any other video channels)
10. Embed Document links
11. Display Images with description

Deployment and Data Collection Options

1. Multiple deployment modes
2. Email survey invitations
3. Deployment as Website links (one or more)
4. Deployment as pop-up window on web sites
5. Support for Kiosk mode (without IP restriction)
6. Manual Entry of survey results (based on paper surveys and telephone surveys)
7. Stop / Pause options for individual deployment modes as well as full survey

Advanced Options

1. Survey Template samples
2. Create and store survey templates
3. Page Skip logic based on answers for multiple choice questions
4. Piping feature to pass on the answer to a survey question to another question
5. Password protection for surveys
6. Sharing survey results with audience
7. Consumer Survey panel management
8. Survey Subscriber Email List management
9. Unsubscribe / Opt-out management

Reporting and Survey Analytics

1. Individual survey response
2. Summary of survey results
3. Drill down to view granular details
4. Graphic representation for easy interpretation
5. Cross Tab analysis report
6. TURF (Total Unduplicated Reach Frequency) analysis and simulation
7. Download / Export data for further analysis

In future posts, let us look at application of surveys in business and academic settings, best practices, and expand on the above subjects.