DO
1. Define what success will look like to you. If you don’t know what the outputs will be, the inputs will be just as confused.
2. Understand that success can be negative as well as positive. Learning people don’t like you or your idea is just as valuable (I would argue more so) than learning they do.
3. Keep it simple. Make sure the questions can be understood by a 10 year old, and ask one question at a time (E.g. not asking if something is different and interesting)
4. Use common words. When you work in an industry, it’s so easy to let the industry jargon slip into your questions. E.g. The footwear industry has many silhouettes, which we would call shoe styles.
5. Know your limits. Survey Monkey, etc, are great tools, but they are very basic. If you want a simple answer to a simple question, then great. If you want to do price positioning or a conjoint, see an expert.

DON’T
1. Overstay your welcome. If you’re paying nothing for people’s time, make sure you take up 2 minutes of their life or less (though in satisfaction interviews, you can go over).
2. Use DIY to determine strategic outcomes. If millions, or billions, of dollars are depending on the outcome, this is not the time to go cheap.
3. Confuse the result you want with the result you need. Every question has to be neutrally worded to make sure you get an honest response.
4. Assume Survey Monkey is the only tool out there. be mindful of the languages each solution can take. SM is actually quite limited relative to others.

MODO Group is a management consultancy based in Seattle and Tokyo, who focuses on brand development and marketing strategy. Read more about them here.

Gordon Morris is the Managing Director of MODO group, and his past positions includes Global Insights Manager at Sony Ericsson and Vice President at Research International.

We’ve just updated our panel book, and we now have 5.696.618 people ready to answer your questions. Almost 1,5 million in the US alone. So I think we can find your specific target audience:)

Bring on the questions!

We just conducted a survey for the Danish organisation Parlamentet.dk, comparing a ranking system with the traditional single-vote system. The results show a clear tendency towards benefiting the smaller parties.

Our control group showed the two most popular parties to be the left-leaning Socialdemokraterne (20,57%)  and Socialistisk Folkeparti  (17,22%), while the liberal/conservative coalition (48,33%) is leading against the socialist coalition (43,05%)

The Ranking model was based on a point-score system, where a No. 1 ranking contributed 5 points, No. 2 ranking contributed 4 points, No. 3 ranking contributed 3 points, No. 4 ranking contributed 2 points, No. 5 ranking contributed 1 point and any lower ranking contributed 0 points.

Confirmation Bias aka “Cherry Picking”

The most common bias amongst researchers. It is the tendency to line up their questions in accordance to a certain world view and logic. Let’s say you are testing the effect of a new expensive marketing campaign. The reputation of the marketing department is at stake, and it is time for the usual pre-release testing. Even the most open minded and rational person will have trouble avoiding some level of bias in the questioning. A typical effect of confirmation bias in this setting, would be to only ask the small questions, like which variant of the campaign they like best, instead of questioning if the campaign works at all.

Ways to avoid it: Be really honest with yourself and ask; what is the most important information I can get from my survey? There isn’t good or bad news – there’s only data. Data you need to make your decisions.

Question induced answers

All questions are not created a like. Two versions of the same question with subtle differences may result in very different answers. Question induced answers is often a consequence of surveys created with a strong confirmation bias, but is also a phenomenon in its own right.

Ways to avoid it: Try to keep emotional cues out of your questioning, and save them for your answer options. You can also ask the same question several times in different versions and use a median score for the versions you used.

Next time we will be looking at Empathy Bias, stay tuned!

Openpanels enables design teams to get real feedback from the key demographic, as an integral part of the design process. By asking small groups of people, you are able to get their feedback within 2 days, and typically within 24 hours. By using several small surveys during the design process, you are able to validate your work in an early stage, instead of finding out at launch time.

Our WYSIWYG editor makes it easy to insert images as part of the survey, and gives you access to query your target audienceon their impression of the design.

Ask them what values they associate with your design, and you will know if you are on the right track.

Openpanels is the cost-effective approach to constantly track your brand awareness among your key demographic. We make it possible to track the effects of all your campaigns during the year, giving you an instant heads-up on what is working and what isn’t.

Our easy-to-use interface puts the power of panel surveys into the hands of marketing departments, without having to worry about expensive consultancy fees.

Review your statistics in our system or export the data to Excel or SPSS with ease.

Use Openpanels to find potential customers in segments you normally wouldn’t expect. By asking outside your traditional target group, you are able to find additional segments that share the same needs as your core customers. Maybe your campaigns aren’t reaching these segments, or need a small tweak to trigger a purchase from them.