Most survey experts look down on range questions, those that ask for a selection from a list of ranges. “Was your total income last year: Less than $50,000; Between $50,000 and $100,000; $100,000 to $150,000” etc. Far better to ask for specific numbers, even if they are approximations, so that you can work with the resulting figures. You can do statistical analysis, for example, and your graphics can flourish immensely more detail.
The raison d’etre of a serial survey is for the sponsor to discover and proclaim changes in meaningful metrics over time. Based on the responses to their survey a year ago and the one this year, they want to shout from the rooftops that “Total legal spending as a percentage of revenue in the telecom industry climbed from 0.66 to 0.75 during the past year!” Setting aside quibbles about margin of error, to evaluate the legitimacy of such claims, readers should focus on the degree of similarity of the respondents last year to this year.
At the start of your questionnaire, just below the title, the first text the respondent sees should be an introduction. It should explain for the newly arrived respondent both the purpose of the survey and the road map ahead. Remember, not everyone who reaches the online link for the survey will have gotten the invitation email that explains this background information. Someone might have forwarded the link to a group or a person without much context or detail.
When you send out invitation emails, every now and then one of your potential participants wants to know something about the survey project or about you. This doesn’t happen often, but before they start filling in the questionnaire answers, people raise points or bump into concerns along the lines of the following.
Anonymity: What I have encountered most commonly is that they want to understand the steps you will take to preserve the confidentiality of their answers.
Most sponsors churn out external surveys primarily for their marketing advantages. They invest time and money as they would for other forms of public relations, market awareness, thought leadership, member benefits, and publicity. A portion of sponsors, however, realize that their extensive efforts to collect, clean and publish useful information need not be done for free; surveys can produce revenue.
The most common way that sponsors earn money from a survey is to charge for the report.