7 tips for a successful questionnaire

Do you want to create questionnaires that captivate your respondents from the start and encourage active participation until the end? Do you want to collect authentic responses for your marketing studies? The key to a good questionnaire can be summed up in two words: conversational and engaging.

Conversational, because there’s nothing better to help your respondents forget they're participating in a marketing survey than to make them feel like they are chatting with someone! The conversational tone ensures their engagement and the authenticity of their responses.

Making your questionnaires lively and tailored to the methodology of social media studies is part of our expertise: discover our7 best practices to engage respondents and collect their authentic responses.‍

1. Clear objectives, precise targets: the secret to an effective questionnaire

The success of a survey depends above all on a good definition of your ultimate goals and your target audience. Effective marketing comes from clear objectives and an appropriate target, especially when it comes to consumer studies.

Clearly defining your target (gender, age, geographical area, interests...) ensures the relevance of the collected data, but it also allows you to construct a questionnaire with an appropriate tone. For example, if the respondents are under 30, it's better to use the informal "you" when addressing them.

🎯  Defining your target well is already having the keys to ask the right questions.

2. Enhance the feeling of conversation with a natural tone, varied questions, and emojis

The best way to build the questionnaire is, above all, to imagine it as a smooth conversation on instant messaging📱.

From a natural tone perspective and with this conversational approach, in addition to the informal "you" for those under 30, we will favor the first-person singular for writing response options.

Giving rhythm to your questionnaire also involves varying the types of questions asked:

• matrix questions are an excellent way to provide a playful response mode (and to obtain structured and quantitative data on complex topics).
• Closed questions are ideal for obtaining specific answers and percentages,
• while open questions allow respondents to express themselves freely and provide more nuanced answers.

By varying the types of questions, we ensure a smoother and more engaging questionnaire experience for respondents.

Finally, nothing beats emojis 😉 to make the questionnaire as visual and playful as possible — and similar to a discussion via instant messaging. They are now an integral part of digital language and are an ideal way to bring questions to life and illustrate the various response options.

3. Clear questions and careful transitions or how to best guide the respondent

Attention to the engaging conversational tone of the questionnaire should not overshadow the importance of a clear and coherent structure. To achieve this, each specific theme should include clear questions and be the subject of a distinct section introduced by a transition.

A sine qua non condition for its success, a questionnaire must contain clear and understandable questions for all. Therefore, avoid overly specific jargon, complex phrasings, anglicisms, etc. Each specific term introduced in the questionnaire can also be the subject of a short definition: this will add an educational dimension to your respondents' experience!

Between each section, transitions such as: "Thank you for your answers, let's now move to the section concerning topic X" will help respondents know where they stand in your questionnaire 📍.

4. Encourage respondents to express themselves: the importance of open-ended questions

Even the best-constructed questionnaire will not anticipate all possible responses from respondents. Include open-ended questions to learn from your respondents and give them the opportunity to express themselves freely 🕊️.

A well-structured quantitative study questionnaire can integrate a few open-ended questions. The comments and reflections might surprise you, and these collected verbatims will also be welcome to illustrate the data!

However, be careful not to overdo it, as you risk losing your respondents and ensuring a tedious analysis phase... 🥵

5. No room for boredom with multimedia elements

Highly effective remedies against monotony, multimedia elements (images 🖼️, videos 🎞️, and audios 🎵) reinforce the impression of talking to someone. A good way to make the experience enjoyable and fun, and to engage the respondent to the maximum!

Multimedia elements are also indispensable for advertising post-tests. Showing your respondents the various posters or the TV spot of an advertising campaign will allow you to know the respondents' preferred visuals or their feelings about a specific aspect of the creative.

6. Nuanced and comprehensive responses: how to formulate response options?

The binary yes/no responses should be avoided whenever possible, as respondents' opinions are rarely all black or all white.

We will favor nuance with response scales like this one, for example:

• yes absolutely 👍👍
• yes rather 👍
• no rather not 👎
• no not at all 👎👎

Quantitative studies that best reflect respondents' opinions are those that allow them to express nuanced responses.

Among the possible responses, it is important to include options like "I don’t know 🤷‍♂️" and "other." In addition to engagement, clarity, and friendliness of your questionnaire, its comprehensiveness is crucial. It helps avoid the frustration of respondents who do not find answers that fit their situation. Note: not finding an answer that corresponds to their situation can be a reason for abandoning the questionnaire.

7. Don't lose your respondents with an overly long questionnaire

Watch out for the length of the questionnaire, which is a key element of its success. If the questionnaire is too long, some respondents may become discouraged and abandon it before finishing, which can prolong the data collection time ⏳ and increase the cost of your study 💸.

Take the time to set realistic goals based on the length of the questionnaire. This way, you ensure a satisfactory experience for respondents while obtaining valuable feedback! Keep in mind that respondents are often not compensated.

⌚ What is the ideal duration for a questionnaire? It is preferable to aim for questionnaires with a maximum duration of 15 minutes (which corresponds to about 40-50 questions).

Key takeaways

In summary, what are the key elements to remember?

• Clearly specify the objectives and target of the questionnaire
• Favor a natural tone and clear questions
• Vary the types of questions
• Add emojis
• Imagine transitions between different themes for a smooth flow
• Provide comprehensive and nuanced response options
• Do not hesitate to integrate multimedia content
• Maintain a reasonable length for the questionnaire (max 40-50 questions)

Regardless of the initial form of your questionnaire (from embryonic to highly developed), our Customer Success Managers will be there to assist you from its adaptation to conversational technology to its programming!

You understand, the key to success lies in the conversational tone. A unique feature of Episto questionnaires that fosters respondent engagement and the collection of ultra-authentic responses from your targets.