As a member of a number of associations and networking groups, I receive a lot of surveys. It always amazes me how long and cumbersome most of these surveys are. Inevitably they will be multi-page monsters that require me to type things in and fill in blanks. 99% of the time these surveys end up falling prey to my delete key. Do the senders of these surveys really expect to get a reasonable response when the surveys are this long and complicated?

In order to maximize your response rate, use the following guidelines:

1. Keep your surveys short. 5-7 questions should be the maximum.
2. Make all questions one-click multiple choice. Do not ask your readers to fill in blanks or type in text unless it’s an optional final question for other comments.
3. Keep your surveys to one page.

Additionally, it’s a good idea to tell your readers that your survey will take 2 minutes or less to complete. This sets expectations and reduces the anxiety caused by all the other awful surveys they received. If I can see the entire survey on one page, then I know exactly what to expect, which lowers my anxiety level. If every question is on it’s own page, then I get more and more anxious as I continue because I keep thinking “when will this end?”

If you really want a useful response from your recipients, keep your surveys short and to the point. This will result in data you can actually use.