Writing an effective questionnaire requires an understanding of four basics;

1. Consider the differences that exist when writing a questionnaire that respondent’s will fill out themselves as opposed to when there is an interviewer asking the questions either over the phone or face to face.

Self-administered questionnaires should be simple, straightforward and logical. They should have a flow to them – question 2 should follow question 1. Question 3 should follow question 2, and so on. Interviewer-administered questionnaires can allow a jump from one section of the questionnaire to another based on responses as the interviewer can guide them through.

2. Know what questions to ask early on in the questionnaire, in the middle or toward the end.

Keep the respondent in one mind-set at a time. Complete all your questions about one topic before moving on to the next. Ask easy questions first and more involved or introspective questions toward the middle of the questionnaire. Save sensitive questions for the end as people are more likely to answer then as they have invested time in the questionnaire. Ask quantitative questions to start with before moving on to qualitative questions.

3. Understand how to phrase questions.

It takes very little thought to write out questions on a piece of paper and call it a questionnaire. It takes considerable thought to write questions that are good ones and produce a meaningful questionnaire. Ask a balance of unprompted open questions and closed prompted questions to obtain qualitative and quantitative data.

Avoid unbiased questions such as What, if anything, did you like? as this can mean the respondent is not put on the spot to find something to actually like. A dual-thought question, such as what do you like or dislike? allows respondents to focus first on their strongest likes or dislikes. This means they’ll give less thought to what they might not like, and vice versa. Keeping your questions to a single thought is usually the best approach.

4. Be sensitive to questionnaire length.

This is dictated by your objectives but keep in mind respondents will nearly always complete a well-constructed and easy to complete one and avoid cluttered and complex ones.

Questioning in a professional and considerate manner is where your focus should be and you will obtain some useful information about your audience.

Always remember the point of the questionnaire is to research and understand your market place better so that you can provide better products and services and deliver them in the best way for your customers.

Knowledge is power and fuels the best marketing campaigns. If you would like any help compiling your next questionnaire or understanding your market place better, do give us a call.

Very simply, the spiders crawl through the web and index the readable text that matches the keywords or phrases typed into the search engine, so your content needs to be:

a) Readable and not ‘hidden’. That means your site needs to be well designed so that written text is easily visible and not hidden in the ‘design’ elements of the site. Search engines cannot ‘see’ text that is written in Flash or Javascript

b) Well written and logical using the key phrases that people use to search for your site, products and services

c) Regularly updated and refreshed.

Tips on creating good content for your website:

• Spend some time researching the keywords or phrases your customers type in to find your site. Your website statistics should provide you with a list of words that people found your site with and the pages they landed on.
• Identify other words and phrases that are popular using Google’s Keywords tool. Make sure you ‘think outside the box’ and look at it from a potential customers perspective, so as well as your company name and variations of it, you need to think of the sort of things they will type in when looking for you.
• Identify keywords and phrases for each of your products or services and for each page on your site.
• Refine the copy on your website so that it includes the keywords and phrases in the body copy and headings of the site. This needs to be logical and readable and not just stuffed with keywords otherwise you could be eliminated from search engines.
• Use the keywords and phrases you have identified in your:
  • Page title tag – that’s the one in blue at the very top of the page. This is mega important.
  • Meta description (180 characters that appears under the page title in a google search).
  • ‘Keywords’ area in your content management system (although not too many and this is less important these days.)
• Most importantly the keywords and phrases included in the SEO parts of your site must identify with the headings and copy that appear on the page. Otherwise the search engines will ‘ignore’ it.
• Make sure you have a supply of new content being regularly added to your site. Regular news stories and case studies are a good place to start and actually this is what your customers will find useful too! It is also another good reason to start a blog! Make sure your blog includes your keywords too!

It’s not rocket science, and in my opinion good content is the best place to start with search engine optimisation. Do you agree?

It was a great opportunity to learn about what they are doing and to share experiences with other communications professionals. However it was also very clear that no-one feels like an ‘expert’ in social media. We are all learning and adapting as it evolves and shapes the way we communicate.

Here is a quick list of Do’s and Don’ts that I collected during the day and thought I would share:

DO

• Monitor and watch what others are doing – before doing anything carry out a social media ‘audit’.
• Use social media to learn about and understand your audience or specific audiences.
• Make sure you engage with your audience(s) – create a dialogue – join in a conversation. For instance Citroen learnt a lot about the habits of the buyers of Citroen people carriers by engaging with ‘Mummy bloggers’ and then creating a Facebook page for ‘fans’.
• Decide on the role of each social media site in your organisation e.g. is it a newsfeed or is it about obtaining customer feedback or monitoring complaints? Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are the three main social media sites that people are using.
• Use social media sites for specific audiences e.g. join industry specific groups and ask questions/discuss issues with the group to start a dialogue/make contact.
• Identify your tone of voice and stick to it.
• Establish guidelines and best practice – depending on the culture of the organisation.
• Use social media as part of the integrated communications mix.
• Create a content rich resource, such as press releases, case studies, blogs, videos, and technical information sheets that express your key messages and then use social media to engage your audience and ‘point’ them towards it.
• Keep control – for instance, it is wise to have control over comments on blogs before they appear.
• Use blogging as a way to answer questions and issues. Have a blog already written about an issue before it arises, to help with reputation management e.g. for an explanation on …. See our blog!
• Link to blogs though Twitter, Facebook and Linked In as appropriate. For instance, useful information such as ‘How to videos’ were used by British Gas in the recent cold snap, diverting numerous phone calls by providing simple checks that could be carried out before calling an engineer. https://www.britishgas.co.uk/HelpAndAdvice/TypeID/?Id=705&Sec=M
• Use social media in a crisis situation. It is ideal for providing instant updates and information. It can help by providing clear instantly updated information to concerned parties and help to reduce the number of calls into a call centre. This was an example cited by TUI when helping stranded customers in Tunisia.
• Monitor and respond to complaints – you can diffuse a potential crisis or disaster by responding effectively on Twitter before it becomes a massive news story!
• Make the most of the fantastic opportunity that social media provides to make new contacts, share your successes, engage new audiences, find out what your customers think about you and your service and boost your business!

DON’T

• Just “push” out messages – Social media is better for listening than for telling!
• ‘Target’ journalists via Twitter remember they are people too and want to engage in a conversation. Use it find out what they are looking for and help them.
• Forget there is a lot of ‘grunt’ behind social media – just like researching an email database you need to put the effort in to find relevant social media groups and individuals to follow and also effort into generating good content.
• Respond to a negative or crisis situation on Twitter and then forget to follow it up with a service response as well.
• Tweet about a breaking news story and then expect it to appear in the papers – it will be ‘old’ news by then!
• Panic! – We are all learning! It is an extension of existing communications and the same rules apply, it is just the technology that is different!

It seems incredible to think that only a year ago some businesses were still wondering what Twitter was and whether they needed to create a Facebook page.  The reality at the start of 2011 is that many of the businesses we work with, many who are SME’s, have dabbled with it in 2010 and are now wondering how they can use it to generate measurable results.

My view is whilst the technology might be changing, the rules of communications stay the same. Social media should be considered as another communications tool and I am sure that 2011 will be the year when it becomes as much part of a communications plan as sending an e shot or newsletter.

The interesting thing is that social media opens up a whole new world of opportunities on the internet. Social media sites act as search engines, driving traffic to your website and so because this is the case, many of the businesses we work with are completely overhauling their website. It is not just about adding the social media buttons; it is about bringing the site to life and making it dynamic, with a personality.

The challenge will be making sure communications are relevant and timely, because with social media everything is immediate – about what is happening NOW!

Here are my predictions for the impact of social media on online communications for the businesses we work with, in 2011. We would be delighted to hear yours!

• Blogging will become more important for business as good, regularly refreshed content drives search engines.
• Businesses will engage in more relevant communications via Twitter, Linked in and Facebook and begin to see results.
• Mobile technology will mean that you will need to rethink your website and even your sales strategy as people access products, services and information on the move.
• Ecommerce will be taken up by more companies, particularly as they streamline their sales strategies and respond to a 24/7 and on-the-move demand for their products.
• Video and podcasting will be used more widely and imaginatively on the web as video, web and mobile technology converge.
• Online communications strategies will be content driven with social media sites, blogs and web content all driving up search engine rankings, web hits and online success.

Over the next few weeks we will be writing a series of blogs containing practical advice and examples of how we are working with our clients to implement some of these thoughts and ideas. Watch this space!

But what’s brought us to this place is not down to chance or good luck. It’s required enormous amounts of hard graft and the ability to step back and question how we approach things and communicate our offer most effectively to our existing and potential clients. We’ve had to continuously adapt to the rapid pace of change in the media landscape and the economic downturn and I believe we’ve stayed ahead of the curve.

Adapting to grow and flourish is something that we constantly encourage our clients to think about when approaching their overall business strategies as well as their communications plans. We have worked hard to help them make the most of new markets and opportunities; for example we encouraged one client to market more of their higher value products which has resulted in their turnover being maintained despite the recession.

Intandem Communications is living proof that constantly questioning who you are and what you do, and adapting to changes around you can be a very positive force for good.