Webinars and virtual events are incredibly powerful business tools that can help drive leads, increase sales, and further your business goals. But do you know how effective they really are? Are there areas you could improve upon? These questions can easily be answered by sending post-webinar surveys to all attendees. The feedback decision makers get from webinar surveys, session evaluations, and polling, is crucial for improving upon tactics that worked, and removing those that did not for future webinars and virtual events. Creating a meaningful survey that not only generates responses, but answers the right questions can be an art form in of itself. Going into the New Year, we want to make sure you are starting off on the right foot. As such we have compiled our list of 7 best practices for webinar surveys:
1. Keep survey questions short.
Remember you are asking busy individuals to take some additional time out of their day to tell you what they thought of your webinar or virtual event. If your questions look more like paragraphs, they will instantly hit the back button and your survey response rate will suffer.
2. Include one question asking attendees to rate the webinar overall.
This is an easy way to keep track of how your webinars are performing overall. Including this question in each survey allows you to see trends across various webinars, and compare to the performances of past webinars. If you notice an increasing trend, you know any changes you have made to your webinar programs are having a positive effect.
3. Limit the number of questions in your survey.
Again, time is in short supply for most people, so don’t expect them to sit through a 30 minute survey. Limit your surveys to 10 questions maximum. Polls and session evaluations should have 5 questions or less. This does not mean asking 10 lengthy questions with 20 different matrixes as a way to ask more questions. Keep it simple.
4. Avoid leading questions.
The last thing you want is to skew your results by asking leading questions that prompts the respondent to answer in a particular way. For example the question “How much did you learn in this webinar?” already assumes that the attendee learned something. Of course that is what we all hope, but it is sometimes not the case. Instead ask “Did you learn anything in this webinar?” for an unbiased result.
5. Think about your priorities.
You only have 5-10 questions to ask in your post-webinar survey, however you may have many more. This means you will probably have to prioritize which are most important to you. If you have pressing issues that you need answers for, ask those in the survey instead of more general questions. For example, if you hypothesis that time of day is an issue for your attendance rating, be sure to ask relevant questions that test this hypothesis.
6. Choose the answer method that is easiest for respondents.
When it comes to surveys, there are a plethora of answering methods. For example, multiple choice, checkboxes, fill in the blanks, and rating scales, are just some of the different answer formats available to you. Be sure when selecting the answer format for your question that it is the easiest for the respondent while also giving you the data you need. For example, few people will want to write in their thoughts, a better alternative is using a multiple choice or checkbox format.
7. Surveys should be mobile friendly.
In today’s mobile first world, participants should be able respond to your survey easily from their phone, tablet, or other mobile device. If not, you have lost them. Remember that most people are using their fingers to check boxes, select their multiple choice answers, and type responses. Be sure to test your survey out on these different devices to ensure an optimal user experience.
When all is said and done, writing effective webinar attendee surveys is a combination of asking the questions you need most in a way that enables respondents to answer in the shortest amount of time. Want to learn more about creating surveys that give you the right data to make informed decisions? Worktank is here to help. Complete our contact form or call 1.877.975.8265 to get the conversation started.
