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- One methodology,
which is using online survey tools to do research.
How many of us are doing that, who do online surveys at all?
Many of us, not all of us?
Not all of us.
Yes, you do have to have people
who have access to a computer and access to email
to do an online survey,
so hopefully you know whether you have that or not
with your audiences.
But I'm a big proponent of using online surveys.
One, it ensures that your data is tabulated.
When I first started working with arts organizations,
like, ten years ago in Chicago,
it became a running joke that, "Yeah, we do lots of surveys.
We've done all that stuff."
"Well, where is it?"
"It's in a box under my desk,
or is it in the coffee room, or is it"--you know.
So they had data that they'd never tabulated,
because you run out of time,
and everybody has ten different jobs,
and, "We just didn't get to it, but we're gonna."
Yeah, but there's three years' worth
of little paper surveys there.
And those people are either at the top of your pyramid,
or they're already gone anyway.
So doing online surveys ensures
that your data will be tabulated immediately.
You don't have to do another thing to it.
It does it automatically all by itself.
So I'm a big proponent for that.
So here are some tips to doing that.
I think you all need to start trying
to wean people off of paper.
It drains your resources.
It drains your time.
And there are some other methods.
Even if it means, when you're doing surveys
three times a year or whatever you're doing,
maybe putting up some computer stations in your lobby
if it comes down to that,
giving people some kind of incentive to do it right there
if they don't have access to a computer.
Anyhoo, explain the purpose, give the deadline,
and offer--the key thing here in this point is,
offer an incentive at the beginning.
And yes, we've all become crass people,
to the extent that we all want something.
It can be a pin or, you know, a cup
or a, you know, magnet or something.
Interestingly, it's not the value of the gift
that gets the greater participation.
It's just having a little gift.
It could be a piece--
I've seen people give away little pieces of candy,
and people would actually do the survey
to get the little piece of candy.
Putting long lists of responses in two--
these are kind of operational things.
Putting long lists of responses in two columns.
Like, it would have been better for our last question
if that had really kind of maybe
even been in kind of two columns.
It prevents scrolling
and allows people to kind of read across this way
instead of down.
It actually takes longer to read down lists.
You have to learn how to use skip logic
in your online surveys, because you can actually do--
It looks like big, huge surveys
that people can actually track through
to the sections that are appropriate for them.
So it's not three surveys.
It's one survey that can actually include questions
for your core users, for your single-ticket people,
and even for your "I didn't pay anything;
I'm just here" people.
Skip logic, make it your friend.
Email your surveys through the survey tool.
Most of these tools offer you the opportunity
to take your link, copy it,
and paste it into a separate email.
It is a nightmare to try to manage
who responded and who didn't
if it's through your email service.
Don't do it that way.
Do it through the survey.
The survey tracks who responded, who responded in part,
who actually completed the survey,
everything through their own--
through that own email management tool.
Use those.
It will save you so many headaches.
Because the problem is that you miss--
you miss people if you do it that way.
Try to keep your surveys always
within that 10- to 15-minute time frame.
And again, by having surveys
which are very difficult to do on paper--
You can do much more complicated surveys, actually,
using an online tool
than you ever could on paper, okay?
Again, people can kind of get to their own appropriate tracks
by doing it that way.
So that they're still only asking questions
for 10 to 15 minutes.
People will give you that much time.
Always direct an online survey back to your own website.
I've gone online to just look at--
You know, there aren't many surveys
that you can kind of see samples of online
that arts organizations use, but I've found some.
And they take it back to the tool.
Like, once you finish the question,
the tool's website comes up.
So if it's SurveyMonkey, which I really--
I wish they were publicly traded,
because I'd buy stock.
So if it's SurveyMonkey,
when you get to the end of the survey
that your organization did,
where you've got your logo on the front page,
but when I click Done, it takes me to SurveyMonkey.
I should go right back to your website, okay?
So always make sure you're taken back to your own website.
There is a data-- a manual data entry function
in most of these survey tools
so that in those cases where you have to do a paper survey
and an online survey,
your paper survey can be really the exact same questions,
and you can actually enter that data manually
into your electronic survey.
So, no, you don't have to do these whole two separate things,
and, "How do we get it to fit?"
There is a manual data entry function.
Many of us is like, "Oh, wow."
Yeah.
It actually will save you tons of headache
and actually make it more comfortable--
Some of these are about making it more comfortable
for you to do surveys more frequently
but maybe more targeted in some cases.
And these survey tools allow you to segment, again, your surveys,
not just using the skip patterns
but using the filters that already exist
in the analytic portion of the tools.
So you don't have to know anything about coding data
or sending it to a tab house.
Do those even exist anymore? I guess they do.
A tabulating house, where that's all they do
is just, you know, enter-- manually enter paper data.
You don't have to set up an Excel spreadsheet
to try to do that, because it's a nightmare.
The tool actually would do that
because it already has automatic functions.
So utilize these tools
but really maximize all of the features as best you can.