Back to the Basics - Conducting a Successful Readership Survey, by Lewis Copulsky, Lewis&Clark
A version of this article appeared in Signature magazine, March 2010

3. Choose the right methodology. There are distinct advantages to using either mail or online reader surveys. A mail survey can reach a more complete cross-section of your readership, achieve greater participation, and allow for more thoughtful responses. An online survey can be less expensive, take less time, and be more easily done in-house with various web tools.

If you lack email addresses for a significant portion of readers, and especially if the gap is concentrated in a specific demographic, an online survey may yield distorted results. Response rate will also affect the reliability of your survey findings. A mail survey typically generates a higher response rate than an online survey, although this may vary depending on the target audience.

With no printing and mailing expenses, an online survey should be less expensive to conduct. While you would typically allow respondents up to a month to return a mail survey, online surveys are usually in the field for just one or two weeks. A variety of tools exist to create online surveys and analyze data. Many are low cost and require little training to use.

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