Saving Money on Your Next Readership Study, by Lewis Copulsky, Lewis&Clark

3. Conduct the survey online. With an online survey, you can save on printing and postage as well as labor for mailing and data entry. To be sure that results are reflective of your entire readership you will need email addresses for most of your readers, with no one demographic under-represented. Be prepared for a lower response rate than a mail survey, meaning you will need to send a larger number of survey invitations.

4. Handle the survey in-house. Particularly if you are doing your research online, it can be feasible to conduct a readership survey without outside help. Be aware though, that even if you have the expertise to design and implement the research, there are some pitfalls. If your goal is to better understand your readers’ needs, you run the risk of viewing them through you own preconceived ideas about your publication. If you will be using data gathered in the survey to approach advertisers, your results may not carry the same weight as those from an independent source.

back  /  continue