For local candidates with limited budgets, online survey tools are available that can help gather voter feedback.
A number of free and paid options exists, including surveymonkey.
com, freeonlinesurveys.
com and zoomerang.
com.
A well-structured survey can provide a useful tool to provide insight into what issues are important to voters.
Below are some basic tips to help make your surveys more effective and more likely to attract participants.
Determine your goals What is it exactly that you are trying to learn from your participants? What specific data will your survey yield that can help your political campaign? Keep your survey short You survey should be short and to the point.
Nobody likes getting suckered into a 'quick' survey that turns out to be dozens of questions! The questions should be kept short and to the point.
For example, do not ask, "What do you think of the local traffic?" Rather, make the question more specific, such as "Do you approve of the new proposed freeway exit?" Make it private Participation tends to increase if the responses are kept anonymous.
If you do collect personal information, let the respondents know how their data will be kept and/or used.
Randomize the answers Some survey systems allow for answer choices to be randomized for each respondent.
This method helps reduce bias may make the survey more statistically relevant.
Test, test, test! Before launching any survey, be sure to thoroughly test it.
It may help to have a few outsiders provide feedback on the questions and answers.
One common problem is where answer structure is not set up right.
For example, radio buttons rather than check boxes are used, causing users to not be able to answer the questions properly.
At the completion of any survey, always invite the participants to join your mail list or follow you on Facebook or Twitter, so they can keep following your campaign.