The questions you'll ask in your content preferences survey will be related to your goals. Here are some example questions that can help you brainstorm yours:
- "How much time a month do you spend learning more subjects related to your work?"
This question is a good starting point. Make it close-ended and include a negative answer that sounds neutral.
For example:
"Unfortunately, I don't learn as much as I'd like to. I'm really tied up."
Try to make it sound like it's ok not to learn 🧐🤷🏻♀️ Otherwise, you risk the respondents will want to cover up they don't learn, and you'll end up with skewed results.
- "Where do you go for information?"
By asking this question, you want to gauge the preferred sources of information, which will tell you a lot about content formats.
By making the question close-ended, you'll help respondents answer.
Remember to allow the respondents to select "Other" so that they can answer the question in a way you have not anticipated. You may find out things that surprise you. :)
- "What content formats are the most convenient for you?"
If you went for the question above and the answers you proposed suggest content formats, skip this question.
- "How often do you watch webinars related to your work?"
We suggest asking this question if you have a strong intuition that your audience participates in webinars. Ask about another content format if you think it makes more sense.
- "How long should a webinar be, according to you?"
Again - swap the content format if it's more logical given your knowledge of the audience.
- "How often do you read work-related blogs?"
With this question, you assume respondents read blogs. As with the first question, make sure your let respondents answer negatively in a way that doesn't make them feel guilty about not reading.
Also, feel free to dig deep: Ask about how the respondents read blogs. Find out if they use text-to-speech readers. Do they like to have blog posts delivered (to their inboxes), or do they prefer to google?
- "Do you ever interact with newsletters?"
Ask the question if you consider sending out a newsletter.
- "What is your favorite source of information? (Tell us the name of the website / the publisher / the content creator.)"
This should be an open-ended question you may want to ask early in the questionnaire. Don't narrow the choice. Instead, let them tell you their top-of-the-mind publisher. The answer to this question will also help you conclude the content format.
- "Who do you think does the best job educating and why? "
This question is a variation of the one above. Feel free to choose the one that you prefer.
PRO TIP:
Survicate records the survey responses in real-time. So, you'll see those that have been given even if a research participant has dropped out without pressing the "Submit" button. Thanks to this feature, you can worry less about having too long a survey.
However, be strategic about the order of the survey questions. Remember to ask the most critical questions at the beginning of the survey so that you get the most vital answers even if respondents drop out halfway through the survey.
You'll find some of the questions in the content preferences survey template above. Feel free to check it out, modify it according to your needs, and give the survey a go. (No strings are attached.)