2 Ways to Survey Your Audience After the Webinar

Knowing how a percentage of your audience has reacted to the various elements of your webinar can help you make important improvements each time. There is a lot going on in the typical webinar to measure - the relevance of the topic, the quality of the speaker, the timing of the event, the ease of use of the platform - these are all components that your audience notices. Getting prompt responses can make a difference for your next event.

Good survey questions on Survey Monkey (http://surveymonkey.com) are a starting place that we recommend. The basic Survey Monkey subscription is free and allows you to ask 10 questions and get 100 responses. If you anticipate more than that, you can upgrade to the next level for a monthly subscription that allows unlimited questions, responses and you can incorporate custom designs and URLs.

One of the best things about Survey Monkey besides the easy-to-read reports and comments sections is that you can keep all your survey results in one spot and share them with colleagues over time. If a manager wants to see the survey results for a survey held several months ago, it will be right there for easy access. The responses reside as data from forms that are collected via weblink, email, Facebook, or surveys embedded on your site or blog. With the custom Gold subscription, the person taking the survey can be redirected to a website or landing page.

Zoomerang (http://zoomerang.com) is another online service for surveys, with 12 questions and real-time results provided for free to basic subscribers. The Pro version offers more than 100 survey templates to assist users with the design and format for presenting their questions, as well as unlimited questions and responses. Zoomerang's Premium edition supports integration with Salesforce.com, a popular CRM software, for an additional charge.

When you design your survey, ask open-ended questions that invite the responder to leave comments. These comments can be tremendously powerful because they provide context for the answers. Most people will rate the webinar or the topic on a scale, using checkboxes. This type of question should make up about half of your survey. The other half should ask those questions that allow and encourage comments, either positive or negative. Negative comments are often the most helpful, if you are looking for ways to improve your work. If you know who is responding, it can allow you to start a conversation with the person so you can learn more about the problem from their point of view, and most likely, that point of view is shared by others.

For example, if there is a technical glitch, such as the slides not being seen because of the constraints of the viewer's corporate firewall, you would have a chance to go back and troubleshoot the problem so they can see the slides the next time. You could also send out a copy of the slide deck in PDF form in advance of the webinar, which all attendees appreciate, for note-taking.

Another good set of questions is around the audience's priorities. We all have problems we are trying to solve - knowing which ones are most important would be a big help when it comes to planning future events. These survey results can reveal a lot of information about how the contents of future webinars might be structured or presented, as well. In some cases, you might learn that your audience would really benefit from video, rather than slides, so you could make that change going forward.

Surveys are all about knowing your audience, and about the quest for constantly refreshing that knowledge at every opportunity. A survey immediately following an event is an easy and convenient way to get to know more about what works and what could be better. Using Console Call's ability to put the link to the survey right on the event page directs the attendees to play along while it is still fresh in their minds.