3 Tips When Considering Your Survey Budget

Surveys are complex projects, no matter how easy they are to run with the right software platform. As with any complex project within a business, it's important that you correctly allocate your budget to your survey projects, and make sure that you're giving your survey the financial attention it deserves. However, as is often the case, developing a budget isn't quite as easy as giving it a lot or a little money. Here are three thoughts to consider when developing your research budget.

Don't Cut Corners – There are plenty of ways to save money with your survey, but that doesn't mean that you should seek out the lowest cost option. Plenty of cheap survey panel companies, for example, run their samples incredibly poorly. They send out hundreds of surveys to their panel at a time and oversaturate their inboxes, or send their surveys to individuals that should not have been qualified to take the survey.

It's not "just some research." You need to be willing to invest in your survey research if you want to get results that matter. Expensive Doesn't Mean Better – However, that does not mean that you need to invest millions of dollars into the most expensive companies or platforms. There are survey software companies that sell their licenses for $200,000 yearly.

Or you can go to SurveyMethods and get the same functionality for less than the cost of an iPod Nano. Expensive doesn't always mean better, especially in the survey research world. Plan for Follow Ups – There is no such thing as a single survey that answers all of the problems in your company.

The results of your surveys often lead to more questions and answers, and you should expect that you will need to thoroughly continue your research in the future – leaving aside a budget that allows for you to continue your research indefinitely.

Before you decide to invest in survey research, you need to be willing to allocate a budget that takes into consideration all of the factors involved in running a survey in the short and long term. But that doesn't mean you should waste your money on overpriced companies and products that do not necessarily have the best product, or one worthy of the budget you've allocated. Take this into consideration when developing your budget and always keep ROI in the back of your mind.