Online Survey Project

A few weeks ago, I gave you tips for what to include in the executive summary section of your next survey report. But what about the overall structure of the report? There are typically seven sections in a market research report: title page, table of contents, executive summary, methodology, findings, conclusions and recommendations.

• Title Page. This one should be obvious. The title page should be the first page of your survey research report. Some basic information about the survey project should be included such as what the report is about and the date of the survey research. You may want to include who prepared the report and to whom the report is being presented.

• Table of Contents. This page is simply there to help your audience navigate through the report. The table of contents should list each of the sections in the order they appear in the report. What you choose to include in the table of contents will depend on the length of the report. Longer reports, like market research reports, should include all the charts and graphs to make it easy for readers to located them.

• Executive Summary. As I stated in the last post, the executive summary should provide readers with a high level understanding of the project, findings and recommendations. Keep the executive summary as short as possible. Not every point needs to be written out in detail, bulleted lists are acceptable as well.

• Methodology. This section is your chance to fully explain your research data collection methods. Your quantitative market research methods may include online surveys, paper comment cards, telephone questionnaires or face-to-face interviews. In the survey methodology section, be sure to include how many participants the survey project had, the response rates and the timeframe of the project.

• Survey Findings. Use this section to detail your survey results. This is where you want to include your tables, graphs and charts - as well as appropriate descriptions for each visual. Be sure to point out the important parts of the survey responses and findings.

• Conclusions. Take the time to summarize your key points. Often your conclusion section will mirror your executive summary. Your conclusions should be strong statements that are supported by the survey data analysis you presented in the survey findings section. When it's appropriate, consider including information from related research, either past survey projects or secondary data sources.

• Recommendations. Based on your conclusions and survey findings, make recommendations for the next step, or course of action. Your recommendations should circle back to meet the goals of the survey project. For example, if you conducted a global market research study to identify new locations for a store, make a recommendation for where your organization should open a new store. Recommendations are there for your management team to use in their decision making process. Just because you make a recommendation, it does not mean that will be the chosen course of action.

Presenting survey research findings in a well organized report will help guide future business decisions. The importance of sharing survey findings is the same whether they're business market research study findings or human resources customer satisfaction survey results.