Surveys and questionnaires
"If possible, reuse some basic questions each time you do a survey so that you can build up a detialed, comparable base of information." Arts Victoria - Audience Research Made Easy
Surveys and questionnaires are a very useful tool in capturing the thoughts and opinions of both visitors to your venue and those that aren’t coming.
AAM can offer you guidance on designing the survey, carrying it out, and interpreting the results.
Self-fill questionnaires
This is a cost-effective method of gathering the views of a small number of visitors to your venue.
AAM has designed three practical guides that should help you design and carry out your survey, and then analyse and intrepret the results.
1: Designing your visitor survey
2: Carrying out your survey
3: Analysing your results
For more information about these guides and to find out how to get your hands on a copy, email research@aam.org.uk
Face-to-face questionnaires
These can be used to survey both users and non-users of your service. This may be done either at your venue or on-the-street, and can provide very reliable results.
Web-based / email surveys
If you have access to a sufficient email list, then an electronic survey may be appropriate. A web page can be created to direct people to, or the survey can be sent as an email attachment.
An electronic survey can be set up at very little cost, and has a number of key benefits. There are practically no running costs. Data can be imported directly into a database, requiring no data inputting. And respondents can be routed to different questions depending on their responses, resulting in a much more effective survey.
Postal surveys
This method may be appropriate if you have a large mailing list and you are interested in their views on recent or proposed changes in your organisation. It can also be used to investigate lapsed attenders.
It is also possible to buy address lists from CACI, based on particular social or geo-demographic characteristics. However the high cost of this means it is only appropriate for large-scale research studies.
Telephone surveys
Fieldworkers can be used to contact people by telephone, either through your own contacts list or through a purchased set of telephone numbers.