Getting started with Gorkana Surveys

How do I start?
Simply register for free online, then we’ll send you a link to complete your the registration process.

First, start by clicking on the new survey tab within the online wizard. There are five steps to be completed before submitting your first survey.

1. First things first
• Give your survey a memorable and unique survey title and description that you will recognise in the future – this will not be seen by the public.
• You can also include an introduction so that potential participants know what to expect in your survey, i.e. Today we are conducting a short survey on the Royal family…

Question
Add your question and the answers in the appropriate boxes. There is space for up to 11 answers, although this it is rare that you would need that many. As a general rule of thumb, the fewer questions, and the less participants need to read through, the better.

•  At this point you can also change some settings and you may want your first question to be a screener question.
•  You also need to decide whether your question can be answered as a single answer (Who do you think will win the X Factor?) or a multiple answer (Which of these countries have you ever visited?)

You can also choose whether to:
• keep your list of answers in exactly the order you have written them
• randomise the order of the answer
• randomise the order (but keeping the last option at the bottom of the list). You may want to anchor your last option if you have a ‘none’ option included in your list.

When you are happy with your question and answers and the settings click ‘Add Question’ to add another question or continue to complete the set-up of your survey…

Targeting
Targeting enables you to pinpoint exactly the right demographic for your campaign. You may want to ask everybody, just women, or just young people. You may also want to only target people in London. These settings can all be adjusted in the targeting page.

At this point it is important to decide how many people you want to survey – and you can ask number of recipients between 50 and 3,000.

Schedule
With Gorkana Surveys it is possible to:
• set a survey to run now
• schedule it for some date and time in the future
• schedule a survey so it runs at regular intervals (e.g weekly)

You can also choose to repeat a survey for a limited time period, so if you would like  to repeat the survey every week for a month, the settings used would be 4 times at intervals of 7 days.

Confirmation
At the final confirmation stage, there’s a last opportunity to edit your survey and hone any of the details –  when you’re happy, click Submit.

2. What happens after I submit my survey?
Every surveys submitted to Gorkana Surveys are displayed on our network of partner sites. An important step before integrating any partner is to agree a moderation policy. For this reason all surveys are moderated by our editors first to ensure they are appropriate for our network. This accounts for the slight delay between pressing submit and your survey becoming live.

Questions are moderated to check for:
Market research validity
Questions are checked to see if they are valid from a market research point of view and we offer this service free to all our users. If we feel that questions are inappropriately asked or may mislead respondents in any way, they may be rejected.

General mistakes
Before any questions are served on our network they are moderated and subbed which includes checking for spelling mistakes, errors and the use of inappropriate language.

Inappropriate questions
We have agreed with our partners that there are some questions and subjects that are inappropriate to serve across our network. Our moderators will check for these inappropriate questions. Inappropriate questions may include questions about personal issues, specific financial circumstances and anything that could be considered offensive.

Further, we do not allow clients to collect any details from respondents that would enable them to be identified or recontacted. This includes, but is not limited to, name, address, telephone number, Twitter handle or email address.

3. What if my question is rejected?
In the extremely unlikely event that your question is rejected, we will contact you with an explanation of the reasons for the rejection.

Our moderators cannot correct any mistakes, but can highlight them to you, and you can then either correct the question and re-submit it, or decide not to proceed with the question.

You will not be charged for any question that is not posted.

4.How many questions can I ask?
In any one survey, the number of questions is restricted to five, with the maximum number of answer options to 11 (though it is rare you will ever need this many).

There is nothing to stop you running more than one survey and asking more questions but please bear in mind that results between different surveys will not be available within the same data file or online reporting page.

5. Why does Gorkana Surveys restrict the number of questions to five?
For two reasons. Firstly, we have analysed results and found that participants are far more likely to complete a survey if the questionnaire is short.

Secondly, five questions is not an intrusion on potential participant’s time whereas 25 might be.

6. What is a repeat survey?
Often knowing the direction and intensity of consumer / public opinion can highlight what any specific issues are.

For instance, knowing the level of consumer confidence is relatively meaningless in isolation. Knowing how consumer confidence has changed in the last month or six months shows the direction of opinion which can then be compared to economic events.

A repeat survey is one that is repeated at regular intervals, usually, daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly. Repeat surveys are sometimes also known as continuous or tracking surveys and they can be used to understand changes in awareness of advertising, brand perception, consumer confidence or a range of other questions over time.