How Video Research & Open-Ended Questions Can Enhance Your Research

Authoring a research survey can be daunting at times, especially knowing there are big decisions on the line. We’ve compiled a few easy tips to help you effectively craft your survey and select the ideal question types (from open ends to video research) to best obtain the specific insights you’d like to uncover.

Define Your Objectives to Streamline Your Survey

Listing out your key objectives, followed by your secondary objectives, serves as an effective way to ensure your survey will be structured to obtain the most important insights needed to create the change you seek. Additionally, making sure you’re mindful that your respondents have busy schedules will help you craft a survey that participants will complete, not get overwhelmed and abandon. 

Use Video Research & Open Ends to Obtain “Conversational Insights”

While some questions can be easily answered with a checkbox, others require more detail. One way to obtain this rich level of information is by asking an open-ended question where your survey participant responds freely by typing in a detailed response. It’s often helpful to first ask a close-ended question, then add in an open-ended question as a follow up to obtain further details. Say you want to understand the public perception of a few well-known celebrities you’re considering for a splashy advertising campaign. After asking how highly the respondents regard each celebrity, you may want to ask a follow-up question asking them to describe their opinions in more detail to understand key themes about the celebrities in the consideration set. This can help you come to a more informed decision about which celebrity is more marketable for your specific campaign.

Another way to obtain considerably more information than a close-ended question is to ask the respondent to record a brief video response. Videos are a powerful medium for analyzing sentiment, themes, tone & emotion, as well as storytelling and bringing the customer to life across your organization. Here at Prodege, we recently helped a popular CPG brand understand via video responses whether known purchasers would be interested in getting products delivered from a convenience store.

Looking for a team with a flexible approach to helping you achieve your research goals? Reach out to us for a custom quote on your next project!