subject: You Can Be Your Own Data Intelligence Service With Google Docs Survey Building Feature [print this page] There are hundreds if not thousands of data gathering services on the Internet, polling users and creating information that they either give away as valuable content or sell in order to monetize their websites. The information is often extremely useful, providing insights into how consumers on the web think and make decisions. As an online retailer, the more information you have about the way consumers make decisions, the better.
Now you do not have to rely on others to conduct marketing surveys for you and hope that someone else polling asked the right questions for your purposes. It is possible for you to create your own surveys to collect the specific data that you want. It is true that there have been survey websites such as Survey Monkey available for some time now. However, the free versions of these software programs have very limited usability. Google Docs survey building capability has more flexibility, more sophistication and links directly to spreadsheets so data analysis is made much easier. Plus, you can create an online survey that can be sent as an email or sent as a unique URL of the online survey form. Survey participants are not required to sign in for completing Google Docs survey forms. Their responses can be filled out directly from the email client.
To create a Survey, go to Google Docs. (You will need to have a Google account before you can create a survey through Google.) Use your Gmail User ID and Password to login. Once you have logged in, select a new spreadsheet. Make it sharable by clicking on 'Share' tab. You will be prompted to enter the title for the spreadsheet and save it. Next, select 'fill out a form'. Then follow the choices as described.
- Theme : Google Docs has about 80 themes to choose from
- Untitled Form : Fill in the survey title of your form.
- Question Title: Type your question
- Question Type : Choose the format, e.g., multiple choice, true or false and so on.
- Make this a required question : You may want to require that some questions be answered in order for the survey to be considered complete and counted.
- Help : Use this field if you want to provide a hint. Optional.
- Done : After you have reviewed the questions and possible choices, click 'DONE.' This will add your question to your Google Docs form.
- Question #2 : After clicking DONE, you can start writing your second question. Click the question #2 fields to activate it, and start repeating the procedures above.
- Save : Each time you save a question by clicking 'DONE,' the question si added to your survey. To save the entire questionnaire, you should click the 'SAVE' button.
Next, you can imbed the survey into your website or blog.
- Press save, to incorporate your latest changes or modification.
- In the Edit Form mode, click 'See actions' and then click 'Embed.'
- Copy the iframe source code given by Google Docs. Copy and paste the code where you want it to be placed in your site or blog.
Once people begin filling out the survey, the answers will be automatically linked to a spreadsheet that can be analyzed using standard spreadsheet functions.
Google Docs allows you to ask questions of your customers and visitors to obtain the specific marketing information you need.
