“Less is More”: Limiting Survey Respondents Can Result in Better Insights

The famous quote “less is more” was coined by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe a German architect. This is a quote known worldwide and is repeated by millions of people at least once in their lifetime. This universally known quote can also be applied to surveys that can be conducted for your business or surveys that are just for general curiosity.

Why Targeted Respondents Matter More

In my opinion, collecting a large amount of responses for survey can result inmore unreliable responses, especially if they are not responses from your intended target audience. If you have your audience properly defined, a small number of responses relevant to the information that you are trying to receive can give you more insights than a smaller audience.

Knowing who exactly you are getting your information from is just as important as the quantity of responses that you are getting. Relevant insights from your intended target audience not only make your results more compelling but it also makes it a lot more effective to the company you are gathering these results for. However, if you are a small business owner, If you are searching for feedback on a new product or service that you are introducing it is better to get information from your main customer profile rather than a random audience. That way you can gain more compelling and effective insights.

Costs and Resources in Survey Research

 Conducting surveys, particularly large ones can require a lot more time, money and resources to not only control but also to administer and analyze. According to Trustmary.com surveys can range from $20 to $100 depending on how advanced the survey is. Sometimes that can be a large budget depending on the business, and if you are a small business specifically that can be a large amount for you to receive new results on a new product. It is smarter to target a small group to gain actionable insights without the result of overspending. Due to budget constraints it may be necessary for a smaller audience to be targeted so that you efficiently use your resources. However if you are marketing professional in a business setting learning and understanding how to create an effective research strategy without overextending your resources can be valuable in the long run which can prove that less is actually more.

Decreasing Returns in Survey Sampling

At a certain point during the survey taking process, receiving more than that needed survey responses can have less of an impact on how valid that data that you collected is. There is a pont where additional responses don’t necessarily improve how precise your results are. Upon further research it is understood that this can also be referred to as the law of diminishing returns. It is understood that if you continue to increase the number of responses that you receive it can result in a decrease of progress. It is important to know when you have collected enough data to draw strong conclusions.

As a small business owner, in my professional opinion, once you see similar trends in the results of your survey, gathering more data will not necessarily give newer insights, it will only require more energy out of you to sift through the large amount of results. By applying the previously mentioned principle it helps make your surveys more efficient.

Can Be a Double-Edged Sword 

If there is a large amount of responses that come in from your survey, ensuring that the responses that you get from the survey are high quality becomes more and more difficult. The likelihood of the survey being incomplete or the data being low quality becomes larger. In the end it can cause your analysis to become less and less reliable. As a upcoming marketing professional, in order for your insights to be meaningful it is important to develop the skill of determining when it is a good time to stop collecting survey results. Once you have gained that knowledge it can be beneficial for future surveys and ensureing that the results you receive are based on reliable information gathered. Similarly, as a small business owner, small surveys makes it rather easy for quality control which can assist with making informed decisions in regards to the item or service that your survery may be about.

When it comes to surveys,” less is more” is more than just a catchy phrase; it also serves as a guide for businesses that leads them in the right direction for better insights and smart decisions overall. By aiming to reach persons who truly matter, you as a small business owner, or a marketing professional, or a student can obtain meaningful data that speaks to their needs directly. Understanding this concept is very important in a very fast-paced business landscape.

Ultimately, it is very important to understand that a larger sample more than likely will require a lot more effort to mainain the data quality which in turn can make the data less reliable. Instead, design your survey with the end in mind. Ensure that you focus on clear objectives so that your efforts are worth wile. The key to a successful survey is not collecting more responses, but rather gathering the right ones to make sure that you make every insight count.