Should preparing a questionnaire for an online omnibus survey be substantially different than preparing one for a custom study? The answer is both “yes” and “no”. Regardless of the type of survey that is being used, the questionnaire needs to be carefully crafted with a solid understanding of the study objectives. Both types of research services also use the same type of survey software, which enables questionnaires to include functionality such as grid-type formats, complicated skipping and looping patterns, and randomized question responses. One area that is different between omnibus research and custom research is that omnibus research almost always includes some form of “free” standard pre-programmed questions. Knowing what they are and how they are reported (along with your own proprietary questions) can save costs and can be extremely useful from an analytical perspective, since many of the questions, particularly the demographic ones, are typically included in the standard data output.
While most omnibus services include their own demographic questions, some also include attitudinal and behavioral questions. Although all these free questions are positioned as a benefit to the client (and they are very useful), companies include them mostly because it makes good economic sense. Most clients usually will have some interest in analyzing their own data within a demographic framework, so it’s often simpler and less time-consuming for an omnibus service to have those questions pre-programmed into all their outgoing surveys. Furthermore, most omnibus surveys use some kind algorithm to weight the final data, which in turn requires that they include special weighting questions. Vendors will often share the results of their demographic questions and most if not all of their behavioral and attitudinal questions. Since omnibus surveys charge by the question, you might want to consider asking which questions are included in the basic service as the research could end up costing you less than you expect and you could end up with far greater value than you realize.
Another item worth exploring is whether the vendor will allow you to tweak the response options to their standard questions. The way you or your company typically analyze data may not coincide with the way a response set is laid out for a given question. Since it’s impractical for an omnibus service to ask the same question in two different ways within the same survey, they might be willing to modify the question so it meets your needs while still allowing the company to provide its standard breaks to everyone else. For example, range breaks in a question about income might be altered from the customary $100K+ break to one that includes $100K – $120K and $120K+.
The bottom line is that an online omnibus service might have greater utility and flexibility than you realize. To maximize the value you receive from your research dollar, you should make a priority of gaining access to and taking advantage of a lot of free research that goes into most online omnibus surveys.