Postal & self-completion

Postal surveys are a useful means of gathering feedback and data from a relatively large number of people, especially when the audience is geographically dispersed and other contact details, such as email addresses or phone numbers, are not known or easily available.

At DJS Research we have conducted a great many self-completion and postal market research surveys, ranging from small and highly targeted studies, with responses in the hundreds, to large-scale consultation projects into the many thousands. We have used this method to deliver highly effective surveys, which have generated high response rates, across a wide range of audiences including: consumers, residents, employees and businesses.

Self-completion surveys sent by post, especially when offered as a ‘push to web' survey (where respondents are given the option to complete the survey online or by post) are often a very effective method of achieving representative samples. By using a stratified random sampling approach to select the addresses invited to the survey (for example, stratifying the sampling frame by key variables such as region or ward and/or deprivation quintile (IMD) and ensuring the questionnaire and invite letter are accessible and engaging, the dual method (i.e. post or online) then also helps the survey to appeal to and engage with a greater and more balanced portion of the population of interest.

Postal surveys can be particularly useful when the target audience is less digitally enabled/confident, or when respondents may want to complete the research in private and take time to consider their views.

DJS Research is able to manage the entire postal research process which can include:

1. The design of the questionnaire and invitation to participate, which can be enhanced further by our in-house creative services team.
2. Sourcing contact details and helping to design the sample frame and sampling approach.
3. Printing, packaging, and posting the surveys, participation invitations and reminder letters.
4. Collating and processing the responses for analysis and reporting.

As a full-service agency we can manage the entire end-to-end process but we can also assist on a specific element, or elements, of the operation. For example, for clients who have their own list of contacts prepared, or who prefer to arrange for the print and delivery of their surveys themselves, we can deliver on the aspects of the process that they wish to outsource. 

Once any postal market research responses are returned to DJS Research, we have a dedicated data processing team who handle and take action upon all completes. This includes sense-checking the responses received, coding any verbatim comments into common themes for ease of analysis at a later stage and compiling an aggregated data set of all the responses, for example; combining postal responses with any online submissions if the strategy has incorporated push to web. We can supply our clients with just this raw data (in several formats), produce data tabulations to an agreed specification and/or we can analyse the data and produce a full report, with the option for a face-to-face presentation.