How to Conduct a Survey in Cultural Management: Methodology, Personalisation and Perseverance

Many of us have had to write an undergraduate or master’s dissertation, or have simply found ourselves facing a question we could not answer. And then we had the idea of launching a survey. A survey to gather information, explore a subject in greater depth, test our observations or even connect with other professionals in the field.

These days, with all the digital tools available, some of them even free, organising a survey seems fairly easy.

Or perhaps not.

For one thing, everything to do with email campaigns has become considerably more complicated. We receive so many marketing messages that it is increasingly difficult to distinguish a genuinely interesting communication from yet another attempt to sell us something. Switching from email to WhatsApp does not necessarily solve the problem either. We still receive hundreds of messages, and somewhere among them appears our survey.

Then there is the matter of asking someone who does not know us to devote some of their time to answering a questionnaire, with no immediate benefit in return. It is rather like cold calling. And the prospects for participation are not always encouraging.

I have been working on my international survey of business management in symphony orchestras for several months now. I was told, for example, to expect a share of participation of 1%. That is certainly not a general statistical rule, but it is a rather discouraging prediction when you are about to contact hundreds of organisations. In my case, orchestras all over the world.

However interesting our subject may be, things are not looking particularly promising.

I have spent years researching how these organisations operate, and I wanted to learn more: to broaden my sources of information beyond Europe and discover other organisational realities. So, naturally, at some point I considered launching a survey.

Before asking questions, we need to know what we want to find out

I think this is the first piece of advice I would give anyone considering conducting a survey independently.

A survey does not begin when we open Google Forms or another digital tool. It begins much earlier, when we define what we want to investigate, why we need that information and what we intend to do with the answers afterwards.

It sounds obvious, but it is not always so. In my case, I spent more than a year developing and refining the questions. I reviewed and discussed them with several colleagues in the sector to check that they were clear, relevant and easy to understand.

We also need to decide whom we want to ask. Surveying the people running small cultural associations is not the same as surveying executives at major institutions. Nor can we ask exactly the same questions of people whose roles, and therefore their knowledge, differ.

The more carefully we select our contacts, the easier it will be for them to respond and the greater the likelihood of receiving a completed questionnaire. In my survey, for example, people in artistic roles are not necessarily the most suitable recipients. They may know the answers, but I believe I am more likely to obtain the information I need from general managers, technical directors, administrative and finance managers, or people in similar positions.

Then comes the design of the questionnaire. Questions must be understandable, neutrally worded and accompanied by coherent response options. We should avoid leading respondents towards particular answers, arrange topics in a logical order and check that the form works properly before sending it out.

And, above all, we need to understand the digital tool we are using. As I mentioned earlier, it took me almost a year to get the questionnaire up and running online. Admittedly, we were not in any particular hurry, but the three language versions had to be interconnected. In other words, one trilingual survey rather than three separate surveys.

All of this takes time. Especially if we do not have a research institute, a research department or a team of collaborators behind us.

But that does not mean an independent researcher cannot carry out useful, rigorous research. It means we must recognise our limitations and work methodically.

Thirty questions. Sage und schreibe.

My questionnaire contains no fewer than 30 questions. Yes, thirty. No less.

Any survey expert might warn me: too many questions. A serious mistake. Nobody will want to answer them.

Yes, I know.

But I am examining a subject with many facets and considerable depth. In fact, I could ask hundreds of questions. I need at least these thirty, five of which are mainly intended to provide context and help segment the responses.

In other words, not every question is designed to obtain substantive information about management. Some are necessary to understand who is responding and the organisational context in which they work.

I refused to cut the questionnaire down to the point where it would no longer serve my research objectives.

Either I launch a survey that makes sense for my research, or I might as well not bother.

And even so, my heart still aches for the other seventy questions I would have loved to include.

Naturally, a long questionnaire has consequences.

The more effort we ask participants to make, the greater the risk that they will abandon the questionnaire. That is why, beyond the number of questions, we must consider their complexity, the actual time needed to answer them and how easy the form is to use.

In my case, I decided to keep all thirty questions, with response options broad enough for people in different business management roles to answer without having to search through files or consult additional documents, while making sure participation required no more time than necessary.

Who should receive our survey?

Once the questionnaire has been designed, the next challenge appears: making sure the right people receive it and, with a little luck, decide to respond.

This is where a frequently underestimated part of the work begins.

It is not enough to draw up a list of organisations and find any email address. First, we must check that the organisations selected really belong to the population we want to study. Then we need to identify the person within each organisation who has the knowledge required to answer.

This is no minor detail.

Let me give you an example: sometimes the word “Philharmonic” refers not to an orchestra but to a concert hall or a theatre. However many languages we speak, this is not always obvious at first glance, particularly as not every international orchestra has a website available in English. So you may receive a reply saying: “We are not an orchestra; we are a theatre.” On one such occasion, the lady who received my message was kind enough to put me directly in touch with the right person. From the orchestra, of course. 

A cultural organisation may have artistic, administrative, financial, technical, production, communications and development departments, among others. The most visible person is not necessarily the best person to answer our questions.

In my case, I have devoted an enormous amount of time to researching organisations, understanding their structures and finding the people I consider most appropriate to contact.

And this brings us to a word that kept coming up whenever I sought advice on how to improve participation:

Personalisation.

Right. But what does it actually mean to personalise a survey?

Personalisation is not simply a matter of adding a name

Especially when we are trying to reach hundreds of people.

In my case, we have built a working database — a non-probability sample — of 551 different orchestras. And 551 contacts.

Yes, yes. 551.

No more. In other words, a maximum of one contact per organisation.

Because one thing I certainly do not consider personalised is sending the same questionnaire to everyone we can find within an organisation, hoping that somebody will eventually answer.

That is not what I have done.

I have chosen one main contact per orchestra and manually checked that no organisation appears twice, even when it uses different names or names in several languages.

There is also a methodological reason for this decision. If we want to study organisations, we must distinguish between the number of people contacted and the number of organisations represented in the responses. Sending five questionnaires to the same orchestra is not the same as obtaining information from five different orchestras.

That alone cannot guarantee that an organisation will not respond twice. But it does provide an orderly and consistent contact database. Besides, it seems unlikely that someone would forward the link to five colleagues and ask them all to complete it too, thereby distorting the survey results. Considering how hard it is to get even one response!

In my case, the questionnaire can only be accessed through the link, and the same email address can only be used to respond once.

Another thing I do not consider truly personalised is sending exactly the same message to everyone.

Of course, introductory emails inevitably contain information that has to be repeated. I am not going to reinvent the explanation of my research five hundred times.

But I can distinguish between people with whom I have already had some contact — at a conference, in a meeting, by email or on the phone — and those I am approaching for the first time.

And when we have met before, I mention it.

“We met at a conference.”

“Mr/Ms … kindly gave me your contact details.”

“We attended a meeting together some time ago.”

Small details that turn what might look like a mass mailing into a personal invitation.

I have also prepared both the questionnaire and the accompanying communications in Spanish, English and German. I confess that I eventually decided not to use the French version included in the original draft of the questions. An international survey must take language barriers into account, even though translating a form does not automatically guarantee that every question will be interpreted in exactly the same way.

I know. By now this is starting to sound like quite a lot of work.

Follow-up is part of personalisation too

There is another point I consider fundamental: respecting the time of the people whose help we are asking for.

My contacts should not be bombarded with messages from me every week.

I have allowed at least eight weeks between the initial invitation and the reminder, and in many cases considerably longer.

And I have no intention of sending reminders indefinitely. One reminder. That is it.

If someone has decided not to participate, I will respect that decision. I am not going to keep writing every two months until they finally respond, even if only to ask me to leave them alone.

I have organised all the mailings into small batches, usually around twenty messages per day.

Working this way allows me to review delivery failure notifications individually, check whether email addresses are still valid and reply personally to those who write back, even if they do not take part in the survey.

I also keep a record of the organisations contacted, recipients, problems encountered and follow-up actions taken.

It is hardly the most exciting part of a research project, but it is essential if we want to stay in control.

Behind every email address is a person

One of the more curious discoveries of recent months has been just how much a survey can also become a way of building professional relationships.

For example, on several occasions I have received automatic out-of-office replies giving return dates that had passed weeks or even months earlier.

I wrote to those people to let them know they had probably forgotten to turn off their automatic replies. A small gesture that has nothing to do with obtaining a response to my survey, but everything to do with paying attention to the person on the other side.

I have also received replies telling me that my survey was of absolutely no interest to them. For a second, I admit, it stung a little. But the next second I thought: this person has taken the trouble to reply instead of simply ignoring my message. So I thanked them for their response and offered to help if there was ever anything I could do. Because a negative reply deserves respect and gratitude too.

Along the way, I have also discovered job changes, new responsibilities and organisational structures I knew nothing about.

I even struck up a conversation with someone who had read one of my blog articles and asked me to add a link to a product related to its subject. I reviewed the suggestion and, finding it relevant, agreed to the request.

One email leads to another. One website takes you to another. One person mentions someone else.

And little by little, the pieces begin to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.

When does a survey end?

Another question people have asked me is when participation will close. The decision to close a survey should be based on coverage, participation and the feasibility of analysing the data. As things stand, mine has no definitive closing date.

I am provisionally thinking of December 2026.

Reminders, responses and a few surprises

I am currently in the first follow-up phase, sending reminders to the same people who received the initial invitation. I am considering a second phase in which I might approach different contacts within those same organisations with a fresh invitation, rather than a reminder. Personalised once again, of course.

Incidentally, to my surprise, although the survey is anonymous, quite a few participants have voluntarily provided their email addresses because they would like to receive the research results. Apparently, I am not the only one interested in finding answers to my questions.

Naturally, information that could identify participants directly or indirectly will never be shared. Anonymity and confidentiality are commitments that must also be honoured when the results are published.

Technology helps. But it does not do the work for us

For my survey, I decided against Google Forms and similar tools and chose a paid plugin integrated into my own website instead. I wanted participants to be able to see who was asking them for information, read my CV and get a sense of how I think and work. I felt that was important for establishing at least a basic level of trust. In other words, I am not a robot!

What initially looked like a fairly straightforward digital solution turned into another little project. In the end, I had to bring in an IT specialist — also paid — because I simply could not get the trilingual questionnaire configured correctly on my own. That alone took several months.

And that is without counting the tools needed to manage mailings, databases, reminders and delivery problems.

Technology makes the work enormously easier. But it cannot replace the initial research, the selection of recipients or the individual checking of contacts.

We always have to stay alert to prevent technology from doing precisely the opposite of what we intended.

In this context, you might be interested in my August 2026 article about artificial intelligence. AI has, of course, been a great help throughout this process, but its work also needs constant checking, almost as if it were a small child.

Sometimes it drives me up the wall.

What makes a survey successful?

I will consider my survey a success if I achieve a share of participation of at least 5%, with participation covering a substantial range of the territories and types of organisations contacted. That will allow me to examine the questions from different perspectives. And, above all, every person who expresses an interest in seeing the results already represents a big success to me.

I intend to start analysing the data and preparing the final report during the Christmas holidays, although I am not entirely sure I will manage to stick to that timetable.

Conducting a genuinely personalised survey has turned out to be far more labour-intensive than I imagined. Some days I find it exhausting to classify messages, update databases, resolve problems and then, after all that work, receive very few new responses.

But I carry on.

Because the participation rate is already around 4.8%, well above the 1% I was originally told to expect. And because the results are starting to get really interesting.

I have received responses from different parts of the world. I confess that simply looking at a map of where they have come from makes me happy.

Sharing the results

Those who have provided their email addresses will receive the results and the survey data, duly anonymised, so that they can draw their own conclusions. The analysis and final report will be available on my blog or in another publication. I will announce the details in due course.

And in the meantime, thank you

I wanted to write this article halfway through the process to share my experience and, above all, to thank everyone who, without knowing me, has taken a few minutes to complete my questionnaire. And also those who took the trouble to reply by email, even if only to say that they could not participate.

I also owe an apology to my blog readers, whom I have practically abandoned throughout 2026. I am still here!

I know how difficult it is to ask strangers for their cooperation. That is why, when I receive a request similar to my own survey at work, I always try to help.

Because behind every survey is someone looking for answers. And behind every completed questionnaire is a person who has chosen to give up a little of their time.

And that deserves an enormous “thank you”.

Nicole Martín Medina

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

October 2026

(Original in Spanish, translation ChatGPT, revision NMM)

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Further reading on surveys

Anyone wishing to explore survey design, methodology and interpretation in greater depth can consult the publications and recommendations of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) and ESOMAR, the international organisation specialising in market, opinion and data research. Both offer resources and guidance on good practice, methodological quality and the responsible handling of information.American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR)ESOMAR