While analyzing, testing and guessing all have their place in the business world, these are approaches commonly used by those who aren’t very good at active listening. Instead of trying to figure out what your customers want from you or what they think about your brand, why not simply ask them? This is where surveys come in, yet, this is merely a tip of the iceberg of all they can do for your company. Here are six other ways in which surveys can help build your startup company strategy and mold your brand.
Getting to Know Your Customers
The questions you ask in your survey may reveal vital information that may boost the efficiency of your outreach efforts. For instance, education of your demographic, their age and their gender may determine which online platforms and social networks they are using the most. In other words, the answers that you acquire in this way can help you make your social media marketing campaign much more efficient. By getting to know your customers you will get a much greater ROI for your digital marketing.
A Reliable Source of Information
If used properly and in the right form, surveys can provide you with a much more reliable source of information. People often lie in person in order to overcome an obstacle, so needless to say, in a digital environment, this becomes so much easier. You can never know for sure if a person answered your questions honestly or just gave you some random answers in order to overcome a popup screen that’s preventing them from accessing the content of the website. With polls, the chance of your audience just clicking randomly becomes even higher. On the other hand, a financial incentive behind paid surveys increases the chance of getting the honest answers you were looking for.
Measuring Customer Satisfaction
Getting feedback is something you can get through comments and direct emails, yet, a large portion of your audience lacks the eloquence to express themselves in a way that your analytical algorithm may understand. So, by hand-tailoring your survey to focus on fields you believe deserve the most attention, you can overcome this problem with much greater efficiency. In this way, you can get actionable information on your customer satisfaction levels, which can, in turn, give you a unique opportunity to act in the best way possible.
Acquiring Testimonials
In the world of digital marketing, testimonials (as a part of your website’s design) are probably the closest thing to WOM (word-of-mouth) recommendations. However, acquiring these testimonials is not an easy thing to do. You see, while comments on your social networks may endorse your brand and praise your products, they might be colloquial and, therefore, not the most fitting in form. Altering them in order to make them fit this purpose may seem dishonest but collecting these positive impressions of your brand through surveys is a different thing altogether.
Post-Sale Follow-Up
If done right, your post-sale follow-up can turn your one-time customers into regulars. This is an incredibly potent trick, which can result in as little as 8 percent of return customers making a major portion of your entire profit. In order to unleash the full potential of this idea, you have to know which stage of the life cycle each of your customers is currently in. While various high-end analytical tools may help you decipher this, it might be simpler to just ask. A well-composed survey can easily reveal which of your customers might be the most susceptible to a well-timed special offer email.
Brainstorming on a Massive Scale
Finally, surveys aren’t just there to assess the current state of your business but to help set its future course, as well. For instance, if you’re not sure which products and services to expand, you might want to ask your customers for their opinion. In this way, you are democratizing your brainstorming efforts through crowdsourcing. During this process (especially if it’s a close call), you might even be able to convert some people who would otherwise stay uninterested.
Conclusion
As you can see, with the use of surveys, you get the shortest path towards actionable information. Instead of having to gather and store it in the form of raw data, you will be instantly provided with ideas you can build a strategy around. Sure, a lot of this information will still have to be tested and evaluated on their validity, yet, you will find that you have a lot less work around them than with information gathered through polls or prospected by analytical software.
About the Author
Raul Harman is the editor-in-chief at Technivorz blog. He has a lot to say about innovation in all aspects of digital technology and online marketing. Connect with him on Twitter.
