When surveys are used in marketing, they can help you to acquire new prospects, better understand your customers’ needs, and improve your products and services.
Here are some key benefits of surveys in marketing.
- Developing insights into your prospects and customers (building personas)
- Create original research insights for your online content
- Getting feedback on your website’s user experience
- Capturing customer data such as demographics and email addresses
- Listening to customers and taking action
Direct communication with your customers helps to grow your business.
Original research for your digital content
It’s no secret that one of the keys to a high organic Google ranking is having lots of websites link back to yours. And one way of ensuring you get these links is to create fresh, unique content that provides value to a reader. The more value your content offers, the more links you’ll get.
The data you get from surveys can provide insights that no-one else has uncovered yet, and is a great resource for developing fresh content.
For example, if your hospitality survey reveals that 43% of businesses are at risk of bankruptcy, you can write content around this subject that may get picked up by national newspapers or trade publications.
TIP: Links to your content from these outlets will increase the value of your website in the eyes of search engines and can lead to better visibility, more traffic, and increased sales prospects.
Get feedback on your website
Keeping with the digital theme, once you’ve brought a prospect to your website, the user experience needs to be seamless.
A modern website needs to be fast, responsive, and easy to navigate.
You can track visitors with analytics and heat map software, but they only tell you facts – and sometimes you need the explanations.
A classic survey of your web visitors can help you understand the user experience your website provides.
Do people like your website aesthetically? Could they find what they were looking for? Were they happy to look around and check out other pages (such as a blog or an ‘about us’ page) or did they rush through their session? Did they find value in your content? What else would they like to see on the website?
Asking these questions can help you improve engagement and experience. Your digital presence can make or break your business nowadays, so it’s really important to get this right.
Learn more about your customer
Surveys can help you learn more about your customer.
You need to understand why they choose to buy from you, what other relevant products you could be offering, and what may prevent them from buying from you in the future.
You can also get demographic details like age, gender, occupation / business type; which helps to shape your marketing strategy.
These surveys can be follow-ups to digital purchases sent by email, paper surveys given to people who have visited your premises, or sent by SMS.
Knowing who your customer is helps you adapt to better meet their needs.
Check out our blog on Customer Satisfaction Surveys vs Review Websites
How did you find out about us?
Every customer journey has to start somewhere – and where that is can help you decide where to focus your marketing efforts.
Did a customer find you on Facebook? Great, perhaps you should double down on your content marketing or paid search efforts.
Was it on a review website? If so, try to encourage more customers to leave online reviews to help convince others who may be researching you.
Learning how customers find you can help you utilize those avenues further.
TIP: Take note of where customers AREN’T finding you. If a certain channel isn’t popping up in answers when you would expect it to, perhaps you need to find out why.
Trial evaluation
If someone takes a trial of your product or service, find out how they got on with it – especially if they don’t become a customer afterwards!
You’ll need to know what went wrong (or right) to improve and iron out any issues.
A trial evaluation survey can also help you overcome an objection and gain a new customer, once you’ve learnt what made them decide to purchase or not purchase your product or service.
How was your onboarding?
As the saying goes – you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression!
Put simply, user onboarding needs to be seamless. A customer should be shown the benefits of your product and be expertly led on the path to being able to use that product.
If a customer is left confused and unimpressed with your onboarding, they might not stay with you for very long.
This is why a follow-up survey to an onboarding process is a great idea.
TIP: Removing barriers to getting a new customer onboard is crucial to the growth of your business.
How was your contact with Support?
Your support team is crucial to customer satisfaction and retention.
If customers do not receive pleasant and helpful support, they may take their business elsewhere.
Your support team should be friendly and knowledgeable, and eager to solve issues for the customer.
A follow-up survey to those who contact your support team will help keep your service sharp.
How did we do?
From appointments to parcel deliveries, inviting feedback every time your service is used will help keep your performance sharp.
Whether it’s an NPS score or a short survey, it’s an easy way to get feedback in a timely fashion.
The speedy nature of these surveys can also get a better response rate as people see it as less of an inconvenience.
Why are you leaving us?
An exit survey is incredibly important for understanding the reasons people move on.
It can tell you direct problems with your business – such as poor customer service or limited product selection.
Or it can tell you what a competitor is doing that you aren’t.
Ultimately, it will help you work on preventing more customers leaving you in future.
TIP: This is your last chance to save that customer – so extend an olive branch to try and make things right. Include the direct details of a senior manager, or offer to take a phone number and provide a call back, and go all out to win that customer over.
Get quotes for customer testimonials
Including positive customer quotes in your marketing materials is a great way to turn browsers into buyers.
They just give that little bit of assurance to a prospect that they too can be a happy customer.
You can get these quotes from the customer feedback surveys you send out.
And be sure to include a tick box that confirms they give consent for their quote to be used. This means you won’t have to go back and ask later.
Marketing surveys for new products
If you’re preparing to launch a new product, you can offer a select few people the chance to trial or sample the product before it goes to market.
Whether it’s a focus group, online trial, or sending packages in the mail, follow-up surveys to those individuals will help you understand what is good and what may need to be changed.
Refining the product before it goes to market will ensure a smoother launch.
Conclusion
Surveys play an important role in ensuring your products and services deliver to the standard your customers are looking for.
