Having a deep understanding of your customer will always be of benefit to your business. There are a variety of means to do this, however, one of the most effective we’ve seen is generating online surveys for your customers to answer honestly. The only other method we’ve seen that’s also very effective is getting past customers and current subscribers on the phone, but this can take a lot more effort and time invested on your end.
In this post we’re going to explore the power of online surveys, what benefits they can bring to your business and how to get started making your own.
What Are The Benefits Of Using Online Surveys?
Online surveys can be incredibly beneficial as they allow customers to tell you the truth about your business, and the experience they’ve had thus far. You can even make surveys anonymous, so people will be even more honest.
Playing the guessing game never works too well in the business world. However, gathering data can be very time intensive. Constructing an online survey is a happy medium. Coming up with questions and creating the form yourself will take a little time upfront, but once it’s created it’s much easier to share and spread.
A lot of people may simply ignore the request to fill out your survey and answer questions. That’s why it’s important you frame filling out the survey as a benefit for the user. For instance, by filling out the survey you’ll be able to create better products and services for the end user.
You can even offer some sort of incentive, which the person may find valuable, such as a free consultation or coupon for one of your products.
How Can I Get Started Today?
The process doesn’t have to take too much time, but it is important you take time to come up with questions that are going to reveal valuable information about your business. This means you’ll want to engineer questions that reveal psychographic and demographic information, as well as pain points.
This last element is crucial, as pain points are what motivate all of us to take action. While demographic and psychographic information will help you craft better copy and gear your products and services to your customers.
Below you’ll find a series of steps you can follow to start the creation process yourself:
1. Choose Your Online Form Provider
There are a wide variety of forms and providers you can utilize. One of the most simple and powerful is Google Forms. They are free to create and can sync up with a spreadsheet, so you can better keep track of and manage your responses.
Survey Monkey is another free option that allows you to create beautiful surveys and easily share them with your audience. If you’re interested in upgrading to a paid option there are other options, which include market research, testing and unlimited questions.
If you’re feeling a little DIY, then we’d recommend Google Forms. However, if you want to take a more hand-holding approach, then Survey Monkey might be what you need.
2. Create Your List Of Questions
As we mentioned above the questions you ask are going to be critically important to the success and value of your survey. Use the principles above and you’ll be on your way to a valuable set of questions that truly gets you inside the head of your customer.
3. Share And Analyze
Once you’ve created your online survey and set of questions it’s time to share it with the world. Both of the services we mentioned above enable easy sharing.
If you have an email list, you can easily make the request to your list. If not, then try and get in touch with past customers via email, or even social media. Don’t be afraid to make the request, after all, the more you know about your customers then better you can serve them.
I hope you’ve found this post valuable and are ready to take your knowledge of your customers and their problems even deeper. If you need help determining if your online presence or Jacksonville website needs some work, then get in touch with our creative team.
by Calvin Bryant
Digital Marketing Geek
