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When businesses conduct surveys, it’s called market research. The reason is apparent; they conduct it to analyze and track where the market is going and what it can offer them. A survey offers them numerous opportunities to discover the hidden aspects of their business’s prospect. It enables a business to identify the characteristics of its target audience and design their product and marketing strategies accordingly.
But recent sources suggest that about 80% of the customers abandon the surveys halfway. It even reports that the surveys interfered with the web experience of about 72% customers. As more and more customers are shifting towards online modes and means of responding to surveys, the traditional surveys are gasping for breath. And this is where the sales and marketing opportunities for a business start dwindling.
At this point, businesses can use online surveys to improve their sales, generate leads, increase their chances of prospect, and engage their customers more effectively. An online survey is a great way for a business to get extra attention. But the desire to seek too much attention can lead to bitter consequences.
Instead of overdoing your surveys, here are 8 foolproof ways any entrepreneur can use surveys to catapult their sales.
Surveys are a great way to know what your customers think about your business. As an entrepreneur, your business is your brand and you’d want to develop and market the product that primarily appeals to your customers than generating sales. For those looking to invest in online business growth, understanding consumer feedback through surveys is a critical step in refining products and services.
And since your customer is your top priority, an online survey can help you gather significant insight into developing the product your customer prefers. When you ask open-ended questions like, What do you think about the X product? Or What feature would you like to see in this product?
Questions like these help you view what your customers expect from you. During the process of your product development, an interactive communication loop develops between you and your customers. The customer feedback becomes a guide that is honed to serve the wider community of prospects. Once you realize what your customers need, you can polish your business without losing much in the communication process. For instance, you can use the feedback data from your customers to come up with ideas for holiday marketing campaigns in advance.
Apart from delivering core customer data, online surveys – when crafted carefully – can be used as a cost-effective marketing tool that could generate vital information as compared to other methods of data collection.
Ranging from smaller to larger ones, there are several businesses that keep conducting regular surveys to reach out for multiple market insights. And the best way to do that is running your survey on social media platforms.
A recent report on businesses and social media suggest that more than 70% of small businesses use social media. For example, Sugarplum Studio offers cake-decorating workshops and parties in South Jersey. CakeFlix also offers a variety of baking and cake decorating courses for amateur and professional cake artists. Where do they get massive customers from? 90% of the visitors on their website come from Facebook.
Using social media leverages a massive advantage of captivating your prospects as well as reaching a multi-generational audience that helps you devise your strategies for the future. As you interact with them via an online survey, you get to notice what your audience prefers. The feedback you receive from social media generates a wealth of information, such as what your customers think about your brand and how they would like to see you.
Though the responses may vary to a great extent, it’s always advisable to use the same survey for different social media platforms for multivariate audiences. It helps narrow down your approach.
Consider a company that employs their staff to record the personal data of their audience, such as demographics, age, contact information, and other details via some incentive offered in exchange. As the staff goes on their regular tasks, the online survey is integrated into their devices so to collect the data whenever they come across a customer. Due to the incentives offered, the chances to attract more customers and record their details become easier.
As the data keeps collecting, the staff can analyze it to perform their tasks swiftly. After the data has been filtered and customer profiles have been generated, the sales team can obtain extra information in order to close sales and generate leads. This way, your employees can engage in a unique interactive session.
When consumer surveys like these are uploaded on social media, given that any bonus is offered, the brand awareness boosts and the business profits from the increasing number of followers on their social media.
Businesses are always in need to learn from how their customer perceive their company. And for that reason, they have to improve their services via customer feedback after a sale has been successful.
The best ways to improve sales is to conduct a post-sales survey is to send an email after a purchase or placing a survey link on the customer receipt or sales receipt. The point of this approach is that the survey link is sent automatically, thus reducing the cost of additional research or labor to distribute the survey questions individually.
Questions regarding customer satisfaction can help you identify the pitfalls and the voids in your customer services. It enables a business to reconsider its customer services and improve upon their product as well as customer handling.
People of all ages love quizzes, especially when these are related to their shopping experience. Using fun quizzes, businesses can keep their customers engaged till the end of the survey.
Once a business has recognized their target audience and has generated customer profiles, they can use the data to generate knowledge or personality quiz questions, depending on your future marketing decisions.
At this point, you interact with your customers on a personal level and get to know them without general constraints. These quiz-like surveys are also a great way to condition and educate your audience regarding your product and services. In addition, there are some lead generation tools that can help generate leads.
What’s more than a business wanting to attract followers? When your survey is ready, advertising it helps you get noticed, but you need to advertise smartly in order of not getting the customer irritated.
Obviously, you won’t feel good when you’ve worked so hard on a survey and your customers seem to constantly ignore it. The best way to spread the word is by incorporating the survey into a variety of mediums in a subtle manner. As suggested earlier, customer receipts, staff conducting surveys on their devices, social media and quizzes can help. But advertising is the next level marketing you need to master.
You can advertise your survey via your website, the ends of your blog posts, your marketing emails and your email signature to name a few. It’s also noted that the lesser the number of questions, the more time are the customers willing to spend per question. The lighter your survey weighs in terms of question quantity, the more would it be easy for your customers to respond and help you in turn.
Customer reviews are the power tools, the authenticity of which most customers believe. In fact, 95% of shoppers read online reviews before making a purchase. They want to go for the products that have made it successfully through the tried-and-tested method. And these online reviews help the customers portray a brand image as positive, neutral, or negative.
Here, you can come up with a survey that encourages your customers to leave positive reviews. The survey you make helps shape your marketing decisions and improve the response rate of your customers.
Though online surveys and reviews vary a lot in nature, both can complement each other in building a better customer experience and boost your marketing reach.
Just like online reviews, customer testimonials can also help you build your brand. These are the raging signs that your brand has loyal customers and you deliver value with service.
In your customer satisfaction survey, you can ask questions about how your customers would like to rate your services, how did they find your services, and what improvements they’d like to see. At the end of your online survey, make sure you insert an open-ended question. This gives the power of expression to your customer and leverages you to know your customer better.
When you start receiving testimonials for your customer services via online surveys, there’s a better chance to receive referrals at a boosted rate. All in all, your satisfied customers become the ambassadors of your brand.
Regardless of the type of survey you employ for the generation of sales-and customer-centered data, an online survey can help you improve your sales without investing too much. It serves as a vessel to lead your customers helping you land your sales to the acme. If you have an upcoming campaign, an online survey maker, such as Survey Crest, can help you craft the most suitable survey for your business. Not only is it easier to make, but it’s also gives you the opportunity to embed the questionnaire on your website and email and distribute it across multiple social media platforms.
Kelvin Stiles is a tech enthusiast and works as a marketing consultant at SurveyCrest – FREE online survey software and publishing tools for academic and business use. He is also an avid blogger and a comic book fanatic.
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