Research your market

Conducting marketing surveys

Marketing surveys are invaluable tools for discovering precise, targeted information about your intended audience. This method is so important, there are several companies that have made a business of providing marketing surveys to other businesses for a fee. The good news is, you can perform marketing surveys yourself without paying a dime and still get great results.

Ideally, you would institute a marketing survey after you’ve built an opt-in list (covered in a later chapter). But you can start mining your market for information even before you have your product ready. Groups and forums are good places to start; or you can set up a free mini-site just for your survey. You can even enlist friends and family to help you out by filling out surveys.

Constructing Your Survey

Have you ever received an offer for an exciting free gift provided you fill out a survey—only to discover the questions you had to answer required pages of information and would take up more of your time than you were willing to invest for whatever incentive was offered? This is a prime example of an ineffective marketing survey. You don’t want to lose consumer interest before they get to the good part: your product.

The principle of KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) should apply liberally to marketing surveys. The easier you make it for people to fill out your survey, the more likely they will be to respond. Try to keep it to 20 questions or less, including demographic information (age, gender and location—do not ask for names, as most people prefer to remain anonymous when filling out surveys). Also, make as many as you can yes/no or multiple choice answers, and remember to include space for additional comments.

A well-designed survey will impress your customers – and that means more sales

One great way to get survey responses is to offer a free incentive upon completion. This can be an e-book, a mini-course, or even the full version of your product when it is released (if you choose to give away free product, be sure to state only a limited number of respondents will receive the free gift. This also creates urgency and helps to increase response). A full discussion on free incentives can be found further.

Setting Up Your Survey

Research your market

Conducting marketing surveys

Constructing Your Survey

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