Don’t Underestimate The Power of Surveys

Surveys, polls, questions – whatever you call them, don’t underestimate their power as a way to gauge your audiences’ opinion and help with your marketing. New tools are making this easier than ever, and setting them up is only a few clicks away. In this article we’ll cover some simple and easy ways of asking questions of your customer base, along with some general tips on getting most out of your survey.

First up, here are 5 ways to get the most out of your survey:

1. Ask Open-Ended Questions – single word answers don’t provide enough context and depth to really gauge your audiences opinions. Provide large spaces for your audiences to write, and ask questions that require long answers.
2. Ask Questions You Don’t Know the Answers To – you’d think this goes without saying, but if you can answer the question with other analytics, than don’t bother asking it. Ask questions that you can leverage to improve your business.
3. Keep it Short – long surveys have high drop-off rates, if you want your customers to complete the survey, keep it short, the questions brief, and most importantly, write your questions clearly.
4. Allow One Response per IP – don’t muddy up your results by allowing the same people to fill out your survey multiple times.
5. Thank Your Survey Participants – a simple thank you page is great, but offering them some sort of coupon or other benefit, is much more appreciated.  After all, you’re gaining a lot from their free participation of your survey, it wouldn’t hurt to give something back.

The two behemoths of the online survey world are SurveyGizmo and Survey Monkey.

SurveyGizmo

This site has been getting a lot of notice, and for good reason.  Whether you choose their free version, that features unlimited questions, 250 response per month, saved data, and support or amp things up to their Enterprise level, you can make quality, professional surveys with extensive reporting and features, you’ll get a quality survey any small business would be proud of.

Survey Monkey

The popular survey site, with lots of media attention, Survey Monkey has earned its place as a premium survey website.  Their free options are limited, but powerful – they include 10 questions, with a maximum of 100 responses, real-time results, and e-mail support.  Their top notch services allow you to completely own and customize every inch of your survey experience.

Want to embed a survey directly into your website? Or an e-mail? Yep, they can both do that too.

Being able to embed your survey has got to be the most powerful tool these two websites offer, take advantage of this, and start learning from your customers!