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How Surveying Your Clients and Customers Can Help You Grow Your Business

7 Steps to Doing a Survey to Help Grow Your Business!

As they used to say in the movie Wall St: “The most valuable commodity I know of is information.” Back then Gordon Gecko was talking about illegal insider information, but good quality, legally acquired information is extremely valuable to a business.

A survey can help you find out things like: Loud Media Solutions Intnernet Marketing For Business Owners

– What your customers like and don’t like

– Your customers habits and interest’s

– How your clients view your business and brand

– Clarify your strategy

– Improve customer service

– Fine tune your marketing message

– and, ultimately, grow your profits.

1. Clarify the goal or objective of the survey

Be clear on the business goal you’re looking to achieve with the survey and the data you collect. This should be the basis of every survey question you write. A clear survey objective keeps your survey short, simple and manageable.

2. Choose the preferred contact method

You can do surveys in different ways: face-to-face interviews, by phone,  mail… or preferably (in my opinion) online! More businesses are turning to social media and e-mail, which are easy to launch, quick to implement, and cost very little. Of course, if your questions are open-ended, you’ll still need to talk to respondents in person.

3. Carefully craft all questions

One question to always ask “would you recommend us to friends, and why?” Remember be clear in your mind what you want to learn from your audience. Speak to your audience the way they speak, use slang, acronyms and industry terms. If you need to use complex words, define them. If you’re doing interviews as well as online surveys, you may have to word the questions differently. Test your questions and then refine the ones people have trouble with.

4. Group similar questions

Keep similar types of questions together: questions that ask for a yes or no response, 1 to 10 rankings, multiple choice etc. Get people engaged by putting the easiest to answer and most interesting questions first. Place the longer, more personal questions at the end.

5. Think about a giveaway, freebie, or incentive

ALWAYS give something away, anything from a 10% off their next order to something else of value. Make sure it is really something of value not some cheesy gimmick. You can boost your survey’s response rate with a little motivation. Enter respondents in a grand prize giveaway or offer a small gift or discount. This adds work to the back end, but can improve response rates a lot.

6. Track the progress

The more data you collect the more effectively you will be able to “track your numbers”. You can use a website like survey monkey (it’s free) to track your survey results. Focus on developing and testing your questions in interviews and groups, and then make sure you’re accurately compiling all the data you’re gathering.

7. Evaluate the findings

Evaluate the results. Try presenting data visually, in a chart or graph, to see if it uncovers new insights. The more feedback you get the more you will uncover about your business. Then think about and discuss with colleagues how the findings can be applied to improve your marketing, communications or services — survey results can often help many parts of a business. Also look for trends. Did a mail survey have greater response from certain zip codes? Are there gender preferences? What client needs should you be targeting and fulfilling?

The quality of a survey depends on the effort you put into it. But that effort can really pay off — with valuable new answers to how you can really boost your business….

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Oliver and Sam
Co-Founders and Internet Marketing Consultants
Loud Media Solutions

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Sam: 858 518 1533

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