Easy and Cost Effective Marketing
This morning the sun is shining bright outside as you and sit comfortably in your office. With a cup of hot coffee by your side and memories of the weekend’s activities still fresh in your mind, even if you say so yourself, today at least, life is sweet.
As you take a sip of your morning cappuccino a rush of cool air blows through the room and you catch a movement from the corner of your eye. Like a rabbit pulled from a hat there is now an impeccably dressed stranger sitting in front of you. Surprised, you bet; you didn’t hear anyone knock and just as you are about to say something he begins in a calm and measured voice.
‘Here is the deal’
‘I am going to display your product on a billboard at each of the world’s cities busiest junctions.’
‘I will be able to tell you how many people see the advertisement, their nationality, age and gender.’
‘I will tell you exactly what they think of your product and can even give you their contact details. While they are looking at the billboard I will allow them to view your website and even make a purchase if they feel the urge.’
‘I can have all this setup in two days and it will cost you less than a small advertisement displayed in your favourite trade journal.’
He stops talking for just a second. ‘Interested?’
Okay you might be forgiven thinking that such an offer was too good to be true, you might think that you are going to wake up from a dream or maybe it really is time to get a lock on that office door.
But let us just take time to reflect. If you are still reading this well I am that man who has come from nowhere and offered you a deal.
The advertising site is on the Internet and the billboard I’m offering is the humble online survey.
Stop for one moment and start to associate an online survey not with ‘market research’ but with ‘marketing’. Not any type of marketing but ‘Marketing’ with a capital ‘M’ and in flashing neon lights. Marketing that is direct, effective, low cost and quick.
Publish an online survey and advertise it on a website, or via email, and like a billboard by the side of a major road junction, your message will appear in front of people. Unlike billboards where the number of people that see the advert has to be estimated an online survey records the number of times a survey is started.
Online surveys can ask demographic questions such as age, gender and nationality and in doing so allows you to collate metrics about the effectiveness of your promotion and confirm that you are interacting with the target respondent on a one-on-one level.
Unlike a billboard where the message is often subliminal, or maybe just trying to achieve brand awareness, with an online survey you have the opportunity to connect with the public to find out what they really think about your product, how it relates to them, how it is perceived.
Using an online survey website it takes only minutes and hours to create a survey and using the power of the Internet an online survey can reach hundreds of thousands of people on a daily basis.
Even if you throw in a prize as an incentive for people to complete the survey, maybe invest in some Pay Per Click advertising to capture a wider, or more focused, audience you are still talking low cost effective marketing.
‘Okay then, tell me. Do we have a deal?’
Market Research – Tells You More Than You Would Think
If you conduct effective market research what are the things you can learn?
Know your customers – Market research will help you better understand your customers in a number of ways including demographic information such as their age, gender and geographic spread. The better you know your customer the easier it is to target your marketing and fine tune your product or service.
Know your target market – Who exactly are your existing customers and where do they live? What age group does your service or product appeal to? Who are your potential customers and where do they live?
Know your competition – Market Research will help you measure your service compared to others. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your organization and are you improving in the right areas?
Products and services – Do you have the products or services that people want? Do you represent value for money? How do your products and services compare to that of your competitors? Can you, do you, should you deliver?
Ease of doing business – Do your customers find it easy to deal with you and when they visit your store and/or website do they find what they want? Is there enough good advice and assistance on hand? Do people find it easy to buy from you? Are your staff properly trained, helpful, knowledgeable and available?
Marketing – Is your marketing reaching the right people and is the marketing message clear and effective. What are the marketing channels that are available to you, which ones should you concentrate on and which, if any, should you consider dropping?
Do the right people understand your marketing message? Does the marketing material properly represent your brand? Do you use the right advertising channels? Are you reaching your target audience?
With the power of the Internet it is now very easy to conduct market research using one of the many online survey software sites that make conducting surveys and collating good market research intelligence quick, easy and extremely cost effective.
The Importance of Doing Market Research
For any organization that wants to offer products or services that are focused and well targeted market research is essential. Business decisions based on good market research can help minimise any risk and should pay dividends in the longer term. By making market research part and parcel of the business process and conducting market research throughout the life cycle of a product or service market research will bring the following benefits:-
- Market research will help you better communicate – Your current customers experiences are a valuable information source, not only will they allow you to gauge how well you currently meet their expectations they can also tell you where you are getting things right and more importantly where you are getting things wrong. By asking your customers you no longer need to guess what your customers are thinking and you demonstrate to them that you are proactive when it comes to customer services and value their opinion.
- Market research helps you identify opportunities – If a new service is planned and you want to know the attitudes people have then market research can help, not only by evaluating the potential for the new idea, but also by identify the areas where a marketing message needs to be fine tuned.
- Market research will minimise risk – Market research can help shape a new product or service, identifying what is needed and ensure that the development of a product is highly focused towards demand.
- Market research creates benchmarks and helps you measure your progress – You need to be able to measure so that you can ensure that your organization is always improving. Preliminary research may be able to identify problems in the service you intend to offer or in your product, regular market research will show if progress is being made and, if positive, will help motivate a team.
Market research brings considerable benefits and it is perhaps surprising how few organizations invest sufficient resources to enable them to gather good intelligence that will help them improve their business. Many may think that market research takes too much time and effort but that is just not the case anymore as through the power of the Internet online survey software is readily available and vital market research data can now be gathered in a quick, simple and cost effective manner.
How to Write Effective Surveys
Writing surveys is easy; isn’t it? The reality is that writing surveys is easy but writing surveys that will be effective is more difficult. The following twenty tips will help you write more effective surveys.
1. What is the purpose of the survey?
There are many reasons for conducting questionnaires. By correctly phrasing the questions and structuring the answers surveys can be used in a multitude of ways and for a variety of reasons. When compiling a survey don’t lose sight of its purpose.
2. Give the survey a good title
The survey title is an opportunity to instantly summarise a survey’s objective and encourage respondents to participate. Respondents need to invest time in completing the survey so make them feel that their investment is worthwhile.
3. Ensure that you do not make the survey any longer than it needs to be
Every question asked should be asked for a reason. Concentrate on the ‘need to know’ questions and minimise ‘nice to know’ information.
4. Use plain English, maintain consistency and avoid terminology, acronyms and asking questions that could result in ambiguous answers
Take care when wording a question. If a question can be interpreted in more ways than one then there is a real risk that any analysis of the survey data will be meaningless or at the very least misleading.
5. Avoid long questions
Try to use short sentences wherever possible. Long questions tend to cause respondents discomfort and can lead to a higher level of incidents where respondents abandon a survey.
6. Ask one question at a time
Avoid confusing the respondent with a question like ‘Do you like athletics and football?’
7. Do not influence the answer
Avoid loading the question. ‘Should irresponsible shop keepers who sell tobacco to minors be prosecuted?’ is likely to have no value.
8. Make sure that the chosen answer format allows the respondent to answer the question being asked
Ensure that the respondent is able to answer how they really feel or they may be less inclined to complete the survey. As a last resort consider the benefit of including a “Don’t know”, “No comment” or similar response option.
9. While compiling your survey consider how you will want to analyse the results once the survey has been published
Appreciate that questions that allow for a free text open ended response, such as when asking the respondent for their comments, is likely to be difficult to score and/or summarised. Consider how the answers could be grouped. For example “Indicate your length of service?” – ‘less than 1 year’, ‘between 1 and 5 years’ and ‘more than 5′.
10. Ensure that the questionnaire flows
Group the questions into clear categories as this makes the task of completing the survey easier for the participants.
11. Target your respondents
In some cases you will want to target a specific group, in others a cross section. If you can’t control who responds to your survey consider including questions/answers that will allow you to filter out respondents who don’t fit your target profile.
12. Provide a channel for your respondents to expand on their answers or make comments
Allowing the respondent to make additional comments will increase their satisfaction level and will also give valuable feedback on the specific questions and/or the survey as a whole. Remember that for large sample collections free text open ended responses may prove difficult to analyze.
13. If you are conducting a confidential survey ensure that your pledge for confidentiality is upheld
If you have guaranteed the respondents that the survey is confidential ensure that the individual data is not to be shared with anyone and the information is not going to be used for any other purpose. Confidentiality must be maintained at all times and any contact information destroyed once the survey has finished.
14. Consider the advantages and disadvantages of allowing respondents to be anonymous or identifiable
If your respondents are to be anonymous then appreciate that you will be unable to follow up or match “pre” or “post” surveys. Allowing people to remain anonymous can however have advantages for example it would allow people to respond without possible peer pressure.
15. Carefully consider the best response format
Being consistent with the format used for responses is good practice. When creating your survey keep in mind that when analysing the data single selection radio buttons are easier to analyse than multiple selection check boxes. Do not use a check box format if a radio response format would do.
16. Give the respondent an estimate as to how much time the survey will take to complete
Respondent drop out can increase if there is no end in sight to the survey questions. It is good practice to give an indication as to how long the survey is likely to take so the respondents can choose the best time to complete the survey.
17. Inform the respondents of the survey end date
Encourage your invited respondents to complete the survey as soon as possible but advise the respondents of the survey’s end date so that they have the opportunity to schedule the necessary time.
18. Trial the survey
Before publishing a live survey publish a pilot survey to check for questions that are ambiguous or confusing and to confirm that the survey is aesthetically pleasing.
19. Before publishing the survey proof read the survey carefully
Check and check again that the survey is grammatically correct and makes sense. If practical get a colleague to check the survey before you publish, if no one else is available then take a break before checking again.
20. Thank the respondent
To complete surveys respondents need to invest their time and should be thanked either in a covering letter, at the end of completing the survey or in a follow up letter. You may even want to consider incentives such as a prize draw or reward.
For more information please visit Survey Galaxy
Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Why should you bother?
The life blood of any business is good customer service. Although you should try and attract new customers good customer service will help generate customer loyalty and encourage repeat business. With each satisfied customer your business is likely to win many more customers through recommendations and remember, if you are not taking care of your customers, your competition will.
A customer satisfaction survey will help by not only identifying problem areas but show that you care and are proactive in looking for ways to improve the service that you provide.
Where do you start?
Objective – Before you start compiling your survey consider what the objectives of the survey are, in that way you will remain focused and find it easier to decide what questions to ask.
Analysis – Consider how you will analyse the answers having completed the survey.
Bare in mind that ‘closed’ questions (where the respondents are asked to choose from a limited number of responses) are easier to analyse than questions that are ‘open’ (where the respondent can reply in anyway they want).
Much will depend on the predicted volume of respondents, the higher the volume the more important it is to have an easy method of analysing the results.
Opportunity – As well as obtaining valuable market research data keep in mind that customer surveys are also a good way to publicise aspects of your service that your customers may not be aware of.
Before you publish the survey confirm that the questions you have asked will provide you with market research data that when analysed will help you make informed decisions.
Then, from a marketing view point read through the survey, confirm that you have phrased each question so that every opportunity has been taken to promote your business?
The ideal question will perform the following three functions:-
- Market research – provide valuable feedback to help you improve your customer satisfaction levels and in turn your business
- Marketing – promote aspects of your business
- Information/Education – advertise a service that you provide that your customers may not have been unaware of
For example:- Do you find the in-store baby changing facilities useful?
In asking this question the store will hopefully not only receive useful feedback on the baby changing facility but they will also promote the store as being child-friendly even beyond the customers who actually require the facility.
Warts and all – be prepared to accept criticism.
A well designed customer satisfaction survey will enable you to identify problems so that they can be addressed; regular customer satisfaction will prevent complacency and give you early warning on where you might be losing out to your competitors initiatives.
What questions should you ask?
Although each business is likely to have specific and unique factors that are important in providing good customer services there are common areas that are relevant to all businesses be they a physical store, online internet store or a service industry. The following are key areas to providing good customer service.
Communication – What do you do to help your customers communicate with you?
When a customer telephones is their call answered promptly; are enquiries about products or services handled properly? A good business will make every effort to ensure that whatever the customers query it is resolved by the right person, politely, quickly and fairly.
If a problem is not resolvable immediately do you promise to respond in a given time period and do you deliver on your promise?
Use a customer satisfaction survey to check that all your employees are perceived by your customers as being helpful, courteous and knowledgeable.
Location – Are you doing everything you can to ensure that your customers find it easy to visit you, if a physical store, does it have good access and is it conveniently located?
Making it pleasant, making it easy – For a virtual business it is important to ensure that your website is aesthetically pleasing and easy to use.
Physical store or online website, is the store properly laid out, can your customers find what they need and is there sufficient information and help on hand to explain how a particular product works?
The right quality products – In addition to measuring the quality of the service that you provide you should ensure that the products and services that you provide do fully match your customers’ requirements.
Value for money – Cheap or expensive is not always a good measure, value for money is.
Do your customers consider that the products you sell or the services you provide are value for money, if not, why not?
Speed and attention – The majority of customers will want to be dealt with quickly but attentively.
Are you doing everything you can to avoid any delay?
A good business will try to treat each customer as an individual, does yours? Attention is one thing but this has to be hand- in-hand with a quick and satisfactory resolution of the query.
Demographics and Specific issues – Take the opportunity to profile your customers, for example what is their age group and where do they live?
The more you try to understand your customers the better you will be able to target your business.
Encourage customers to highlight their specific problems and provide contact details so that their concerns can be followed up.
What next?
Once the survey has been completed analyse the results.
Trends – Identify common and specific areas where the service needs improving.
Ask yourself if any criticism is valid, be honest to yourself, is there anything that can be done to properly resolve, or at the very least, minimise the problem?
Training – Are the staff properly trained and do they have sufficient knowledge?
Where customer service training programs have been implemented have they had the desired effect and improved the customer experience?
Follow-up – If a customer who has completed a survey has raised a specific issue ensure that they are contacted and their complaint addressed.
Don’t waste an opportunity to resolve a problem and keep a customer.
Continuously Monitor – Based on the survey results make changes and then re-measure by issuing further surveys.
If you are concerned about customer satisfaction and what to view a sample survey for a store that will demonstrate some of the above advice please visit:- Sample Customer Survey
Why Employee Satisfaction and Employee Exit Surveys are Important
In a competitive world with the need for businesses to be more productive and streamlined an organization can often find itself with a workforce working under pressure suffering from low moral and experiencing a high staff turnover. The benefits of an organization having a highly motivated workforce can be considerable and the two goals of having employees that are both motivated and productive should not be regarded as being mutually exclusive to one another.
If problems are left unresolved then companies run the risk of alienating their employees and events can then cause employee frustrations to boil over resulting in managers finding themselves on the back foot, faced with problems that cannot be ignored.
In an ideal world employers would take time to understand the needs of their employees and learn from their experiences of working on the front line, but employers are often themselves tied up day to day fighting their own fires.
Online surveys can automate the intelligence gathering process allowing the collated data to be instantly analysed thereby providing the management with a low cost and effective method to help towards achieving a pleasant working environment with the aim of promoting employee satisfaction while still ensuring that productivity is high.
Unproductive & dissatisfied
There are a plethora of reasons why employees may become dissatisfied with their job that can result in them channelling their frustrations into demands for higher salaries and reduced hours. Employers who tackle problems thinking it is all about salary and hours, will often find later that they have been dealing with the symptoms and not the root cause.
It’s not just about the money
The following are some common barriers to achieving productivity, none of which are likely to be resolved by increasing salaries or reducing hours:-
- Inadequate training
- Out of touch management
- Dated working methods
- Lack of proper tools and equipment
Paying higher salaries is not always a solution to an employee’s problems nor as many studies have revealed is it the most important motivator for employees.
Take the case of a single mother who is juggling a full time job with the need to look after a child. Out of frustration she may demand more money so that she feels that she is able to cope where a better solution, for both her and the business, may be more flexible working hours.
Establishing good communications
It is in the interests of all organisations to encourage good communications. A business that makes it difficult for personnel and management to communicate, or that takes the view that if individuals have a problem they will say so, can often delude themselves into thinking that their staff are content when they are not. It can very easily start with a small problem and one aggrieved employee for the problem to escalate to involve an entire workforce and generate a ‘them and us’ attitude.
Improving communication
It would be ideal if the employer and employee could meet one on one but in practice this is impractical for everyone except very small organizations.
Regular meetings between management and worker representatives are good in theory but they often become talking shops and can begin to lose their edge as the participants become familiar with one another and the forum runs the risk of being hijacked by the more extrovert personalities.
Suggestion boxes can have their value but they can be viewed as token efforts by management as they wait for personnel to highlight a problem.
Newsletters can be useful, but their main purpose is generally to inform and not discuss issues.
Maintaining the initiative
An employee satisfaction survey run regularly is able to ask each employee specific questions and represents a pro-active management initiative where the whole workforce can be consulted on various issues. Surveys are able to provide a level playing field between the quieter and more vocal employees.
Consultation should not be seen as a sign of weakness, a confident manager will take counsel from all quarters before making a decision. By issuing a survey the employer is able to keep the initiative and tackle problems from a position of strength as opposed to waiting for problems to manifest and then possibly develop out of proportion.
If small problems are left unresolved the employees mood can change from positive to negative over night should a minor problem breaks the camel’s back.
It’s quick and easy
For the majority of organizations online surveys represent a proactive, effective and low cost solution. For the majority of organizations where most of the personnel have desktop computers making online surveys quick to design and quick to deploy direct to the individual.
In situations where not all of the personal have access to a computer there are options available to implement the online survey solution such as providing a shared computer, have an operator input their responses or as a last resort, a hardcopy survey.
Job satisfaction
There are a number of elements that combined will provide an employee with job satisfaction, from company ethics, working environment, methodology and ethos to having good and effective management. Job satisfaction brings benefits through improved productivity and motivation from a workforce that feels that they are treated as individuals and not a commodity item.
Inform and educate
An often overlooked benefit of online surveys is that they can be used to educate and pass on important information to the workforce, ensuring that the ‘message’ does not become corrupted as it is handed down by the phenomenon of Chinese whispers.
An online survey can explain to the employees a difficult situation and get valuable feedback as to the best solution. It is rare in this situation that the workforce would appear negative and more likely that they will feel informed and empowered that might in itself turn a potentially negative problem into a positive challenge that unites the workforce.
Exit surveys
Exit surveys are an excellent way of ensuring that when personnel leave an organisation they are leaving for the right reasons and not due to reasons that if appreciated earlier could have been addressed and resolved by management. Identifying a problem may not be enough to prevent a person from leaving but it could lead to an unappreciated issue being resolved that may be all that is required to stop other key personnel from also deciding to leave.
Analysing the results
Having consulted with the workforce using an online survey the results are available for instant analysis. Common and specific problems can be identified and the senior management informed who then will have the chance to address the issues that have been raised.
Summary
Used regularly online surveys represent a simple and productive method of taking the pulse of an organisation and an easy way to establish a two way communication channel between employer and employee with the results providing management with vital, accurate and significant information.
For a Sample Employee Satisfaction Survey:- Employee Satisfaction Survey
For a sample Employee Exit survey:- Employee Exit Survey