5 Tips for Online Surveys that Build Relationships and Drive Sales
No matter what the intent of your survey, it's a communication that will influence the respondent's feelings about and relationship with your company.
No matter what the intent of your survey, it's a communication that will influence the respondent's feelings about and relationship with your company.
Online surveys are a great way to learn about your e-mail subscribers. You can do surveys to get a read on just about anything, from customer satisfaction after a purchase to how readers feel about your free e-mail newsletter.
But here’s the thing to keep in mind: no matter what the intent of your survey, it’s a communication that will influence the respondent’s feelings about and relationship with your company. Do it well and you’ll not only get the answers to your survey questions, you’ll build brand loyalty and may even drive some sales.
I was reminded of this recently when I was reviewing the first draft of a survey developed by a client. In this case, it was a survey to gauge customer satisfaction following a purchase. Here are five tips for doing it well.
1. Branding Goes Beyond Your Logo
It’s good to include your company logo on each page of the survey, but this alone isn’t going to make it your own. It rings hollow if everything else on the page is generic and sterile. Every interaction a prospect or customer has with your company impacts their perception of it. Popping your logo on a survey which doesn’t reflect the voice of your brand doesn’t help the relationship and may even hurt it. It’s like your brand has momentarily morphed into a zombie; and don’t think customers won’t notice.
2. Look at the Flow from the E-mail to the Survey
As e-mail marketers, it’s our job to put ourselves in the shoes of our recipients; what is their experience going to be, from start to finish. In this case, there was a well-crafted, somewhat tongue-in-cheek e-mail that would be sent with a link to the survey.
The e-mail was right in line with the company’s brand; landing on the first page of the generic survey was like a bait-and-switch. It’s a fun brand and the e-mail was promising another fun interaction — and then it was all blah-blah-blah business. A major disconnect, and one that I’ve seen result in large abandon rates with previous clients.
3. Work with a Copywriter
Yes, you read that right. Even if you don’t consider this a marketing initiative (I would argue that most interactions should at least secondarily be considered marketing initiatives, but I digress), it is customer-facing and professional copy is needed. I recommend that clients figure out what they want to ask and how they want to ask it, then bring in the copywriter who wrote the e-mail to massage the survey and bring it in line with the voice of the brand.
4. Work with a Designer
As I said, brand goes beyond your logo. If your brand sells products that are visual, this is critical; if your offering isn’t visual, it’s less important.
In the case of this client, I’ve recommended they include small images of different products on each page of the survey. Not only does this add visual interest, it starts planting the seeds for their next purchase, which we hope is right around the corner (see the next item).
5. Offer a Thank You
To offer an incentive or not to offer an incentive, that is the question. Many brands don’t want to get their prospects or customers in the habit of expecting a discount, and I get that. But I feel like a survey is different.
This person has just taken their time to provide feedback that should help your company; they deserve some kind of thank you. Verbal thanks is good, a third-party gift card is great, but the incentive that makes the most sense for a survey like this one is some sort of deal on your next order.
There are a few ways to do this; I recommend that companies test to see which drives the best balance of quantity and quality of survey responses and revenue.
Bookmark this column for the next time you do a survey — or take a look at any surveys you currently have in market and see if you can improve the branding, as well as the quantity and quality of response and the revenue it generates.
Until next time,
Jeanne