Are Marketing Research Surveys Bunk? 2

Survey Methods And How To Get Results

Marketing Your Product

Surveys are covertly preparing prospects for selling your product in a vary humanistic way. A user doesn’t feel that they are being approached for marketing purposes. On the other hand they feel respected to be part of product creation. In their subconscious they are learning about your upcoming product. You are getting a three for one here.

• First you are letting them be part of the product creation and giving them a sense of trust and even loyalty by saying their input is vital for this product.
• Second you are sending them information about your upcoming product without actually marketing to them. They are receiving your advertisement without feeling the advertising.
• Thirdly you are gaining valuable insight about what to actually sell them. Your questionnaire takers are strong potential buyers of your product.

There is another layer of survey benefits for you. Questionnaires then help in product development at the first layer and product marketing strategy at the second layer.

Give Value For Time

Another good use of market research surveys is to offer a valuable incentive in return for taking a poll. Some companies even pay cash to their survey takers but in our list building process we will offer a “non-cash” incentive. By offering incentives you want to make poll takers feel special. You need to give them a sense that they are more special to you than the rest of your customers because they have spent time taking your survey.

You can offer a free copy of your product or a discounted price for the product they helped create by taking the questionnaire. This incentive will help convince people to participate. This step will again serve a dual purpose. It will make the survey takers happy because they don’t feel that you took their precious time for nothing in return. You will also be successful in providing them your product for a discounted price or free and getting more feedback.

It is best to offer your product to them for free because you will find that less people are willing to participate if they know they have to buy something at the end. This can be tested and will depend on if it is a solution or desire based market and of course every market will also respond differently. This is yet another layer where surveys work for your benefit so test which way works best for your market.

Build Your List

The most important benefit of surveys is you start to build a list of subscribers in your niche. These subscribers are high quality because they have shown interest in your niche and even in your product. The best thing about these subscribers is they have subscribed to your list as genuinely interested in your product and they were not captured with hype.

Setup Your Survey

It is very important to craft your survey properly. Your survey is going to give a first impression of your product. If you set it up wrong it can backfire and rather than gaining benefit from it you may lose your positive image with your subscribers. Let’s say you want to prepare an e-book on “dog training”.

Let’s assume that you have a small list of subscribers in this niche and minimal but consistent traffic. You either want to sell your e-book or give it away to increase your list of subscribers. In either case the following will be the mechanics of your survey:

• Build a Survey Page
• Build a Thank You Page
• Send Traffic to Your Survey

I recommend you have a three question survey only for the beginning level. Don’t use a lot of questions having multiple choice answers. A time will come for detailed surveys as well but for now you need to make a “three question” survey. The simple reason is you don’t have a huge list of subscribers yet and you don’t have an established trusted relationship with the survey takers. Your objectives for this survey are:

• Increase Your Subscriber List
• Build a Relationship with People
• Stealth Marketing Your Product
• Getting Input for Your Product
• Find Out What Emotional Benefits They Want
• Develop A USP

Your main interests at this level is to use surveys for building your list, developing your product and your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). It would be a bad move to scare them with a 20 question survey especially when you don’t have any prior relationship developed with them.

People are busy and you need to respect their time. Above all a “three question” survey will be serving your objectives best. However it’s critical how you phrase your questions. As I mentioned earlier a poorly phrased question can ruin your survey results and image.

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Marketing Research Surveys Can Make Sense
Author: Scott Holden – TrafficEraBlog