Although surveys are a great way to collect feedback—from customer satisfaction to employee engagement—they can be used by businesses big and small to gain insights into their target market.
Jyoti Kumar, who writes for Marketing Quotes—a free service that connects business owners with marketing advice—knows that operating on a tiny budget can be limiting for startups looking to grow fast.
Luckily, surveys can help even the leanest startup companies perform the market research they need to form their business strategy.
Our customer spotlight’s on you, Jyoti. Take it away!
Never set up an online survey? It’s super easy but we know that “easy” alone doesn’t always cut it. As a budding business owner, you want to do something that brings maximum return for minimal effort. The good news is that surveys can do that too.
At Marketing Quotes, we believe that surveys aimed at collecting customer opinions can also help small business owners make smart business decisions—from determining what content to include on their website to improving the conversion process for their consumers. Here are five key ways you can use surveys to help fine tune any online business approach.
1. Know your customer
Chances are, if you’re a startup business owner operating on a shoe-string budget, you’re not going to have the time and resources to carry out in-depth research via traditional methods. Neither do you need to. Surveys are a cost-effective solution and are used by even the bigger brands to help understand more about customer demographic.
While you may know the group of people you want to target, you may not be familiar with all their needs or there may be a significant percentage of sales being made by a key demographic that you didn’t expect.
To get down into the details of your customer demographic, use a survey and include essential demographic questions related to their lifestyles, their needs, challenges they face and so on. Remember to analyze the data and use it for making strategic business decisions such as product development, building partnerships and gaining support from key stakeholders.
2. Change your brand reputation through content
A changing market, varied media reports and a customer’s past experiences can all influence a consumer’s perception of your industry. There may be a widespread view that hinders or drives involvement with brands in your sector. Knowing these views can be vital to your startup company strategy when creating new content for your site.
Through surveys, you can get to know the choices people make when using a service like yours and what people like/dislike in the way the industry functions or how they view different brands. You can also get a feel for the type of language your customers use. It’s quite likely that they won’t be using as much industry jargon as professionals would.
Responses gained from surveys can not only influence landing page copy but help determine blog post content and flesh out your FAQ page. Making simple content changes to key pages on your website could help increase sales and leads.
3. Measure customer satisfaction
As a new startup company, your website may suffer from a few glitches that crop up through the sales process. Using surveys to ask for website feedback can highlight any negative experience they may have had.
You may come across new insights such as technical faults on the checkout page, unclear messaging on how to make a purchase, or unhelpful support from staff. Despite being negative, these little nuggets of information are like stumbling through a goldmine! It stops you from second-guessing what may be hindering your conversion rate and takes you to the stage where you can do something about it.
Of course, we hope you come across the opposite in which case, you could collate the amount of positive responses you receive and prominently place a handy statistic on your website such as: 9 out of 10 customers were satisfied with our service.
4. Gain testimonials for social proof
Other snippets to include on your website are from positive testimonials or social proof. This is much more than putting up praise for new customers to see—it’s about reducing consumer anxiety when it comes to trying out a new brand, particularly if they have already used another company in the past.
We recommend sending out a short survey shortly after a sale or once the customer has received your product. This way, you’re targeting your customer at the peak of their interest making it more likely that you’ll receive a review.
Not only is this a great way to see how well you’re catering to their needs but it also shows your customers that you value their opinion and feedback.
5. Build customer loyalty
Simply providing a great service isn’t enough anymore. With so much competition around, your startup company needs to do more to keep customers coming back. Customers like interacting with brands that they feel they know so keep them invested by sending out a survey when making key business changes.
For example, if you’re thinking of changing your startup’s logo or you’re thinking about a new landing page design, mock up a few examples and send out a survey where users can vote for the one they like best. You’ll be making your customers feel valued as well as proving to them you’re at the forefront of their minds.
Jyoti Kumar writes for Marketing Quotes, a free service for UK business owners to help them get free quotes and advice from local marketing companies.
Got your own advice or survey success story to tell? Get in touch with us today, or give us a shout in the Comments below!
