Advertising is a key component of every business’ strategy for success. To promote its services and products and inform potential customers of its existence, a business must discover the best marketing tools for its industry and implement a plan that uses those tools efficiently.
Money spent on advertising can reach into the thousands of dollars for small businesses and millions of dollars for larger entities, so this is why it is so important to track the success rate for every applied marketing strategy. Otherwise, your business could be spending advertising dollars without bringing in new customers.
Ask for Customer Feedback
A marketing survey is the best way for businesses to learn which marketing strategies are working and which aren’t. There are many different ways to advertise and reach out to new customers, but not all types of advertisements are created equal. If fact, some forms of advertising may work very well for one business but not bring in a single customer for another. The marketing survey is the easiest tool for discovering the best marketing methods for your business.
This type of customer feedback is very important for business success and must be executed in a manner that will promote a willingness to participate. Experience has shown that customers are more willing to provide feedback if the questionnaire is short, and marketing surveys are, by design, always short. This means that customer participation should always be at 100 percent, no matter what the business.
Survey Design
Marketing surveys usually consist of one or two questions. The first question is, “How did you hear about us?” This is the trademark question of all marketing surveys and is the question that will tell you which marketing strategies are working best. There is a lot of information that businesses can glean from this single question. For example, if you have been advertising in a popular local magazine for a few months but haven’t had a customer mention this ad in their marketing survey, you should probably stop paying for ad space in that magazine.
To make answering this question easier, some businesses choose to provide their customers with a list of possible answers (such as “the business website,” “Google Maps,” or “an ad in the local newspaper”). However, you must be careful about providing options, as some customers will choose to check the option that sounds the most familiar to them, even if it wasn’t the true way they discovered your business. For example, some customers may say that they discovered you by driving by, when they actually found you through Google Maps.
To compensate for possible wrong answers on the first question, businesses should consider asking this second (and final) question; “What about this form of advertisement persuaded you to choose us?” This will force the customer to try to remember the actual reason why they decided to visit your business, while also providing you with additional information about the ad’s reason for success.
Many businesses don’t disclose to their customers the reason behind a marketing survey, but it may be a good way to further promote participation. When explaining the reason, remember to keep it short and sweet. A good explanation should read something like this; “To help us keep track of our marketing efforts, please answer the following question”¦”
Marketing Surveys Can Shape Your Strategy
By regularly asking new customers how they found your business, you can stay on top of your advertising dollars. You will know which advertisements worked and which didn’t, which ones you need to continue and which ones you should shelve. Marketing surveys are cheap and simple to translate. Consider surveying your new customers today for better business success.
About the Author
Mariana Ashley writes about educational topics for www.onlinecolleges.net. She can be reached at [email protected].