By Luke Weigel, lweigel@lessitermedia.com
Marketing Manager, Lessiter Media
We've talked about the importance of using surveys to help build your customer database in a past Marketing Minute email, but I wanted to revisit this topic since it's one of the easiest and best ways to learn more about your customers and help fill the voids other data sources can't.
You can learn a lot about your audience through a tool like Google Analytics. It can tell you what your audience is searching for, what they do on your site and when they leave. But all of that data doesn't go very far in answering a critical question — why?
- Why did they pick your company?
- Why did they stop coming back?
- Why did they purchase?
- Why are they still looking?
There is an endless supply of 'why' questions that we need to try and answer.
The 'why' is what helps humanize our customers and fill in the gaps that big data leaves behind. It is also where the real potential lies and why surveys are such a critical component to any company trying to understand their customers better. Well thought out survey questions can help provide direction on what your company can do to provide services and products that goes above and beyond customer expectations.
A simple web search will uncover a lot of survey tools that you can use — some are free and some are paid. For our own surveys, we use the paid survey tool Survey Monkey. We've been really happy with the capabilities and options this tool allows us to use to customize and make the most out of our surveys.
In fact, I've put together a quick sample survey that you can review and submit to see some of the examples of questions and formats you can create to survey your own audience. Your responses will also help us as we plan for future Marketing Minute emails.
If you've never surveyed your audience, or if you have but think you could use some help in optimizing and understanding your results, shoot me a note. I'd love to talk to you more about what we are doing, what we've helped other companies do and how you can start filling customer information voids with actionable data that will help create a successful path forward for your business.
