Smart Person’s Marketing

It is a sunny morning and you are sitting in your office. With a cup of hot coffee by your side and memories of your last holiday still fresh in your mind, even if you say so yourself, today at least, life is sweet.

As you take a sip of your early morning double cappuccino a rush of cool air blows through the room and you catch a movement from the corner of your eye. You blink to find an impeccably dressed stranger now sitting in the chair opposite. Surprised, you bet; you didn’t hear anyone knock and just as you are about to say something he begins in a calm and measured voice.

‘Here is the deal’

‘In every city of the world I am going to advertise your product on billboards at the busiest junctions.’

‘I will be able to tell you how many people see the advertisement, their nationality, age and gender.’

‘I will tell you what they think of your product and in many cases I will give you their contact details. While they are looking at the billboard I will allow them to view your website and even make a purchase if they feel the urge.’

‘I will have all this ready in two days and it will cost you less than a small advertisement in your typical trade journal.’

He stops for just a second. ‘Interested?’

Okay you might be forgiven thinking that such an offer was too good to be true, you might think that you are going to wake up from a dream or maybe it really is time to get a lock on that office door.

But let us just take time to reflect. If you are still reading this well I am that man who has come from nowhere and offered you a deal.

The advertising site is on the Internet and the billboard I’m offering is the much underrated online survey.

Stop for a second and start to associate an online survey not with ‘market research’ but with ‘marketing’. Not any type of marketing but ‘Marketing’ with a capital ‘M’ and in flashing neon lights. Marketing that is quick, effective, direct and low cost.

Publish an online survey and advertise it on a website, or via email, and like a billboard by the side of a major road junction, your message will appear in front of people. The number of people that see a billboard can only be estimated where as the number of people that start a survey is a verifiable number.

By asking demographic questions such as age, gender and nationality you can collate important information that will allow you to measure the effectiveness of your promotion and ensure that you are interacting with your target market on a one-on-one level.

Unlike billboards where the message is often subliminal, or maybe just trying to achieve brand awareness, with online surveys you have the opportunity to connect with the public to find out what they really think about your product, how it relates to them, how it is perceived.

Using an online survey website it takes only minutes and hours to create a survey and using the power of the Internet an online survey can reach hundreds of thousands of people on a daily basis.

Even if you throw in a prize as an incentive for people to complete the survey, maybe invest in some Pay Per Click advertising to capture a wider, or more focused, audience you are still talking low cost effective marketing.

‘Okay then, tell me. Is it a deal?’

The Reason Why Market Research is Important

For any business that wants to offer products or services that are focused and well targeted market research is essential. Business decisions based on good market research can minimise risk and pay dividends. By making market research part and parcel of the business process and conducting market research throughout the life cycle of a product or service market research will bring the following benefits:-

 

• Market research will help you better communicate – Your current customers experiences are a valuable information source, not only will they allow you to gauge how well you currently meet their expectations they can also tell you where you are getting things right and more importantly where you are getting things wrong. By asking the customer you not only show them that you care but you also take the guesswork out of customer services.
• Market research helps you identify opportunities – If a new service is planned and you want to know the attitudes people have then market research can help, not only by evaluating the potential for the new idea, but also by identify the areas where a marketing message needs to be fine tuned.
• Market research will minimise risk – Market research can identifying what is needed for a new service and product and ensure that the development of a product matches demand.
• Market research creates benchmarks and helps you measure your progress – You need to be able to measure so that you can ensure that your organization is always improving. Early research may highlight glaring holes in your service or short falls in your product, regular market research will show if improvements are being made and, if positive, will help motivate a team.

Considering the benefits that market research will bring to any organization it is perhaps surprising how few businesses invest sufficient resources to gather good intelligence that will help them improve business. Many may think that market research takes too much time and effort but that is just not the case anymore as through the power of the Internet online survey software is readily available and vital market research data can now be gathered in a quick, simple and cost effective manner.

Website Surveys and Why they are Effective

Webmasters have access to free tools such as Google’s Analytics that will provide them with detailed information on the number of website visitors, what pages have been accessed and the length of time visitors have spent accessing the website.

However, despite the considerable data available what is missing is anything to tell the webmaster what the visitor was thinking. Did they dislike the site? Was the layout easy to understand or confusing? Did they find it easy to navigate and maybe the most important thing, did they find the information they wanted?

A website may be generating sales but why are there some people that are visiting the website and not buying anything? Was it because they didn’t like what was being offered or they couldn’t find what they wanted?

Using web based surveys webmasters have a simple and accurate method of answering these types of questions. Direct feedback from the website visitors means that there is no longer the need to guess, just ask the visitors how they found the site and if they found what they were looking for.

With an online survey webmasters can find out:-

• How often do people visit the website?
• How did they arrive at the website?
• Is it for business or pleasure that they are interested in the website?
• Were they able to find the information they were looking for?
• How easy was it for them to navigate the website?
• Would they recommend the website to their friends and/or colleagues?

A good website survey will be brief and will gather information that once analysed will provide valuable information to help improve the website.

Another alternative to a traditional survey is to embed one or two survey questions within the website after specific procedures. One example would be to ask visitors at the end of the registration process if they found the procedure quick and easy; another example would be after ordering an item the customer could be asked if they found the ordering procedure and payment methods to their liking. To avoid regular visitors from being asked every time they visit, the website can be configured so that they are only asked once.

Website surveys take the mystery out of working out what visitors think of a website and using Online Survey Software they are quick and easy to design and once implemented will really become the webmaster’s assistant.

To see a sample website survey please follow the link: Sample Website Survey

How to Benefit From Market Research

What are the things you can learn if you conduct effective market research?

Know your customers – Market research will help you better understand your customers in a number of ways including demographic information such as their age, gender and geographic spread. The better you know your customer the easier it is to target your marketing and fine tune your product or service.

Know your target market – Who exactly are your existing customers and where do they live? Does your service or product appeal to specific age group? Who are your potential customers and where do they live?

Know your competition – Market Research will help you measure your service compared to others. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your business and are you improving in the areas that customers demand?

Products and services – Do you have the products or services that people want? Do you represent value for money? How do your services and products compare to those of your competitors? If you have a product can you, do you, should you deliver directly to your customer?

Ease of doing business – Do your customers find it easy to deal with you and when they visit your store and/or website do they find what they want? Is there enough good advice and assistance on hand? Do you make it easy for your customers to buy? Are your employees properly trained, helpful, knowledgeable and available?

Marketing – Is your marketing reaching the right people and is the marketing message clear and effective. Which are the least effective marketing channels?

Is your marketing message understood? Does the marketing material properly represent your brand? Do you advertise and promote through the right channels? Are you reaching your target audience?

With the power of the Internet it is now very easy to conduct market research using one of the many online survey software sites that make conducting surveys and collating good market research intelligence quick, easy and extremely cost effective.

Website Surveys and Why they are Effective

Webmasters have access to free tools such as Google’s Analytics that will provide them with detailed information on the number of website visitors, what pages have been accessed and the length of time visitors have spent accessing the website.

However, despite the vast amount of detailed information that can be collected what will always be missing is information that will tell the webmaster exactly what the visitor was thinking. Did they dislike the site? Was the layout easy to understand or just plain confusing? Was the website easy to use and did they find the information they wanted?

A website may be generating sales but why are there some people that are visiting the website and not buying anything? Was the reason because they didn’t like what was being offered, or was it that they couldn’t find what they wanted even though it was there?

Web based surveys provide webmasters with an accurate method of answering these types of questions. Direct feedback from the website visitors cuts to the chase, there is no longer any need to guess, just ask the visitors directly how they arrived at the site and if they were able to find what they were looking for.

With an online survey webmasters can find out:-

• How often do people visit the website?
• How did they discover the website?
• Are they accessing the website for business or pleasure?
• Did they find the information they were looking for?
• How easy did they find navigating the website?
• Would they be willing to recommend the website to others?

A good website survey will be concise and will collate information that once analyzed will provide valuable information to help improve the website.

An alternative to a traditional survey would be to embed one or two survey questions within the website after specific procedures. For example, ask visitors at the end of the registration process if they found the procedure quick and easy; or after ordering an item ask if they found the ordering procedure and payment methods straightforward. To ensure that the questions don’t become annoying to regular visitors the website can be programmed so that the questions are only asked once per registered user.

Website surveys take the mystery out of working out what visitors think of a website and using Online Survey Software they are quick and easy to design and once implemented will really become the webmaster’s assistant.

To see a sample website survey please follow the link: Sample Website Survey