About 99% of companies with at least 10 employees use digital data to make better decisions. However, many of them fall short because they work with vague or poor-quality data or fail to transform the data into actionable strategies that can help them achieve their targets.
This is where survey data comes to the rescue, allowing businesses to connect with insights that provide direct value and help them distribute their resources more efficiently. More specifically, relevant survey insights will enable you to uncover emerging marketing trends and take advantage of them, gauge customer satisfaction, and improve the quality of your future offers. Even if you think you know your audience, the truth is that there’s always something to learn, which is why incorporating surveys into your strategy is the secret weapon to improve your marketing efforts. In this blog, we will walk you through everything you need to know about surveys and how they can help you make better business decisions, so read on to learn more.
Types of surveys your business can use
Different types of surveys can help your business in various ways, including:
- Market research survey. This allows you to gather data about your market, like where and how your products are bought and your competitors’ and customers’ demographics. This type of survey is ideal if you want to evaluate brand awareness, research a target market, or identify pricing and product opportunities, and you don’t have any information about a product or audience. At the same time, it’s useful if you want to see how customers perceive a product that you’ve launched recently, one year after its launch.
- Brand awareness survey. A brand awareness survey helps you find out how well customers know your brand, logo, meaning of your name, and mission. In the business world, you need to be memorable because this will ensure customers think of you when they need to buy products or services. When creating a brand awareness survey, consider metrics such as brand loyalty, brand image, brand identity, brand recognition, brand trust, and brand recall.
- Customer satisfaction survey. This type of survey allows you to evaluate how satisfied customers are with your products or services or with your business, and at the same time, it can boost your sales. It’s, however, important to ask the right questions because you cannot force customers to fill out such a survey, so aim to make it as inviting and fun to fill out as much as possible. Sending surveys is more seamless than ever, and if you want a hassle-free experience, you can rely on experts to help you with it. For instance, Clariti has an in-market survey programming team that strives to meet any business’ needs by delivering any kind of survey, whether simple or complex. You can learn more about the service they provide by visiting We Are Clariti website.
- Employee satisfaction survey. While businesses generally use surveys externally, it’s also possible to use an anonymous survey to gather employee feedback and see how the team feels within the environment. This type of survey allows you to identify areas in your business that may require improvement, which will further help you accomplish your goals.
How surveys can benefit your business
The business world can be incredibly competitive, and it’s challenging to create compelling marketing strategies if you lack accurate data that can guide your decisions. However, surveys are an excellent tool, and they can help in various ways:
- Improve demographic research. Demographic research plays an essential role as it helps you understand the age groups, genders, races, economic status, and other identity markers of your target audience. This information can be very valuable, allowing your marketing team to build creative assets and promotion placements that speak to your audience’s needs.
- Enable product testing. It can be challenging to market new products if you lack essential data that surveys can provide. Product testing via focus groups enables your marketing team to tweak their campaign approach and highlight what people enjoyed the most about your products, whether interactive design functions or innovative features.
- Gather customer feedback. Deploying customer surveys on a regular basis is especially important for small businesses, as it helps gauge customer satisfaction with the products and services or with the brand itself. Your marketing team can leverage the data to create campaigns that highlight the positive aspects, and for areas that require improvement, they can create campaigns that highlight new processes to tackle these pain points.
- Build brand loyalty. Conducting surveys frequently is also a way to show customers that you value their opinions on improving their experience with your service and product offerings. Furthermore, this data can be very useful in identifying the reasons why they prefer your brand over your competitors, allowing you to develop further campaigns that build brand loyalty.
- Optimize marketing strategies. Market research surveys are an excellent way to pinpoint customers’ pain points, purchasing habits, and preferred platforms. Your marketing team can then leverage these insights to create better marketing campaigns customized for the channels that your audience frequents the most.
Methods of administering surveys and how to leverage the results
Just as there are different types of surveys, there are several ways you can implement them, such as:
- Online surveys;
- Email surveys;
- Paper surveys;
- Anonymous surveys;
- Mobile surveys;
- Focus groups.
No matter which of these methods you choose, it’s important to send your survey to an adequate sample size – otherwise, it may not yield adequate numerical data. Once you have the results of the survey, it’s essential to consider what you will do with this information. You can evaluate the results based on implementation difficulty, how much revenue you could gain if you were to implement the feedback you received and improve customers’ satisfaction, as well as the potential losses you could face if you decide against the feedback’s implementation. Ultimately, the goal is to focus on the insights with the most potential to provide the biggest value to your company while requiring minimum investment.
The bottom line
The importance of surveys cannot be overstated. No matter the marketing campaign stage, you can use them strategically, be it to shape your strategy, during the campaign’s run to evaluate customers’ perception, or in the post-launch stage to collect feedback. The data you gather with surveys can truly make a difference in your brand’s lifespan, so make sure to include them in your business toolkit.
