Surveys have a bad reputation online…
Mostly because in the 1990s and early 2000s, many companies scammed people with paid surveys, leaving a bad taste in their mouths.
The industry was full of scams. Survey companies used the promise of paid surveys to collect email addresses they would then spam the inboxes of people who took surveys. Often, they wouldn’t even pay the people they promised to pay.
This practice is still in use today, but the practice isn’t as profitable as it used to be, because people are now wary of the practice and are less likely to fall for the scams.
Many people don’t understand the power of online surveys. Their vision is tainted by the thought of paid survey scams. But online surveys have a wide variety of uses that can really boost your business in many ways.
In this article, you’re going to learn about a few of the many ways surveys can really boost your business. You’ll learn how to get people to take your surveys, and how to use them to send your sales skyrocketing!
Tips for Creating Great Surveys
Surveys are only useful if people are willing to take them, and unfortunately, most online surveys are not conducive to getting people to complete them. People don’t have a lot of time to waste, and they certainly aren’t going to spend several minutes taking a survey just to help your business.
Here are some ways you can improve response rates on your surveys:
- Keep Surveys Short – One of the biggest mistakes people make with surveys is trying to find out too much at once. People have lives. They are busy. They don’t have a lot of time to help you, even if they really want to. So when you create a survey, make it short and easy to take. Ask no more than five or six questions, and make as many of those questions as possible multiple choice in order to make taking the survey go as quickly as possible.
- Ask On-Point Questions – Never go off on a tangent and start asking questions that are unrelated to your main topic. Stick to asking specific questions that related to your primary objective. If you have multiple objectives, use different surveys.
- Don’t Use Leading Questions – Never ask questions that try to lead a survey taker to answer in a specific way in order to try to trick them into feeling a certain way about your company. For example, do not say, “As you know, the Mega Sales System is the top of its class for helping you generate more sales. How do you feel this product best meets your needs?” Instead, just ask, “What did you like most about this product?”
- Use Multiple Choice – Don’t make people work too much. Keep most questions multiple choice, and keep potential answers to six or fewer. The harder it is to take a survey, the fewer people will fill it out.
- Don’t Get Personal – Ask as little personal information from respondents as possible. If you don’t need their phone number, don’t ask for it. Again, the more personal information you ask for, the fewer people will fill out your survey.
- Ensure Privacy – Let people know you won’t share any of their personal information, and that survey data will be kept anonymous. This will make people feel like they won’t be spammed and that they won’t have to be embarrassed to answer how they really feel.
Resources
Here are some resources you may find helpful for creating and using surveys effectively:
>> https://www.surveymonkey.com/
>> http://www.feedbackstr.com/
>> http://attentionmonkey.com/
Next Steps
If surveys are something you are considering for your business and would like to learn more about best practice then downloading our ‘Forager Bee’ Swipe File, “3 Swipe Files For Using Surveys To Skyrocket Sales & Customer Satisfaction”, below is a good place to start:
