Since 1976, Family Feud has pitted two families against each other to name the most popular responses to survey questions previously presented to a hundred random people. The show has been on and off the air and is currently in its 31st season.
As Family Feud shows, surveys and the information captured from them can be entertaining. From a business perspective, marketing-centric surveys offer a valuable tool for gathering data, identifying trends, and compiling feedback from customers, employees, and partners. Based on your objectives, surveys can be created to offer perspective on product development, customer experiences, behaviors, customer needs, feedback, future plans, etc.
Used creatively, surveys are a great source for content marketing; insights derived from surveys can be converted into a variety of storylines or themes. These storylines fuel data-driven public relations campaigns, infographics, and provide fodder for social media, blogs, e-books, and other content assets.
But don’t take our word for it; our clients have experienced great success implementing surveys.
BUMI implemented a series of four surveys, which polled IT channel providers about the backup and recovery services they offer customers. BUMI’s survey captured a trove of information and sentiment that helped create compelling storylines. These were uses to power a media campaign, offering journalists with “in-the-trenches” data that was framed within a press release as well as a supporting infographic. To date, each of the four surveys BUMI conducted were sourced in an array of articles which also quoted BUMI’s CEO Jennifer Walzer.
EasyVista launched a survey aimed at understanding IT service management trends. Using the industry insights culled by the survey, EasyVista was able to create relevant and compelling content. Storylines based on the survey were threaded into a PR campaign and an accompanying press release that resulted in several articles; an infographic and visual report were instrumental in generating leads.
The Key to Making Surveys Work For You:
- Automate them – use online tools such as SurveyMonkey or Constant Contact to make it easy and cheap to deliver surveys and tabulate responses.
- Keep them tight – surveys should be easy to navigate; short, multiple choice question formats increase response rates and structure the data collected.
- Offer a small bounty – compensate survey takers for their participation by offering small incentives such as a prize or gift card to increase response rates.
- Share them – once the data is collected, share the findings with your team, the participants, and external audiences such as the media, customers, and prospects.
- Visualize them – identify story lines, trends, and other useful information and articulate them visually, through infographics and other content assets.
Given the availability of so many online tools, surveys are extremely easy to implement and cost next to nothing to create and manage. They offer an unparalleled opportunity to engage with customers and prospects, capture meaningful data that can help different parts of your business (sales, marketing, product development, customer service, etc.), and support data-driven marketing campaigns and content. So, what are you waiting for? Your next survey is only a click away.