For a small business, internet marketing surveys can generate insights that dramatically improve your brand offerings. A marketing survey is one of the most important and useful tools you use for your business. Surveys can be used for anything from pricing a new service launch, testing new product names, determining your company’s place in the competitive landscape, or changing your brand logo or color scheme. Marketing consultants charge a lot of money to create surveys, but if your budget is tight, here’s how to do it yourself.

Develop the right questions.

Focus on your company’s top priorities and ask questions about specific initiatives. Are you launching an upcoming new product or service? Wondering if you can charge more for your services? Deciding whether to shorten or change your company name? Are some of the services you offer not getting enough attention and you want to know why? Specific and precise questions will generate useful answers for your business. General or vague questions will get you nowhere.

Formulate your questions in a conversational tone.

Keep your writing casual but to the point. A survey is more fun for the respondent if its language has character and personality. A marketing survey written in a loud tone can inhibit your effectiveness. Ask direct questions and you will get direct answers.

Keep it short.

Respondents are willing to help you by taking your marketing survey, but competition for their time and attention is slim. Isolate the most important questions on your brainstorming list that will generate useful information for your business right now and leave the rest aside.

Make it easy to complete.

Online survey software like SurveyMonkey and FluidSurveys offer easy tools to help respondents. Use checkboxes, radio buttons, or sliders as interactive features. Use a progress bar to show respondents how close they are to completing it. Ask one question at a time and avoid questions that may have multiple or conflicting answers (eg “Do you like our price and logo?”)

Leave space for comments.

Some responders will use the comment box; some will leave it blank. Once you’ve greased the wheels by asking the most important questions, some of your respondents will be inspired to give their thoughts on additional topics you may not have considered. This can be valuable information for now or in the future.

Offer incentives.

This is an old trick that all great marketing consultants use because they know it works. Setting aside a budget for response incentives will ensure that your potential customers actually read your marketing survey. Small incentives like a $5 gift card to a local coffee shop are great options. Or, offer to automatically enter all survey participants into a raffle for a top prize, such as a tablet reader, a bottle of fine champagne, or a free dinner at an exclusive restaurant.

Don’t forget demographics.

Basic demographic information will help you contextualize your survey responses. At a minimum, ask participants to submit their gender and age. Other useful information includes:

• responder industry
• Occupation/function of the intervener in the company
• Number of employees in the company.
• Number of years the respondent has worked at your company

This will help you identify trends and focus your policies on the type of customers you specifically want to target.

Very few companies use online marketing surveys to determine new strategies. By developing a survey with the right questions, you can prevent your business from implementing new initiatives that don’t resonate with your customers. By following the suggestions listed above, you’ll narrow your focus and get an idea of ​​whether you’re on the right track before you go too far down the wrong path.