Has creating a marketing plan ever felt like a shot in the dark? You know that it’s important to identify who your customers are, what they want, and how you can help them—but you’re at a loss as to how to track down these answers. As in most situations, the best approach is often just to ask the questions outright.
We partnered with Survey Monkey in Asia Pacific to build a customer survey that gave us some insights into those who matter to us most.
As our friends at SurveyMonkey explain, surveys are a no-brainer when it comes to building your business. Not only are they cheap—often even free—sources of customer feedback, they also provide valuable demographic information, identify the strengths of your competitors, and help you collect contact information for your database.
But how do you go about getting participants for your survey? Here are six strategies we used to improve the quality and quantity of our responses with social.
1. Target the right audience
If someone already follows your brand on social media, they’re likely a good candidate to take your survey. Deploying your survey via social is therefore a great way to reach the right people for valuable feedback. Of course, value needs to be a two-way street.
Those who follow your social channels—be they existing customers, interested leads, or even your direct competition—will be more inspired to complete a survey if they feel the request specifically addresses them or their interests. When NewsCred polled millennials in 2015 they reported that 64 percent reacted positively to content they felt was useful to them.
SurveyMonkey advises using the same brand alignment that initially attracted your social following, adjusting tone, subject matter, and imagery accordingly.
2. Use paid advertising to promote your survey
Some things never go out of style. The age-old principle of spending money to make money applies to even the most modern marketing platforms, including social.
Paid social media posts ensure that you reach the right people at the right time. Most social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and most recently Instagram, offer paid advertising options that guarantee a certain reach and in-depth analytics. Since the relevance of survey feedback relies on you reaching your target demographic, survey CTAs are a good “special occasion” to invest in paid posts.
3. Play by the rules
No matter who comprises your customer base, there’s a good chance they like free things. Many businesses offer gifts or rewards in exchange for survey responses. This could include a draw entry for a larger prize, a discount coupon, or a free ebook download.
Freebies may seem like an obvious way to encourage survey feedback, but it isn’t always quite so simple. It’s important to thoroughly understand the rules surrounding gifts in your target country, especially when deploying surveys to a multi-national database. Some APAC countries have taken a legal stance against giveaways, further emphasizing the importance of customization in your social strategy.
4. Streamline mobile access
AdWeek reports that 97.3 percent of APAC social users engage on using mobile devices, which makes mobile a very important channel for sharing your survey. But make sure that your survey renders well on mobile. If a customer attempts to answer a survey that doesn’t display properly on mobile, they won’t waste their time trying to figure it out. This places a huge premium on survey platforms like SurveyMonkey that offer built-in device detection capabilities.
5. Make it shareable
If you’ve built a strong survey that reflects your customers’ own priorities and interests, the viral shareability of social quickly becomes your best ally. The same NewsCred poll found that 60 percent of millennials shared content they regarded as thought provoking and intelligent. Encourage your brand loyalists to share your survey with their own social circles by embedding user-friendly buttons and links.
6. Add a competitive edge
In business strategy there’s always room for a bit of healthy competition. It’s a safe bet that quiz results are second only to engagement announcements on your Facebook feed. People love comparing their scores, whether from an IQ test or a silly BuzzFeed quiz, so adding a scorable aspect to your survey can further boost the likelihood of social shares.
We had the opportunity to practice what we preach, using these tips and tactics to deploy our own Survey Monkey questionnaire last month. We learned a lot about how businesses build brand love with social and have shared our results in the infographic below.
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