15 Ideas For Using Surveys In Your Online Marketing

I’m sure you’ve seen or at least heard of online survey tools that allow you to capture and collate large volumes of information from prospects or clients.

Finding the technology is simple (two popular providers are Zoomerang.com and SurveyMonkey.com) but it’s how you USE surveys to create value and enhance your marketing that really counts.

One Marketing Results client created a comprehensive Business Audit, structured as a survey, that they went on to sell for $297 a pop. Another colleague conducted a survey of IT professionals that was picked up by influential media in the space as “latest research”.

Here are 15 ideas on ways to use surveys in your online business to create more value:

15 Ways To Leverage Surveys In Your Online Business

1. Conduct quarterly “client satisfaction” surveys.

2. Add relevant polls / surveys to your website or newsletters to learn more about your market and start a 2-way conversation.

3. Set up a survey for clients to pass on THEIR clients i.e. leverage.

4. Use surveys to pre-qualify or pre-frame potential clients.

5. Include a survey in an autoresponder series to automatically capture testimonials.

6. Survey customers and clients on where THEY think you add value (their perspective might be different from yours).

7. Use internal surveys to capture ideas to improve productivity or team satisfaction.

8. Include feedback surveys with product literature - use them as testimonial capture device AND to improve future versions of the product.

9. Ask clients or prospects to tell you their biggest frustration or problem relating to your area of expertise. Use this info to develop a white paper based on the most common problems.

10. Use surveys to capture ideas and strategies from a large number of people to collate into a “master” document.

11. Create a short 1 minute feedback survey and include the link in your email signature.

12. Send an email to past clients and ask for testimonials and feedback. Structure the survey so respondents provide information on the topics you want.

13. Structure a product / service as a survey and give it away as a “value add” or better yet, sell it.

14. Use surveys in your front-end marketing to identify customer “hot buttons” so you can craft your sales message in the right way for maximum impact.

15. Survey your market and use the results as the basis of a press release and/or pre-eminence building tool.

Leave a comment to submit your additional survey ideas.

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New Blog Design Launched…Finally

It’s been a loooooong time coming, but I’ve finally launched the new Marketing Results blog design - a big thanks to my designer Phil! There’s some new functionality in place as well, including:

• Featured article links (hard coded)
• Newsletter signup
• More intuitive commenting
• Related posts
• Social bookmarketing
• Recent comments
• Add-to-RSS buttons
• Internal tags

Any comments on how the design could be further improved? I’d love to hear them.

Internal Tags: blog usability, internal tags, new blog design and opt in newsletter

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Miscellania: Beating Comment Spam, Trackbacks, Blog Maintentance et cetera

As you may have already discerned, the technical side of blogging is not my forte.  I’m sure it’s relatively straightforward but I just haven’t got around to learning how it all works.

However, I do believe that blogging for business is very worthwhile and will continue to be so, especially in non-Internet and non-technology related niches.

(For example, Jeff Veale from All Suburbs Catering in Sydney publishes his Sydney Catering Blog to keep clients and prospects up to date with what’s happening in the catering world that may be of interest.  Although I don’t have any hard stats, I know that this is one of the many successful marketing strategies that Jeff uses to market his business.)

But back to the subject of this post…

I’ve found that it’s incredibly easy to set up a wordpress blog, but a little harder to manage and customise a blog to your specifications.  Here are a couple of things I’ve learnt along the way.

Beating comment spam

Most blogs allow users to add comments to posts.  Unfortunately, bots take advantage of this to post sometimes hundreds of spammy comments (mostly about niche adult-oriented content you’ve probably never heard about).

Recently I installed the Spam Karma plugin to gobble up spam comments, but it unfortunately gobbled up legitimate comments as well.

So I got rid of that and replaced it with what I’m hoping will be a formidable Akismet / Math Comment tag team (thanks to Yaro for that tip).

Allowing trackbacks

Trackbacks are links between posts on different blogs.  In theory, when someone links to this blog, a “trackback” link should be added to this blog linking back to their blog.  However, this isn’t happening right now - I think this is because I need to supply a special “trackback URL” at the end of each post.   I’m in the process of working out how to do this.

Blog Maintenance

While a blog doesn’t have to be fancy, to make them really work well I believe that they have to be equipped with a good smattering of the latest doohickies that make your blog easy to use, interesting and sticky.   I’ll see what I can add over the next couple of weeks and report back on how it went.

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Launching a New Concept - CloseConnexion

Over the past couple of months I’ve been working with Danielle Rodgers from CloseConnexion to help launch her brand new singles event concept. CloseConnexion holds singles events in Brisbane that are aimed at the 25+ market. The tagline we’re running with at the moment is…

“CloseConnexion…the easiest, most intriguing way for singles aged 25+ to connect.”

Why “intriguing”? Glad you asked!

Danielle has launched an entirely new singles event format based around a table game that she designed called The Meet Market™. Here’s what a recent press release had to say:

Marrying the best of the old and the new in dating, CloseConnexion have developed a unique method of bringing singles together. The emphasis is on encouraging playful, romantic encounters through entertaining conversation. Singles meet in a comfortable, stylish environment to play The Meet Market™ – a board game where groups of six single men and women discover each other and themselves. The game forms the catalyst for social interaction in a fun and non-threatening environment. Its cheeky yet informative format is a great way to meet potential mates at a stylish and controlled dating event. Through the question cards, called “Frequent Flirters”, players are invited to discuss a range of topics that polite folk would rarely attempt on their first encounter. It is the ultimate icebreaker for discerning singles.

Positioning for success

While the dating events / introductions market in Australia is large, it’s dominated by a number of well-established incumbents such as RSVP and Blink Dating (Speed Dating). Danielle has tried to come up with something completely unique that caters to a different market (25+, right up to 60 or older).

Especially when entering an established market, differentiation is your main marketing weapon and CloseConnexion has that by the truckload.

I’ll be attending the Premiere event next Thursday 22nd June at Brisbane’s ultra-stylish Platform Bar.

If you’re in Brisbane and you’d like to come too, book here at the CloseConnexion website.

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Rebirth of a Blog

It’s been a while since I’ve made a blog entry - like about 6 months.

We started this blog about 18 months ago but it’s funny how mission-critical stuff seems to get in the way. Now I’ve come to my senses and realised that this is an important way to communicate with the business owners and independent professionals that make up our client base.

And it’s funny how things come full circle. About a year ago my colleague Ed Chalmers introduced our mutual friend Yaro Starak to blogging. Well, he took the ball and ran with it, going on to create the very successful Entrepreneur’s Journey blog, which has been going from strength to strength thanks to Yaro’s consistent efforts.

Now today Yaro came in and replaced our old Moveable Type blog with this snazzy Wordpress blog.

Over the coming months I’ll be writing about my areas of expertise / interest, including:

1. Sales lead generation
2. Results-driven marketing
3. Successful integration of online and offline marketing methods
4. Business effectiveness
5. Work-life balance

…and other assorted topics as they come to mind.

I hope you find the content interesting, and I welcome your comments.

Will Swayne www.Marketing-Results.com.au

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“How To Sell Your Complex Products or Services With ‘Two-Step’ Marketing”

It’s getting more difficult and expensive to sell products and services, (especially complex ones) using traditional advertising approaches.

That’s because it’s hard to provide enough information and build enough trust in the space of one ad or letter to motivate prospects to take action on your proposition.

Even if you’re only asking prospects to visit your showroom or contact you for a free consultation, it’s getting harder and harder to get results, because people are wary of being subjected to a sales pitch.

But what if you could find a way to have interested prospects come to YOU, rather than the other way around? To do that, you need to break down your sales process into baby-steps:

Continue reading “How To Sell Your Complex Products or Services With ‘Two-Step’ Marketing”

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“Keep Your Customer in the Crosshairs of Your Ads”

Have you ever noticed that despite all that’s been written and said about selling benefits, not features, many if not most ads are not sufficiently focused on the customer. That’s a shame, because a strong customer focus is the number 1 technique for making ads and promotions profitable.

Take a quick look at your ads. Do they effectively communicate the added benefit or result that your customer will enjoy by giving you their business?

Continue reading “Keep Your Customer in the Crosshairs of Your Ads”

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Keep Your Customers In The Crosshairs of Your Ads

Have you ever noticed that despite all that’s been written and said about selling benefits, not features, many if not most ads are not sufficiently focused on the customer. That’s a shame, because a strong customer focus is the number 1 technique for making ads and promotions profitable.

Take a quick look at your ads. Do they effectively communicate the added benefit or result that your customer will enjoy by giving you their business?

Do your headlines project a strong, unique benefit? Does the content of your ad explain the reasons why YOU are the only logical choice, and not your competitor? If not, you may be leaving a lot of money on the table.

Here are a few tips for cranking up your customer focus:

1. Make sure you use the word "YOU", or at least imply it, in your headlines.



2. List "bullet" points of benefits, and where possible pepper them with facts and figures. Don’t just say "double riveted", say "double riveted for 53% more strength."



3. Try to avoid trite, overused phrases, like "Great service and low prices". If your service really is great, take some time to explain the reasons why that’s so, and contrast what you offer with your competition. For example,

"Most smash repairers inconvenience you by taking 5-7 days to get your car back on the road. At Jiffy Smash Repair, our average repair time is 2.5 days, and we’ll even save you a taxi fare by giving you a lift to and from our premises."

Taking some time to reword your headlines and content to be more customer-focused on your customer can be a very high return investment. Or if you have better things to do, ask a professional copywriter to do it for you.

After all, advertising can be expensive. You owe it to yourself to ensure that your ads pay for themselves in terms of increased customers, sales and profits.

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Six Simple Strategies Guaranteed To Skyrocket Your Sales

by Sam Webb

1. The More You Tell The More You Sell

Contrary to what many believe, through the teachings of traditional marketing, you should explain what you sell in detail. People want and need to know everything they can about a product before they purchase. Just think about when you are buying a product. Do you just purchase without asking questions? You should tell as much about your product in all your marketing endeavours. When you do, your product is perceived as being better value.

Also, the more interesting information you give your customer, the more he or she can judge its suitability, can become emotionally attached to it and can justify buying it. A prospect who is well informed is more ready to buy. Informative face to face sales presentations close more sales and long sales letters outsell short ones. Your sales message cannot be too long, only too boring. Interested prospects will want as much interesting, appealing, stimulating and absorbing information as possible. You must provide it to outsell your competition.

2. Direct Your Marketing Focus To Your Intended Customers Only

When you keep your marketing keenly focused you will capture the biggest number of sales. You must target your sales message directly at focused customers and no one else. If you run a business with multiple products you should narrow your focus to one product at a time. If you sell a range of electrical goods, for example, you should focus your sales message on PCs when you want to attract more PC buyers, then washing machines, then Hi-Fi Systems and so on. Do not try to feature all your products in one ad or one sales letter. This is what the majority do.

You can steal a competitive edge by directly focusing on particular customers with an interest in a specific item. That way you will attract many more of those buyers because you are appealing directly to them and to them only. People are interested in one thing at a time and only buy one thing at a time. You must speak to them like they think � as if what you are selling is all they are buying. Your message must appeal directly to the buyer you want and spell it out loud and clear:

�Don�t buy a PC this week, until you read this important message …�

You will attract many more buyers with this specific message rather than a general appeal announcing all the different products that you stock.

3. Here�s A Guaranteed Method of Getting Referrals From Your Clients

Let me ask you a question, �If you provide an impressive, ongoing, regular, attentive service to your customers and express a genuine interest in them after the sale, can you think of any reason why they shouldn�t let you introduce your product or service to their friends and colleagues?�

I cannot think of any reason, can you?

Here�s the bottom line � your customers are your single most valuable asset and must be treated as if you fully understand this.

This is the procedure to follow:

Immediately after the sale, you send a personal thank you letter, remember to restate some of the main benefits which are part of the reason they bought from you. This also helps in diffusing any post purchase remorse. In your letter you also emphasise that if they need any further help or assistance, information or further supplies you are here to look after their requirements.

Next you start communicating with your customer with all relevant information to let him or her feel that they belong to your �special extended family of customers�. All interesting informative news, up-dates, add-ons, new product or service information, tips and user stories should be communicated monthly to help increase the value of the purchase they made from you.

Your customer will now be favourably disposed to the idea of providing you with referrals. This is especially true if he or she has already made a second purchase, but this isn�t essential before you ask for the introductions.

You simply now ask them if they would like you to introduce your product or service to any of their friends, family, colleagues or customers so that they too can benefit from the advantages they have received. They will readily give you names at this stage of people they are happy for you to contact.

4. The Big Mistake Most Marketers Make With The A.I.D.A. Formula

Attention, Interest, Desire and Action � a wonderful system to follow! Yes, but to make AIDA work in creating million pound sales appeals you must know this vital information � You must keep using the AIDA formula throughout your sales letters and ads. You must repeatedly gain attention, arouse interest, develop desire and ask for action. This is the secret to maximising sales results with AIDA.

Using AIDA to first get attention, then arousing interest, then desire and finally asking for action is an excellent basic system but it only generates the massive response which it is capable of when you learn to disperse its power regularly throughout your entire sales letter, ad or brochure.

Your readers will be far more likely to take action and buy your product when you retain their interest by repeating the AIDA formula throughout your message. You achieve this by including plenty of sub-headings and interesting benefits, advantages and distinctions about your offer throughout your entire letter.

5. Why Increasing Your Prices Can Increase Your Sales

It�s not always a matter of automatically lowering your prices when you want to boost your sales. Overpricing may be one of the reasons people aren�t buying as much or as often as you would like. But have you ever thought that you might be underpricing your product or service?

The only people that know the right price for your product or service are your buyers. Put it to the market. Test your price. I�ve seen $59 outsell $39, I�ve seen $295 equal $195. I know of someone who increased his seminar price from $1,500 to $5,000 to $15,000 and his results were better each time. Sometimes higher prices don�t work. It all depends on how the prospect perceives the value of your offering. One financial newsletter writer I know of tested his subscription price at $69, $79 and $109. The result? The $109 price bombed � it produced 10% of what the $69 produced and the $69 outpulled the $79 by 300%!

The lesson is simple, put your prices to a market test and run with the winner.

6. Want To Put More Passion In Your Print? � Do This First!

Passion and enthusiasm sells. It�s infectious but so also is the lack of it! It�s vital therefore, that you inject your passion into your printed word. How do you do this? You simply write (or sell) when you are in a PEAK STATE. And how do you get yourself into this state? It�s all about your state of mind, attitude and feeling good. And the only way to automatically put yourself in peak state is through moving your body by exercising. Aerobic exercise, such as brisk walking, running or swimming is best. You automatically attain this state because exercising causes the release of pain-relieving and pleasure-stimulating endorphins.

One other way you can put yourself in peak state is by motivating yourself through positive and possibility thinking. Vividly imagining and visualising your past successes can also have a stimulating effect. These methods can work extremely well, but require more practice.

So, the idea is, that before you sit down to write your sales letter or brochure, you get yourself into your peak state preferably through energetic exercise such as a 40 minute jog.

Then you�ll be ready to write at your peak � passionately, expressively and persuasively.

Principal and founder of the ‘National Forum for Balanced Success’, Sam Webb has helped thousands of business owners to multiply their profits and skyrocket their sales. Sam has recently launched ‘The Smart Achiever’s Master Plan’ - Your answer to marketing smarter with much higher profitability, promoting your business rapidly and creating the mindset for your personal superior success. http://www.smartachiever.com

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The “YOU” Mentality Sells More

I was on a conference call the other day with marketing genius Jay Abraham, and he said something very simple but powerful that I wanted to share with you.

That is, the single most powerful marketing strategy or mentality available to you and your business is the YOU mentality. Put simply, the YOU mentality means focusing on the needs of your customers over and above your own needs.

“Of course”, you say, “That’s marketing 101 for dummies”. But isn’t it funny how often many businesses ignore this most basic principle? For example, over 50% of websites start by focusing on the company, NOT on the needs of the visitor. They open with something like this:

“ABC widgets is the foremost supplier of quality plastic, vinyl and stainless steel widgets in Australia”

YAAAAAAAWN!

This approach is spectacularly unsuccessful, because

1) people care more about themselves and their problems than about other people AND 2) it’s invariably filled with unsupported claims and meaningless boasts.

All you have to do is turn this around is to focus on why the customer is even interested in your widgets in the first place - that is, their PROBLEM. Once you’ve shown that you understand their problem, you can start to get them interested in your SOLUTION.

A good rule of thumb is, the word “YOU” should either be written or implied in your headline, and it should feature many times over in all of your advertising materials.

Here’s an example: In my work as an advertising copywriter, I recently wrote the copy for a website aimed at helping companies Export to Japan. Notice how many times “you” and “your” are used to engage the reader.

By examining all of your marketing materials and honing your “YOU” mentality, your marketing results can only increase.

If you haven’t already subscribed to the free monthly “Results-Driven Marketing Secrets” newsletter, sign up now so you can start implementing effective low-cost and no-cost marketing strategies in your business. Subscribe here…

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