Surveying your list- BUT For your services? - examples of questions to be asked ??

Obviously you can't just come out and say "So, what else do you need that I can sell you today?"

But through the course of a normal survey, if you have properly segmented your list based on the type of services you are currently providing THAT user, you can offer your other services in the form of a question. If they're a web design client you could ask:

Be honest: What do you dislike most about your website?
- I don't get as much traffic from search engines as I would like
- I could use some more written content or better descriptions
- Some of the photos could be better
- My competitor has a feature that I would also like to have
- Other

etc...

Put your other services the form of an answer like that, and let them check off any they feel apply to them. Then you can call them and sell them those services.

The trick is to make it seem like you're going for brutal honesty. Most companies that I see doing surveys seem to just be looking to extract testimonials from them, without actually improving their product. Questions like "What made you choose us" and the answers are all like "Your work was awesome" or "You had the best price" don't really give you any useful information. Your goal for a survey shouldn't be to pat yourself on the back, it should be to get inside their head and figure out if you're meeting expectations - and what else they need.

Just as another tip I don't think that open ended questions are helpful. You get much better answers from people when you ask direct questions. For example, don't ask "What other internet marketing services would you be interested in?" ask "Would you be interested in a youtube marketing service?" It can quickly indicate the direction you should be going in

If you segment your lists, the results will be more effective, because you can craft a message to each audience that speaks to them personally.

I have SEO clients and PPC clients, and they are both on separate lists. If I have some AdWords credits available, those won't work for my PPC clients so I can't send out an email to the whole list and invite them to take advantage of some free money to use on AdWords - those credits only work for new accounts. But I could send that offer to my SEO clients. Likewise, if I wanted to target my existing PPC customers to upgrade into a tier that includes remarketing campaign management.

Spend the time getting your existing customers into the right groups based on the services you've provided for them so you can make your communication more effective.

I like to run a survey that makes it easy for people to get started and then close with an open ended question as I find the most eye opening info comes from these questions.

I would suggest the following survey question format:

2 True / False or Yes / No
2 Multiple Choice
1 Open Ended (free text)

But I also like to use several Action Links in emails so it does not seem like a survey.

By placing 2 Action Links in an email and then using the automation of the Action Link, I've now segmented and defined my list more effectively.

I have found that survey's work best with a bribe. Something for their time is always nice.
Frame your questions in a manner that leads them to get involved. If you can build emotion you can get honest answers. Then lead them to the options that you specialize in like giving them a choice of 3 services. Low, mid, and high ticket. That way you cover everyone and make money on all levels.

A BRIBE could be a chance to win 'free service pack' or something you know is relevant and useful to your target audience such as 'Top 5 Internet Marketing Tips for Small Business' whitepaper.

First choose a smaller number of respondants for a survey and use open ended questions. With the results of the open ended questions look for similarities in words and phrases, and common issues.

When you find the most common elements; then create close-ended questions around these elements, using the same words and terminology found in your open-ended survey results, to probe for the answers you need to accomplish your goal.

The most important thing to do first is to set goals, determine the questions that need to be answered for you to continue with your marketing/business and to make the best offers to solve yor target markets biggest problems.

Break down each goal into a series of specific questions






Do a little internet research on how to create a marketing survey. Search for terms like:

1. open ended questions
2. closed ended questions
3. how to set goals for customer surveys
4. importance / relevance questionnaires
5. Also learn how to complete a 'review of the literature'

Check this website for some excellent information: focusgrouptips dotcom

Good luck - marketing research can be a very powerful tool to develop products that your target market needs most; thus increasing the size of your target market. Like anything in life or business that is valuable, it will require a bit of work and research to improve your results.

Over time you can learn some of the more advanced techniques of surveys and questionnaires to increase the value and relevance of your survey results.

Advanced techniques such as starting out using open-ended questions for a focus group, and use those results to create close-ended questionnaire.

I repeat that setting goals is the most important and first step to get started. I believe a small amount of research on survey goal setting will give you an excellent starting point.

surveymonkey dotcom is one place to check for further resources and tools for creating surveys.

Good Luck

Try creating a very short video asking your list what they want and what they're struggling with.

Make the subject of your email "I have a question to ask. Face to face."

(If you're mega-shy, just do a screen capture video).

PS: Have you ever gone fishing? A lot of canned responses and "survey monkey" are like fake worms. If you ask them in video, it's kinda like real worms. (works much better).

(Yes, every marketing situation on the planet can relate directly to fishing).

Try it.

You can ask questions based on what they understand to
reveal what's important to them.

In other words asking "would you like SEO services?" is
probably not all that helpful because they really don't have
any understanding of how SEO services can benefit them.

But if you break it up...

"Are you getting customers who find you online when they
search on Google?"

"Would you like to bring in more paying customers from the
search engines?"


For email marketing...

"Do you have a system for following up with your customers
so they buy from you again?"

and so on.

For many business owners the questions might be an education
in themselves.


Another strategy is to educate your subscribers on the value
of each strategy to a business using content online or in a pdf
report then at the end of the content or report you can either
ask your questions or give a call to action for them to hire you.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh