We’ve had LOTS of people ask us,
How do I get people to respond to my survey?
They’re asking that question with good reason, because this is one of THE MOST IMPORTANT issues: Simply put, if you don’t get good response to your surveys, you can’t use them to make more money.
So how do you get the responses you need?
Here are some tips:
- First and foremost, you get response by showing your customers “what’s in it for them” in taking your survey. It needs to be ALL about them, so that they see why they should spend time and effort to give you information.
- You do that in many ways, but 2 of the key ways are to (a) offer incentives for taking the survey (such as, everyone who takes it gets a free report AND a chance to win something cool, like an iPod) and (b) designing the survey so that it reads as if it’s about THEM, not about YOU and how YOU can make more money. If you do that, you WILL make more money, because you’ll get the information you need.
- Write a good survey! If you learn how to write clear, effective questions, to make your survey a conversation, and to report results to your customers and show them how you’re using the data, they’ll learn over time that your surveys are worthwhile. That takes some skill, but you’ll be surprised how fast you can learn to do good surveys, particularly with the simple recipe we’ve put together.
- Send multiple invitations to do the survey.
- Show your customers how you put the information they give to work to give THEM more value.
There are other techniques that we’re teaching, but this should give you some information you can use to get responses to surveys. To get our other techniques AND our complete system for using surveys to ramp up profits, go here.
Try these tips to increase response to your survey. And let us know how you’re doing!
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One Response to How do I Get Survey Response?
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Success Stories
“A wonderful offering for busy entrepreneurs and business owners” "Jeanne Hurlbert's survey system is a wonderful offering for busy entrepreneurs and business owners who want to be in continual, 'customer-centric' dialogue with their prospects and clients, a systematic approach you can build on for years to come. Even better, Jeanne practices what she preaches — she goes the extra mile again and again to serve us, and I'm confident she'll do the same for you."
Author of Healing the Spirit/Matter Split
~ Saniel Bonder, spiritual author and teacher, Pres. of Extraordinary Empowerments (www.heartgazing.com).
“Jeanne’s Really Been a Genius at Showing Me How Important Surveys Are.” "Jeanne's an amazing gal who truly is an exceptional, unique person who really understands the power of surveys. Surveys are just a different way to talk to people and ask them a little about what they're doing and why they want to do it with you. The more you know, the better you can serve people. Jeanne's really been a genius at helping me realize how important that is. She's helped me put a structure into place so when I'm on the Internet working with people I can find out what they really want so I can do a better job of giving them what they want. That's the key—but sometimes we think people want to do "this," and in actuality, they'd rather do it "this way." Whatever it is you're doing, whether it's finances or dating or relationships or just business on the Internet, and you want to find out how to do it better, Jeanne's programs are fantastic. Anything she does, I'm always dialed into. She's just a genius at taking what you're doing and making it better, so you can do it more effectively and you can reach the people you want to more effectively. If you get Jeanne's stuff, read it, be disciplined at it, it will transform your business, as it has mine."
New York Times Bestselling Author, as seen on The Today Show, Oprah, Regis and Kelly Live
~ New York Times #1 Bestselling Author, Jorge Cruise
"Had I Done a Survey on My Own, I Would Have Wasted a Ton of Time and Potential Opportunity."
- Steve Fultz, Stuph Clothing
"Jeanne’s Really Been a Genius at Showing Me How Important Surveys Are.”
- New York Times #1 Bestselling Author, Jorge Cruise
"…surveys are the newest old way of cutting through the clutter on the Internet and getting the information you need to double or triple your sales"
- Susan Harrow, CEO of www.PRSecrets.com & author of Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul
Jeanne,
Good post and has some interesting recommendations. I just have two pearls to add from my experience.
1. I have found out early on, and am not sure how it plays now, that offering a reward (financial – money, ability to win a prize, etc) actually drives up the scores. People think that if they are "nice" in the survey they increase their chance of winning. Don’t get me wrong – I am fine with higher scores. Alas, I always wanted to see if the scores reflected reality. It is a major bias, we are not talking 15-20 points – more like single digits, but it could be considerable in some cases. As I said, I have been advocating against financial rewards to surveys for a while, so things may be different now.
2. Your point #5, close the loop, is by far the largest promoter or higher response rates I have encountered. It is not the only one, but the first one i exercised and advocate for. Thanks for saying something that most people forget…
I have written surveys to read as if they were done for the benefit of the user and tried probably everything else you describe. Alas, closing the loop is the one that convinced of where to put my efforts when surveying customers.
Thanks for the nice post