SWOT Team: Boosting Survey Responses

Name, age, occupation, income, education level, products purchased... marketers love the little details about customers and prospects so they can hit the bull's eye when marketing to an audience.

However, it's become a challenge to gather these details as people have grown more protective of their personal information because of increasing identity theft and spam.

One way to gather information is through an online survey. Surveys benefit customers feedback can result in improved product or services. They also provide marketers with customer information. The trick is to get people to fill them out.

Providing a reward—such as giving away a freebie, entering names in a drawing for a prize or offering a discount—can help. But such "bribes" may not get you the results that you want. So how can you entice more people to consider filling out your surveys? What can you do to increase the number of completed ones?

Do you know your customers inside out? Is something else making you flip out? Allow 100,000 "MarketingProfs Today" readers to take your upside-down challenge and turn it right side up. Submit your dilemma and receive a complimentary copy of our book, A Marketer's Guide to e-Newsletter Publishing. Survey says, "The book is great!"

This Week's Dilemma

Beating the survey blues

I create questionnaires for my clients to learn about their customers' needs and worries. When customers complete the survey, they receive a discount. However, a disappointing three in 100 complete the survey. What can I do to entice more people to complete surveys and improve those numbers?

—Elisa, Marketing Manager

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Hank Stroll (Hank@InternetVIZ.com) is publisher at InternetVIZ, a custom publisher of 24 B2B e-newsletters reaching 490,000 business executives.