Suppose you could show your customers data that showed that more than 90% of your customers were satisfied, on 7 different measures–real, scientific measures of satisfaction–something like this.

Pretty cool, huh?  Well, you can get those data on an ongoing basis, easily and inexpensively.

And I can pretty much guarantee they’ll have a HUGE impact on your customers and prospects.  In fact, I’d be willing to bet it could double, triple, or even quadruple your profits.

I saw this in action this week, at my daughter’s school.  At their annual Open House, where prospective parents come to tour the school to deside whether they want their children to attend the school.

And featured at the event were survey results that showed that more than 90% of current parents are satisfied, on 7 different measures.

As you can imagine, that was VERY persuasive evidence for these parents.  These data spoke volumes, far more effectively than anything we could say.  One parent was so impressed he wanted to try to move his child into the school right away.

Well, guess what–if you’re running a business, you’re having “Open House” every day, as you compete for customers.

Don’t you want to have evidence like this to CONVERT those prospects–evidence many of your competeitors lack?

Imagine if you could have  a chart like this sitting on your home page or sales page.

Imagine if beside that, you could list literally hundreds of testimonials from satisfied customers, telling these prospects how your products and services transformed their businesses or changed their lives.

Imagine if you could also put case studies on that page, “stories that stick” because they show exactly how your products or services worked.

You can have all that on your home page and sales page, if you put a a satisfaction survey in place for your products and services.

Let us show you how you could have a survey like this in place, in just a few hours.

We hear all the time about how important it is to understand the “demographics and psychographics” of our customer base and our target market.

But all too often, when I ask our customers what THEY know, I find out that they really know very little–and that’s why they come to us.

To find out how you’re doing, ask yourself whether you know these 10 key things about your customers:

1.Who is your target market?  If you’re trying to sell your products to “all women,” then that’s too broad.  You need to think clearly about who it is you’re trying to reach, to whom you’re trying to sell.

2.  What does your ideal customer look like–who is he or she?  Think about whether she’s a man or woman, age, what kind of job, what kind of house, what kind of car she or he drives.  Although you won’t have actual data on all those things, you should have a good profile like that in mind as you define your market.

3.  “Where’s the pain” in your customer base and your target market?

• What problem is it that your products or services can solve for them?
• You not only need to know what that pain is, you need to measure the width of the problem, the depth of the pain, so you can target your messages, offers, and products at that problem and pain.  Social media gives you clues and impressions, surveys let you measure it.

4.  Do you know what % of your customer base is men?

• That’s REALLY important for targeting products, offers, and messaging.
• Knowing who’s male and who’s female isn’t just a useless demographic statistic–you can use that information to target your messages differently to men and to women, by segmenting your list.

5.  Do you know what % of your customer base makes more than $75,000 a year?

• After all, you can’t market to the affluent if you don’t HAVE affluent customers or prospects.
• You should know other key demographics as well, such as the average level of education, what % are married, etc.

6.  Do you know whether your target market is growing or shrinking?

• There are lots of FREE survey data out there that can provide in-depth information about what’s happening to YOUR demographic, if you know where to look for those data and how to use them.

7.  Do you know how your frequent buyers differ from the people who don’t buy as often–or who don’t buy at all?

• Knowing that could take you a long way toward understanding what motivates people to buy your products and services.

8.  Do you know if the characteristics of your customers have changed in the last year–and if so, how?  That information can tell you a lot about who you’re reaching and who you’re converting.

9.   Do you know what makes your customers and prospects “tick?”  Are they risk takers?  Do they focus on “keeping up” with their neighbors or are they fiscally conservative?  These are important things to understand if you want to sell to those folks.

10.  Here’s one of my favorites:  What keeps your customers up at night?

If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you’re not alone–most of our customers can’t answer these questions.

But THAT’S why they come to us:  Because if you don’t know the answers to these questions, you’re leaving money on the table.

Knowing your market, your prospects and your customers, can double, triple, or even quadruple your profits.

We can help you put a survey system in place in your business today that will let you get all this information and more, at a price you can afford.  Find out how.

Wondering whether those Facebook ads have any effect?  Facebook and Nielsen have teamed to give SOME users a way to measure the ROI.

With more than 300 million users, Facebook has provided an attractive advertising venue for quite a while.  The ability to “slice and the dice” the demographics to secure targeted, affordable ads has proved particularly attractive for many users.

As with many other aspects of social media, the tantalizing question remined: “Is it paying off?”

Now Facebook and Nielsen (yes, that’s the polling organization that tracks TV viewing habits) have collaborated to answer that question.

Their new project, dubbed “Brand Lift,” will poll Facebook users to measure recall of the ads, brand awareness, and considerations regarding purchase.

Sounds great?  Here’s the catch:  The new product will reportedly be offered only to Nielsen customers.

Customers often ask us,

Under what circumstances do you prefer multiple choice surveys or fill in the blank surveys? Are multiple choice surveys more (mis)leading?

In general, I’m a big fan of closed-ended questions, which are generally multiple choice.

Are they misleading?  That’s a REALLY important question.

They are, if you don’t know what you’re doing and you write bad questions.  And “loading” questions or writing “leading” questions can actually cost you money.

Why?

• Because the bottom line is that you need to know what people think.
• The more accurately you find that out, the more money you’re going to make:
• Knowing exactly what people want, what they’ll pay, when they’re satisfied (and when they’re not) can double, triple, or even quadruple your profits.

So you’ve GOT to write good questions.

The thing about “leading” questions is that it’s often not obvious when a question is “leading” or “loaded.”  Sometimes, they’re really tough to spot, particularly when you’re writing questions about your own products and services.

Here are some tips to avoid that problem:

1.    Use neutral language,  avoiding any terms might get an emotional response.  After you’ve drafted your survey, make a pass through it JUST to look for strong language that might “lead” someone.

2.    Balance your response options.  If you’re asking people whether they agree or disagree with a statement, make it “Agree strongly, Agree, Disagree, Disagree Strongly,” not “Agree strongly, Agree, Disagree.”  You want both “sides” to have the same number of responses.

3.    Review, review, review.  Go through the survey yourself, then put the survey away for a couple of days, then come back and look at it again.  Then, ask a couple of other folks to look it over for you and get their input.

4.    Once you’ve reviewed it, pretest it.  Get a small “subsample” of your customers (20 or so is usually enough), have them take the survey, then give them a few questions that ask THEM whether they thought anything was leading, whether they saw any problems with the survey, and so forth.

Have more questions?  Just ask!

One of the big questions we get all the time is, “Is your system like Survey Monkey?”

The answer is no.  Our system isn’t for PROGRAMMING surveys, it’s for WRITING them.  That’s why we call it a “survey creator.”

You see, the technology is really pretty easy.  You can use Survey Monkey, or Qualtrics, or pretty much any survey software to program a survey and blast it out to your list.  Some are better than others (that’s why we’ve created an online survey software guide for you), but most will do the job.

But here’s the problem:  That won’t make you money unless you’re programming a GOOD survey, one that will engage your customers and get the information you need to create new products, find the things that aren’t working in your business, and get proof to convert your prospects.

Doing that takes skill.  Most folks don’t have a PhD in their pockets or a few thousand dollars lying around to hire one.

So that’s why we built the MySurveyExpert system, a survey creator that gives you easy-to-use information that lets you put surveys to work in your business, quickly and easily.  With everything from an online survey tutorial to survey templates to a survey software guide, you’ll be able to put surveys to work, quickly and easily.

And you can get it here.