One of the questions we get all the time from the MySurveyExpert community is how to create products.

Here’s the problem: Either people don’t have a clue where to start creating their first product or they’ve created products that bombed, because they didn’t know how to give their customers the products they want.

Ultimately, that’s what it all boils down to: Figuring out what people want, so you can give it to them.

And doing that is absolutely dead simple, if you use a product creation survey.

Today, I’m going to give you a super simple road map for creating products your customers will absolutely BEG to buy.

If you already have a list of customers and prospects, here’s what you do:

1. Pick a topic within your business that you THINK your customers would be interested in.

2. The first question in your survey is, “What’s your number one question about X or your #1 problem with X?” If you think it’s really something that’s a BIG problem for your folks, this one works even better: “What’s the #1 thing about X that keeps you awake at night?”

3. Think of 4 different topics related to this problem that you could create a product about. Keep them simple, don’t make them too general or too specific–things like: “Information about how to set up a fan page on Facebook” or “Information about how to set up a squeeze page,” something like that.

4. List those 4 things and ask people whether they’re “very interested,” “somewhat interested,” or “not interested at all” in that topic.

5. Make a list of all the ways you might deliver a product–ebook, recorded audio, video, live coaching or webinar, etc. Ask them to pick the top 2 ways they like to learn. Remember, you may end up creating multiple products on this topic–you might start out with something simple, like a recorded interview, to generate some capital while you build a bigger product.

6. Write a brief description for a product you might create–like “A recorded interview with an expert on X that you could download and listen to as often as you wanted.” Give them 3 possible price points that aren’t too far apart and that are all within a range of what you think you want to sell the product for and ask them which one is a price they think is fair for the product. (When you get the results, remember that people tend to “underreport” what they’ll pay; so if you get 30% or so of folks saying they’ll pay the price you want to charge, you should be in pretty good shape.

You’re done! Put the survey up, using a free tool like Survey Monkey (if you’re a MySurveyExpert member, remember that there’s a dead simple video in the membership site that tells you how to program a survey in Survey Monkey). Remember, you can create a custom link now in Survey Monkey.

Blast out an email to your list, inviting them to take the survey. REMEMBER, you need to tell them WHAT’S IN IT FOR THEM, in 2 ways.

First, tell them that you have had lots of interest in Topic X from your customers and you want to be sure you give them EXACTLY what they want, so you want to hear from them.

Second, offer them an incentive. It might be a free report, a free video, a free consult–anything they’ll see as valuable.

You can redirect them to the download page for the freebie once they complete the survey–that’s easy to do in Survey Monkey.

And, if you want to make it even better, give everyone a chance to win something cool (in addition to the free report): Tell them everyone who completes the survey will be entered into a contest for a free iPad or something like that. (Remember, spending $500 or so to create a product that could earn thousands of dollars for you is a pretty good deal!)

That’s really all there is to creating a winning product!

We did a really cool coaching call with MySurveyExpert members. We worked with one of our newest members to design a survey for her new coaching program, to profile her customers and also generate proof to draw new prospects and convert them into customers.

We also worked with another member on an awesome quiz he’s designed to draw prospects to his site and increase his conversions.

Because some of you have questions about how to do keyword research, set up autoresponders, and more, we also discussed some tools to let you do that and how to use them.

Members can already access the recording of this webinar in the membership site (MySurveyExpert monthly).

respondent

By Jeanne Hurlbert, PhD

Many of you have asked us,

“how many people do you need for an accurate survey?”

The answer isn’t simple, but I can boil it down for you, with some basic principles that should meet the needs of most businesses.

First, what do you want to do with the data? What questions do you need to answer and how complex do you need to get?

• For certain kinds of data analysis—for example, if you want to do complex analysis and “cut” the data lots of different ways–you need at least several hundred respondents.

• If you just want to look at frequencies, though–in other words, if you just want to know how many people are interested in a particular product or service–100 or so might be enough.

Regardless of how many responses you get, the CRITICAL issue is what the “survey geeks” call representativeness.

• That means that you hope the characteristics of the people who respond, as a group, “look” as much as possible like the people in your customer base, as a whole.

• So you hope, for example, that you get roughly the same % of men or women that you have in the customer base, the same age distribution, and so on.

• One of the things we’re going to do in our new membership site is show you how to get this.

Sometimes, though, you don’t want to know about EVERYONE. Instead, you really want to know about a particular group, or segment of our customer base.

• Maybe you want to know if the frequent buyers are interested in a membership site.

• In that case, if you’ve already segmented your list (using surveys and data from your shopping cart) to segment your list properly, you can go in and select that group, then send the survey invitation JUST to that group.

• That’s just one of many reasons that segmentation is so powerful.

The bottom line? Anytime we do surveys, we want to get as high a percentage of customers as possible to respond.

And it comes back to the mantra we give you over and over: The best way to get good information from your customers is to show them “what’s in it for them.”

• You do that by giving them an incentive to take the survey (a free report and a chance to win something cool, such as an iPod, for example) and by
• showing them clearly, in the survey and the invitation, that we’ll use the information they give us to give them more value.

To get a quick, easy SYSTEM for doing surveys this way, go here.

One of the big questions we get from people who haven’t started using surveys in their business is,

“Is it worth it? What’s the Return on Investment (ROI)?”

Well, as our customers know, as long as you do surveys well, it’s huge.

To be honest, I’ve had people pay me $10,000 to conduct a survey and they were THRILLED with the results.

Think about it:

• What’s it worth to create a product?
• To get 100 testimonials to put on your website,as I’ve done for clients?
• To produce statistical proof—hard data—that your products and services work AND lets you comply with the new FTC guidelines?
• To generate referrals or produce original research you can use in press releases or to create buzz in social media?
• To get free data that let you find new markets and niches, build PR and publicity, and more?

I’d say I’ve never seen a case when it wasn’t “worth it,” big time.

And here’s the thing: You don’t have to pay a survey consultants thousands to get these results, can do surveys REALLY inexpensively, IF you get access to the right tools.

To find out more, check out “Turn Surveys Into Cash.”

By Jeanne Hurlbert, PhD

Today, we’re starting a new series on the blog to answer some of your most common questions about surveys–everything from “Why surveys?” to “how many responses do I need?” to “how can I use surveys to build my list?

We’re going to begin with the most basic question we get: “Why surveys?”

Well, the answer is straightforward: Surveys make money, pure and simple.

Top marketers, Fortune 500 companies, bestselling authors–they’ve all been doing surveys for decades to convert prospects, create products to order, and much more.

Here are 10 ways you can follow their example and make money with surveys:

1) Create products to order:  My partner, Mike Koenigs, calls product creation surveys the “million dollar strategy,” a sure-fire way to create products your customers will beg to buy. After all, if you ask your customers and prospects what they want, create it for them, then tell them you’ve done that, don’t you think they’ll be invested in your product or service and BUY it?

2) Convert prospects with quizzes: Probably the second biggest problem our customers tell us about is that their prospects don’t convert. One awesome way to increase those conversions is to use quizzes. These work like gangbusters because they’re interactive, engaging, and FUN for the customer. Plus, we’re teaching our customers how to give a customized recommendation for their products and services in the quiz, which will really help ramp up your conversions.

3) Develop a membership site: We’ve designed a template for gauging interest in a membership site, finding out what content your customers would like in it, and what they’re willing to pay. It’s the same logic as creating products to order and it works great. We used this for one of our customers and she had an absolute formula for creating her membership site!

4) Segment your list: Surveys can give you the information you need to segment your list, so you can tailor messages, offers, and products to particular customers. That means you can send different messages to men and to women, to frequent buyers as opposed to those who don’t buy as often, to people in areas that have been hard hit by the economy. This one technique can increase your click throughs and conversions by as much as 45%!

5) Get testimonials: Surveys can get you awesome testimonials quickly, easily, and inexpensively. We have an awesome technique, a testimonial generator we used to get as many as 190 responses for one of our clients!

6) Prove it: Testimonials are just one form of proof. You should be getting 2 more: case studies and the gold standard, statistical data that PROVE your products work, your services change lives. Surveys can give you all 3 forms of proof and the UNIQUE advantage of surveys is that it can get you those statistical data.  And those statistical data will give you the information you need to comply with the FTC guidelines on testimonials.

7) Keep them happy: To keep your business growing and thriving, you’ve got to know when your customers are satisfied. Customer satisfaction surveys do that job for you, giving you an ongoing stream of information about your key products and services. What’s more, they’ll tell you when your customers AREN’T satisfied, so you find the ticking time bombs in your business BEFORE they explode.

8)  Build Your List: Surveys can let you build your list, in a number of ways. If you partner with someone else who has a list, you can collaborate on a survey and build your list. If you put a quiz out and use video and social media to drive traffic it, that’s another way surveys can generate leads and build your list. We’ll have more for you, so stay tuned.

9) Create an autoresponder series: When you do product creation surveys, or if you just do simple one-question surveys to find out your customers’ biggest problems or pain, you can take that and create an autoresponder series that addresses their questions and shows them how your products and services will let them take the next step to solving their problem or easing their pain.

10) Get an instant product:  That’s right, we’re even using survey technology to create instant products you can have up and running on your site, generating money on autopilot, in as little as 2 weeks! Stay tuned to find out how.

These are just some of the ways surveys can make money for you. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to go into all these topics and more, in great detail. This is awesome content that isn’t being put out anywhere else in the Internet marketing space, so stay tuned!