Here’s the “Quick Start Guide” that we’re including with our new product.

It will give you a great overview of the awesome system that will let you put surveys to work making money for your business, with a minimal investment of time and money.  To get the system, go here.

Here’s a news flash: Men and women are different.

And although that seems incredibly obvious, many online marketers ignore that fact, missing a HUGE opportunity to ramp up their marketing results.

If you don’t think it’s important to target your messages differently to men and women, then think about some of the differences between men’s and women’s Internet use that have cropped up in recent surveys.

Men represent about 48% of Internet users, according to marketing estimates. And according to eMarketer, there is a “gender gap” not only in use but also in patterns of behavior.

Lisa E. Phillips, a senior analyst at eMarketer, says that “Men spend more time online, conduct more searches on a daily basis and do not mind seeing ads . . . They are as engaged in social media as women are, and are not put off by the companies and brands they find there.”

Gallup data support her claim that men use the Internet more frequently: They estimate that a majority (53%) of men spend more than an hour on the Internet each day, whereas only 42% of women do so.

But data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project suggest that the gender differences in search behavior may be bigger and more complex than Phillips recognizes: Men search more than women for SOME kinds of things, but not others.

The Pew data show that men who use the Internet are more likely than women to get many forms of information online, including weather, news, do-it-yourself, sports, political, and financial information. They search for jobs online at higher rates than women do; download software and music more frequently; use webcams more often; are more likely to rate products, services, and people; and take classes more often.

What do “wired women” do more frequently than their male counterparts? Send and get e-mail, seek out medical and health information (not surprising, given that women are likely to be the health care “point people” in their families), get religious information, and get support to deal with health or personal issues.

And, consistent with the old stereotype that men “won’t ask for directions,” women are more likely than men to get maps and directions online.

But we may see changes in these patterns soon, because the growth rate for women’s use of government websites, watching video or listening to audio clips, and researching products are higher than the growth rates for men.

Think for a minute about how many differences we just identified in what men and women do online.

And these data are in the aggregate; we know that the patterns differ by race and ethnicity, for example, and also by age.

What does this mean for you and your business?

You’ve got to know what % of your target market, your prospects, and your customer base are men vs. women.

You need to segment your list by gender, in almost any niche, so that you can target your messages differently to men and women.

Just another example of why you need to have a segmentation strategy in place and why any type of niche marketing needs to target men and women differently.

If you don’t even know what that IS, don’t worry–you’re not alone! LOTS of online marketers become confused when they start hearing terms like “segmentation strategy,” “niche marketing,” “demographic research,” and “psychographic research.”

Before you go into a keyword coma, though, recognize that you’ve simply GOT to know what this is all about and how to put it to work for your business, if you’re going to survive in this economy.

A new survey shows that marketers and small businesses increasingly “get it” about how important these things are and they’re changing their ways, rapidly and radically.

This survey, which asked 50 “leading marketers” and 741 small businesses about their marketing and research plans for 2009, showed several interesting things:

First, marketers are rapidly moving their efforts online, indicating that they would increase efforts in EVERY online tactic mentioned in the survey–including social networking and webinars.

Second, small businesses are doing more segmentation research so they can better target their customers.

Third, small businesses will be doing more surveys–which is what will give them the information they need to segment their lists so they can reach out to their customers in a meaningful way.

And here’s what’s really important: Online surveys and focus groups are ONLY types of research that small business marketers plan to INCREASE in 2009.

What does this mean for YOU?

Bottom line: If you aren’t doing surveys in your business, you need to start now–because your competition IS doing surveys.

The simple fact is, niche marketing is absolutely critical in this economy. And to do niche marketing effectively, to reach out to your customers in a more personal–and more effective–way, you have to know who your customers are, so that you can personalize your messages to them.

If you don’t know what % of your customer base is women, if you don’t know what % holds a college degree, if you can’t say how many make more than $75,000 per year, then you don’t have the information you need to come up with a segmentation strategy for your business.

Want proof of how important a segmentation strategy is? Here you go:

• In the first 30 days of an e-mail campaign, open rates for e-mails sent to lists that are targeted or “segmented” like this are as much as 20% higher, on average (Marketing Sherpa, 2008).
• In the first 30 days of a campaign, click rates for a campaign that uses segmented lists are double those for non-segmented lists (Marketing Sherpa, 2008).
• Segmenting your list can quadruple conversion rates (Jupiter Research, 2006)

This means that you need to do demographic research–which is just another term for answering all those questions I just mentioned.

You need to do psychographic research–marketing jargon for understanding the values, attitudes, and lifestyles of your customers.

You need to do customer loyalty research–so you understand how to keep customers buying, over and over again, once you’ve converted them.

And here’s the good news: You can do all of this, quickly and easily.

Put a customer profile survey in place and you can answer all those pesky questions about demographics and psychographics, so that you can connect with your customers and prospects in a completely new way.

It’s quick, it’s easy, and at MySurveyExpert, we’ve developed templates that will get you up and running, right away.

You don’t have to be left in the dust. We’re about to put a survey product on the market that will let you get a customer profile survey up and running in less than a week.

What’s more, you’ll have a survey system in place that will give you ALL the information you need, in all phases of your business.

You’ll generate testimonials and referrals, produce case studies, measure customer satisfaction–the list goes on and on.

If you’re ready to get started, if you understand that surveys are THE hottest marketing tool among small businesses right now, then sign up for our free e-course today to get started.

And if you want more information about what we’re up to with our new survey system, just leave a comment for us!