If you’re running an online marketing campaign, you’ve probably considered performing surveys to get valuable feedback from potential customers. However, not all survey questions are made equal. Sometimes, the questions you ask can determine the success of your campaign. So, it’s important to learn what kind of questions to ask and how to ask them effectively.
The Benefits Of Asking The Right Question
There are several benefits to asking the right question. Here are just a few:
- Getting valuable feedback that will help you improve your products or services
- Gaining a deeper understanding of what your target audience wants
- Finding out what questions others are asking that you can also ask
In each case, asking the right question can help you position yourself as an expert, understand your target audience’s needs, and find the right solutions for them.
Types Of Questions To Ask
As a marketer, you’ll eventually want to perform a survey to find out what your target audience thinks about your products or services. So, it’s important to learn about the different types of questions you can ask.
The first thing to keep in mind is that you can’t please everyone. Thus, it’s important that you choose the right type of question to satisfy the needs of your target audience. Additionally, you want to choose questions that are easy to answer so that you can get the most accurate results. Finally, you want to avoid questions that may cause the respondents to provide answers that they may feel pressure to provide.
Here are the different types of questions you can ask:
Open-Ended
These are questions that can’t be answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Instead, you’ll have to provide a detailed explanation for the respondent to answer your question. As an example, “What color is the sky?” is an open-ended question because the respondent can give you a detailed description about how blue the sky is or how big the clouds are.
This type of question is often asked in market research and customer surveys, so it’s important to know how to answer it. Otherwise, you may end up with a lot of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers that don’t provide a clear picture of what the respondent is thinking. In marketing, an open-ended question can be a good way to learn more about your target audience’s interests, needs, and behaviors.
Budget
Budget is always something to consider when running a marketing campaign. You don’t want to waste money on surveys that don’t provide you with valuable information. However, you also don’t want to limit yourself to only performing surveys for which you have enough funding. You need to find a balance between the two.
If you have a limited budget, you may decide to skip performing some customer surveys or focus on a particular group of customers that you think can provide you with the information you need. Alternatively, you might choose to perform a smaller, more focused survey that will provide you with more accurate results.
Single Or Multi-Choice
Some questions are better suited for multiple choice. For example, “Do you feel more comfortable using a PC or a Mac?” is a better choice than “What type of computer do you own?” if you want to know what the respondent prefers.
If you’re asking a series of questions, you can ask the first one to get a general idea of the respondent’s answer and then choose a subset of the questions to determine a more specific response. For example, you can ask, “How would you rate your current health? Excellent, Good, Fair, or Poor?” To determine how the respondent feels about their health, you can ask, “What was your health like a year ago?”
Then, if you want to know how they’ve changed since then, you can ask, “How is your health now compared to a year ago?” This type of question can help you get a general idea of how your target audience is performing and if your product or service meets their needs. However, it can also be quite challenging to get an accurate representation of the entire group if your sample is somewhat biased toward people who rated their health as ‘good’ or ‘fair.’
Answering The Question
Answering the question is quite different from asking the question. To know how to answer a survey question, you first need to know what the question is. Then, you should provide a detailed explanation for why you’re answering the question the way you are. Additionally, you want to be mindful of how you’re wording your answer so that you don’t unintentionally give a misleading answer.
When providing an answer, start by defining what you mean by “the sky is blue” or “winter is cold.” Next, you want to explain why you chose that particular definition. For example, is it because you frequently see blue skies or because it is cold in winter?
If you’re describing an object, you want to use correct English. For example, “the car” instead of “a car.” Additionally, when providing an answer, you want to avoid using jargon that may be familiar to the respondents but meaningless to someone who isn’t already familiar with the topic. For example, “behavioral analytics” instead of “analytics” if you want to keep your intended audience informed.
What About The Time It Takes To Answer The Question?
How long it takes to answer a survey question can vary but it depends on the type of question. For example, open-ended questions can take a while to answer because you have to determine what the respondent means by their answer rather than using a checkbox option.
In some cases, you may have to go back multiple times to get the information you need. Thus, it’s important to think about how you’ll structure your survey so that you can get the most information in the least amount of time.
Keep In Mind
To create effective market research, you have to keep several things in mind. First, get the right sample. Second, perform the right analysis. Third, present the results clearly and accurately. Finally, use the information you gather to improve your products or services.
Remember that not everyone who answers your survey will give you an accurate answer, so make sure that you have the necessary statistical tools to accurately analyze the results.
Additionally, make sure that you understand what the results mean before you try to apply them to your business. Sometimes, the interpretation of the results can vary from one person to the next. That is why it’s important to perform the analysis yourself rather than just relying on the results provided by the survey tool.