This morning the sun is shining bright outside as you and sit comfortably in your office. With a cup of hot coffee by your side and memories of your last holiday still fresh in your mind, even if you say so yourself, today at least, life is sweet.

You take a sip of your morning coffee and then feel a breeze of cool air and from the corner of your eye a movement. In the blink of an eye there is now an smartly dressed stranger sitting in the chair opposite. Surprised, you bet; you didn’t hear anyone knock and just as you are about to say something he begins in a calm and measured voice.

‘Here is the deal’

‘I will advertise your product on billboards at the busiest junctions of every city of the world.’

‘I will be able to tell you how many people see the advertisement, their gender, age group and nationality.’

‘I will tell you exactly what they think of your product and can even give you their contact details. While they are looking at the billboard I will allow them to view your website and even make a purchase if they feel the urge.’

‘I can have all this setup in two days and it will cost you less than a small advertisement displayed in your favourite trade journal.’

He pauses. ‘Interested?’

Now you might think that such an offer was too good to be true, you might think that you are going to wake up soon or maybe that it really is time to get a lock on that office door.

But let us just take a minute. If you are still reading this I am that man who has come from nowhere and offered you a deal.

The advertising site is on the Internet and the billboard I’m offering is the much underrated online survey.

Stop for a second and start to associate an online survey not with ‘market research’ but with ‘marketing’. Not any type of marketing but ‘Marketing’ with a capital ‘M’ and in flashing neon lights. Marketing that is quick, effective, low cost and direct.

You can advertise a published online survey on a website, or via email and like a billboard by the side of a transport hub, your message will appear in front of people. The number of people that see a billboard can only be estimated where as the number of people that start a survey is a verifiable number.

Online surveys can ask demographic questions such as age, gender and nationality and in doing so allows you to collate metrics about the effectiveness of your promotion and confirm that you are interacting with the target respondent on a one-on-one level.

Unlike billboards where the message is often subliminal, or maybe just trying to achieve brand awareness, with online surveys you have the opportunity to connect with the public to find out what they really think about your product, how it relates to them, how it is perceived.

Using an online survey website it takes only minutes and hours to create a survey and using the power of the Internet an online survey can reach hundreds of thousands of people on a daily basis.

Even if you offer a prize as an incentive for people to complete the survey or use Pay Per Click advertising to capture a wider, or more focused audience you will still have low cost but effective marketing.

‘Tell me then. Is it a deal?’

It is hard to attract potential customers for your website with millions of other websites out there. Even your best effort is not enough unless you are using the right advertising strategies for your business.

You can develop and optimize advertising strategies that drags attention to your website by working out a detailed plan on how you might best reach your audience. You need to target every type of person that you think might be interested in your line of business. For example, if you sell boating equipment, there are several prospects like boat owners, fishermen, scuba divers and other devotees of water sports that should be targeted in your advertising campaign.

You should also put into serious consideration the use of search engines in your advertising strategy, which will work to your advantage. Find out how search engines work, the indexing algorithms and time frames required for your site to get picked up. Although the cost is high, this advertising strategy pays for itself because it is very advantageous in attracting customers.

On the other hand, you can also balance your expenses by making use of as many free advertising venues as you can find. It is also appropriate to write some informative articles on your own products, which gives your readers useful info. Submit to article directories and get a byline and link to your site and you will probably know that quality content and links improves your search engine ranking.

Content translates to the search engines as information, which is the name of the game today. The more links you have, the more audience you get. This improves your credibility with the search engines and also gets your site exposed to as many potential customers as possible.

Any good advertising strategy includes giving. For example, offering a visitor a free gift, such as a downloadable e-book, when they subscribe to your e-newsletter is a good incentive to subscribe, builds your readership and keeps your website fresh in the visitor’s memory.

Article by Chris B, you can find more about him on his profile.

Many promoters starting out have to work hard and on a shoestring to get an audience of a few hundred people to fill a venue. Flyers, word-of-mouth and social networks are some of the methods promoters can use to try and attract people to venues or club nights. Building a loyal following from grassroots is no easy task. Given the amount of effort it can take to fill even the smallest of venues promoters really need to capitalise on all their efforts and use the event itself to maximise the opportunity to encourage further audience contact.

Online surveys can, with a little thought and minimal outlay, be used to provide the promoter with good feedback and the opportunity to engage in further contact with the audience. Using online Survey Software a promoter can now quickly and easily create an online survey.

With an online survey a promoter can find out exactly:-

• who attended;
• what persuaded them;
• what they thought of the event;
• would they expect to attend again;
• would they recommend future events to their friends.

A good way to ensure a good response is to have a supply of business sized cards that are marked clearly with a slogan like “Feedback”, “Your opinion counts”, “Tell us what you thought”. Each card would display an address that points either directly to the survey or to a website where a link to the survey can be placed. Cards can be issued at the door with the tickets, or handed out among the crowd and if they are made the size of business cards they will be small enough to be slipped into a pocket, purse or wallet. A small incentive may improve the response rate, perhaps the chance to win a free guest pass for a future event, a signed CD or T shirt.

Using the results from online surveys the promoter is able to:

• Obtain a profile of the audience
• Gauge the overall success of the event;
• Measure the effectiveness of different promotion;
• Receive feedback on the venue and facilities;
• Receive feedback on the act;
• Promote on a one on one basis;
• Build a targeted database for future events;
• Build a loyal audience;
• Link to merchandise and other promotions.

It takes considering effort to promote an event and only a little extra effort to use online surveys to encourage further contact and reap a number of short and long term benefits that contact will bring.

The following example shows the feedback that could be used for a breaking band. It not only gathers valuable feedback, but continues to promote the band, their CD and gives the opportunity to encourage further contact.

Sample Feedback Survey

To view the summary results of the survey: Sample Survey Results

Designing surveys is considered easy; but is it? The reality is that writing surveys is easy but writing effective surveys is more difficult. The following tips will help you write more effective surveys.

1. What is the survey’s purpose?

Questionnaires are conducted for many reasons. By correctly phrasing the questions and structuring the answers surveys can be used in many ways and for a variety of reasons. When designing a survey don’t lose sight of its purpose.

2. Title the survey

The title of the survey is an opportunity to instantly summarise a survey’s objective and encourage respondents to participate. Respondents need to invest time in completing the survey so make them feel that their investment is worthwhile.

3. Try to keep the survey as short as possible

Every question asked should be asked for a reason. Concentrate on the ‘need to know’ questions and minimise ‘nice to know’ information.

4. Use plain English, avoid jargon and acronyms, be consistent and ensure that the questions you ask will not result in ambiguous answers

Be careful when wording the question. There is every chance that if respondents can interpret any question that is not clearly written differently to that intended by the survey’s publisher then any analysis of the survey results may be worthless or at the very least misleading.

5. Avoid questions that are long

Try to use short sentences wherever possible. Long questions tend to cause respondents discomfort and can lead to a higher level of incidents where respondents abandon a survey.

6. Ask only one question at a time

Avoid confusing the respondent with a question like ‘Do you like tennis and football?’

7. Avoid influencing the answer

Avoid loading the question. ‘Should irresponsible shop keepers who sell cigarettes to minors be prosecuted?’ is unlikely to have any value.

8. Ensure that the answer format used allows the respondent to answer the question being asked

Ensure that the respondent is able to answer how they really feel or they may be less inclined to complete the survey. As a last resort consider the benefit of including a “No comment”, “Can’t say” or similar response option.

9. While you are compiling your survey consider how the survey results are going to be analysed when the survey is complete

When asking questions that allow for a free text open ended response, such as when asking the respondent for their comments, appreciate that such information is likely to be difficult to score and/or summarised. Consider how the answers could be grouped. For example “Indicate your length of service?” – ‘less than 1 year’, ‘between 1 and 6 years’ and ‘more than 6′.

10. Try and ensure that the questionnaire flows

When asking questions group the questions into clear categories as this makes the task of completing the survey easier for the participants.

11. Target your respondents carefully

You may want to target a specific group, in others a cross section. If you can’t control who responds to your survey consider including questions/answers that will allow you to filter out respondents who don’t fit your target profile.

12. Allow the respondent to expand on their answer or make comments

By allowing respondents to make additional comments you will increase their satisfaction level and the comments will also give valuable feedback on the specific questions and/or the survey as a whole. Remember though for a large sample collection it may be difficult to analyze free text open ended responses.

13. If the survey you are conducting is to be confidential ensure that you honour your pledge

If you have assured the respondents that the survey is confidential ensure that the individual data is not to be shared with anyone and the information is not going to be used for any other purpose. Confidentiality must be maintained at all times and any identifying information destroyed after the survey is complete.

14. Weigh up the benefits of allowing respondents to be anonymous or identifiable

If your respondents are to be anonymous then appreciate that you will be unable to follow up or match “pre” or “post” surveys. Allowing people to remain anonymous can however have advantages for example it would allow people to respond without possible peer pressure.

15. Carefully consider what the best response format will be

Maintaining a consistency in the format used for responses is good practice. Keep in mind that when analysing the data radio buttons are easier to analyse than check boxes that offer the respondent multiple responses. If a radio response can be used do not use a check box.

16. Give the respondent an estimate as to how much time the survey will take to complete

If the survey appears to be a stream of never ending questions then respondent drop out can occur. It is good practice to give an indication as to how long the survey is likely to take so that the participants can determine the best time to complete the survey.

17. Advise the respondents of the survey end date

Encourage respondents to complete the survey as soon as possible but advise respondents as to the survey’s end date so that they have the opportunity to schedule the necessary time.

18. Pilot the survey

Before publishing a live survey publish a small pilot survey to check for questions that are ambiguous or confusing and to ensure that the survey is aesthetically pleasing.

19. Before publishing the survey proof read the survey carefully

Check and then check again that a survey is grammatically correct and makes sense. If practical get someone else to proof read the survey before you publish, if no one else is available then take a break before checking again.

20. Say ‘Thank You’

To complete surveys respondents have to devote their time and should be thanked either in a covering letter, at the end of completing the survey or in a follow up letter. You may even want to consider incentives such as a reward of some sort.

For more information please visit Survey Galaxy