The “when and where” of surveys

Survey know-how series, part three of four:
Using Emma surveys can help you plan and streamline events.

Now that we’ve explored some of the best reasons to survey your customers and some things to keep in mind while you’re designing a market research survey, let’s take a look at another useful application of this free, integrated tool. Planning an event to support your business can be complicated and time-consuming to manage. But using email and surveys together can really streamline the communication and let you focus on, you know, the event planning.

Many of our savvy customers are using the survey submit button to collect event RSVP information. This pairs easily with an invitation email, which can provide event details and a link to the RSVP survey.

For example, consider this. You have an event coming up, and your goal is to invite your customers, while hopefully spreading the word to some prospective customers as well. But you need to know how many beanbag chairs to set up, so you’ll be asking people to RSVP.  Well, you can use an email campaign as the actual invitation, and then use a survey to collect RSVP responses.

Here’s how:

• Design a survey that asks the RSVP information you need.
• Create an email campaign with all of the details of the event itself. This is your invitation.
• Ask people to RSVP by linking to your survey in the email. Voilà.
• You can even add our Social Sharing feature to your email if you’d like your recipients to be able to share your invitation with others.

This format lets you ask exactly what you need to know: Can you attend? Will you be bringing a guest? Will you be bringing s’mores as your potluck dish? (In that case, you can bet that a few Emma staffers will be there too.)

Once you’ve heard back from your audience, you can easily organize the responses so that you can report back to your caterer (yep, better order some more marshmallows) and get in touch with those who responded. For example, a timely “Directions and Parking” follow-up email to those who said yes can minimize both frantic inbox-searching for your clients and day-of phone calls for you. Or, after the event is completed, sending a follow-up survey soliciting feedback and suggestions can help you continue to improve.

Also, that whole link-to-the-RSVP-form-straight-from-the-email thing makes *actually* responding a lot easier for your recipients. That way, hopefully you and your staff will only have to say ‘s’il vous plaît’ a few extra times.