Category Archive: Surveys
Take our survey for a chance to win a custom design or free emails
Tell us about your email marketing goals, challenges and more so we can help with your holiday plans
One lucky survey-taker will win. Click above to take the survey.
This year, we’d love your help as we get into the holiday spirit. We want to know what you want to learn this season and how we can help you reach your email marketing goals.
Take our 10-question survey here.
Want another reason to feel merry? By submitting the survey, you’re eligible to win one of three prizes of your choice: a custom holiday design, custom signup form for your website or a free month of emails. We’ll announce the winner in November, along with results of the survey. Now, go get yourself a pumpkin latte.
Surveys (and leaps) we like to take
Using Emma's free feature to request customer feedback and take your business to new heights
I love a good challenge, so when I saw the opportunity to go skydiving *and* meet some Emma customers in person, I couldn’t resist. Located in rural Chester, South Carolina, they are the Carolinas’ premier drop zone and consistently draw adrenaline junkies from far and wide (even design consultants from Nashville, Tennessee!). I recently caught up with James LaBarrie, the general manager of Skydive Carolina, to discuss the experience I had using their service and an Emma feature he has found quite beneficial.
Kelley en route to earth. Also pictured: just another day at the office for her tandem, Chuck, from Skydive Carolina.
Skydive Carolina regularly uses the Emma survey feature that’s free with every account because it’s a great way to keep a finger on the pulse of their customers. James is passionate about the company’s commitment to building relationships with clients and providing superior customer service.
“We aren’t only hoping to please our customers,” he says. “We are hoping to amaze them. But when we fail, I see it as an opportunity to create a raving fan.”
Of course, an important element of the service experience is the customer’s ability to easily provide feedback and the company’s willingness to listen. With a role that is mostly behind the scenes, James does not get the opportunity to interact with each customer who visits. For him, it is often the survey alone that provides the valuable feedback they need.
“The survey is a great way to know when we’re falling short and when all is well,” he adds. And in those rare instances that a customer does not have the best experience possible, James has been known to follow up with them personally.
The Skydive Carolina survey inquires about everything from how easy it was to find the location to how much the client liked the photo taken during the jump; each bit of information helps James make educated decisions about the business. But it’s not just about asking the right questions — James is also very intentional about asking at the right time as well. Jumpers receive a trigger email the day immediately following their dive, when the experience is still fresh enough to recall details.
Survey says: Everyone's gotta try this.
It’s amazing how much information is available if you simply request it. When thinking about your own business, consider the difference that customer feedback could make for you and follow Skydive Carolina’s lead. Heck, you may also like to follow their lead right out of a plane — you definitely wouldn’t regret it!
Here’s to surveyed customers, empowered email marketing and thrilling jumps.
Our Facebook poll sparks a discussion
Last week, we posted a quick poll on Facebook about our email sending strategies, and we were happy to see so many fans weigh in. What’s equally wonderful is their willingness to share their strategies with others and keep the dialogue humming.
We asked, “Do you send one newsletter per month? Or do you send more or less frequently? Tell us and share your reasons.” View the results on our Facebook wall, and take a look at a few of the responses here:
- “We take the best of our blog and share it with our list every quarter.” – Tim Frick, MightyBytes
- “We publish 3 monthly, 1 bi-monthly and 2 quarterly e-newsletters, each to specific audiences and with specific goals. We also publish 2-5 ad hoc email communiques each month depending on the time of year.” – Mike Barzacchini, Mike Barzacchini Communication
- “Once a month, except December – 4x. I’m in retail. Concerned that more than once a month would be a turn off to clientele.” – Susan Iris Landa, The Fossil Cartel and Let It Bead
- “We try to keep our Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter pages very active during the week so our students and fans can know what is going on while also getting a meatier communication via your newsletter system monthly. We’ve found the diverse marketplace of our demographic (18-60+) have so many preferred ways to reach them (Facebook, email, phone, newsletter, Twitter…) that the only way to truly embrace their needs is to be as diverse as they are in our communication strategies.” – Momenta Workshops
All of these great responses got us thinking about sending frequency and segmentation, namely…
1. How do you know when you’ve reached the point of saturation?
Some folks rely on gut feeling or personal experience, knowing that they don’t appreciate an over-cluttered inbox. Make sure to employ the response metrics at your disposal as well. For example, do your opt-out rates increase when you send more or less frequently? Do open rates increase or decrease? If you’ve noticed a shift in either direction, it’s worth some attention. And check out Megan’s post with more tips for avoiding the affliction known as email overload.
2. Are you segmenting your Emma audience appropriately?
Remember that your audience is made up of a variety of members with different tendencies and needs. Your biggest fans may want to hear from you more than once a month, while others prefer less frequent communication. Use Emma’s search and segment feature to create audience groups based on location if you’d like to send more regularly to subscribers in your home city, based on or purchase history, if you’d like to concentrate on recurring buyers. The best way to gauge audience preferences? Ask them.
3. What’s your content strategy?
While it’s important to consider sending frequency, don’t forget that your best ammunition is your content. If you’re crafting stories that people love, they’ll find time to read (and share with their friends) at any time of the week or month. Your sending schedule can be as flexible or rigid as you like, as long as you’re taking the time to develop compelling content.
4. Have you diversified your communication channels?
As our friends at Momenta Workshops recognize, your communication strategy should extend past email. An integrated approach — using email, social media and, yes, even phone calls — means you’ll reach each sector of your audience at the time(s) they’re likeliest to be receptive.
Thanks to everyone who participated in our Facebook poll! If you’d like to contribute more to the conversation, please leave a comment here.
Meet Cheekwood
How a museum used email and surveys together to make the most of a stunning Dale Chihuly exhibit.
This summer and fall, Nashville’s Cheekwood Botanical Garden & Museum of Art is the temporary home to spectacular glass sculptures by internationally acclaimed artist Dale Chihuly, and the museum extended its normal hours to allow visitors to experience the exhibit in the evenings. Chihuly’s work is a sight to be seen any time of day, but artistic nighttime lighting transforms Cheekwood’s grounds into a wonderland and transports you — at least mentally — away from the thick, humid Nashville air to an otherworldly place.
While the folks at Cheekwood had planned on offering extended hours on Thursdays and Fridays, overwhelming support for the exhibit made them consider adding another night of Chihuly goodness to the calendar. Rather than just assuming it would be well received, they empowered their email subscribers to make the call.
With Emma’s survey feature, Cheekwood sent a short, stylish campaign (using their stunning Chihuly-themed custom stationery) inviting members, subscribers and volunteers to weigh in on the possibility of making Wednesday evening yet another time to drop by and take in the exhibit. They linked to an equally stylish survey, in which they posed the question, “Do you think Cheekwood should add Wednesday evening to Chihuly Nights?” and then gave survey-takers a chance to include comments to support their answer.
The response was fantastic. The campaign containing the link to the survey was emailed to more than 13,000 audience members, and more than 31% of them opened the email. Nearly 2,000 recipients clicked on the link to take the survey, which overwhelmingly favored adding Wednesday as a new Chihuly Night.
It doesn’t end there, though. The Cheekwood staff created a follow-up campaign to announce the new night and to thank their subscribers for taking the time to give their input. They even shared the survey results (a whopping 94% were in favor of adding Wednesday nights) along with some of the great comments survey-takers offered up in their responses.
This was Cheekwood’s first survey using Emma, and we love the way they kept it simple. They focused their approach on learning the opinions of those closest to the organization, and they thoughtfully followed up with the outcome, letting those email subscribers and Chihuly-enthusiasts be the first to hear the good news.
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.
The “why” of customer surveys
Survey know-how series, part two of four:
Explore the value of knowing what’s on the minds of your customers.
We’ve all heard banal business expressions from motivational speakers and management books about customer satisfaction, right? Maybe something like …
- It takes years to win a new customer and seconds to lose one.
- It costs up to five times more to win a new customer than keep an existing one.
- A two percent increase in customer retention has the same effect on profits as cutting costs by 10 percent.
- The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
OK, so that last one was from my mom and not a *traditional* motivational speaker. But if you boil it down, these types of phrases are just reminders to make sure that you’re taking care of your most important market: your existing customers.
Sending a customer survey means you don't have to guess what people want.
So, how do we do that?
By asking our customers to tell us about themselves and their experience with us and then – and here’s the kicker – listening to them. You have several options when you think about using a survey tool like Emma’s to connect with your customers.
1. Getting to know your audience helps you market and serve them better than you can by simply guessing. Additionally, just the experience of being invited to share an opinion can be therapeutic for a frustrated customer, or inspiring for one who likes you already. A positive experience like that is just one more touch-point that you now have with that customer.
2. Negative feedback is no fun, but it can be extremely valuable for you if it helps you spot and fix problems before a greater percentage of your audience catches on. Customers who are willing to go out of their way to share a frustration with you (instead of simply taking their money and their word of mouth elsewhere) are invaluable. Reward these folks and encourage your team to be truly thankful for them.
3. Surveying people who either have stopped being a customer, or decided never to be a customer during the sales process, can help you fill holes in your service and boost both sales and retention in the future.
4. Lastly, you may receive positive feedback, which is motivating and encouraging. At Emma, we regularly share positive messages about our team and our service along with customer suggestions, and they each fuel our staffers in different ways.
What now, you ask?
A good place to start is to think about your business strategy and form a survey to help you with that purpose.
If…
If you’re finding engagement is decreasing
Try this:
Ask your customers what type of content and offers they are interested in
And don’t forget…
List a few options – don’t make your subscribers come up with them
If…
If you’re wanting to boost sales and retention
Try this:
Ask your lost sales what you could have offered to snag their business
And don’t forget…
Of course, that doesn’t mean that you necessarily should offer it. But it’ll give you a good idea of what types of customers your competitors are getting
If…
If you’re interested in serving your clients better
Try this:
Ask them about themselves and what they’ve liked in the past so that you can continue to improve
And don’t forget…
This also may help you create a picture of your customers, which may surprise you
Happy surveying! One thing to keep in mind in all this, however, is that unless you take great pains to get a representative sample of your clients, take care before you act on results. These types of things have a self-selecting characteristic, in that usually you will hear from the very happy and the unhappy. The reasonably satisfied aren’t always motivated to reach out, so take your results with a few grains of salt, or any condiment of your choosing.
Missed part one? Read about the “how” of designing effective surveys.
Next time, we’ll explore the “when” of surveys, with a post about using this tool for event registration and follow-up.
The “how” of designing an effective survey
Survey know-how series, part one of four:
Shape your survey questions to get the most valuable information.
In a world full of emails, advertisements and direct mail, adding surveys to your communication mix can be an effective way to let your subscribers know that you’re listening as well as talking. The simple act of asking people what they think, want and know can open up a dialogue that will allow you to glean valuable information and also let your subscribers feel heard and valued.
Like email, however, a successful survey needs some careful planning and execution. In this first post of our new survey know-how series, we’re covering the “how.” That is …
“How the heck can I write solid questions and answers that will result in a positive survey experience for my audience and valuable insight for me?”
- Think about the layout of your questions. Start with a few non-threatening questions, such as the person’s experience with the subject or some non-specific demographic information, such as state of residence or an age range. You probably only have about 20 – 30 questions worth of attention span, so think about what questions are going to get you the most valuable answers. In most cases, asking up to 50 questions, such as Emma now lets you do, is best used for particularly devoted respondents or for a more in-depth look at an issue. In these situations, it’s helpful to clearly explain the purpose and benefits of the survey to your audience so that they’re more likely to stay engaged.
- Ask one question at a time, to avoid frustrating or confusing your respondents. For example, if you allow Yes/No as answers for the question “Should we spend less money on A and put that money toward B,” you may lose the attention of those who agree that A is getting too much funding but don’t agree that B deserves it.
- Write answers that are both exhaustive and mutually exclusive. To do that, make sure that all possible answers are available, but that none of them overlap. Add an “other” option if necessary to achieve exhaustiveness. So for example, if you’re asking for age ranges, the following answer choices are difficult for both 19-year-olds and 30-year-olds: A) 20-30 B) 30-50 C) 51 and above. (Sure, that example seems obvious, but we’ve all taken surveys and been faced with similarly impossible-to-answer options.)
- Lastly, use neutral language to avoid bias. Write your questions so that the respondent wouldn’t be able to guess your opinion or preference. Steer clear of leading questions or particularly positive or negative language. For example, “What is your favorite Emma summer feature enhancement?” would work better than, “Isn’t is awesome that you can now add up to 50 survey questions?”
Taking the time to order your questions thoughtfully and frame your questions effectively creates a survey that can give you just the kind of information you’re hoping to learn about your audience. And this knowledge can be a valuable tool in your organization’s decision-making.
Once you couple that survey with a “Thanks for taking our survey” automatically triggered email, you’re well on your way to having customers who feel pleased and appreciated.
Next in the survey know-how series, we’ll explore the “why” of customer experience follow-up surveys.
How surveys helped Lightning 100 add 5,000 email addresses to its list.
The folks at Nashville independent radio station Lightning 100 showcased 32 of Music City’s artists on the verge of making it big, and at the same time they highlighted their own indie brand in a success story we just had to share.
The idea was to get 32 great Nashville-area bands, play their songs on the radio and have their friends and fans register and vote for them on Lightning 100′s website. The promotion was called “Music City Mayhem,” which happily coincided with the NCAA “March Madness” basketball tournaments.
By using Emma’s signup screens for registering voters and Emma’s surveys for counting the votes, Lightning 100 added more than 5,000 email addresses to its database while providing a ton of exposure to the 32 artists who participated, said Brian Waters, the New Media Content Coordinator for Lightning 100 (also known as WRLT-FM, if you happen to work
Give your contacts more control over their email delivery
Thinking about one of our recent posts, Smarter email marketing in a recession, it’s a good time to consider how you can get even more personal and timely with your email communication. And what better way to do this than to give your contacts the option of what content they receive and how frequently they receive it.
Take The Onion, for example. Not only do they allow folks to sign up for their emails, but they’re giving them the option of how frequently they’d like to receive emails and in what format: text, video or both. By allowing new subscribers to choose what they receive and when they receive it, The Onion ensures that their messages are exactly what subscribers have asked for.
Now it’s time for you to think about what content you’re sending and its frequency. Try asking if folks signing up would like to receive emails weekly, monthly or quarterly. And ask what type of information they would like to learn more about. Is it your monthly sale items, seasonal promotions or a weekly update from the company sports team (Go Cougars!)?
You can even add surveys into your mix to gauge your current subscribers’ preferences about your emails. By allowing the recipient to choose, you will soon be reaching them on the most personal level: their own terms.
Making the most of surveys and forms (part four)
Part four in a four-part series (read parts one, two, and three)
4. Survey your team
+ Send an employee satisfaction survey
+ Create a company suggestion form
+ Publish a quick staff-wide poll
As you’re seeing how email and surveys can help you stay in touch with your customers, don’t forget the same tools can help you get to know your employees better, too. A survey helps you gauge employee satisfaction, and you can even collect responses anonymously to protect your staffers’ privacy.
You might also send a survey to get employee feedback on simple but meaningful things around the office. If you’ve got a monthly charitable budget, poll your people to see which non-profit they’d most like to support. Find out which after-hours social destination is most popular. Or send a survey about the all-important break room snack options. The people, they want the Funyuns.
Emma is a member of the Email Sender & Provider Coalition and the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group.
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