Successful Surveys: 10 Tips for Better Results

By: Kathy Gulrich

Why would you use an email or online survey when you could simply call your clients and customers and ask for their input?

Lots of reasons.

• standardization
• easy to get large numbers of responses
• easy to tabulate, analyze
• easy (and often fun) for your clients and customers
• inexpensive
• non-intrusive
• time-efficient (for you, and for your clients and customers)
• protect your customers' anonymity (if important)
• professional
• no "cold calls"
• no answering machines!

And have you figured out how long it would take to have 100 fifteen-minute conversations instead? (I don't have to do the math to know that it's WAY too long!)

So in this article, I'm going to talk surveys. How to find them, how to do them, and how to make the most of your results. Here goes....

1 - Clarify Your Objectives
What's your reason for doing the survey?

You might want to get your clients' input on your products and services, let them know you really care about what they think, or learn what keeps them up at night. (Or anything in between....)

Before you start, be very clear about what you'd like to accomplish. Then, be sure that each question on your survey will get you a step closer to your goal.

2 - Choose a Survey Company
You can write and produce your survey yourself, or (easier) use one of the many companies out there that provide survey services.

These services come at a variety of prices (from free to quite expensive), and with a variety of options (from basic to quite extensive).

Zip around the web a bit to find what's out there, and what seems most appropriate for what you're doing. In your wanderings, you may want to check out:

• www.EZsurvey.com
• www.zoomerang.com
• www.pollcat.com
• or my favorite, www.surveymonkey.com

3 - Keep it Short
Most often, we're asking survey recipients to do us a favor by filling out our survey - even if the information we gather will help them, longer term.

So be respectful of their time by keeping your survey short (no more than 10 questions, unless absolutely necessary) - and easy to fill out and return.

The easier it is do complete, the more responses you're likely to get.

4 - Mix It Up
Most automated surveys allow for lots of different types of questions, including:

• multiple choice
• choose one or more from a list
• fill in the blank(s)
• rate on a 1-5 (or similar) scale
• open-ended questions with a fill-in text box

Try to mix up your question format to keep it interesting. Lots of essay-type questions often seem "too hard" for respondents. Conversely, all multiple choice questions can get a bit boring.

5 - Get it Out There
Sometimes you'll want to limit your survey to a particular group: your clients, people who have bought your book or participated in a particular teleclass, your newsletter subscribers, etc.

Often, you'll be looking for responses from a much broader audience, say, self-employed individuals over 50, or all coaches in North America. In this case, you may want to email the survey link to your list, and ask recipients to forward the survey to anyone they know who fits your category. (You'll want to give them a compelling reason to do so!)

6 - Make Course Corrections
One of the great things about most surveys (Survey Monkey is a great example) is that you can pop in and look at results as they come in.

Here's why that's important: If the answers you're getting don't answer your questions in the way you expected, you'll have the opportunity to revise your survey, on the spot. Revise a question ... replace it ... change the order ... integrate something you learned from a respondent ... add something you forgot.

Get in there, see what's happening, and make course corrections if necessary.

7 - Analyze Results
Once all the answers have come in, look at them carefully. What does the "quantitative" data tell you? Slice and dice the numbers to learn all you can from the responses you get.

If you use a survey service that offers them, check your data in different formats, from pie charts to graphs.

And just as importantly, what "qualitative" information comes through?

• what's the general feeling you get from the open-ended responses?
• how enthusiastic were the respondents to share their views?
• what's your "gut" telling you?

8 - Use Results to Improve Your Business

One thing I've learned over the years is that people don't always do what they "say" they're going to do on surveys! And in that sense, surveys can be misleading.

In terms of trends, directions, feelings, interests, etc., however, results tend to be pretty accurate.

Net net?

Proceed boldly, but with caution. (Always test before you make a BIG leap!)

9 - Use the Report as a Special Offer

Let's face it, humans are pretty curious. We send in our answers to a survey or questionnaire, and then wonder what all the OTHER people had to say.

Capitalize on this curiosity! You can:

• offer the report/analysis as a "thank you" for responding (this will help increase your response)
• write up a special report, and turn it into a passive income product (particularly useful for hard-to-get information in a narrow market niche)

10 - Use Surveys Often
They're easy. They give us tons of helpful information. Our clients enjoy them. They're often free. They give us practically real-time answers.

Let's face it ... a survey is a terrific tool, and if you haven't yet, I hope you'll give one a try soon.

Author Bio
Best-selling author Kathy Gulrich helps clients get from idea, to action, to results - more quickly, and more easily - whether they're looking to write a book, develop a new product, or market their product or business. Clients love her direct, no-nonsense approach - and her gentle insistence on great results. Find out for yourself: Check out one of Kathy's teleclasses, or pick up a free worksheet, at www.smARTbusinessCoaching.com

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Online Product Launches: Target Your Four Audience Types

By: Stephanie Diamond

Introduction
Online product launches have lots of moving parts. Many different departments have a hand in getting to the finish line with a winning product. If you are managing this type of launch, there are a variety of ways to plan strategy and set goals. One way is to target your four main audience types. Using this method, you won't risk missing the big target-making it easy for your customers to buy your products.

Making your plan "customer-centric" allows you to focus on what matters and makes it easier to revise as you progress. You can determine which groups need more attention and which groups are performing well.

Audience Type One -"Self-directed"
This is the easiest type to satisfy. This person is an "early adopter" or someone with a defined need. For example, they have determined they need a "defragmentation" software utility. They have read some online articles, made a decision and want to go directly to the website to buy. To satisfy this type's needs you must have a clearly defined buying process with quick check out.

Areas to target:
Online Store-Make sure you have a clear, well-run shopping cart in place. Make it easy for him to buy his product and leave satisfied.
Customer Service-Have an e-mail confirmation process in place that makes it clear that a product was purchased and a credit card (or other mechanism) was charged.
Offer testing-Begin with a special offer that can be tracked online. Make sure to tweak it during the launch period as you see results come in.

Audience Type Two- "Tester"
Satisfying this type is very straightforward. This is a person who wants to get his hands on the "trial version" for a test drive. If you are a software vendor this is easy. If you are a consumer electronics vendor or sell a service, you must determine a way to give your "tester" a chance to try it.

With services you can offer a free "one-time" offer. As an electronics vendor you must be more careful. You might have a "tester" masquerading as a buyer who will quickly buy the product to test it and just as quickly return it. Be fair with your return policies, but be clear that a sub-set of this group is going to return products no matter what you do.

Areas to target:
Downloadable software -this area needs to be operable from the day of product launch. I have seen companies postpone providing a trial until other areas are in place. You miss a big opportunity if you allow that. Some testers will show up on day one never to return.
Free limited offer-if you are a service provider, have this in place and expect people to try it. If you need to assign resources to it, do so. Nothing is worse than having an online message say "check back with us later." They won't.

Audience Type Three -"Fact-Checker"
You may notice we are moving to the harder audience types. You knew they were coming. The "fact checker" is a cautious person who weighs information very carefully and doesn't buy until every question is answered. This is the person that websites were made for. If you provide a variety of different information formats, e.g. audio, video, PDFs, etc. it makes it more likely that this type will find what he's looking for and make a purchase.

Areas to target:
Multimedia Product Movies-I call these "Digimovies (sm)."They are generally done in Flash, are no more that three minutes in length and they provide the most "bang for your buck." Feature these prominently as little infomercials wherever you want to alert your audience to top features and benefits of the product.
Written Information-these are the most common type of information available on new products. Provide free articles, links to online reviews, White pap ers, online brochures, anything the fact-checker can study at his leisure.
Webinars and Tele-seminars-these are relatively new formats, ideal for the fact checker. A Webinars allows you to invite website visitors to an online presentation about your new product. She can view your presentation and ask questions via a messaging facility. If you can't afford a Webinars, consider a tele-seminar that allows your audience to join a phone-conference setup to discuss the merits of your product.

Audience Type Four-"Mr./Ms. Remorseful"
We all know and dread this audience type. This is the person who buys on impulse, repents at leisure and obsesses about returning the product as soon as he gets it. Obviously, the goal here is to overcome his feeling of being "duped" and make him feel that buying the product or service was a good idea after all. Believe it or not, you have more control over this than you realize. You need to quickly contact him and reinforce his reasons for buying.

Areas to Target:
Monthly newsletter-you should have a product newsletter (that is track able) ready as an auto-responder after product purchase and/or registration. In this newsletter you should have links to:
1. Step by step tutorials that are easy to follow and get her started using the product. Don't count on her finding the area herself; she's too busy regretting her purchase.
2. Community-Provide an area that brings users together to discuss the product and share information. This idea is as old as the Internet and is often overlooked.
3. Online help-make it clear that help exists and can be found online. This can be in the form of FAQs, a knowledge database and links to other helpful resources.

Author Bio
A seasoned 25+ year management/marketing professional, founder Stephanie Diamond is experienced in building profits in a broad range of product and services businesses. She created a highly successful line of multimedia software products that sold millions of copies for America Online, and has developed unique business strategies and products for a variety of companies, including AOL Time Warner, Redgate New Media and Newsweek, Inc. Visit her website at www.DigMediaWorks.com

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How To Create The Ultimate Small Business Marketing System In 7 Simple Steps

By: John Jantsch

Let me get right to the point. The single most powerful small business marketing tool on the planet is a marketing system.

But, when I talk about a marketing system I am not referring to those academic exercises found in college marketing books.

A marketing system by my way of thinking is a simple (in many cases one page) document that specifically answers who you are, what you do, who needs it, how you plan to grab them by the throat, when you plan to do it and how you plan to pay for it.in a way that everyone in your organization, network, and client base can clearly understand.

So, let's break it down into some simple steps.

1) Narrow Your Focus - create a description of your ideal client. Describe them as though they are sitting across the desk from your at this moment. Define only the market that you know needs what you offer and values what you have to offer. It is just as important to understand who you don't want as a client.

2) Find and Communicate Your Core Difference - Even if your make it up, you've got to find something that makes your business stand out from the pack. Once you do, you've got to build your entire marketing program around this difference. Is it red trucks, is it an unheard of guarantee, is it a very specific market niche. You can't stand out trying to be all things to all people.

3) Package Your Business - Look for ways to build your unique difference into the experience your client or prospect has with your firm. Everything about your firm should communicate and deliver your unique promise. Package your services as products, communicate your unique process, name your service offerings.

4) Educate - Throw away the sales brochures and create marketing materials and web site content that clearly speaks to your ideal client and gives proof that your indeed uniquely qualified to solve their problems. Create case studies, testimonial sheets, client lists, process description, service descriptions, the story of why you started your business.

5) Install the Lead Generation Trio - Advertising that generates permission, public relations that provide proof and referral systems that guarantee trust. Each of these three lead generating tactics works hand in hand to create a non stop flow of highly qualified leads.

6) Automate and Dominate - Once you start to create a flow of leads let technology do the heavy qualifying and selling for you. Ezines, email, blogs, web sites, white paper delivery, subscription lists - all must be automated in order to most effectively communicate as consistently as is necessary in today's advertising message onslaught.

7) Live by a Calendar - Create the system and then work the system. Do whatever you must to make sure that you do at least one marketing activity every single day. Create a monthly calendar and give each month a marketing system theme. Get everyone in your organization involved - put the calendar in a very public place.

Author Bio
John Jantsch is a marketing coach and creator of Duct Tape Marketing. You can find out more about the Ultimate Marketing System at: www.ducttapemarketing.com/Ultimate-Marketing-System.htm

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How to price for optimum profit - 5 steps

By: Peter Lawless

As with everything, it does not take rocket science to get this right, however one slip, could seriously damage your bottom line. The three factors, equally weighted are as follows:

The value that your customers put on your product and service
Will you make a profit?
What your competitors charge for the same or equivalent
So how do we define customer value?
Value is what a purchaser gets when they make use of your product or service. It is the figure that they put on, their new capabilities. Ones that you have delivered to him through ownership of what you sell.

Value is not always quantified in monetary terms. A golfer may go to a professional, get three lessons, and knock 10 off their handicap - so what is that worth to them? If they had previously spent $5,000 on lessons and still been awful, it could be worth an awful lot.

The most important consideration is that the buyer must feel that they got "good value" from their purchase.

However this good value must not be sold at a loss!
Given, you are in business to make a profit, it is important that you do not sell everything at a loss. It is fine to have loss leaders and indeed, offer freebies, to encourage new clients, or to reward loyal customers. However you business must be profitable, or else you will not have one.

To understand whether you are making profit from a product or group of products, you should factor in all fixed and variable costs. Then look at how many you will sell, and ensure it is worth your while selling at that price.

But what if it's good for you and your customer, but your competitor is cheaper!
First and foremost, check that what they are selling is identical to what you are selling. If it is, all you will do is create a market that your competitor will clean up on.

The good news is that in 99.99% of cases, your products or services are not identical. This is where creating your unique value proposition is vital. This needs to distinguish you as being the best solution in your chosen target market or niche.

It is important also to realize that the best solution may also not be the cheapest. Let's go back to the golf pro. He charges $60 a lesson for his services; his competitor charges $30 a lesson. But if what you want is rapid improvement, and this guy has testimonials to prove what he has done, by spending $180 with him, to get 10 shots off your round of golf, could save you thousands, that you could have spent with the $30 guy.

The bottom line is that your pricing must take into account the three key considerations; providing the better value than your competitors, at a profitable price.

If you need help with your pricing strategy, give us a call, we would be delighted to help.

Author Bio
This article was written by Peter Lawless, founder of 3R Sales & Marketing - www.3r.ie For previous articles and interviews like this, visit 3R's InfoCentre. Or Subscribe to Success. This free monthly email bulletin, will grant you access to Interviews and articles on sales, marketing, CRM and wealth creation as soon as they are written. This is a great way of getting advice to help you increase your bottom line.

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standard or adopoted product

what is a standard product means

simply standard product means offering same product/service or market mix without any modification for other new markets or segments which are not considered when developing product or marketing mix.
typical examples for standard products are coca cola, iphone and other mobile models, gmail,

what is a adopted product ?

adopted product is making change on product/service or marketing mix with consideration on the market or segment that the product is going to offer.
for example mc donalds indian vegetable foods, mc rice in sri lanka, versions of books for regions such asian low priced version
before analyzing the adaptation and standardization better to keep in mind that there is no case exist with 100% standardization or adaptation. at least advertising, packing, colour, shape will be change slightly.

when standard product will work?

when the needs and wants of the new market or segment match to existing market or segment of customers
for example coca cola
when product created worldwide image and reputation for example iphone
when there is a good demand for firms product in new market or segment
when the customers are mobilizing world wide or geographically for example MC Donald

Advertising Space - After your Hub is published advertisements may be placed in this space. Please note, it can take some time after you publish for the ads to match the content of your Hub.

when adopted product will be work?

when a product is affected by country of origin effects for example by the lower quality chinese mobiles huwaei phones are facing problems
when the customers needs and wants are vary significantly for example the dress which are comfortable and acceptable in USA wont be match the indian customers may because of culture or weather conditions etc

when existing product have bad image
when legal and political issues are exist in a country or region for foreign product specially countries like china, japan who encourage local brands

when product or marketing mix not match to the new market or segment typical example will be the difference in advertisements of multinational products will vary country to country.

factors affects on decision

finally when deciding the product adaptation or standardization it is better to conduct good research on market and market environment. some factors which will be significantly affects on this decision are
customer needs and wants
economical environment of new market
political environment
weather and other climate conditions
culture of the new market
regulations specially related to packaging, advertising etc