The ultimate website survey guide
Getting to know your customer base has become a lot more complicated than what it was even a decade ago. With tons of new marketing tools, and a large amount of competition, finding ways to discern exactly what makes your customers ‘tick’ is no picnic.
However, a good marketer sees these obstacles as an opportunity!
With online platforms like websites and social media become marketing podiums of their own, this has opened up the opportunity for market research to be conducted without requiring your customers to do more than lift a finger.
Website surveys have become an increasingly popular marketing tool especially since the start of the pandemic. Not only are online surveys less intrusive, but they allow your customers to respond at their own leisure and provide more thought-through answers. In fact, online businesses have experienced a higher response rate from online surveys than traditional surveys.
At the end of the day, no one knows more about your users than the users themselves so why not ask them?
What Data is Collected using Website Surveys?
Marketers use website surveys to collect data in the same way that data was collected through the traditional print-and-press questionnaires. The only difference is that the survey can be conducted entirely online.
These online surveys are a sure-proof method of gathering both qualitative and quantitative user feedback by means of your website. This information can be used to improve products, services and even your website to ensure that customers are getting the service that they deserve. It’s a win-win.
Ultimately the type of survey will be determined by the marketer’s research goals.
What is the Purpose of Website Surveys?
Website surveys can be about anything from recently added products to the functionality of the website or even finding out more about customer preferences for physical store locations.
There is really no limit as to the type of information that can be gathered using online surveys but there is one concern: frequency.
Even though online surveys are less intrusive this does not mean that marketers can bombard their customers with surveys on a frequent basis. Marketers need to think of online surveys in the same regard as an individual physically asking questions out in public.
Customers do not want to be constantly bombarded so ensure that the type of questions been asked are relevant to the study so that a second survey does not have to be released too soon.
The only thing that is worse than negative feedback is no feedback at all.
What Types of Questions Can I ask on a Website Survey?
The same as with any survey, marketers can use a series of open-ended and close-ended questions to obtain customer data.
However, while traditional surveys were based more on close-ended type questions for faster answers, website surveys lean more towards open-ended questions as customers are able to complete the survey at a time that is more convenient to them.
By allowing customers to answer in their own words, marketers are able to obtain valuable feedback which may not have been covered by close-ended type questions alone.
Here are some examples of open-ended questions to get you started:
- Where did you first hear about our business?
- Did you find what you were looking for on our website?
- How easy was it to complete your online purchase?
- What can we do to improve your experience?
- How likely are you to recommend our product/service?
Marketers often use these open-ended questions in conjunction with close-ended questions like rating user experience on a scale of 1-10.
What Types of Website Surveys Can I Use?
The type of website survey chosen will depend on the location of the survey on the website and the types of questions that are asked in the survey. However, broadly speaking, there are three different popular types of website surveys:
- Pop-Up Surveys: these surveys behave in the same way that pop-up adverts behave on a website. As soon as a condition is met (scrolling to a specific point on the page, clicking on a button, etc.) the pop-up survey will display over the website.
- Widget Surveys: these surveys are less intrusive and appear in the form of a small widget in the corner of the web page and only open when clicked on. Widget surveys give the visitor the freedom to initiate the survey when they are ready.
- Collapsible Pop-Up Surveys: these surveys are a combination of the two aforementioned surveys. They pop-up on the screen once a certain condition has been met, however, instead of disappearing when closed, the survey will appear in the corner as a small widget for the visitor to click on when they are ready to complete the survey.
The placement for your survey will depend on the type of question that is being asked.
For example, if you would like to find out how visitors found the website you might choose to put your survey on the home page. However, the home page would not be suitable to ask about products and the survey would be more appropriate on the product page.
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The success of online businesses relies on how well the business understands the needs, desires and preferences of their customers which is why online surveys are such a powerful marketing tool.
Due to how unobtrusive website surveys can be, businesses tend to experience a high user response rate on their online surveys because users are currently active on the site instead of relying on email or redirects to get customers to complete the survey.
In addition to this, website surveys also allow real-time feedback allowing the business to address issues quickly thereby increasing brand loyalty.
Get in touch with the development team at Online Innovations to help implement surveys on your website. Call us on 041 365 4919, email sales@onlineinnovations.com or visit www.onlineinnovations.com to find out more.