“10 Cheap Survey Tools for Bloggers Who Want Answers” plus 1 more |  |
| 10 Cheap Survey Tools for Bloggers Who Want Answers Posted: 18 Jun 2012 01:04 PM PDT This guest post is by Neil Patel of Quick Sprout. Whether you want to write a persuasive post or a headline that grabs attention, or create a call to action that grows your RSS subscription count by 243%, you first have to understand who your reader is. So how do you go about finding this out? You could guess, measure, and repeat until you hit upon a winning formula … but that could take months or years. The easiest and fastest way to find out what will resonate with your readers is to ask them. And the best to do that is with a survey. How can surveys help you?You probably have a good working understanding of who your readers are because of your experience in the field. This will help you create surveys, but it won't help you get to those breakthrough insights that will turn your posts into reader magnets. To do that you need to know information like this:
Top survey toolsAJ showed how to create a survey that gets insightful answers from your readers earlier today. Now, let's look at some in expensive tools that will help you gather this all-important information professionally and securely. CommentsOne of the simplest ways to get feedback from readers is to write a post with survey-like questions, and then ask your readers to respond in the comments. There are some disadvantages to this approach. For example, because people are free to say anything they want in the comments, it may be hard to get the exact information you want. Also, with this approach, the survey responses are out in the open, and this may suppress the response since people may be a little timid to share information so publicly. What I've found about using comments for surveys is that this approach is perfect for simple questions like "What was the worst work experience you ever had?" If you want something more specific, then you need to use one of the tools we’ll look at next. WP-PollsUsing a WordPress plugin like WP-Polls on your blog will give you the option of asking very specific questions that should generate very specific answers over an extended amount of time. This plugin is embedded on your site as a widget, and actually adds another element of interaction with your readers. Every month, you can change the questions. The nice thing about WordPress plugins is that they’re simple to install from inside your WP admin control panel. Google DocsGoogle Docs offers a tool that will help you create surveys that you can link readers to (for example, in an email), or actually embed into your blog. It creates these forms out of HTML, gives you several survey styles, and even gives you a huge selection of themes to choose from: This is the form that Chris Brogan uses: On the back end, you can review the collected data in a charts and graphs: Survey MonkeySurvey Monkey is the most well-known survey tool online, having been around since 2002. While there are paid plans that won't bankrupt you, I've found that the free online version suits most of my needs. The only drawback to this type of survey is that it will drive your readers away from your site, as they need to go to Survey Monkey to give their answers. The service gives you a choice of 15 question styles to choose from. And you can even customize the survey to match your blog color scheme. KISSinsightsThis tool is one my team developed. KISSinsights is a simple tool that takes two minutes to install, and allows you to ask one question of your readers. You can update that question at any time. What I really like about this survey tool is that we tried to make it as little a distraction from your site as possible: it pops up, but then the user can close it and move on to your site immediately. WP Survey and Quiz ToolThis robust WordPress tool, WP Survey and Quiz Tool, will let you do more than just create surveys—as the name suggests, you can also use it to create quizzes and polls. There is no limit to the number of surveys or quizzes you can create, and the tool gives you these features as well:
The drawback to this tool is that your survey is limited to s single post—it’s not available site-wide. WordPress Simple SurveyThe jQuery-based WordPress survey tool Simple Survey will allow you to create basic weighted surveys that route users to a location based upon their survey “score.” The page doesn't need to be reloaded as the user progresses through the quiz: You can have results emailed to you, or you can simply login into your WordPress dashboard to see the results. SodaHead PollsSodaHead gives you great options for customizing and publishing polls. In addition, you can:
The feature that I really like about this tool is what it can do to help your poll go viral through features like one-click sharing to Twitter and Yahoo, and adding your survey to SodaHead's network to get more exposure. Polldaddy Polls and RatingsThis fully customizable survey tool for WordPress gives you the ability to post your poll on a single post or as a sidebar widget: The nice thing about Polldaddy Polls is that it supports 57 different languages, making it a better option for those serving audiences outside of the United States. Unfortunately if you have the latest WordPress update, 3.3.2, then it may not be compatible with your site. Survey MeFor the people who don't code out there, SurveyMe is probably the WordPress plugin you want to use. This simple install will allow you to role out a poll within minutes. Maximizing responsesBy the way, if you are concerned about how many responses you'll get to your survey, don't worry. People love to share their opinions—you'll probably get as high as a ten percent turnout! If you are interested in getting an even higher response, I'd recommend you tell your readers that you’re going to share some of the best responses that you get from the survey. With a promise that they might get some exposure on your site, more people will be motivated to leave a response. If you want an even higher turnout, or if you have a small audience and want to maximize the number of answers you receive, you may want to offer some kind of incentive (for example, everyone who responds will be entered in a drawing for a $50 Apple iTunes gift card). What survey tools do you use? Tell us your faves in the comments. Neil Patel is an online marketing consultant and the co-founder of KISSmetrics. He also blogs at Quick Sprout. Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger 10 Cheap Survey Tools for Bloggers Who Want Answers     |
| 7 Steps to Creating More Effective Reader Surveys Posted: 18 Jun 2012 07:01 AM PDT This guest post is by AJ Kumar of Single Grain. The benefits of polling your readers and conducting good customer surveys have already been well-established in the blogging world. Not only does this technique enable you to make better informed marketing decisions, gathering information via reader survey can help you to identify your visitors' pain points and determine what they'll spend their money on—before you invest the time in writing posts or paid products! However, there's a big difference between the data generated by a thoroughly-planned, well-executed customer survey, and one that's hastily thrown together without clear goals and objectives. If you haven't been impressed by the results of your past survey efforts, check out the following seven steps to making your next customer survey far more effective. Step #1. Define a single objectiveYour first priority when developing a good reader survey should be to define a single objective. Although you may have several different topics you'd like to poll your readers on, the reality is that most internet users today have extremely short attention spans. Homing in on one major area of interest will help to keep your surveys manageable, increasing the number of responses you receive. If you're a blogger, a few potential survey objectives to consider include:
Really, any major topic can be addressed with a customer survey—as long as you've carefully chosen a single subject that prevents reader confusion or distraction. Step #2. Avoid leading questionsOnce you've defined the objective of your questionnaire, the next step to building an effective reader survey is to structure your individual questions in a way that doesn't lead respondents into providing specific feedback (a scenario known as "leading questions"). For example, suppose you've decided to put together a survey to determine how much your readers would be willing to pay for your next ebook. Any of the three following question versions could be potential ways to gather this information: Version #1: Would you be comfortable paying $47 for the ebook I've described? Select "yes" or "no" below: Version #2: What would you be comfortable paying for ebook I've described? Enter your response in the field below: Version #3: What would you be comfortable paying for the ebook I've described? Select one option below:
Although each of the variations listed above gathers the same basic information, the way each version does it—and the different responses each question style could provoke—is very different. Heck, even the specific data ranges you use in questions styled similar to Version #3 listed above could influence the information you receive! While there's no right or wrong way to structure your survey questions, it is important to think carefully about the type of data your questions will return, and whether or not this information will help you to meet your survey objectives. Step #3. Avoid "yes or no" questionsNow, to be fair, "yes or no" questions can be useful in some cases. If you're introducing a totally new concept to readers, getting a straight answer on whether the idea is worth pursuing or not may be helpful and can be accomplished with a simple "yes or no" response. But in most cases, asking "yes or no" questions limits the amount of feedback you're able to generate from your respondents. Take our example above. If you asked a question about product pricing using the "yes or no" style described above, you might find that the majority of your respondents aren't comfortable at the $47 price point you've specified—leading you to scrap the idea altogether. However, this question style could cause you to miss valuable information. Suppose, instead of using Version #1 of our sample question, you had used Version #3, which indicated that most survey respondents were comfortable in the $35-$44 price point range. Even though these respondents may have been turned off by the idea of a $47 product, you could still have a profitable idea at a slightly lower price—which you wouldn't have known if you hadn't bothered to collect information beyond a basic "yes or no." Step #4. Cut the total number of questionsAs you build your questionnaire, keep a close eye on the total number of questions you ask. Keep in mind that short attention span mentioned earlier, but also limit the length of your survey out of respect for your readers' time. After all, if they're taking a few minutes out of their otherwise busy days, shouldn't you at least do them the courtesy of making your survey as clear and concise as possible? The magic number for most reader surveys falls between 5-10 questions per survey, depending on how in-depth and involved each of your questions is. If this seems quick, remember that it's better to create multiple surveys to ask further questions than to burn out your readers and cause them to never respond to your questionnaire invitations again! Step #5. Solicit responses from multiple sourcesJust as your readers access your standard blog content in a variety of different ways—from your blog itself to your social networking profiles to your email newsletters—be sure to promote your survey across multiple sources as well. By making your survey easy to access from a number of different sources, you'll increase your odds of catching a reader at exactly the right moment—when he or she has the extra time to kill in exchange for a small incentive. Step #6. Offer an incentive for participationOffering survey participants a small reward for their time and effort isn't a new concept, but it's one that's often applied as a blanket recommendation. For example, you've probably heard before that you need to offer readers a free ebook or a coupon code in order to convince readers to take your surveys. Not true! In fact, the specific incentives or types of rewards your audience will respond best to can vary wildly from one blog to another. In some cases, you'll need to offer something tangible—like the ebook or coupon code mentioned earlier—to persuade busy, high-volume internet users with a compelling reason to take your survey. In other cases, if your readership is loyal enough, you may be able to convince visitors to take your survey simply by telling them you appreciate their feedback! Truly, the only way to determine what types of incentives are most appealing to your unique audience is to test out different offers. As you run customer surveys over time, include different rewards and track your response rates to see if you can detect any measurable differences. Over time, this should enable you to conclusively identify the type of incentive that's most effective for your readers. Step #7. Expand your response base with paid survey partnersFinally, while generating reader data through the use of effective customer surveys can be an extremely valuable part of growing your business, be aware that this method has a few limitations. For example, what if your current readership is too small to gather a meaningful amount of information? If you're a top blogger, this shouldn't be an issue—but even smaller, first-time bloggers need customer data! Or, what if you're planning to expand into a new market and want to survey members of this new target community before making your move? In this case, polling current readers won't give you the information you need to make smart decisions. The solution to these problems lies in contracting with paid survey partners. If you find you aren't generating enough data through your own customer base, companies like SurveyMonkey or iResearch will distribute your survey to the users in their databases that meet your set criteria. Of course, you'll have to pay to capture these additional responses, but you may ultimately find that the cost of working with paid survey partners provides a positive ROI for your overall marketing efforts. Have you used customer surveys before? If so, share any additional tips you have on how to make them as effective as possible in the comments below. And stick around—later today we’ll profile ten cheap (and free!) tools to help you run a survey that gets a strong response! AJ Kumar is co-founder of Single Grain, a digital marketing agency< based in San Francisco. Single Grain specializes in helping startups and larger companies with search engine optimization, pay-per-click, social media, and various other marketing strategies. Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger 7 Steps to Creating More Effective Reader Surveys     |
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