Ask IH: What are some ways to get more ppl to respond to your customer development surveys online?
Wanted to email a survey to "potential customers" who showed interested in my idea. But before that, thought I'd ask the community on what are some specific tips/hacks to make sure people complete the full surveys.
Don't survey them, interview them.
Surveys are a drag. Nobody likes filling them out. You're asking your customer to do boring, dry work for you.
Instead, hop on the phone with them. Meet them in a cafe. Talk to them over live chat. Something...
You'll build a better relationship. I'm also skeptical that surveys can capture everything you'd want to in the idea stage, where the conversation can go in so many different directions.
It's more manual, but people will appreciate your hustle. Also, do things that don't scale, right? http://paulgraham.com/ds.html
Thanks for your thoughtful reply Andrew. Agree that surveys can feel like a drag (having personally clicked through many!). I would obviously want to get to that step of phone calls/interviews but for now looking to prune through a big list of early subscribers. I am wondering if surveys can be a way for me to detect signal from noise and only speak to those relevant target users. You catch my drift?
Maybe. Do you have some kind of niche target audience? For us it's PMs and founders working at SaaS companies. Maybe you can check the LinkedIn of your early subscribers to see if you think they're qualified or not.
I still think one conversation with a good potential customer is better than five survey responses from a big list.
Firstly I agree with what some people have said - interviews are significantly more insightful than surveys. Surveys can be easily misinterpreted and you have no opportunity to ask subquestions and dig deeper...
If you do decide to stick with a survey, try to make it a quiz, not a survey. Here's what I mean. Why are your subscribers on your list? What's their problem, what do they want? Can you give them something they want after they submit the form? I'll give you an example: I worked with a startup which was developing software to make hotel staff more efficient. Instead of making a survey they created a calculator where their potential clients were able to calculate how they can save money by making their staff more efficient by implementing different tools (including their software).
By doing this you incentivize people to complete the form and you also get more accurate results. If you incentivize people by giving them an iPad, then they might just submit random answers, because all they want is an iPad and they don't want to spend time on the survey.
Give them a coupon, credit or bonus.
'Complete Survey Below and Redem your 50% off'
Thanks .. that was my obvious first pick too. Have you ever tried that approach? Looking for specific examples.