How to use survey results to gain new customers
Running doopoll, means I think about how to help people generate interest in their survey results a lot
I just published this post on our blog about some of the most interesting ways that I've seen people do that.
There's heaps in there but I'm going to share a couple of the main ideas here in case you're just browsing IH looking for interesting things to read in a spare moment.
There are three main things to consider here.
The true value of survey results
No-one.
No-one. In the world.
No-one. In the world. Has access to the insights you do.
And that's incredibly powerful when you're thinking about how to attract new customers.
The information that you've gathered from your survey results is completely unique. I would argue that it is the uniqueness of your resources online that make them most valuable.
So next time you do a survey, rather than just thinking about how to write a blog post with them, consider the value of what you've got on your computer screen and reset your thinking.
Could this be an asset for you to reach and capture a new audience for your business? Uh, yes!
The content lifecycle and how to apply it to surveys
Gary Vee's idea of the content model is really popular on the internet. And while I think he communicates it brilliantly, it's not an original idea.
In fact, when I was in journalism school (I started as a magazine journalist), we were taught how to take a piece of primary research (usually an interview) and repurpose it to generate multiple pieces of content.
Survey results are a perfect application of this. In the post, I outline a really in depth case study of how I did this in practice but here's some ideas of the kinds of things you could get out of a four question survey:
Write one ‘wiki’ piece of content about remote working linking out to all of the following in relevant places:
A light hearted blog post on what homeworkers do more or less of during the day – include the examples of bathroom breaks. This is a great opportunity to educate people around employment law and bathroom breaks too.
Here’s the Ahrefs data on the top result for ‘how many bathroom breaks can i take at work’. The estimated traffic value for this page alone is $343 – meaning the approximate amount of money people pay to have their ad at the top of searches that this page ranks for organically.
I’d also write a short post on tips from employees on how to be a better manager and link to it where I discuss the survey result for ‘When you are working from home, do you feel that you are trusted by your line manager?’
Then I’d summarise the current research around productivity of home workers and create an infographic or a report of that. I’d include my own original survey findings in there as the key ‘hook’.
These are just four pieces of content from four survey questions. If you have a lot more questions, you can obviously do a heap more.
Just make sure that you align the content you’re creating to problems that people are searching for.
Creative ways to share survey results
It can be really disappointing to watch people share survey results without thinking about the end user or without thinking about the value of the thing they have in their hands.
I've listed out a bunch of original ideas and gone into detail about how to implement and execute them (with practical examples where possible.) Here's a summary of the ideas though:
- Generate a news story – I put this one first because I have recent experience of it but honestly, this is probably the hardest one to execute.
- Create an infographic and put it behind a content upgrade (Watch those emails roll in)
- Package it together as a report and use it to collect emails (variation on the infographic, obvs)
- Create a short infographic video – this is so easy to do now using tools like Canva or Animoto
- Write a blog post about the main findings of the survey – then write a series of shorter posts, linking references from the introductory blog post
- Offer to write guest posts for relevant sites based on the findings – at least it's a better way to attract new audiences than writing on your own blog
- If you collected personal information, follow up with respondents and try to do a quick interview
- If you’ve done the same survey before, make it a ‘calendar event’
- Create tweets which pose the stats in a question form. Invite followers to guess at the correct answer. Closest answer wins.
- Prepare a slideshow on the topic, invite potential customers to a webinar where you’ll talk through the survey’s findings
- Build an interactive minisite from your results like Cards Against Humanity's Pulse of the Nation
Anyway, that's all I've got to say about that. There's way more detail (and visuals) on the blog post so hopefully if you need more detail, you can get it there!
You guys! ✌️🍵
