Guest Post: How to Use Surveys to Understand and Segment Your Audience

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    For products, services, marketing initiatives or events to be effective, it should appeal to the person it’s aimed at. When you get this part right, people are happy with their experience and you’re rewarded in the form of revenue, engagement, and word of mouth. The question is how do you get to this point? Surveys are an effective yet inexpensive way to unlock deep insights about your audience. You can use those insights to segment them and send better messages. This article goes through a how to create an effective survey, analyzing the survey results, and an email nurturing sequence you can use.

    Discovery Surveys

    There are countless types of surveys. For example, a post event survey is used in a different way than an employee feedback survey. The one we’re focusing on is called a discovery survey.

    It’s a short survey used to better understand your customer’s problems and the outcome they hope to achieve. The results are used to develop behavioral and psychographic segmentation profiles which allow you to create better messaging.

    There are a few things to keep in mind:

    • Aim for 100 participants so you have a good sample size
    • If survey takers aren’t representative of your target market, then the results you get will be skewed

    Implementing Your Discovery Survey

    There are many questions you can ask in your discovery survey but one is especially useful.

    The question is “what’s your biggest challenge when it comes to [insert problem you solve or outcome you deliver]?”

    You can use many variations of this questions but make sure you phrase it to reveal the most pressing or inconvenient problem for your audience.

    Here’s an example of a survey with that question:

    What’s your biggest challenge when it comes to generating leads online (the more details the better)?

    It’s important to note that the average response rate for quizzes sent to people outside your organization is 10% – 15%. Plan accordingly so you’ll be able to get at least 100 responses.

    Segment Your Audience Into Major Groups

    After you have your quota of responses, you’ll want to analyze the data to recognize patterns in your audience. These insights help with segmentation and allow you to send targeted messages in line with their needs.

    Look at the answers to the discovery question and group similar ones together. These would then be the different segments of your audience.

    For example, if the question was “what’s your biggest challenge related to digital marketing?”, the likely answers are:

    • Learning how to use Facebook
    • How to master Pinterest
    • How to create blog content
    • How to promote my content
    • How to get my content higher in the search engines
    • How to build high quality links
    • How to use Twitter to drive traffic
    • How to convert users on my website
    • How to nurture leads

    Though different, these answers can be categorised, labelled and added into a few large groups. Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter can be grouped under social media. Creating and promoting content can be grouped under content marketing.

    The first time you go through your responses, there may be over a dozen segments. That’s OK. Repeat the process and combine groups until you’ve narrowed it down to four that make up the majority of your audience.

    These are your segments. Armed with these insights, you’ll be able to create useful products and send better messages to the right people.

    Develop Specific Nurturing Campaigns for Each Segment

    An email nurturing campaign is a series of emails sent based on an audience member segment which delivers targeted and useful information designed to guide them through the process of performing your desired actions.

    Create a nurturing sequence for each segment you had identified in previous steps that highlight interesting information, specific ways your events will solve their problem, and give them behind the scenes access to the experience you’re designing for them.

    The aim is to secure revenue while also delivering value and build trust.

    It should be two to three emails, minimum. It also depends on your audience, how complicated your messages are and your desired outcomes.

    If you’re promoting a low cost event, then you may be able to share all the necessary information in a few emails. If the event is thousands of dollars, then a more in-depth nurturing sequence will be necessary.

    Here’s a rough timeline for email frequency:

    • Email 1: immediately
    • Email 2: wait 1 day
    • Email 3: wait 1 day
    • Email 4: wait 2 days
    • Email 5: wait 3 days
    • Subsequent emails: wait 3 – 7 days between emails

    These are rules of thumb. The most important thing is to create content that appeals to specific audience segments and test everything else over time.

    Want to send targeted, personalized emails to your audience using the same tool you use for all your other event planning? EventsAir’s event marketing tools keep you sane, by keeping everything in the same place!

    Conclusion

    Audience insights are important for every aspect of your event. With them, you’re able to increase revenue and customer satisfactions. Without them, you’re fumbling in the dark.

    There are a lot of methods to unlock these insights but the fastest way is to implement surveys.

    Set up discovery surveys which ask the key question then analyze the results to uncover your best segments. Once you’ve finished, create email nurturing sequences tailored to each individual segment.

    Over time, you’ll see better audience engagement and revenue.

    Author: Daniel Ndukwu


    EventsAir has been at the forefront of Event Technology and Innovation for over 30 years, continually pushing the boundaries of what an event management platform can do. Built by event planners for event planners, EventsAir is a secure, scalable, cloud-based solution that can manage everything from in-person, virtual to hybrid conferences, meetings and events in a single online platform – anywhere, anytime and on any device. In use in over 50 countries by multi-national corporations, professional conference organizers, government departments and tertiary education institutions, EventsAir is also used in global congresses such as G20, APEC, CHOGM and ASEAN, as well as sporting events like The Olympic Games, World Rugby, Commonwealth Games and Pan Am Games. EventsAir is trusted by event professionals around the globe. For further information, visit www.eventsair.com

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