If you are running an online business, whether selling products or producing information, it is useful to do some sort of market research for your business. An easy way to do this is through online surveys.
While maybe not as scientific with sampling protocols properly observed, online surveys can help you
- Gauge the interests of your website visitors
- Determine the demographic profile of your site visitors
- Get feedback on the design, usefulness of your website and company
- Give you information on what your audience considers important
- Know the features that your target audience feels is important in your product/service
- Provide you with information on your competition, and how your target audience sees your company in the light of your competitors
If you’re doing online surveys, I suggest to use a service such as SurveyMonkey http://www.surveymonkey.com . I have used this service before and it certainly took the pain out of conducting surveys.
For $19.95 per month (with additional fee per respondent if you exceed 1,000 respondents) they make it easy to create your survey in a way that is ideal for online viewing. You can opt to put a link to the survey in your site, serve it as a popup, or be emailed to your list. But the big plus for me is you get real time tabulation of the results for closed-ended questions and anyone doing market research knows that tabulation is a laborious process.
It is worth understanding whys, whats, and hows your customer visit and use your site. Online surveys can perfectly complement your web analytics in trying to provide you with a picture of your audience.
