What Are Microsurveys?
Generating marketing qualified leads is one of the highest priorities for innovative marketing professionals. However, over 50% of marketers admit struggling with lead generation. If this sounds familiar, then you probably also know that the key to generate well-qualified leads and move them through the funnel faster is to get to know them better and use the data to drive smarter marketing campaigns. One idea is to use data enrichment tools. However, they won’t give you the information about goals, challenges, pain points, and interests of your prospects. That’s why you need to conduct surveys. Unfortunately, lengthy and un-engaging questionnaires often experience low response rates.
Truth be told, most of us don’t enjoy taking surveys if we’re honest. But as marketers, we somehow still believe they’re going to answer our 10 plus-question forms.
People are busy, and they don’t like getting emails with “Do you have five minutes to answer our survey?” questions. They expect you to respect their time. Does this mean you should give up on surveys? Absolutely not!
Customer feedback is essential for running effective smart campaigns and converting leads into customers. You can gather insights faster and more efficiently if you forget about questionnaires and leverage microsurveys instead.
A microsurvey is a very brief form of a survey that usually consists of up to three questions, and can be fully answered in under one to two minutes. Simply put, it is quick to create and short to answer. You can embed it in your email, on your website, or in your mobile app.
How Do Microsurveys Differ from Traditional Questionnaires?
Along with digital transformation, how we conceptualize and execute surveys changed. Everything in our communication is trending toward micro; from five-minute videos toward six-second stories and long forms into short surveys. The extended customer journey brings the opportunity to focus on in-the-moment research. Using microsurveys at different moments of the buyer’s journey lets us find out more about our prospects, personalize our campaigns, and convert leads into customers faster.
The problem with questionnaires is that you can’t make them a smooth part of your communication because by default, they are placed on separate landing pages. A microsurvey can come in the form of a short email survey or a widget floating directly on your website, as well as in your mobile app. In a micro-email survey, the first question should be embedded directly in your email. It improves response rate by eliminating the first step of traditional surveys, which is only pasting the link to your survey and asking your audience to take it.
What Are the Benefits of Their Implementation in Marketing Automation?
In marketing automation, receiving survey results fast is very important. You can choose a tool that smoothly integrates with your engagement platform and sends results in real-time. This way, you can act on feedback quickly by automating smart campaigns. Such a solution also saves your time, enabling you to keep all the insights saved in your prospects’ individual profiles, in one database.
Still, the biggest benefit of microsurveys is that they enable you to connect with prospects precisely at the moment they interact with your website in a given way, or at a specific moment after they receive your email. All this makes your surveys relevant, as you can achieve a much higher response rate than in the case of questionnaires.
Microsurveys tend to be more focused and targeted than traditional research. If you can only inquire about a couple pieces of information at once, you focus on asking more precise questions. Your survey insights become more in-depth and meaningful, so your work doesn’t go to waste. Initially, some marketers assume that a short study means less information, but in reality, it is quite the contrary. Microsurveys open the doors to more frequent interaction with current and potential customers, which aligns perfectly with a longer and more complex customer journey, and opens up the possibility to run broader research.
Generating Leads with Microsurveys
To incorporate microsurveys in your lead generation and nurturing strategy, you should start by looking for touchpoints during your customers’ journey. These points of interaction are the perfect opportunity to gather some of the most valuable insights. These, in turn, can be used to convert contacts into hot MQLs. While every customer journey is a little different, there are some typical, recurring moments when asking for insights seems very natural.
Pain Points
The first step to identify MQLs is asking your first-time website visitors about the challenges and problems they want to solve with your product. You can quickly learn the answers if you target a microsurvey, and embed it directly on your website. It is wise to place it on a high-traffic landing page, like your homepage, because that’s the first touch point they interact with. The same website survey also allows you to ask for their contact details, like email, and other relevant information, such as the industry or department they work at.
Relevant Content
Once you identify your visitors’ pain points, you can automate smart campaigns with relevant content about solutions to their challenges. Of course, this is not the end of your research. Remember to add microsurveys to your email campaigns to get even more valuable information. Ask about the kind of content, topics, and formats they need, and create them. Maybe they’d like to read a case study with someone who faced similar challenges, or maybe they prefer a full guide ebook with some theory, best practices, and use cases? Find out and deliver content tailored to their needs. Use microsurveys to create an excellent experience.
Once you provide your audience with educational content, you can also ask about their budget, when will they be ready to buy, or who’s in charge of the purchase decision. Their answers will help you assess if they are ready for the sales pitch.
Sales Enablement
Moving further, there’s finally a step when people browse through your pricing page. But what actions can you take if they don’t complete the purchase? One option is to embed an exit survey to your website and ask, “What’s stopping you from completing the purchase?” This question gives you invaluable insight into what’s blocking your potential customers from buying from you and gives you the opportunity to take the necessary steps to convert them into customers. If they are not sure how to use your product, offer them a demo, or a training course. Offer them a discount or a free trial if your survey participants feel that the price is too high. If they are thinking about choosing your competitor, send them a solid case study with an important customer. Act on their feedback to adjust your offer, and create a “wow” effect.
If someone signed up for a trial to test your product, you can—and should—send them an email satisfaction survey, like NPS, to find out whether they like your product, and if they are going to convert into customers. The results will show you who is ready to buy your product and is likely to be your promoter. It’s a good practice to run NPS research regularly, for instance once per quarter, to find out how the level of their experience changes in time.
How to Target Your Microsurveys
The power of microsurveys is that you can target them very precisely. You can interact with your prospects exactly at the moment they are engaged in any action on your website, or when they are reading your emails. You can survey visitors as soon as they land on your website. All types of visitors can be surveyed—new, returning, or known names in your marketing automation platform— as well as those coming from a specific source. You can also embed survey questions in your smart email campaigns to continuously gather insights. Targeting your surveys is the key to getting quality feedback.
Expand Your Reach Across Digital Touch Points
What is great about microsurveys is that you can also use them to run your research across all digital touch points. It means that you can reach your prospects exactly where they are, at the moment of their engagement—no matter where they are. Note that not every one of these channels will be good for your case. Be sure to A/B test to determine what works for you. Some groups of customers are more likely to respond to email surveys, while some prefer to answer questions when they are using your mobile app. There is no “one size fits all.” Remember to integrate microsurveys with marketing automation software to quickly act on feedback. Taking action on received insights is the key to generate hot MQLs.
Microsurveys for Customers to Improve Customer Lifecycle
Even after you’ve successfully converted MQLs into SQLs, and finally, into customers, there’s still a lot you can do to improve your customer retention. Don’t stop gathering insights once they become customers. Use surveys to delight your customers and to show that you care.
In your email campaigns, ask your clients about additional features they would like to find in your product. If you’re receiving similar feedback, that information will help your product team create something your customers are looking for. You can also ask about other types of products or services they need and automate smart campaigns with a tailored offer.
An interesting survey use case, which will help you improve your customer’s experience is measuring their satisfaction after a specific interaction with your company, such as a customer service experience. You can do that by sending them an email survey just after a customer service case is closed. This will help you identify strong and weak points during the support process, as well as assess the performance of the support team.
Surveys are a great way to glean information that can contribute to important business decisions. Be sure to share your results with your entire team.
Do you gather feedback from your prospects and measure your customers’ satisfaction? Have you ever used microsurveys, or are you using longer form questionnaires? Share your opinion and your use case below!