It is guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest is from Mark Penson – Enjoy! 

The relationships we have with the brands in our lives hinge on the quality of the interactions. The more relevant these brands are to us, the more apt we are to read, listen, or watch the outbound marketing content they manage to get in front of us. The best brands manage to find out just what it is that interests us before they get in touch: what problems they can solve, how they best fit into our lives.

Easier said than done, though. Getting specific information from our customers and prospects involves engaging them as close to their interaction with our brands as possible. Mobile surveys and quizzes allow brands to interact with consumers as they actually experience a brand. It’s an unprecedented opportunity afforded because of the near ubiquity of smartphones and tablets.

When to use mobile surveys or quizzes to gather once-unavailable consumer insights

Gathering consumer insights at every stage of interaction with your brand represents a goldmine of opinions and information. It forms the foundation of meaningful future messaging that won’t feel like marketing messaging. With mobile surveys and quizzes, the information you collect is available in real time: no more waiting days or weeks to collect and analyze data collected in the field or hoping your email surveys get answered. Here are just a few examples of how to use a short mobile survey or fun mobile quiz in situations that were once thought to be inaccessible.

• New product introductions – get instant feedback about a new product formulation from customers in-store by having them sample and then swipe their feedback on a tablet you present them or on their own mobile device.
• During in-store promotions – incentivize consumers to engage with you with a contest or other payoff. On your signage or packaging, simply include a URL or QR code they can use to access your survey or quiz. The quality of the input you’ll get as they interact with your brand will be much more valuable than a follow-up effort (if you even have a way to contact them) days or weeks later.
• At trade shows – turn the face-to-face interactions into real-time information gathering. Using their mobile device or one you provide for their feedback, learn of their specific interests, their purchase intent, or why your offering does not intrigue them.
• During events – the people who attend your events have invested their time (and sometimes money). They’re a great source of information if you make it easy for them to give it to you. Intercept them throughout the event, with kiosk-mounted tablets with short, fun, potentially rewarding quizzes or surveys on them. Project your survey URL on screens and compel them to give your their feedback.

Unique in-the-moment feedback helps you create more relevant outbound marketing content

Having collected real-time information from customers and prospects during the situations above will give you relevant insights you can use to create your outbound marketing messaging. Knowing why most people said they’d buy your new product just hours or days earlier should guide your copy development to lead to marketing that resonates with potential buyers. The more relevant and timely the content of outbound marketing is, the better the response to it will be. Mobile surveys and quizzes help you collect uniquely insightful and specific consumer insights when they interact with your brand.

Creating a mobile survey or quiz is fast and requires no design or technical skill

Marketers, event planners and organizations of every size are leveraging the power of mobile surveys and quizzes—and building them by themselves—with point-and-click ease online. They’re branding these new mobile tools automatically by simply uploading their logos. They write the questions and answer choices and can even add photos, video and audio files to make the questions more interactive. When they’ve finished the short creation process, the online platform generates a unique URL and QR code that their audience will use to access the survey or quiz—without needing to download an app. Results are uploaded the instant respondents finish the mobile survey or quiz, giving marketers information they can use instantly to adjust event elements or marketing messaging.

The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing

The closer your relationship with your customers and prospects, the more intimate you’ll be with what is important to them. Getting in-the-moment feedback from them as they consider your product or service, as in the midst of your event, is essential to making your marketing efforts sounding genuine and well informed. The more natural the conversation you have with consumers, the more believable it will be. Believability builds trust; trust induces trial and builds loyalty. Loyal customers will, in turn, pay your marketing forward, recommending a brand they believe in to others. Consider it the return on the investment you make into asking pertinent questions and proving that you’ve heard the answers.

Mark Penson is CMO of Survey Anyplace (www.surveyanyplace.com). Survey Anyplace Mobile Surveys provide an app-free mobile survey and gamification tool that generates real-time customer insights at the moment of experience.