By Mike Casey

Last night I went to Home Depot to buy rebar for a bunch of railroad ties I am putting down.  I got my receipt and saw a request for feedback www.homedepotopinion.com with a chance to win up to $5,000!   While this is a great gesture I probably wouldn’t take the time unless I had a big issue or was tight on cash.  We have found that incentives may not drive up response rates and many times skew the data. Some survey takers go straight through surveys picking a column and clicking away just to get entered.  If the intent is to learn from your customers and drive improvements then be careful.  Most people taking surveys are doing so because they value you or your company in some way, they know you will do something with their shared information, and they want to see you succeed.   Just having a place to go to vent or share a great experience is enough in most cases, but the most important thing is to show customers that you will do something with the information and follow-up quickly.   B2B relationships typically get high return rates because a vendor is relied on to help them succeed.  The same goes for school parent surveys given where a parent wants the very best for their child.   In these cases there is no need for an incentive.

Where incentives work well is when there is a big survey taker time commitment and a great incentive is given to everyone who participates.  An example is when an association or industry research company is conducting a major study such as to collect data on industry pricing or wages for that industry.  In this case there is value to the participant if they receive a free copy of the final industry report and they feel the information will help them make good decisions.  This incentive does two things.  First, every participant gets value.  Second, the information you gather will be accurate since they don’t want to skew the data since they will receive the information to help drive their business. 

By Mike Casey
Quick question:  How many of you are continuously, deliberately mass e-mailing to your customers?  Many printers feel that either e-blasts are an annoyance to customers or it cuts the grain with what they do best, printing on paper.  Well, a recent survey showed that 58% of print buyers prefer e-blasts from their print suppliers “IF” they are informative.  If you have a seasonal plant vacation or other planned event coming up before the holidays, have just released a new capability, or have an educational message of any kind to help you serve customers better, why not send it?    You must have seen some value in this e-blast because you are reading it!  Why?  Because of the content!   In another study a printer asked their customers directly if they wanted to continue to get the e-blasts.  Over 85% said yes and the funny thing is that the print buyers who said no did not opt out.   In many cases they shared what they would like to see in future e-communications.  Keep content relevant, know your customer’s interests, and e-blast at their desired frequency.

Keep an open mind when thinking about how to reduce costs of marketing and also when thinking of how your customers want to be treated!