Content Generation Idea: Customer Surveys

Content Generation Idea: Customer Surveys

Surveys aren't always those things that you do to make some extra money online with such as on those paid survey sites. But those sites only have surveys for you to do because the sites that get them to get people to take those surveys are doing so, so they can know more about their potential customers and buyers. What makes them tick and what their thoughts, opinions and feedback on certain things are like their services or products or even on their own business model and ethics etc.

And if you need some ideas for new content to create, surveys can help you to come up with that in mass amounts. Since you are likely to get more than one survey done, and the answers provided to the questions asked in that service will likely all be different. You can just look at the answers provided to those questions asked in each survey and find post ideas and inspiration from it.

On top of this, by asking your customers to take a quick survey, you can find out about the things they actually think about your business or website! And from these things, learn to make the changes needed to make them happier which will reflect on you in a good way when they see you've made those changes as it shows that you listen. And people like people, or businesses that listen!

And a survey is very similar to Content Generation Idea 9: Interview People in Your Niche. Except you're not actually interviewing them. You're not putting them on the spot as much as you are just asking them to casually answer a few quick questions about something. And these questions shouldn't be too many either! You don't want to take up much of people's time when making them complete a survey. Keep it very short so that it only takes about 5 minutes at most. That way more people will complete your surveys without getting bored and fed up of all the annoying questions you're asking!

Some questions to ask people in your survey would be something like:

• What is it that you struggle with when it comes to buying x? (where x is the niche/industry you're in)
• What 3 challenges do you face when working in the x industry as a buyer of such things?
• What sorts of things would you like to know more about from us?
• What kind of topics are you most interested to know about and read?
• What do you think of our business and would you recommend it to someone?
• What about us would you like us to change if you could and why?

The answers to those questions alone would be enough to come up with some great topic ideas for content to write about and cover. I wouldn't go posting directly what they've said. Although you could use snippets of it in the context of a review. Such as "Mr Smith from Croydon said that he struggles with finding a business that has a fast response rate and turn around time and said that he'd like to read more articles on topics related to buying x online."

The point is, use what they say, the answers they give to your survey questions for ideas and inspiration for new content generation ideas. But don't overdo it with your surveys! You don't want to annoy people by asking too many long and winding questions. Value people's time who value their time by keeping it short and they'll value you back for that.

And don't send too many of these to your customers! Even just asking one or two questions during checkout or as a follow up in an email can have them responding to those survey like questions and that can lead to coming up with some more content ideas just from what they have said to you. Besides, some of them will be likely to drop a bombshell on you!

Do you make use of customer surveys for content generation ideas or just to find ways to improve your business?

What types of questions do you like to ask people in your surveys and what kind of success rate do you get?