One of the things that I know from working in the offline world is that contact with your customer is really important. You have to understand what the customer wants (and what they need). You also need to understand what your customer thinks about how you are meeting those wants and needs. Many time, when customers are unhappy, you just don't hear from them at all. They vote with their feet.
Blogging is like that. You need to know what your readers value, and what you can do to meet their needs. That can be tough. This blog has over 600 subscribers, and hundreds (some days more than a thousand) unique visitors per day. Thousands of pages views each day. Understanding what all those people are thinking can be tough.
Consider An On-Line Survey
I know that one way to attack this is through the use of online surveys. With an online survey you can get anonymous candid feedback from readers, taking just a few minutes of their time. This is a perfect match for blogging, because readers are already online. They are usually just one click away from taking the survey.
Look for an on-line survey from MasonWorld.com in the coming weeks. I am planning on using Zoomerang. They have a very cool free basic service that looks like it will do everything that I need (and more). They also offer a pro service that adds charting and email integration, along with some other features that look nifty.
I plan on asking questions about posting frequency, content, post length, and other stuff. Do you have any suggestions regarding what I should ask my readers? Drop me a comment below.
Thanks,
Mark
Mark – Thanks for considering Zoomerang. You can find some helpful survey tips and suggestions at the Zoomerang blog, and if you browse the Zoomerang website you will find additional tips as well as templates that should give you a few more survey question ideas. One suggestion for your survey that I would like to offer would be to pose an open-ended question as the last survey question so that your readers will have the opportunity to voice a suggestion or two that you may not have considered.
I’ve used an online poll on one of my blogs on blogger, with very little response. The blog gets little traffic and I obviously need to work on that.
I’m thinking of checking out zoomerang to see if I can get useful responses, and also get more traffic.
I feel so much like I’m drowning here, still paddling , but with no land in sight!
Websites like yours, Mark, are life buoys for newbies like me, and I thank you.
Hey Mark,
Just dropped by to see what’s up and I see this post on surveys. This is something I’ve been considering doing for quite some time now but I didn’t really know what service to use. I must admit that I haven’t exactly been overly aggressive in finding out. This is something I need to do so I can relate more to my list of subscribers. I want to know what they need help with and what they are struggling with in starting or running their online business.
I really want to help them if I can. I’m no guru but I’ve been doing this for a couple years now and I have acquired a certain amount of knowledge that I would like to share with my customers. I think that’s the best way to build a relationship with people is to help them. Never mind trying to sell them something, just try to help them and let them see you as the expert and once that happens you won’t have to sell because they will come to you asking you to sell them something.
Later,
Jeff Sargent
Hey Jeff. Thanks for the comment. You’d probably be amazed at how much you know compared to many people that are trying to get started. As long as you are trying to help people and stick to what you know, it is pretty hard to go wrong.