How to use questionnaires to promote your small business

There are many ways to promote your business but one of the easiest ways is to use questionnaires. One of the great things about questionnaires is that they can be used in a variety of different situations, what this basically means is that you can conduct the questionnaires in a variety of settings. You can use the telephone, post surveys on the internet, directly mail the questionnaires, or you can have somebody standing the in the mall asking people to fill out your questionnaire. Another great thing about questionnaires is that they are very cost effective, which means they won't cost you that much to do as long as you do most of the work yourself. And the questionnaires allow you to collect a variety of information from customers and potential customers that you can use to promote your business further.

Difficulty rating: Easy to moderate

Step one:
When you are creating you questionnaire you are going to want to keep the questions simple. Do not use technical words that people not understand the meaning too, if you do decide to use those words make sure that you provide a definition so that your survey takers will understand the question.

Step two:
Something to keep in mind when creating questions is that you need to ask questions that won't offend the people who are taking the survey. Some people get offended if you ask how much money they make, if they are employed, and other types of revealing personal information. If you include questions that are offensive you are going to run into the problem of people not responding to your survey.

Step three:
When you are creating the questionnaire that is going to be used to promote your business you need to keep a few things in mind. One thing you need to keep in mind is that you are not going to know who your target market is, finding this out is going to be part of the questionnaire. So to help determine who your target market is you are going to want to gather general information about the person filling it out such as age range, occupation, whether they have children, where they live, and any other important identifying questions.

Step four:
If you are going to be mailing out surveys be sure to include an envelope with prepaid postage, this will increase your chances of getting the surveys back. This will also show your potential customers that you are thinking about their needs and are willing to spend money to get their opinions.

Step five:
If you are going to be standing at the mall or other locations you should do so at different times and on different days. This will increase your chance of getting random data and can provide you with a large group that you can promote your small business too. Different groups tend to go shopping at different places and at different times.

Step six:
If you are going to post your survey on your website you are going to need to come up with a way to get your potential customers to come to your website so that they can find out about your business. Perhaps the best way to get them to come to your website to get them to fill out your survey is that you can offer incentives or free information after they complete the survey. But you should also contact survey websites to find out the process to send your survey to them so that they can send it to their subscribers.

Step seven:
Another thing you want to think about when using questionnaires is how long the questionnaire will be. The shorter the questionnaire the more likely people will fill it out. The average length of a questionnaire should be about 10 questions. And the more people who fill out the questionnaire about your small business the more potential customers that you can reach.

Step eight:
Another thing you need to think about is how you are asking the questions, or the format of your survey. You can include multiple choice answers, text only answers, number only answers, etc. One thing you want to stay away from is leading questions and two questions in one sentence. Keep your questionnaire short and sweet.