My New Survey- Is It Okay?

[JulieA]

I've been trying to follow advice, and so I am trying a survey on my site. I'm not asking people to TAKE the survey ( unless they want some free body jewellery LOL)...I'd like opinions about my "blurb" "Free Body Jewellery", and the survey itself please. I've never done anything like this before so I hope I haven't made too many marketing blunders.
Thanks for any opinions/advice/suggestions/

[FS Concierge]

Hi Julie
That is seriously impressive for your first attempt! I love the tone of voice and the language that you are using. Some very quick feedback, and I'm sure others will also chime in:

1. On my browser (Safari, viewed today on a small laptop screen), some of the questions aren't aligning. The yellow boxes are sitting on top of the 2nd lines of the questions above. This applies specifically to the section on Ebay (I can't see the question at all), and the question about what the shop looks like. Some of the yellow boxes are long and narrow, others are small squares. (Sorry but for some reason I can't get my PC to make a screenshot for you).
2. The twitter bird is also sometimes obscuring text.
3. Your intro spiel is really nicely written and I LOVE the way you communicate, but I think you are making life more complicated for yourself than necessary. Instead of emailing people to ask them their names and what they want, make the name field compulsory in your survey, along with their postal address - you will need that info to send the freebie out anyway. The more you can automate this whole thing the better!
4. Similarly, add a multiple choice question to your survey: "Please indicate your freebie preference", and then just give them the 3 or 4 options that you want to be giving away.
5. I would think that having a picture of the freebie would motivate me more than a surprise gift. I would do that on the home page to get people in to the survey page.
6. You forgot the most important bit!!! Don't you want your visitors to sign up to your database so you can do some targetted marketing to them with all the fantastic customer data you're going to collect? You are going to have some great info here, so make sure you collect their permission to email them in the future!

Good luck with everything - hope it works really well for you.
Jayne

[mike@engagemarketing]

Hi Julie,
I can only back up what Jayne said. The survey and the intro were both written very well considering the audience. My only suggestion is to follow No.6 of Jayne's list - that is, ask for permission to send them newsletters or promotions in the future.

Well done!

[JulieA]

Thank you both for the replies. I posted the same thing on my Host Forum, and was lambasted for the same thing you guys called great LOL

Sounds like one big sob story. I got bored reading the post and I'm sure most other people will as well. I don't care that you have to compete with other people, that is a part of doing business isn't it?

I was pretty shattered, but didn't react. I thought maybe he was right so I removed the "offending sob story"

Rule No 1 of marketing... NEVER denigrate your opposition or their products. (By all means point out why your product is better, but do not say others are rubbish). You have (and I stopped reading after this) told your potential customers they have bad taste and poor shopping skills, IF they have ever bought anything from Ebay
Rule Number 2... if it takes longer than 10 seconds to read, you are not going to be read.

I hadn't looked at what I wrote in that light, but I guess he was right.

One good thing that cam out of that Forum was getting my site to work properly in I.E. ( I know, I know, heaps of people still use it but it goes against my grain to make my sites work in I.E.- pet peeve with I.E.)
I WILL try and make it okay in Safari too. I think what happened was I was getting NO feedback from anyone at all, so I sorta stopped trying to "please everyone".

I will definitely try and incorporate your suggestions advice Jayne! This survey was my first attempt using the JForms component- I'll see if it can do most of what you advised.
Once again, my sincere gratitude to you both, I really do appreciate your time and thoughts. This site is still more of a "hobby", but as I learn more about business and marketing etc., I begin to think(hope), that maybe I can lift it from hobby to small business.

[FS Concierge]

That's my pleasure!

Good luck!
Jayne

[JulieA]

Just a quick update.
I added a slideshow of the freebies, and I incorporated your suggestions Jayne :-)
It's not perfect, but it's a start, and I'll improve upon it. At least the current heatwave ( which is slated to continue rising until Friday), is going to keep me inside, so I'll be able to add a lot more products to the site. I have 400 to add, a time consuming process because my original CSV from my old site is not compatible with my current shopping cart :-(
I have posted on a couple of Forums about the browser problems, but haven't had any solutions yet.
Once again, thank you Jayne for your great advice/suggestions!

[FS Concierge]

The update is looking great Julie!

Hope you get to keep cool!
Jayne