The Messaging Times

Google illustrates that how you ask your questions determines what answers you will get. Asking the right questions is critical in conducting online customer or employee surveys.

Good survey questions are…

1. purposeful: so the answers will tell you something that you want to know (and ideally something that you can implement)
2. measurable: so you will be able to clearly analyze the responses and come to specific conclusions
3. clearly worded and unambiguous: so the questions can’t be misinterpreted by respondents
4. as short as possible: so respondents won’t get confused or fatigued
5. relevant to respondents: according to their knowledge, backgrounds and experiences
6. not leading: to avoid influencing a respondents answers
7. focused and single barreled: to yield one measurable response which can be measured independently of others
8. free from jargon: so that each question is understood by those who don’t know the acronyms and industry speak
9. tightly structured: so they elicit non-general responses related to a specific behavior, attitude or experience

Our new GroupSurveys Free account allows you to create an unlimited number of surveys, ask an unlimited number of questions and collect an unlimited number of responses.

Cost to you = $0.00

Create your own online survey account in 30 seconds and practice asking the right questions yourself!

Sometimes, the way that a survey respondent answers one question will dictate whether other questions in the survey are relevant to them. For example, if someone answers that they are less than 16 years old, then a question about their driving experience might not be relevant (at least in a legal sense.) That is where skip logic comes into play.

Skip logic, or conditional branching as it is sometimes known, allows you to change the course that your respondents take through a survey based on answers they give to certain questions. You do this by creating skip rules. For example, if you create a survey and ask your respondents if they are male or female. You could create some skip rules based on this, that would then direct them to a certain page based on their response. Men for example, might bypass questions about their menstrual cycles, etc.

For more information about using skip logic in surveys, read Using Skip Logic in GroupSurveys.

The GroupMail Marketing Pack is a bundle of Infacta’s GroupMail Business Edition software and an annual subscription to two or our web services (GroupMetrics and GroupSurveys.) Purchased as a bundle, the same services are offered at a price lower than if purchased separately. The GroupMail Marketing Pack includes:

1 License of GroupMail Business Edition Software:

GroupMail is the leading desktop bulk email application that allows users to send highly formatted, personalized HTML or Text emails to large groups of recipients. The Business Edition is designed for higher volume tasks and is ideally suited to business and corporate users. GroupMail Business Edition can send almost 100 times faster than the Personal Edition using up to 256 simultaneous delivery connections and incorporates useful features like Database Direct Linking & Importing (ADO/OLEDB/ODBC), Scheduling, an Email-to-SMS gateway, Queuing, Background sending, MS Outlook Integration, routing, XML document support, and much much more!

• All the features in GroupMail Personal Edition
• Schedule messages for sending at a later date
• Send Large mailings at incredible speeds using up to 256 delivery connections
• Import Outlook, Group Wise, Lotus Notes, Exchange and PINE address books and distribution lists
• Integrates into the MS Outlook Toolbar (MS Outlook 2002 or above)
• Link directly to or import from any ODBC or OLE DB/ADO compatible database
• Share groups with multiple users
• Send Mobile SMS Text Messages
• Transform XML Documents using XSL stylesheets into Group Mail messages
• Over 30 Newsletter Templates to choose from
• Free Add-ons

* Regular price for GroupMail Business Edition if purchased separately is 349.95 USD

25,000 Credits/Month for one year of GroupMetrics Email Tracking:

GroupMetrics is a web-based service that allows you to track open and click-through rates for your email campaigns. With GroupMetrics, you can measure the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns. When you are doing your mailing, you simply replace your links with the traceable links that GroupMetrics creates for you and the GroupMetrics Tracking Manager will monitor all of the events that happen as your email is opened by your customers.

With these types of reports at your disposal, you can figure out if your customers find your emails relevant to them or which parts of your message they are most interested in. GroupMetrics provides detailed reports on who opened your message and what links within it they clicked on. You can view these reports right from your GroupMetrics web account or export them into a neat, easy to read .pdf file to share with your boss.

* Regular price of this GroupMetrics package if purchased separately is 249.50/year

5,000 Credits/Month of GroupSurveys Online Survey Responses:

GroupSurveys makes it easy to design online surveys and distribute them to your audience using links that can be used in email, blogs, websites or anywhere you can include an HTML link.
With GroupSurveys, you can:

• Track individual respondents and view all responses in full as they come in. You can also track your respondents by email or similar identifier when used with GroupMail
• Use Skip Logic or Conditional Branching to control the flow of your surveys, so that questions that are not relevant to certain respondents are hidden from them.
• Track your survey results via RSS feeds.
• Export your reports and data as a .csv file for integration with MS Excel or other application or as a .pdf file for a polished presentation of your results.

* Regular price of this GroupSurveys package if purchased separately is 179.40/year

The total value of these products and services, if purchased separately is 778.85 USD. Purchased as a bundle with the GroupMail Marketing Pack, the same products and services cost 699.95 USD.

Note 1: After the first year, the GroupMetrics and GroupSurveys services portion of the Marketing Pack will require a paid subscription to continue using them. At that point, you can decide either not to continue with those services, or select from a range of subscription packages, to include pay-per-use, monthly or annual subscriptions.

Note 2: There is no recurring cost for the GroupMail software license – which is desktop software that you can use as much as you want for as long as you want. You can choose to renew your Upgrade Protection on the software each year, which gives you access to downloads of the product from our website and no-cost updates to the software when new releases are published each year (There were 8 releases to GroupMail in 2007). Your initial purchase of any GroupMail Products includes a full year of Upgrade Protection. If you decide not to renew your Upgrade Protection, your application will continue to work just fine – and you can renew it at any point if a release is published that you would like to upgrade to – but the cost to do so is less if renewal is done before it expires each year.

I hope that this clarifies the GroupMail Marketing Pack and illustrates the value of purchasing these eMarketing products and services as a bundle rather than individually. Please direct any questions in the comments below or contact us if you would like more information.

I published some GroupMail video tutorials recently for our customers. Sometimes, things make more sense when you see them being done.

• How to Configure Your GroupMail Sender Account
• How to Import Recipients into GroupMail
• How to Personalize Your Messages with GroupMail
• How to Create a Newsletter Opt-in Form
• How to Distribute Your Online Surveys with GroupMail
• How to Configure GroupMail’s Subscriber Add-on to Process Unsubscribe Requests

I’ll be adding to this library as time goes on. If you have any requests for video tutorials, let me know.

MarketingProfs has a tidy article that provides twelve tips for creating effective surveys. Sometimes, it is the small things that make a difference, like keeping your survey short enough to prevent respondent fatigue. Marketing Profs says:

“…It shouldn’t take a respondent more than 10 minutes to complete a questionnaire. Make it five or even two minutes or less, if you can manage. Also, keep survey respondents in the loop along the way by telling them up front how long the survey might take, including a progress bar and, maybe, even naming the survey something relative to how long it will take. Time is a top complaint among people who have taken surveys, so address the objection immediately and move past it.”…continue reading

* access to this article might require that you complete a short registration form.

Not too long ago, I wrote two articles which provided an additional 15 tips on designing effective online surveys.

Online Surveys: Getting Feedback in 5 Easy Steps

“…What do you want to know from your customers? What actions are pending on the results of the survey? If you put a survey together with unfocused objectives, you will more than likely end up with a survey with unclear results. Define what questions your survey intends to answer. Do you want to measure your markets content delivery preference? Do you want to know what your employees satisfaction levels are? Defining your purpose is essential before determining your survey sample. Before you know who to ask, you have to understand what you are asking.”…continue reading

10 Tips for Writing Effective Employee and Customer Attitude Surveys

“…Make the intent, objective and possible outcomes of your survey clear to your sample by writing a relevant title and short introductory paragraph. Include the importance of the survey and how long it should take to complete. Before anyone completes a survey, they need to understand why the survey is relevant to them, what the investment is and how it might benefit them if they complete it. Might taking part in the survey influence prices of a product they use? Might it result in new features that they want? A persuasive introduction explaining the importance and potential benefits of the survey will help increase the number of employees or customers who take the time to complete it.”…continue reading

To put all of these tips into action, set up an account with our own GroupSurveys and create your own survey. It’s the best way to find out what your employees or customers are thinking. Don’t believe me? Ask them yourself.