Business Surveys - A Creative Success Case Study
Surveying your customers and prospects can be downright frustrating. Even if you’ve dealt with someone for years in a business relationship, getting them to complete a survey is difficult. Either they don’t have the time and your survey sits on a shelf or is disregarded, or they do not want to part with the answers to your questions.
The questions you ask and how you ask them contribute to the overall success or failure of your surveys. The other is the design and presentation of the survey itself. The following case study deals with the presentation aspect, and how one real estate developer created an enormously successful direct mail survey by thinking outside the box.
PROBLEM: A regional real estate developer wanted to design a direct marketing piece to both prequalify prospects and to build a database for future mailings. The developer knew who the prospects were, and had tried unsuccessfully in the past. Past responses were do dismal that he could not even target his messages because he had no idea what his prospects were truly interested in seeing. The only way to increase sales was to target his message, and the only way to do that was to find out what his prospects wanted. He had to find another way.
SOLUTION: Starting with an 8-1/2″x11″ flat sheet, he created a truly unique survey. The top part of the page was a personalized letter, only two paragraphs long. It was personalized to the receiver and included his scanned signature at the bottom. The bottom 1/3 was a perforated, personalized live check for one dollar. The check contained six survey questions. The receiver was to answer all six survey questions, endorse the check and deposit it.
There was no online response offered. This was intentional. On the back of the check under the signature area was a permission statement. When the check was signed the signer was also giving permission for the developer to add the signer’s name to their opt-in email list.
The letter was mailed in a window envelope, with the live check showing through the window to increase opening rates, therefore increasing the changes of the survey being completed.
RESULTS:
1. The developer paid absolutely NO POSTAGE for the responses. The survey was part of a live check, which was returned to the developer through the banking system once the check was endorsed and deposited.
2. Money was also saved by using a preprinted window envelope, with no need to add labels or electronically print the address block on the envelope.
3. The developer received a 28% response rate! 85% of the respondents completed all six questions.
4. Unlike sending dollar bills which can be pocketed while the survey is thrown out, the survey is part of the check. The survey and the money cannot be separated. He was only paying for those surveys which were completed and cashed. If any envelope was not opened or if it was discarded the developer paid nothing for those surveys.
5. The 28% response rate meant that 72% did not reply. Those checks were NOT CASHED, so those surveys cost the developer nothing. Figuring in the cost of printing, postage and the check itself, the direct mail survey saved the developer approximately $800 per thousand over equivalent surveys that sent one dollar bills.
6. Time was saved because the surveys came back quickly through the Federal Reserve System.
The developer gathered valuable marketing information to better target his messages and to build a database for future mailings and email campaigns.
Neil Walsh
Daba Designs
P.O. Box 255
North Olmsted, Ohio 44070
Phone: (440)465-0744
Website: http://www.daba-designs.com
Tags: advertising, business to business, case study, creative, direct mail, marketing, Response, survey, surveys