Producing great content is all about engaging with your audience. It goes without saying that without your audience, you wouldn’t be in business. Therefore, you need to keep your audience hooked on your content and well informed about who you are and what you do.
Sometimes, that means finding out what they need to learn from you. You can only get away with looking at metrics or sales numbers for so long. Sometimes, you need to ask. Asking your customers for feedback can seem like pulling teeth, but you’ll be surprised at how effective it can be.
Whether you ask on social media or you send an eblast with a survey, gathering feedback from your audience is a must. There are tons of reasons for this:
1. Customer satisfaction
Let’s say you run an ice cream shop. You just rolled out a new flavor: peanut butter and berry. You love the new flavor. After all, you sampled it yourself; otherwise, why would you sell it? But what do your customers think? Whether or not they love or hate the flavor, you can take the opportunity to see what ice cream flavors you can roll out in the future, or what they liked/disliked about this ice cream. Do you need to change vendors? Switch the flavor?
2. Successful marketing
In this case, you don’t want to only know about your customer’s experience with the flavor, but how successful your marketing campaign was. How many people on social media knew about the new flavor? What about your email list? By reaching out to different parts of your audience, you can gauge your reach.
3. Grow a dedicated audience
As you ask for customer feedback, pay attention to who’s answering your survey, and if you’re sending your survey out from more than one location, where most of your answers are coming from. If you’re gaining traction from your email base, foot traffic, or a social media platform, use that information to ramp up marketing there. Going where your core audience is also allows you to encourage the people who really care to share, thereby growing your audience.
4. Find your Demographics
You can also see who’s paying attention. If you’re just starting to market yourself, this is also a way to measure your existing demographics. Are your products attracting families, seniors, millennials, men, women, or another group?
To sum up
There are many more reasons you should reach out to your audience for their feedback. From showing your audience you care about what they need to growing your online presence, the benefits stack. And since everything links together, the feedback you receive will help you build a road map for SEO, social media engagement, reputation management, and more.