Internet marketing can be a powerful and cost effective tool. And tactical Internet marketing—which has grown to include the use of RSS feeds, blogs, discussion boards, wikis, among a host of other web 2.0 tools—can be a successful way to market your products and services. However, impulsively employing these elements may lead to misspent marketing dollars. When we’re asked which features should be implemented, the answer always comes back to the golden rule of communication—know your audience.

Client feedback is an important aspect of your brand’s management that is often overlooked. In the past, we relied on our people most in touch with our customers—sales folks, service people, account managers, and installation and maintenance people—to provide information about our audiences. Though insightful, their information was often biased—overlaid with personal interest, the latest customer encounter, and anecdotal judgments.

If you were able to afford a good market research firm, they would interview clients and prospects, investigate the competitors, and uncover the trends of your industry. Traditional market research provides valuable feedback and actionable data, helping you gain insights that are often well worth the dollars spent.

However, obtaining good feedback does not need to be that expensive or time consuming. An online survey is an efficient and cost effective way to reach your audience. The mere action of sending out a survey has an instant positive impact because not only will you be receiving immediate and constructive feedback, your clients will know that you value your relationship by asking for their opinion. Surveying your audience will:

• Provide you with quantifiable data
• Allow you to reach a range of people all at once
• Provide benchmarks for future evaluation
• Gather real-time intelligence

Online surveys provide actionable data—revealing where products are positioned within the mind of the customer, exposing whether campaigns are influencing behavior and in what way, uncovering trends, and even monitoring the level of brand awareness. We even use online surveys to provide a foundation for more productive, in-depth interviews.

Surveys provide the insight and the intelligence needed to spend your marketing dollars effectively. As a cost-effective means of reaching your audience, online surveys give you genuine data that can be used to both evolve your brand and strategic direction while keeping your company top-of-mind—making your organization’s marketing dollars and time better spent.