Surveys!
Greetings from Maine! I’m home wrapping up my vacation here on the east coast. What a huge change from my new life out west. I love it here though… the salty air, the sand between my toes, the unusual amount of retrievers rushing their tennis balls in the surf during my morning walk.
Things on the website are improving I’m excited to report. I wrote last month about a few new t-shirt designs that I posted that seem to be very well received… PHEW! One much more than the other, but that is how it works, and that’s great. It gives me insight into what they are looking for, which is honestly the most difficult issue I face.. WHAT DO THEY WANT TO BUY?? I has to be new and fresh. The market was flooded with red hat goods for years, and all of that merchandise has been exhausted. Time for new ideas and new customers, but more importantly.. I want to breathe life back into the site to get my old customers shopping again. I think we may be making some progress in that area. And I think it’s in my best interest to work on the women that have been loyal over the years.
We are usually pretty slow in the summer months, but we seem to have some new energy lately. I think it comes from a variety of places, mostly new addresses. However some pretty cool things have been happening.. some of those old customers have come back and started purchasing again. What a huge relief! And I don’t know what we’ve done to bring them back in. Sometimes I feel like calling them and asking them just that.. ‘hey.. why’d you buy today?” which brings me to the survey issue.
Like I said, I am dying to know my customers are looking for and what they don’t like about the site. But I also want to know if the site is easy to shop, and how they find our price structure. I want to know how red hatting is fitting into their lives nowadays and if it’s as important as it was even a year ago. I know there’s been a shift as evidenced by my declining business. I’ve thought all along that it’s my waning mailing list and that I need to breathe some new life into that list. Which I’ve been trying to do by reworking the “subscribe here” area of the site.
I personally find that surveys just stink to take. They are annoying right? Maybe it’s a necessary evil. If I make it voluntary, will they take it? All of a sudden, I’m finding that the knowledge at stake is crucial to moving forward. I know they like our new t-shirt line, but what else would they like? I like the idea of a survey as opposed to blogging because my competition doesn’t get to read the results.. a big issue for me because she’s a thief.
And then the next question of course.. where to put the survey. At checkout? When I finish a purchase online, I really hate to get a survey. I would prefer to do a voluntary and offer a coupon code upon completion. I know we have the capability to do that. I just have to look into it. I could include it in the weekly broadcast I send out and a link off of the homepage. I think that might give me a general look at what is going on out there.
As I write this my vacation is now just about over, and it’s time to get back to business. I was surprised at the upturn in business in what is traditionally our slowest month. That was really significant. Maybe if I can just get some direction from these women by introducing a survey, then I’d get somewhere on offering the right product and getting more of my old customers to start shopping with us again. I’m really curious what anyone thinks about the survey. Have any of you tried it? Did you find it helpful? Let me know if you could! I’d really appreciate your thoughts.
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