Two Amazingly Powerful Event Survey Questions
Using the right questions in an event survey is an extremely powerful way to position your event with a target audience. Yet very few event promoters and organizers use surveys. Event surveying can be done both before and after your event. As with any survey, the focus should be solely on your target market.
Below are my two absolute favorite survey questions for event planning purposes. Don’t disregard the potential for great feedback because of their simplicity.
It's far easier to pack an event when you know what your audience wants and you go out of your way to give it to them. Few things are as powerful as surveys in terms of honing in your target market's wants, needs, and desires.
Let’s start with a pre-event survey question. The following question will better help you understand your audience, including their wants and needs. The question goes like this - “What is your biggest fear, frustration, challenge with (BLANK)? Fill in the (BLANK) with something related to your target market. Here’s an example question for sales training, “What is your biggest fear, frustration, challenge with cold calling?” You can also modify the question to focus on wants, needs, and desires . . . "What your biggest want or desire when it comes to (BLANK)?" The survey feedback you collect will allow you to give your target market what THEY want, not what you think they want.
Look for the Trends
First and foremost, you should use the survey responses to plan your event. Go inside the survey feedback to identify the trends and your target market’s hot buttons. Build and plan your event accordingly. Another great thing about surveys is that they allow us to let go of our "I know best" mindset. Event promoters who think they know better than their target market - set themselves up for failure.
Secondly, you can use the results to help you create laser focused marketing campaigns. Compiled survey data makes for great headlines, hooks, and advertisements. As with any advertising, your event marketing must specifically appeal to your target audience.
A Negative Survey Question - Polls Great!
My favorite question to ask, yet the least favorite question for event planners to ask is - “What didn’t you like about the event?” (Credit to Dave Petrowski from the World’s Largest Disco.) On the surface it looks like a negative question. Yet the survey respondents don’t take it that way.
Some of my clients have used the “what didn’t you like question” and gathered super helpful feedback. People respond in an amazingly cordial fashion to a seemingly negative question. I’ve seen survey respondents actually complement event organizers who’ve used the question.
When conducting an event survey, you need to stay as objective as possible. It’s really easy to get caught up in passionate survey feedback. Always look for the trends in any survey. If you stay highly objective the data will serve you well. In the end, it’s hard to go wrong with an event if you’re giving your target market what they want.
Want to get more great info? Check out the articles below:
- Event Planning - The Customer Avatar and Your Event
- When to Start Selling Tickets to Your Event
- A Negative Question to Create a Better Event
- Automatically Generate Leads for Your Event Year Round
- How to Get Them To Your Event
- Why Well Planned Events Fail
- Getting Them to Buy Tickets Early
- The Event Promotion System
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People tend to shy away from negative comments and tend to gravitate towards the positive. I absolutely agree that you need to get constructive feedback everytime to learn from your mistakes and make improvements on your next event.
Posted by: JennyChan | 09/24/2010 at 00:46