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December 2, 2019 Content Chat Recap: Building A Better Reader Survey To Inform Customer Personas

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One of the best ways to create content is to turn to the people who consume it—your customers, prospects, and other subscribers. In this #ContentChat recap, we share our best practices for conducting reader surveys that help you create content hyper-tailored to your ideal customer. Read on to hear how you should approach demographic questions, the best questions to ask in a readership survey, and pitfalls to avoid.

Q1: Have you ever conducted a readership survey for your website visitors, blog readers, or email subscribers? And if so, how frequently have you done so?

58% of our poll respondents have conducted a readership survey in the past, and an additional 8% plan to in 2020.

Those that have done readership surveys follow a regular cadence, often quarterly or once annually, and say that readership surveys are a great way to get insights to guide your future content and potential offerings.

Trust is a foundational element of a successful survey. Your readers need to trust that you will provide higher quality content in return for their time/responses (and a little extra incentive like a gift card giveaway can help, too).

For folks that haven’t done readership surveys, some have found success with other areas of getting feedback, like Instagram polls.

Q2: Let’s talk demographics. What demographics are important to capture, and what demographic data points do you no longer consider important when it comes to understanding your audience and tailoring your content to them?

There are several demographic data points that could be relevant for you to explore in your readership survey. These can include the respondent’s: age, gender, location, company size, industry, job role, income, marital status, and/or family size (among others). Now, there are two caveats to this list…

First caveat: Your demographic questions should vary based on your survey (read as: do not have a concrete list of eight questions you always ask), and you should keep a limited set of questions to reduce fatigue on the respondent. Remember, surveys are not one-and-done—each survey is a building block on what you already know about that individual.

Second caveat: not every demographic point will be relevant for your brand. Some of the inclusions like income, marital status, and size of family can be relevant for many consumer brands, but not in the B2B space. It’s important to seek only the data points that matter most for your unique company, audience, and goals.

Some questions may detract readers from finishing your survey or lead to bad data, so only include things you absolutely need at that time. Certain data you can get from other avenues once the person becomes more engaged with your brand.

Be targeted and specific with each demographic question you ask.

Q3: If you could only ask one question in your readership survey, other than the standard demographics, what would it be?

The community shared their questions below. Each of these focuses on whether the current content offerings are valuable, what struggles the respondent faces (that you can then create content around), or where the respondent goes to collaborate with their peers (like at industry conferences).

Q4: In your readership surveys, how do you request feedback on your content? Do you ask for an overall satisfaction rating, or do you do a deeper dive?

Most of our community members ask for an overall rating, as well as deeper-dive questions to explore that rating. The approaches can vary based on if you’re surveying for one specific channel or multiple channels.

In addition to any rating scale, include an optional comment section. You can use these comments to learn more about the needs of your audience, as well as the language they use so you can better communicate with them moving forward.

Q5: Do you ask your readers if they consume content from your competitors by name? Why or why not?

Many of our community members mention their competitors, acknowledging that there are other options in the space that are easy to find with a quick Google search. By acknowledging competitors, these brands can then discuss why they’re a better fit.

How you ask about competitors is important. Instead of giving a bucket list of options, some marketers prefer to ask open-ended questions like “what other outlets do you consume content from?”

Q6: In addition to your answer to Q3, what are the 3 other most important questions in your readership survey?

Diving deeper on Q3, these questions further explore how the reader prefers to receive and consume content, the channels they are most active on, and other people or companies they turn to for information.

Q7: What is the most important or significant learning or takeaway you’ve gleaned from surveying your readers?

Readership surveys test your assumptions and enable you to make data-backed decisions to benefit your readers. This can include how you host events (online vs in person), what content you send, the length of that content, and how often you reach out.

Q8: What are some common readership survey pitfalls and how can you avoid them?

Use your survey to challenge your assumptions, not support them. Use open-ended questions to as much insight and feedback as you can.

Survey length is one of the biggest pitfalls, so keep your survey short and targeted. If you did not get to ask every question you wanted, try to integrate those into future outreach, or find new ways to gain that information.

Survey design is also an issue, especially if the survey is difficult to navigate or is not formatted appropriately.

And, with all things marketing, always have a review cycle in place and ensure your workflows appropriately.

About Alek Irvin

Alek Irvin is a content marketing professional with a rich history in social media management, executive thought leadership development, and media relations. As a consultant at Erika Heald Marketing Consulting, he creates human-focused content and thought leadership platforms that help brand leaders connect and engage with their communities. Alek has worked with a range of startups and Fortune 500 companies across the B2B technology and consumer spaces, including IBM, Dell Technologies, Hitch Works, Emtrain, Integrate, and Frameable. Connect with him on Twitter @AlekIrvin.

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