Caroline Shahar's Blog Posts

Part 3: Plan and execute follow up actions to strengthen customer relationships and have a significant impact on your organization’s success. 

You've uncovered your baseline numbers, and you have discovered where your strengths and weaknesses are. Now it's time to begin the cycle of change so you can reap the rewards of getting and analyzing your customers' opinions. Here's how:

Part 2: Find out what your audience is really telling you

Last time, we established a baseline so you can quickly and easily measure the effects of changes you make to your business. But do you know what your audience's message really is?

Analyze your online survey results to identify actions that will improve your baseline numbers. Here are some suggestions for how to do that:

Part 1: Understanding what you're seeing and finding a starting point

Small businesses and organizations that run smoothly, profitably, and efficiently know the answers to these kinds of questions:  

What about our offerings have our audience extremely pleased?
What existing or new topics/products/services are our audience most interested in?
Where will investing our time/money yield the biggest payoff?
What changes can we make that will get our audience engaging with us more often?
What is the competition doing that we are not doing, and that has our audience taking notice?

The best place to get these answers for your organization is your own audience -- whether for you that means your customers, clients, members, or donors. And as more and more small businesses and organizations are discovering, online surveys are a very simple and affordable way to gain the opinion of the majority of your customers quickly. Once your online survey is out in an email or on your website, as soon as you can say, "Badda bing, badda boom," your answers are in! The ability to receive instantly computed results is one of the great bonuses of getting your feedback online.

The feedback you need is easy to attain, but once you have it, then what?

Have you ever used skip logic? Share your answer in our latest poll. Once you vote you will instantly get to see how other small businesses and organizations have voted so far, and you will know if you are in the minority or the majority. Enjoy!

Are you challenged with retaining members? Experiencing less attendance at your events? If so, it’s unfortunately no surprise. Because of the down economy, fewer employees are receiving subsidized membership and event fees. According to the American Society of Association Executive (ASAE)’s 2008 Operating Ratio Report, meeting registrations account for 12 percent of associations’ revenue, while meeting expenses are 11 percent of their annual budget. So suffice it to say, small changes in attendance can greatly affect any association’s profitability. (You can see more about the affect of the economy on membership here, in another recent study by the ASAE.)

You may be asking, what can we do to face our challenges of retention and profitability? It’s critically important to make sure you’re on the same page with your members and to give them frequent opportunities to share their changing wants, needs and concerns. With this information, you will have the knowledge to consistently have very satisfied members. And online surveys can be a big help in understanding what your members think and how successful your events are without breaking your budget. (See how online surveys have helped this member organization.)

Here are two ways to stay in tune with your members and keep them involved:  

 

What is it like to be a donor to your organization? Is it gratifying? With limited resources, nonprofits need ways to break out of the clutter and keep their donors engaged. In part 1, I discussed one way nonprofits can learn how to best connect and build relationships with their donors. Now let's get into another way nonprofits can not only encourage donors to donate, but also help with awareness and brand building.

Engage donors by letting them live the experience. People make decisions emotionally. Give your donors emotional gratification by telling them what their investment is doing. How are your donors making a difference in peoples' lives? How are their donations improving the world?

Spark feelings in your donors by enlivening your content with stories and pictures from the field. Any time there is an opportunity to take pictures, take them! Ask volunteers or clients about their experiences and then share those success stories. Not only are stories a powerful way to touch your donors and encourage them to continue to donate, but stories can also encourage donors' to spread the good word about your organization. When people are talking to each other they are usually telling stories. Give them anecdotes that make it easier for them to communicate their passion and demonstrate the value of your organization. 

Here is how you can easily gather touching experiences or poignant points to share with your donors:

Nonprofit organizations are feeling the cuts from donors in ways previously not experienced. The tough economy has donors decreasing their average gift size or limiting their giving to only the organizations they feel the strongest connection to. These key findings from the 2009 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study spell out the changes nonprofits have to contend with in securing the funding they need:  

• Donations under $50 grew from 51 percent to 61 percent in 2008
• The percentage of gifts over $1000 were down by half in 2008  
• Gifts under $250 accounted for 97 percent of all gifts

With lower dollar donations becoming a larger slice of the pie, nonprofits need to focus on increasing the average gift size from low-dollar donors and maintaining the gift size of higher-dollar donors. So what’s the best way to succeed in a climate like this? It’s by improving the experience of being a donor and by staying relevant to them. Here is one way to help ensure you stay high on your donor’s priority list:

Small businesses everywhere are feeling the pinch of the economy in their downward revenue stream. What can you do to reverse that trend? Try something different. Consider introducing another revenue generator. No matter what the economy is doing, it’s always a good time to offer a new product/service if you know it’ll be well received in the marketplace.  

A common mistake businesses make in adding a new item to their lineup is deciding what customers will want to buy without including any actual customer input. To successfully increase your revenue, go straight to your potential buyers to find your answer. If you have an idea of what they will want and buy, test it with them. If you’re not sure what to offer, ask your customers what their needs, problems, and aspirations are. From their input, you will have the right knowledge to determine what you can offer that will help them and generate money for you.  

Here’s how to identify a winning new offer:

We all get some type of feedback from customers/clients, whether it’s from phone calls, interacting face-to-face, or on paper-based feedback cards/questionnaires. Being closer to your customers is one of the most valuable competitive advantages you have as a small business. You can be more in tune with the needs and wants of customers and prospects in your industry. This empowers you to move faster and be less reactive than the big guys.

But what if you could get a lot more feedback than you’re currently getting? What if you could get opinions faster? And what if you could do it with less money? You can with online surveys. Here’s how you will strengthen your advantages by providing customers/prospects with an online feedback loop.  

Getting more opens, clicks, and forwards is now just a step away. At this point in the series you know how to uncover what your subscribers care about so you can segment your list. Now you’re ready for the final step to surpassing your current email marketing results.