Powerful Survey Tool For Internet Marketers

I recently posted a survey for my safelist mailing members to get a better feel for where they stood with their businesses. I then posted the same survey to a small group of my primary list members for the same reason. I received a good amount of feedback, and was able to pull together some great information that will allow me to tailor my training to fit the needs of my customers even more closely than before.

What I received even more of, were questions about how I put the survey together. Every good Internet Marketer knows the importance of polling his lists for information. This allows you to find out what areas of your business your customers are more interested in or could benefit the most from. You need to stay current on what your customers want, so that you can deliver on that. You also need to know about “who” your list is comprised of so that you can tailor your delivery and content to the right audience. I mean there’s really not much sense in trying to teach a veteran webmaster basic web design. Or sending home the importance of building your list to someone that already has 20,000 or more members. Wouldn’t you agree?

But if you’ve spent any amount of time trying to find survey solutions online then you have probably become somewhat discouraged. Most charge elaborate fees for setup, or have a monthly bill associated with membership. Few are brandable and almost all are hosted on someone else’s site. I’m not sure about you, but I really prefer to retain control of all aspects of my business, and I don’t like sending my customers through someone else’s server unless I personally know them. So if you’re like me and you’ve searched for a survey solution that you can host on your own server then you’re probably still suffering from sticker shock! Prices range anywhere from $1,500 on the low quality side to upwards of 5 figures!

 After a great deal of research I came across, what I consider to be a superior tool, and recommend you check it out. The product is called LimeSurvey and it is completely free for anyone to use! You will need a small set of technical skills to get it set up, such as the ability to upload the program and change some file permissions. But it is very simple, and the supporting documentation is very clear and exhaustive. I’ve had to use the Support Forum on 2 occasions, and both times a moderator responded within a few hours with an explanation that was thorough enough as to where I didn’t need to re-post, (except to say thank you). This is a great community of users, and a superb open source software! If you’re in the market, and have a need to keep up to date with your list, then you should check it out.

I hope you find this post helpful. Oh, and by the way… If you want to check out the survey, you can do that here. Check out how the software allows “conditional questions” depending on your answers. It will actually open up additional questions based on results of the previous question. Try answering “yes” to the question “Do You Currently Have Your Own Website?”. That’s a very powerful feature! It took a little bit to get used to the functions inside the administration area, but that’s because I’m not one to read the manual I usually just dive right in to get a feel for things!

If you’ve used LimeSurvey, Please feel free to share your experiences with the software. Are you using a different program for running surveys that we may want to know about? Let’s hear…