3 Basic/Must-Have Question Types for Surveys Used for Lead Generation

How CPA, consulting and other professional service firms can use surveys for lead generation – Part III

Amusement park rides for $.25 and kiddie ice cream cones for a buck. (I kid you not!)

We read about Olcott Beach Carousel Park – a little jewel on the shore of Lake Ontario, about a 90-minute drive away, and thought it would be a great way to spend an afternoon with our granddaughter.

So we decided to check it out. It was one of those perfect 80 degree days, made better by a cooling breeze coming off of the lake and a waiting time to get on a ride of about 45 seconds. Six rides painstakingly and beautifully restored, and here was the kicker: you had to be less than 3-years-old to go on the rides.

Even though my wife was disappointed and needed to get escorted off the Herschell Sky Fighter Ride by park security, our granddaughter Pearl couldn’t stop smiling and laughing and waving as Grandma was given the heave-ho.

So what does this have to do with surveys, you might ask.

While I was there I was approached to take a marketing survey, and my professional curiosity and oath as a professional services marketer forbids me to turn down these opportunities. So I couldn’t help but scrutinize its construct from the perspective of a professional. The upside: reading and taking the survey gave me a few ideas for this week’s blog, especially because we’ve been talking about using surveys for lead generation.

Nice segue, eh?

Don’t Do Surveys if They’re Not a Part of Your Lead Generation Strategies

My mantra through these blog posts about surveys has and will always be that the key reason why a CPA, consulting or other professional services firm should do a survey is for purposes of lead generation.

That’s not to say that there won’t be branding opportunities and implications ... it’s just that if you’re going to commit all of the time, energy, resources and intellectual capital to surveying your target markets, you should darn well make sure that you get a return on your investment in terms of leads and new business.

That means from the very first nugget of inspiration about doing a survey (Hey gang, let’s put on a survey!) to finalizing the last pie chart in the PowerPoint presentation, your team needs to be thinking about leads. That’s why your survey team needs to have partners, subject matter experts, marketers and business developers at the table for each and every single meeting about the survey. Don’t let your marketing department carry this load alone!

Here’s what your team needs to be thinking about:

• Exactly who are we trying to market and sell our services to?
• What do we want to sell to this market?
• How, when and where are we going to leverage the thought leadership and content from survey results?
• What types of offers – top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, and bottom of the funnel – do we want to develop out of the survey’s results?

You’ll find that when you craft responses to these questions, your team will, in effect, have a sniff test for the type of questions that you craft and place in the survey tool.

3 Basic Question Types that Are Fundamental for Lead Generation

We’re all on board about the survey / lead generation connection right?

Then let’s move on to talking about types of questions that you need to have in your survey to move you toward lead generation – demographic, perceptual, benchmark:

We Spent Less than $3 for an Afternoon at the Amusement Park

When we were finished with the amusement park we checked and found that we had spent less than $3.00 for an afternoon of rides for Pearl. That was 8 rides and an ice cream cone’s worth of fun.

This is particularly incredulous considering our upcoming vacation to Universal in Orlando where I needed to take out a second mortgage to purchase a day pass for the family. I don’t think you can even sniff the air at Universal for a quarter!

In the case of Olcott Beach, the ROF (Return on Fun) was unbelievable. In your case, instead of fun (assuming you’re not a survey freak or something like that), you’ll need to be thinking about return on investment. It’s not difficult to earn a high ROI in terms of leads and new business from doing a survey. However, it takes a great deal of strategic and business development planning to get to a place where your efforts pay off to their maximum potential.