Contests Made Easy

No doubt one of the most effective ways of driving traffic to your website or generating Facebook likes is by putting up a a raffle or contest.

Introducing Rafflecopter. Its so easy even your good ol' grandma can do it. Seriously, I wondered why nobody has come up with it before.

Click here to try it out http://www.rafflecopter.com/

Here's a quick demo.

Now you're ready. Go ahead and try it out!

Brilliant IKEA Campaign

I've always been amazed at Ikea's branding strategies. The designs are clean and minimalist which appeals to modern and sophisticated buyers yet the price point is quite low. It really is value for money.

So when I saw Ikea's current campaign for their mattresses, I thought it was quite genius. They got some of their staff to dress in their PJs and sleep in the most uncomfortable of public places to drive their point across. The tagline was "I wouldn't have to sleep now if I had an Ikea mattress." This rings true for most of us working full time. A full night's sleep is paramount to function well in the office. Ever had those sleepless nights tossing and turning and feeling like crap the next day?

Kudos to the Ikea guys and gals who braved the heat lying on unforgiving hard surfaces to show passersby how horrid it is not to have a nice comfortable bed to sleep on.

It certainly grabbed a lot of attention from the crowd. Some even stopped to take pictures of the unusual and often hilarious sight.

I'm borrowing some photos from the Ikea Singapore Facebook Page to share with you guys. Pretty cool huh?!

When Ignorance is NOT Bliss: Importance of Surveys

As marketers we often have a gut feel of the general characteristics shared by our customer base. Reason can lead us to logical conclusions about their demographic and buying behavior.

However, without real hard data, we can never be sure if our marketing strategies are indeed reaching the right people. While a company can survive without ever conducting any type of survey however crude or sophisticated, failing to gather this information can lead to much waste both in time and resources.

Let's begin by examining target demographics. Demographics often include age, gender, race, location, education and household income. The marketing messaging that a company will utilize will depend greatly on these factors.

The only way to confirm if your hunch about your target market is correct is to set up a survey. While companies with huge marketing budgets can hire consultants to do comprehensive market studies for them, SMEs operating with limited funds often don't have as much money to burn.

But before you even delve into the survey, you must first figure out why you want to embark on this survey in the first place. In my case I wanted to check if the marketing strategies and messaging that we have been doing so far actually reach the right people. I also wanted to get feedback on customer preferences.

One thing to note is that when you make a survey you have to keep it short. 10 to 15 questions max. Make it as foolproof as possible and include questions that are multiple choice ones. This way, it is a lot more convenient for customers answering the form and for you when you tally the final results.

Make sure that your questions are pertinent to the issue at hand or is actionable, meaning something can be done by management to improve the current conditions.

So now we are ready to create the survey. One easy way to do it is online.

Two popular survey markers are Survey Monkey and Google Forms. Survey Monkey has a free version but only allows you 10 questions. More than that you need to purchase the software, Google forms on the other hand does not have a limit. But it cannot do questions with multiple answers. Both are fairly easy to use but I find the way Google Forms organize the information into a spreadsheet to be way better.

If you already have a Google account, simply click the documents tab and go to "create new". It will show a pull down menu and all you have to do is click "form". Then you are ready to create your survey.

Since I was trying to find out if our marketing efforts were appropriate for our audience, I began my survey by finding out the demographic of my customer base.

Here are some questions worth asking:
1. Age (helps you choose the right media to reach a certain age group, ie online media vs offline media)
2. Gender (helps you decide functional and aesthetic designs that appeal to certain genders)
3. Household Income (an indicator if you are targeting the correct social class)
4. Educational Attainment (helps you choose the tone and messaging of your ads and marketing materials)
5. Children (important if your products are geared towards parents)
6. Area/location (important you you plan to expand or branch out to new areas)
7. Lifestyle questions that are related to your specific brand

Getting this data can already give you a wealth of information that can dramatically improve your marketing strategies.

In the survey that I designed,  I also asked a few questions about the customer's preferences in relation to the product or his experience with the service. Here are some sample questions:
1. How much do you spend in a certain product category
Knowing how much each customer is willing to spend would give you an idea how much their budget is for specific items. It will allow you to review your pricing and see whether it is perceived to be too high or too low. 
2. What are the items you usually buy
What the customer usually buys indicate what popular items they are interested in, This may prompt you to add varieties in a certain product category. It can also help you develop new product lines that was previously not available in your store.
3. How is the service provided to you by the staff (especially important in retail)
a. Friendliness - tells you if you are choosing the right sales staff. Not only should they be smart enough to    handle daily tasks but they must also have the right attitude and demeanor
b. Product knowledge - do you have sufficient training that allows the sales personnel to be familiarized with your products?
c. Speed of service - are the processes you have in place efficient? You might have steps that can be eliminated and can improve service rendered. It can reveal if you are overburdening the staff with so much paperwork.
4. How aware are you about new products just introduced in the market. - are you choosing the correct platforms when introducing products? It happens often that a new product has potential but the management is not able to give it the correct promotional strategies that will allow it to thrive in the market. The product might be superior but people simple don't know about it.

The key thing to remember, as I mentioned earlier, is to design questions that are pertinent and actionable.

So now that you are done with an online survey, you must also do an offline one. This is especially true for products that are being used by the baby boomer generation who are often not keen on spending much time on the internet. To give this age group a chance to be heard, creating survey forms that they can manually answer with a good old pen or pencil is a good idea. If you have a store, simply ask the sales people to request customers who visit to spare a few minutes of their time to answer a few questions.

The best way to get them to do so is to give incentives such as providing free gifts or a discount on any purchase. The online survey can also include a voucher or discount coupon that they will automatically receive via email after completing the survey. The best thing about it is you can also harvest their email address since they would be required to input it to receive the "free coupons." This allows you a chance to invite them to subscribe to your newsletter. How about that for hitting two birds with one stone.

So the question remains, how many should be surveyed? Zoomerang.com comes up with a suggested survey sample size depending on the size of the customer base.

Size of Customer Base		Sample Size Needed (95% Confidence Level)
		+/-3%	+/-5%	+/-10%
2,000		696	323	92
3,000		788	341	94
5,000		880	357	95
10,000		965	370	96
20,000		1,014	370	96
50,000		1,045	382	96
100,000		1,058	383	96

Now, it might be a bit difficult to estimate the correct customer base. But one way is to look at your database or the number of subscribers to your newsletter. This can give you a rough idea how many customers are engaging your brand.

Once you have decided on the number of respondents, then you are ready to roll it out. Good luck!