When you’re managing your online reputation, it’s also a good idea to have events (online and offline) to gather feedback and new market research. They should give you insights as to the state of your online (and offline) reputation, in the eyes of your customers.
An event survey can help you gather that data, but also forge a more positive reputation for you and your business.
Why have events?
Events can be online or offline, but it’s important to have them, and participate in the events run by others. Why? Because events are where people experience products and services, and talk about it with others (otherwise known as word of mouth marketing).
You want to get as close to that conversation as you possibly can, because it gives you opportunities to develop a positive image in the minds and hearts of your consumers and the public in general.
Types of events
Determining what types of events to participate in (or create) goes back to fundamental market research and consumer research. Think of the three C’s of marketing: customer, company, and competition.
Who are your customers or your audience? What types of events do they enjoy, or might they enjoy? What could you do at those events to grow a positive perception among that audience?
What is your company or personal brand all about? What is it capable of providing and being? What is the competition doing? Do you want to do something similar to the competition, or completely different?
Answering these questions will help you determine what types of events to participate in or create. Is your customer a car enthusiast who enjoys golf? Then perhaps you’ll want to have a presence at a large golf tournament, or create a golf-related contest or outing.
Is your customer an online gamer who loves to socialize online and spends most of his or her time on the ‘net? Then an online event built around a game is the type of event you might want to focus on.
What similar types of events or behaviors are common? Where’s the place they all tend to go (online or offline) that you might be able to build an event around?
Perhaps your customers spend time at food festivals, but a grocery event might have less competition. Or for online gamers, a contest to win an entire gaming system might work better than a gaming event, with less competition. The possibilities are endless, but you’ll want to pick some kind of event, and get started.
Executing and following up
Once you’ve determined your event and what your presence will be, it’s important to set goals for the event. Then create surveys to test how well you’ve achieved those goals.
One goal should always be to monitor your online reputation as well as your offline reputation. It’s a great idea to survey people both before an event and after, to see if there’s a change in your reputation. You’ll need good surveys to accomplish that; luckily, there are great companies who specialize in that.
Don’t reinvent the wheel
The beautiful thing about event marketing is that it’s been around since the beginning of events, and the intersection of events and marketing wisdom. So, as you might guess, event marketing surveys have been envisioned, created, implemented, improved, and published across thousands of publications and websites.
As a result, a few companies have evolved and made it their specialty to deploy, collect, and analyze event surveys.
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel here: the best designs and formats have already been tested and provided at a much lower cost than you could do yourself, and in a fraction of the time.
Once you’ve decided on your event survey objectives and built a following to deploy surveys to, you can easily implement the surveys with the help of a professional event survey provider.
