Tips: Create effective and non-intrusive email surveys!

Your subscribers love it when you ask them for advice! We've been saying it for 15 years, marketing is no longer a one-way street. The consumer is increasingly empowered and appreciates it when you give them more.

Profile qualification: Don't be afraid to go for it!

You want to know if your leads are more interested in Citytrips, country vacations, long-distance air travel, ... but you don't know exactly how to capture this information in your database? Go for it! Ask!

Well, obviously, this is an exercise that must benefit your subscribers, otherwise there is no reason for them to help you. Here are two approaches you should try in parallel:

• Play on the community spirit Invite your subscribers to find out what other members of your email program prefer. Here, you simply offer them information. Example subject line: "50% of VoyageXtra customers prefer the mountains! How about you?"
• Try exclusivity and customize Push your subscribers to make a choice to benefit from an exclusive advantage adapted to their desires. Example of object: "Make a choice: Mountain, citytrip, countryside or end of the world, ... and enjoy!"

No need for long forms to capture preferences

Qualification techniques mainly use two techniques. The first is the survey via a form, often long and tedious. In this case, campaigns are created with the sole purpose of qualifying the subscriber over several steps with the hope of winning a prize via a contest. These actions are often not very effective. You risk addressing only a part of your audience, fond of games/contests. An audience that is often not the most qualitative. In this type of action, it is not rare that the answers are wrong, the Internet user selecting the options of the forms at random with the only aim of arriving as quickly as possible on the contest. Not really the best solution!

Another technique, more recent and much more interesting, is the use of behavioral data to qualify the target via scores. The more a user clicks on links related to mountain travel (versus other categories), the higher the score in that category. This allows to feel the natural interest of the subscriber without the need to deploy specific campaigns. This technique requires a good categorization of the links present in your newsletter.

And why not qualify with a single click?

The last solution is still very little used. Why not try qualifying directly via a click in your email?

Let's go through a simple example to try to illustrate the concept. Let's take our online travel agency that decides to set up a monthly survey among its subscribers (to try to make it a habit, to see that the subscribers wait for this moment).

As summer approaches, the TravelXtra agency would like to know which destinations are preferred by its members:

Email subject: Discover the favorite destinations of VoyageXtra members!

Message:

This summer, where will
VoyageXtra members ?

Before you find out, vote!

For me, this summer, it will probably be :

• A country in the Mediterranean
• Asia
• The Caribbean
• A Scandinavian country
• Australia or New Zealand
• A region of France
• Other

As soon as the subscriber clicks on one of the choices, it is recorded in the database of the tour operator who will be able to use it in its communication in the following days. On the landing page, be careful not to overwhelm the subscriber with promotional offers, just show them the results of the survey as promised. It is the feeling of community that should prevail, but do not hesitate, for example, to direct them to a travel guide dedicated to the chosen destination.