“Surveys” do more than just gather information; they also contribute significantly to increasing sales, improving customer satisfaction, and fostering brand loyalty. However, many companies likely struggle with implementing effective strategies for collecting and utilizing survey data.
UGC (User-Generated Content) tools, which have been gaining attention recently, offer features that can effectively assist you in collecting and utilizing survey data.
In this article, we’ll explain the benefits of using UGC tools for survey collection and provide specific examples of how to utilize them.
1. What Is the Significance of Surveys?
—The Purpose of Surveys
The primary purpose of conducting surveys is to gather information that serves as the foundation for the following marketing activities:
✔︎ Identifying
needs through market research ✔︎ Improving
customer satisfaction ✔︎ Gathering feedback to improve products and services
—Authentic Customer Voices Generate New Selling Points
Gathering information through surveys is essential for understanding the “value customers need right now.” Analyzing survey results provides insights that directly lead to product and service improvements, enabling the development of strategies that drive sales growth.
—Integrated survey collection using UGC tools
UGC tools are not just for collecting and displaying reviews. Depending on the tool, you can embed surveys into review request emails and leverage them for your marketing initiatives.
By collecting surveys at the same time as reviews, you can naturally gather feedback from customers.
Furthermore, by displaying survey results by category, you can provide other customers with data to help them compare and evaluate products when making purchasing decisions.
Click here for more details on UGC tools
2. Utilizing Surveys for Product Development and Service Improvement
—Clarifying and Sharing Customer Needs
When conducting surveys, isn’t the primary goal for many companies to gain insight into customers’ candid opinions and needs regarding their products and services?
By sharing the feedback collected through surveys within the company and making improvements based on it, you can not only enhance the quality of your products and services but also improve customer satisfaction.
— Boosting Customer Loyalty
After implementing product or service improvements, customers who feel that “their opinions were taken into account” in the updated offerings are more likely to develop a deeper attachment to the brand. As a result, customer loyalty increases, leading to higher repeat purchase rates and an expanded base of brand advocates.
—Key Points for Effective Survey Design
To carry out product and service improvements more efficiently and effectively, it is essential to pay particular attention to the content of the survey. Careful consideration is required in various areas, such as the survey’s purpose, target audience, timing, and administration method, as well as the design of the question formats.
For example, when determining the question formats, it is important to choose options that make it easy for respondents to answer—such as multiple-choice questions that can be answered quickly without taking up too much time, or open-ended questions to identify more specific needs—ensuring that respondents can answer comfortably while the company obtains the information it seeks.
3. Improving Targeting Accuracy
In marketing, the key to improving targeting accuracy lies in the repeated process of hypothesis testing and refinement.
—Utilizing it to Redefine Personas (*1)
Targeting is an essential process that cannot be overlooked when implementing marketing initiatives. By using surveys to investigate whether the target audience aligns with the initial hypothesis, it becomes possible to conduct an analysis.
By analyzing the age group, gender, and purchasing motivations of customers who responded to the survey by category, you can verify whether there are any “discrepancies” with the conventional target profile. If a “discrepancy” arises in the hypothesis, you should review it and develop more precise targeting strategies.
*1 Here, the term is used in the marketing context to refer to a “fictional customer profile that uses a product or service.”
—Implementation of Effective Marketing Strategies
Once the target audience is clearly defined, you can implement marketing strategies—such as adjusting advertising approaches and sales promotion channels to focus on those with actual demand—thereby maximizing advertising effectiveness.
4. Strengthening Advertising Initiatives
—Utilizing Persona-Based Retargeting
It is important to launch targeted advertising campaigns aimed at the personas who responded most frequently to surveys, while also considering retargeting ads and campaigns.
Since customer segments with a high number of survey responses and review submissions are likely to have a greater interest in the brand compared to other customers, you can retarget them with ads featuring recommended products tailored specifically to this group.
Additionally, distributing discount coupons exclusively to this customer segment can help increase purchase rates and repeat business.
[Key Points for Retargeting]
✔︎ Customized product recommendations
✔︎ Exclusive offers and coupon distribution
—Enhance ad messaging with insights from surveys
The key here is to craft your messaging carefully. By referencing phrases that appeared frequently in survey responses or including concise explanations of the benefits of using the product or service, you can significantly increase the effectiveness of your message.
[Key Points for Strengthening Your Message]
✔︎ Incorporate frequently mentioned keywords into your ad copy ✔︎ Concisely express the benefits of using your
product or service
5. Reducing Return Costs
—Reducing Returns by Alleviating Pre-Purchase Anxiety
By incorporating the information provided in survey responses into your UGC tool as reviews, customers can see real-world experiences and evaluations from other customers before making a purchase.
Since customers can learn about the actual user experience before purchasing, the “discrepancy” they feel upon receiving the product is minimized, which in turn reduces the number of returns.
For brands, this reduces return costs; for customers, it minimizes disappointing shopping experiences, leading to improved customer satisfaction and, in turn, greater trust in the brand.
—Example of Survey Data Collection in the Apparel Industry
✔︎ Age ✔︎ Fit ✔︎
Gender ✔︎ Warmth
✔︎ Height ✔︎ Usual Size
✔︎ Body Type ✔︎ Size
Purchased ✔︎ Thickness ✔︎ Occasions of Use
In the apparel industry, creating categories such as fit, usual size, and height makes it easier for customers to reference opinions from people with similar attributes, thereby reducing the workload associated with returns caused by incorrect sizing or discrepancies between the product and the customer’s expectations.
Click here for survey examples from the apparel industry
—Example of survey data collection in the food industry
✔︎Age Group ✔︎Ease of
Drinking ✔︎Gender ✔︎Ease
of Eating✔︎Frequency of Purchase ✔︎Satisfaction✔︎Likes
and Dislikes ✔︎Smell ✔︎Purpose
of Purchase ✔︎Packaging✔︎Recommendation
Level
In the food industry, creating categories such as packaging—which is a key hygiene concern—and purchase purposes (e.g., gifts) makes it easier to visualize actual usage scenarios and helps alleviate concerns among new customers.
Click here for survey examples from the food industry
—Example of Survey Data Collection in the Beauty Industry
✔︎Age Group ✔︎Skin
Concerns ✔︎Gender ✔︎Duration
of Use ✔︎Skin Type ✔︎Satisfaction
✔︎Recommendation Level ✔︎Reason
for Trying the Product ✔︎Perceived Effectiveness ✔︎Usage Scenarios
In the beauty industry, creating categories such as skin type and skin concerns makes it possible to display reviews and survey results from the customer’s perspective, making it easier for customers to choose products based on their specific skin concerns.
Click here for survey examples from the beauty industry
Summary: Turning Surveys into Results
In this article, we’ve introduced key strategies—including the use of UGC tools—for turning survey data into increased sales.
Surveys are not merely a means of data collection; they are a vital tool for gaining insights that determine the success or failure of your marketing efforts.
The UGC tool “U-KOMI” allows you to collect custom questions—or surveys—at the same time as reviews, thereby improving response rates and streamlining data utilization. Make effective use of surveys to drive sales growth in various areas, such as product improvement, advertising optimization, and reducing returns.
U-KOMI is a UGC (User-Generated Content) tool designed to collect and utilize customer feedback. By using this tool, you can not only display reviews attractively on your e-commerce site and leverage Instagram content to improve conversion rates (CVR), but also utilize reviews—a valuable, dynamic information asset—in real time through its built-in features.
Furthermore, U-KOMI features an AI function called U-KOMI AI. U-KOMI AI is a suite of smart AI functions that performs sentiment analysis, keyword extraction, AI score calculation, and automated replies for reviews. From
customer support to service and product improvements, it takes your marketing to the next level.
Click here for more details on U-KOMI AI
Why not consider implementing survey initiatives using UGC tools?
View a list of UGC use cases here: https://u-komi.com/jirei
Download the materials here: https://u-komi.com/
Click here to contact U-KOMI: https://u-komi.com/contact/
