There may be numerous companies that may wish to advertise while still keeping a low budget. Whether one may agree or not, a company may not be able to survive doing worldly business without any marketing. One does need a way by which they may be able to display their existence to the people around them and maybe even in foreign countries as well. There is also a free marketing technique that commonly goes by the name of “recommendation” or “referral” meaning that an existing user can tell others about the benefits that a specific product may have over its similar rivals. But that existing user also initially needs a way to know about the company’s existence.
Marketing is vital for any company but not all companies have enough budgets to market using very expensive means like TV commercials and other similar media. Article marketing is a way by which a business can talk about their products and their advantages in an explanatory manner. It can have a number of advantages over short snippets that are written in advertisements. The reader can get better information about the products which can help their decision making possibly easier. The articles may not necessarily have the company’s name in them at various points rather the reference can be provided at the bottom of the article as is commonly seen directing the customer to the source if more information is needed.
In early times, companies used to submit articles in newspapers for free and in return asked for their name and contact information to be mentioned. For example, a company dealing in warm clothing can write an article about winter clothing, or the process of making wool. This was practically a free form of advertising, the company got exposure, the newspaper had matter to fill up and the consumer found the product he was looking for.
Moving onto modern times with internet ruling the world, the exercise just got a little more convenient. There are no manuscripts to be written, approved and printed. With a few taps on the keyboard, matter is written up in minutes, posted in seconds and available to consumers to browse through in no time at all. There can be different strategies appointed to attract people to view the article like email marketing to friends, customers and contacts who can then choose to make use of the information themselves or pass it on to someone who may need it and all for no cost at all.
To have good rate of response and to improve the validity of research, it is important that the questionnaires are well prepared and well constructed. The following points should be kept in mind to design and structure an effective questionnaire.
The questionnaire should be kept short
Complicated and long questionnaires greatly reduce chances of receiving a good response from the participants. Therefore they should stick to the very useful or relevant information needed and any extra questions related to secondary, supplementary or data that is unnecessary should be discarded.
The questionnaire should be carefully targeted
An effort must be made to find out the most appropriate people, because it is very much possible that entire purpose this exercise be defeated if the participants ignore the rest o the questions, if they fail to understand the initial questions answer the questionnaire. It is better to inform the target people by phone or email before sending the questionnaire.
The anonymity question of the participants should be addressed
If the questionnaire contains personal or sensitive questions, the respondents should be convinced that all answers will be kept confidential.
Incentive for answering
An incentive is an important component to motivate people to respond so some token gift should be offered to the respondents. If that is not possible than respondents should be provided with survey results.
Polite reminders
Polite reminders should be sent to the respondents so that they can answer the questionnaire. But it should be kept in mind those reminders do not irritate the respondents.
Language should be kept simple
Questions should be in an unambiguous yet simple language so that they are instantly understood. Jargons or abbreviations which may not be known to some of the target sample should be completely avoided.
Don’t make it too informal or formal
Use of “standard”, neutral grammar and vocabulary should be done while writing a questionnaire.
Questionnaire should be interesting
To grab the reader’s attention, the questionnaire should be interesting. The relevant questions will immediately seek to involve a respondent with the questionnaire, and respondents are more likely to finish the entire questionnaire.
Leading questions should be avoided
The questions which are leading or seeking to invoke a particular response should be avoided.
Using open-ended questions should be avoided
Personal questions that require a more sensitive and personal answers from the respondents should be avoided as answering such questions is tedious both for the respondents and the analyzers.
This website uses cookies that are necessary to its functioning and required to achieve the purposes illustrated in the privacy policy. By accepting this OR scrolling this page OR continuing to browse, you agree to our Privacy Policy