So, you’ve built a good base of loyalty club followers. Now what?

Just by having a loyalty club, you’re increasing revenue by retaining current customers, but how can you take that a step further and make it work even harder for you? You can conduct a survey for your food brand’s loyalty club.

Think of the loyalty club as your direct line to your customers. These are people who know and trust your brand. Your loyalty club already provides you with valuable customer data through the information collected at sign-up, but after you’ve sent out a few emails to your loyalty club and your members have come to know what to expect from your brand, it is time to start listening to what they have to say. There are a few ways to “listen”

First, through data.

If you’ve built your list correctly and have asked for demographics, which should show you the types of people who are most likely to be loyal to your brand, it can help your marketing team target alike people. Are most of your customers from a specific geographical location, a specific age range or gender? All of this should be helpful information, but here is the cool thing. You now have access to dive even deeper and ask them for even more information. Just be sure you do it in a non-invasive way.

Next, knowing who, and how, to ask.

Basic surveying tips:

Below we will investigate what types of questions your survey should focus on, based on the goal of your survey, but first here are some general surveying tips to keep in mind:

1. Start off by telling your customers WHY they are being asked to take a survey. Folks are a lot more likely to give their information if they know what the information is being used for.
2. Offer an incentive. “As a thank you for completing the survey you will receive [ENTER COUPON, REWARDS POINTS, ETC]
3. Tell them what to expect. “This survey is 10 multiple-choice questions and should take less than 5 minutes to complete” for example.
4. Make it short and sweet. Aim for 10 or fewer questions and less than 5 minutes.
5. Make it easy for both you and them. Unless it is truly necessary, stay away from open-ended questions. Multiple Choice questions and rating scale questions are not only easier and faster for the person filling out the survey, but it is much easier for you to organize that type of information later.
6. File your information. Save customer answers to their profile so that you can use this information later if you need to target customers with these specific preferences or demographics.

Determine who to survey within your loyalty club:

Use the basic information you’ve already collected to narrow down the best group to survey.

1. Give before you receive. Give your members time to reap the benefits of your loyalty club before asking them for additional information. You don’t want to turn them away by asking them to fill out a survey too quickly. They joined the loyalty club for their benefit, not yours. Be sure that the group of customers you’re sending the survey to have already received a few emails and are familiar with your typical content first.
2. Survey only those engaged. If you use a platform like Mailchimp or similar, you should be able to select a segment of your list that is most engaged. This group is the most likely to complete your survey.
3. Survey only those who are relevant to the survey. If your survey is only relevant to people of a certain age range or geographic location, filter out anyone who does not fit those demographics.

Then, asking the right questions.

What type of survey should you conduct for your brand’s loyalty club?

Your survey should have an overall focus, a goal question you need answered. This goal will help determine your line of questioning.  What are you trying to learn? Here are a few examples of reasons to conduct a loyalty club survey, and example questions you might include.

• Goal: Where should we focus our marketing efforts?
  • Preferred way to buy groceries: Instore or Online
  • Preferred store (choose from a list of stores currently carrying your product)
  • What is most important to you when purchasing a food product? (rank order of importance: price, health, look of packaging, brand recognition, brand values)
• Goal: What messaging is most important?
  • What values are important to you when considering a food brand product? (rank order of importance)
  • What message do you look for on a food package? (rank order of importance: low cal, low carb, Non- GMO, Organic, etc)
• Goal: Should we expand with an additional product line?
  • If our brand were to release a new product line, which would you be most excited about/most likely to buy? (multiple choice)
  • How often do you purchase [INSERT PRODUCT HERE]?
  • If our brand carried [INSERT PRODUCT HERE], how likely are you to purchase?
• Goal: How can we improve our current product?
  • Do you ever purchase a competitor’s product?
  • Which competitor’s product do you buy?
  • Why do you purchase a competitor’s product? (multiple choice: price, quality, portion size, availability)
  • Open-ended question

You can also include more demographic questions such as:

• Family size
• Who is the primary shopper in your family?
• Family income level

Just remember to try to limit your survey to 10 or fewer questions, if possible, to maximize your survey completion rate.

If you have any questions about how to conduct a survey for your food brand’s loyalty club, please reach out to the NewPoint team. If you are interested in more food brand marketing topics, please visit our Food for Thought page or check out NewPoint’s Patrick Nycz’s book: Moving Your Brand Up the Food Chain.