Survey Shocker
When was the last time you surveyed your audience?
I’m not going to labor the point here as I’ve covered it at other times, but surveys are vital to making sure you provide exactly what your audience is looking for.
For example, since I was specifically looking for feedback of what to create in a coaching program, I will use the information provided to me in the survey I did this past week. I’ll combine that information with the personal knowledge I have working directly with clients. I’ll also look back at how products and services sold.
In other words, I don’t rely just on the survey, but it becomes a part of the decision making process along with live interviews of clients (the ones who’ve been in my coaching) and previous sales (real results). Many times the open ended questions of a survey can even give you the frustrations your market is experiencing…along with the exact wording to write in response to it at times.
I want to give a BIG THANK YOU to everyone who participated in my survey over the past week. You did an excellent job and provided a lot of useful information to me. I’ll include some portions below, while I keep a few details for myself at this time (I will be listening to the answers and don’t want to reveal too much about the service I’ll create out of it yet).
Some participants provided VERY DETAILED answers of what they’re most looking for and the experiences they’ve add in other coaching programs/workshops. THANK YOU. I appreciate it.
So what’s the shocker in the survey?
For me, it was the answer to the question, “What is your favorite type of training product?”
Here are the response percentages:
Online Video – 33.1%
eBook – 15.1%
Print Book – 12.2%
Membership Site – 11.5%
Audio – 10.8%
DVD – 9.4%
Live Workshop – 5.0%
Teleconference – 2.9%
For my audience, NOTICE how much more popular online video is compared to all the other options. It’s twice as popular as eBook, and more than 3 times as popular as DVDs. I expected online video to win, but not to win by this much. And I didn’t expect the teleconferences to be this low on the response either.
If you add eBooks and physical books together you get close to the popularity of online video. But if we did that we should also add DVDs in with online video. Pushing the video format way ahead again.
I’ve often talked about how some people like written material, others audio, others video, and still others the live component. With my audience they like video best. Second is written material. Audio is 3rd down the list. Last are the live events.
I need to combine the above statements along with the answers to “What type of contact would you be most interested in for a coaching program?”
Multiple selections were allowed so the numbers don’t add up to 100% here.
The winner here…”PDF Lessons with Assignments” received 63.8% of the vote. Second place was very close with 51.1% as prerecorded video training. Live webinars were 34% so prerecorded was preferred but you can see just how popular video was here again.
Email support was much more popular than any type of one-on-one phone coaching. In fact, group teleconferences were preferred to one-on-one phone coaching. Good news for me as phone coaching is the most time intensive and it was not what most people were looking for.
Least popular was a one-on-one full day meeting in person, but it surprised me again that it came in at 11.3%. This would be a higher ticket type of service and I can see that more than 10% of my audience is actually interested in it (and I’ve never offered anything like this before).
Note: Here is a point to mention with surveys. It would be easy to misinterpret this answer and say “People aren’t interested in this.” It was the least popular, but OF COURSE it is less popular. Immediately you know it is going to cost more than the other formats. And with 11.3% possibly interested in it, that is something that could be included from time to time as a higher ticket service. If everyone voted this most popular, there is no way I’d be willing to do this service with that many clients, but if there is a core element who wants it…it becomes a possibility.
Another surprise occurred for me in the “coaching subjects” section. I thought “list building” would be the winner, but it came in 2nd place. The winner was going from small profits to 6 or 7 figures. Obviously for MY AUDIENCE, many of them have made a few sales…and want to go to a higher income level.
Last place was another surprise because I was actually considering it as a possibility for a coaching program. “Earning your First Profits as an Affiliate” was dead last here. While a few were interested in getting started in affiliate marketing, it had the least popularity on the survey. This saved me from making a possible mistake in going that direction.
Open Ended Questions
Often the open ended questions are the ones which reveal the real wants and frustrations in the market.
Of course I’m not going to list all the responses here. One of the core answers that come up constantly was about the fact there is too much information overload online. Close to 70% of the participants mentioned either information overload, too many product launches, focus, or not knowing what to do each day.
Many respondents talked about how complicated it was to find a good market for them to work in. This means that getting started and choosing the right market is a major sticking point for beginners.
In the question on other coaching programs, many people gave me highly detailed information even talking about specific programs they had been a member of. Let me show you an example of one that DOESN’T talk about someone else’s program (although it does praise one of my products).
“Workshops are great on the moment but it’s quite difficult to act upon it. I think One on one coaching is the best and that’s what I need to take off. The best experience I’ve had on-line learning was learning graphic design through pdf lessons and video then doing the assignments on time. I was not allowed to continue without doing the assignments. Then I had my assignments checked by a professional. It gave me confidence and finished my course on time. Most marketing type of e-learning leave people alone. Most people never practice what they learn. Getting feedback from an experienced marketer would help increasing confidence by achieving success through small steps. Thanks for the opportunity to ask for my opinion in this survey. I bought TRUTH-PRINTS recently and I can say that it’s the first time I listen to an audio marketing product many times !! Thanks for providing authenticity and value.”
This response was chosen because you can very specific suggestions were given about a program they liked. And of course they praised http://www.thetruthprints.com!
As I said I had many responses that were quite detailed like this. I just didn’t want to publicly show any of the ones that mentioned someone else’s coaching program/workshop by name (many did which of course helps me as well because I can understand where their response is coming from).
I have great customers…and they’re willing to jump in and provide information when I ask for help. Thank you again.
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11 Responses to “Survey Shocker”
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Terry, thank *you* for sharing the survey results so promptly and generously. Your valuable and detailed information helps subscribers like me in our marketing research too.
But while videos seem to be such a resounding overall winner, please don’t forget the subscribers in vast areas of Canada and Australia who actually have *no access* to high speed internet because of geographical constraints.
To us, .PDF lessons and assignments sound particularly appealing.
Thanks for revealing some of the results of the survey, Terry. Always interesting to see what people want. In fact, when I did a survey a month or two ago, I was surprised by some of the responses as well. I don’t think I’ve ever done a survey where I wasn’t surprised.
Ryan
Terry, thanks for sharing the data you collected.
At the top you said, “surveys are vital to making sure you provide exactly what your audience is looking for”. This premise is an excellent one for the sales person of course.
Here’s another premise for teachers. “If the things we want to hear would get us where we want to go, we’d already be there.”
One theory is that what holds most of us back from reaching the next level is not lack of information, but an unwillingness to encounter those things that we personally don’t want to hear.
We might observe that “exactly what our audience is looking for” and “the things we don’t want to hear” are actually quite different things.
A good salesman brings us what we DO want to hear, while a good teacher brings us what we DON’T want to hear.
Here’s a question that most net business teachers don’t want to hear.
Do you have any teacher training or credentials? Have you spent years studying the mountain of experience and wisdom that has been accumulated over centuries by the teaching profession?
Few do, or will, so it’s not a question that makes a student popular. To ask that question is to be a really lousy salesperson….
… but perhaps a good teacher.
Pretty hard to do both at once, imho.
Hi Terry,
I’ve been watching with great interest your “Blogging for Fun and Profit” dvd. I am curious how many people participated in this survey. It is very revealing about the online video training being on top. We’ve seen this in low turnouts at our live workshops lately. This has inspired us to turn to video training for our clients more now.
Thank you for this valuable survey info. A word of caution, though.
More years ago than I care to admit, I read of a customer survey concerning washing machine design. Those responding said they preferred simple dashboard controls. The manufacturer obliged. What customers bought, however, were washing machines with fancy, complicated dashboard controls — ones with bells and whistles. The manufacturer lost big time.
This is not to say that your responders were unwilling to admit the truth, nor that the results are inaccurate. Only that sometimes perception is at variance with reality.
The proof will be in the pudding.
Marya: I don’t plan to go “video only” because I like to at least have a PDF of notes to go along with them. That is the one weakness of video only.
Ryan: No point in doing surveys if “we know it all.” Probably the biggest one here is how important the online videos are and the fact that my audience overall is not as interested in the “affiliate side” as many others are.
Phil: I often say we need to sell what people want…and then also include what they need. You’ll never get people to buy what they need. But you can sneak it in with what they wanted to purchase. On teacher credentials, I have none. My own experiences with professional teachers in my past was never very good – remember I am a college dropout. I do have a couple of clients who were trained teachers in their past jobs, but that fact doesn’t really help in their internet business (except when they’re selling something related to the teaching profession).
D.J. Frost: I’ve heard from many people that conferences and workshops have had lower attendance over the past year. Many of them are turning more to online training to make up for this.
Peter: I agree. That’s why you should always go deeper than just a survey. It should be backed up with live interviews so you can dig to underlying emotions (I get that from direct contact with current clients) and real sales experience. It isn’t true until it is proven with people’s wallets. Surveys are just one element of the overall whole.
Terry,
Good point, make a “what they want” and “what they don’t want” sandwich. I’ve seen you do that, and that’s perhaps why I posted here, a sense that you would understand.
Teacher training is not related to internet business, unless…
…one’s internet business involves communicating, leading, teaching, and building trust.
Most of us are coaches and teachers to our audiences in some sense, even if we don’t call it that, or charge for that service specifically.
I think it’s interesting to observe that there is an established centuries old profession whose sole focus has long been that teaching process, independent of the subject matter. Generations of smart people have spent their entire careers studying it in detail.
It’s further interesting that in every net business discussion I’ve read, this ancient discipline is almost always dismissed as irrelevant, by a baby faced communication/teaching/selling industry only a dozen years old.
I sense an opportunity there for somebody…
Hi Terry
Once again a great article and the results do not surprise me.
I find some recent courses I have used have the eBook and the Video to back up the book. This is invaluable.
When you read the book, it is nice to be able to run the video and “look over the shoulder” of the presenter to show exactly what he is doing.
Unfortunatly my Adobe Flash was lost on my PC and when I tried to download it, I had a problem and because of registery problems have to download SubinACL to get it up and running.I am just working on that problem at present.
I cannot believe how much I missed having Flash for video presentations and even news broadcasts.
Thanks again for your great articles.
Kind regards
Tom
Thank you for the survey results.
One thing that we all knew was “information overload”…
Problems with coaching in this market, or lack of solid coaching is well known too. I’ve been in two coaching programs (not yours Terry!) in the internet business market; so far both were very disappointing. The first was a couple of years ago and I paid for it monthly and finally stopped after being insulted over and over with no instruction or valid guidance given. The other I paid for a year up front because the name was well known and I trusted him… I have not had any communication from him in 3 months… and it was spotty before that. Very discouraging to say the least. These types of problems make it hard for people to get the help they need.
The fact is Terry, I’m not even IN your coaching program and you’ve answered more emails from me (and faster too) than the person who is supposed to be my coach!
I’m a little perplexed by the video preference number. I’ve posted some free videos on my blog that have really good content. Not the hyped up guru videos I get emails about everyday, but good content on building and growing a business – I’m seeing very low numbers for viewings. Maybe it’s because they’re not the “how I made $50,000 in one hour with my first product launch”, but real world stuff…
Thanks again for all your help!
Fred
Many SEO companies claim that the SEO process can generate profitable traffic. I do not agree to this statement because I think that the issue is far more comprehensive and needs expertise from other professionals, persons who known more than merely the IT business
Survey is a very effective means to communicate with other people. More than that, its a great way for others to be aware of people comments or ideas about a particular stuff. At least from there, others can do necessary improvement on their part.