Last week I had the privilege of attending Loral’s Big Table, a year long coaching program for people serious about creating wealth. You can read about that experience in my article Flying First Class.

One of my aha moments during that 2+ day workshop/mastermind/intensive was to create a survey about Women and Websites.  As you can see from the Graphic, it has been named Women and Website Content. But it is more (and less) than that. It is really asking women very basic questions such as 1) do you have a website 2)are you happy with your website 3) who designed your website 4) what were some of the challenges putting it together… and so forth.

There are a total of 8 questions – 7 multiple choice and one essay.  Everyone who takes the survey will receive a copy of my Special Report: Words That Sell.  This report helps readers with their copywriting, their headlines, their calls to action and more.  If you are interested in taking the survey go here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KPYSGWS

So just how can a survey increase your influence?  Here are Three ways:

Surveys Engage People. People love to talk. About themselves. We love to share our opinions on things that matter to us. And when someone cares enough to ask we become more connected with the person who did the asking. You become more engaged with the respondents and they with you.

When You Share the Details People Notice. In 2007 I did a survey about Women and the State of Business. We had 545 respondents to the online survey. It was impressive. And the survey was much more complex.  The questions got deep into what women did in their careers, how long they were in their present position/career/business, personal demographic information and much more. This survey put Women in Ecommerce on the map. We shared the results on our website, wrote articles and press releases about the results and posted/submitted them to hundreds of websites and got valuable links back to the survey, the results and increased our membership by more than 1000 women. This survey definitely increased our influence.

You Increase your Credibility in the Marketplace. The Women and the State of Business was not the first survey I/my team had created and disseminated. Our first ever experience with surveys was the “Get Out of the Doghouse” Survey. We created that to find out if more men or more women were in the doghouse, whether they married or single, young or older, and so forth. We interviewed more than 1000 people and the results were amazing.  Our city noticed, our county noticed, the media noticed and our industry noticed.  I became known as an expert in the floral industry.  You can read about it in my article “And the Survey Said.”  There are tips to ensure a successful outcome for your survey and the story is pretty inspiring, I might add.

Both of these surveys increase our website traffic, added to our database and ultimately our bottom line.

So why am I doing the Women and Web Content Survey?  In addition to the reasons mentioned above, It will help me offer services my clients need. By analyzing the survey results I can learn how my company and I can help women, if women need help with their websites/content and what type of challenges they have had in the development of their websites in the first place. And it will provide valuable information for my next book. Its research. While the answers will help my business, they may also help other marketers who work predominantly with women.  And who knows, it just might get some media attention too! Now wouldn’t that be sweet?

If you are a woman reading this, please do take the survey!  You can find it here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KPYSGWS. By the way the survey takes less than 2 minutes to complete.

Thank you!

Heidi

Ps. We used SurveyMonkey to create our last survey. It is a free online survey tool that works well for simple surveys.  If you need to create a more complex survey with lots of respondents, check out Question Pro and Zoomerang.

Heidi Richards Mooney is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of WE Magazine for Women, a WordPress Web Designer, the author of a dozen books and a social media consultant and trainer. Heidi has interviewed hundreds of experts on Social Media Around the World. In 2003 Heidi was named one of 50 women shaping the Internet by the International Virtual Women’s Chamber of Commerce. In 2009 she was named a Twitter Woman to Follow by Only2Clicks.com. She works with solopreneurs, professionals and small businesses in ecommerce, direct sales and retail. Follow Heidi on Google Plus