Not Your Grandmother's Concept Testing

You want to spend the time to ask for feedback from your customers, and not just to pay perfunctory lip service to their value. You only have to look as far as the Netflix, Qwikster fiasco to understand the potentially devastating consequences of ignoring your customers’ wants, needs, and opinions.

Online surveys are a great way to reach out to your customers, whether you’re soliciting feedback, testing an idea, or asking about their satisfaction. Smart marketers take it a step further by concept testing, or evaluating consumer response to a product, brand, or idea before it’s been introduced to the market. Concept testing provides a quick and easy way to improve your product, identify potential problems or flaws, and make sure your image or brand is properly targeted.

We allow you to upload an image of any width and height, up to 250k in file size, into your online survey, so you can include pictures for your customers to compare and evaluate. Using images in online surveys is a great way to concept test, and you can do it to trouble shoot for all kinds of issues. Here are three:

Logo testing: We all know how the importance of having a logo which is memorable and well aligned with your brand. Still trying to choose the right one to represent yourself? Once you’ve created a logo and put it out into the world in association with your brand, it can be next to impossible to change it and re-brand yourself. That’s why it’s important to launch a logo concept survey before you commit to a logo. Show your survey takers the various logo options, and ask them what emotions and reactions the logo conveys to them. Do the logos you’ve chosen reflect your company’s mission and values? Find out before you select a logo, not after.

Ad/cover feedback: Print advertising will set you back a pretty penny, so you want to make sure it’s well spent. Create a survey with the images of the ads you’d like to use, and test them on different audiences. Find out what your ad says to them. Did they remember your product or brand after looking at the ad? What adjectives would they associate with it? How does the ad make them feel? The more feedback you can get about your ad from your survey, the more likely it is that the ad will accomplish your goal.

Magazine cover feedback: Similar to print ad testing, inserting images in your online survey is a great way to make sure your cover is engaging and effective. Who is more interesting (and therefore more able to drive sales) to your readers, Lady Gaga or George Clooney? Guessing wrong can take a serious toll on your profit margin, so test your cover image, headlines, and main story ideas before committing to one.

A concept survey is the fastest, easiest way to make sure the image you’re using is the right one, whether it’s for your logo, ad, graphic, or cover. Don’t waste time and money on images that don’t say what you want them to. Send a concept survey for concept testing 2.0. All the smart marketers are doing it.