How do polls and surveys enhance brand communications?

Don’t we often receive random questionnaires through various channels like email and personal messaging platforms like FB Messenger of What’s App seeking some of our time to give inputs on something related to a product, service offered by a brand?  From specialist research companies’ questionnaires to the ever prevalent Google forms, all are being used effectively by the brand marketers to connect with their stakeholders across categories for identifying and understanding gaps in their offerings, communication, marketing, etc.

With millions of brands world over offering similar products and services, have you ever wondered what would be the differential factor for a consumer to choose one brand over the other? How do you monitor the change in perception about a brand, when a new brand comes into the market offering a similar type of product or service? And how’d you have known about what’s going on in the minds of your consumers when your brand has just hit a crisis and is in the process of coming out of it?

And how about knowing your customers well, even before you want to launch an offering for them? How will they like the products, how will they use them, what are their current patterns, likes, choices, and preferences for similar products or services? Do they already have a strong bias or inclination to some other brand? Are they willing to switch their loyalty, even for the sake of trial experience? How would you know it as a brand communicator?

Data is something that becomes the most important element for any such brand communication exercise. And, if you have the availability of accurate data, your communications campaign is likely to hit the right note as far as the end results are concerned. While it is established that the brands need to reach out to seek insights, it is also well accepted that the consumers also want to hear from the brands regularly. Regular two-way communication is something that always forms great bonds between the brands and their audiences.

Often brands undertake polls and surveys, which are used to collect the feedback, reviews, and testimonials from their happy customers, and then that information and data helps in addressing potential customers for a possible acquisition of new customers. With the connected world of today, it is possible to go all over the world and have a much larger sample of the audience participating in the polls as compared to the traditional researches. These polls can collect responses and facilitate a brand in improving customer experiences.

Brands can benefit in more than many ways using such surveys and polls as they can address business-critical issues like customer happiness, customer loyalty, behaviour, perception, and attitudes, etc., towards the brands. Buying decision triggers, design, price points, and purchasing patterns can all be well-understood even before going out there in the market. Building loyalty by getting proper feedback, leading to improvement of customer experience, understanding the evolving shopping behaviour and evaluate the effectiveness of the brand communication is all one depends upon polls and the data gathered from them.

Even in case of internal communications various issues like employee engagement, job satisfaction, staff morale, and retention etc., can be effectively addressed by way of such polls and surveys. And according to the data and insights received, appropriate strategies can be developed to benefit the organisation and its branding.

Covid19, in the current times, has drastically impacted consumer behaviour as the way we live, work and play, which has completely changed with the requirements of the times. Brands are expected to see strong deviations in their customer behaviour, buying preferences, purchasing patterns, brand loyalties, and reception to the communication messages by the audience, etc., in the coming days. Having said this, the role of polls assumes tremendous significance in the current context as the insights received from such surveys and polls will shape up the brand communications for organisations.

The views and opinions published here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher.

Praveen Nagda

Praveen Nagda is the CEO of Peregrine Public Relations, a full-service corporate communications and public relations consultancy firm delivering a pan-India reach to its clients. He also heads White Coffee, an independent events & celebrity engagement company.

Praveen has been closely associated with many national and international events related to cinema for children, art and culture. He has a well-rounded experience that cuts across all key sectors of PR & Corporate Communications.

He started his career with URJA Communications, an advertising agency specialising in technology brands, where he was instrumental in developing the PR division. Post this, he had a stint with Horizons Porter Novelli, a global public relations consultancy. Thereafter, he was heading the IT & Telecom division at Clea PR, a leading Indian public relations and communications company followed by a fairly long stint with Omnicom Group agencies viz. TBWA\India and Brodeur India.