Getting experiential marketing event staff set up in the field is relatively simple. There are a few steps you can take to ensure that your execution goes off without a hitch. The easiest way is also the most expensive. However, it helps to create an environment with the least number of obstacles between you and a successful data collection effort.
Advantage of surveying consumers with tablets
The easiest way to ensure that few obstacles stand between you and data collection is to ship iPads or other tablets to your experiential marketing event staff. Set those tablets to default to your survey.
This eliminates the hassle of dealing with paper surveys at the event. Experiential marketing event staff dealing with piles of paper surveys can appear unprofessional. It also tends to be less organized overall. Using an iPad has the fringe benefits of eliminating manual data entry and shipping surveys back and forth across the country.
It’s rare that materials are actually lost in transit, but the last thing you want to lose is hundreds of completed surveys.
Best practices for experiential marketing event staff to handle paper surveys
This requires shipping survey packets to your experiential marketing event staff. It is important that each packet needs to have all of the necessary materials to conduct the survey. Avoid having your experiential marketing event staff arriving at the venue and, despite having the surveys, not having the tools to complete the surveys.
Include pens, clipboard, post-paid return envelopes and anything else the team will need . Clipboards and pens ensure the surveys can be completed regardless of the environment. The post=paid, return envelopes allow experiential marketing event staff to ship the results to you at a drop-off location even after normal business hours.
If you are having paper surveys collected, consider not shipping them. While having the paper surveys in hand can prove useful from an organizational perspective, it is cheaper if you scan the form and sent it to experiential marketing event staff via email.
You save on the cost of shipping, results reach you instantly, and you can quickly incorporate those results directly into your raw data. Organizing data online is also more effective. Create a folder for a market, then a sub-folder for each week.
Conclusion
I strongly suggest using an iPad/tablet for data collection, but, should using paper surveys be necessary, just be sure to take proper precautions.
By doing as much of the legwork yourself as possible, you can reduce or remove the possibility of unforeseen obstacles inhibiting your data collection.
Photo Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/smemon/