Surveying just one brand at events is easy, but you’ll frequently want to sample multiple brands, or different versions of the same brand in your event marketing program, However, multiple brands can complicate things significantly.
You’ll want to make sure you are asking people only about a brand with which they’ve had experience, so it is important to have a qualifier that determines this. You can either make this something the surveyor passively enters when they start the survey, or make it a question actively asked of the interviewee.
Both of these options have upsides and downsides. The interviewer entering the response has to be aware of what the person has sampled. This isn’t usually a problem at smaller event marketing events. It can be an issue at larger ones, where multiple team members are distributing different samples.
Accurate Identification
The primary issue when asking a consumer what they sampled is ensuring that they answer correctly. When given response options, they may select an incorrect one. When not given response options, they may not know what it was they sampled. Nonetheless, the latter is my preferred method. The survey is meaningless if the consumer can’t identify what it is they had. And, they won’t be able to choose the product again in the future. As such, I generally recommend leaving it up to the consumer to state what they sampled. If they are unable to, simply terminate the interview.
Appropriate Feedback
Next, you’ll then want to get feedback on everything the consumer sampled. Advanced survey software can ensure that they are asked only about what they sampled. This is not possible with paper surveys or simplistic online software. Using those one needs to be alert when reading the brand-based questions to not ask someone about a product they haven’t sampled.
Adequate Data
Finally, you must sure you get sufficient responses for each of your brands. Simply keeping track of how many surveys you have collected doesn’t ensure you’ll have what you need for each brand. We recommend that you diversify your surveys as much as possible early in the process in order to hit your totals. From there, you can focus on brands as they reflect what is happening at the event.