Improve Communication with Your Audience
Calling all editors, publishers, writers and freelance journalists. It’s time to breathe more life into your copy. Turn your articles into living pieces that spark measurable debate and that allows you to engage with your readers mind and soul - we’re talking revolution.
As it was in the beginning
Publishers have for many years relied on letters to get feedback from their readers and although email has opened up this method of communication it is still time consuming and difficult to process with only a fraction of the received correspondence ever being used.
As well as being an overhead for the publisher, to most people it is an unrewarding medium in terms of the amount of effort required and response received, just consider the number of letters that go unpublished and unread.
As it is now
The Internet has brought new channels of communication and created opportunities that allow us to challenge traditional methods. The Internet has matured, no longer the preserve of computer geeks but an everyday technology that has been embraced globally, by the young and old, allowing the traditional way things were done to be re-evaluated. Newspapers, trade journals, periodicals and ezines now have the opportunity to change the mental process.
Readers of any article often would like to comment, traditionally this has required them to feel strongly enough to write a letter, or now, with the convenience of the Internet, send an email or write a comment. Emails make communication easier but it still takes time to compose an email and time for the majority, is what they haven’t got.
Although of interest a letters page is at best a snapshot of views or if comments have been allowed an unmanaged and often never ending list of comments; they may be well crafted and well written but due to the free text form, collectively they are views that are notoriously difficult to measure.
As it should be
Now consider the advantages of linking articles to online surveys where as a publisher you will have the ability to obtain valuable readership feedback in a form that can be properly measured. Communicating with your readers is one thing but having a channel that allows your readers to effectively communicate with you is just as important.
Want a snapshot of opinion? Did they like what they read? Did the readership agree with what was said or do they have a different view?
Now it is easy
Traditional printed surveys would have taken considerable effort to design, publish and collate, a process that was too long winded and justifiable only for the niche and important topics.
However, using sites like www.surveygalaxy.com surveys and questionnaires can be created and published via the Internet by anyone who has a pulse. Professional looking surveys and questionnaires created in minutes that make the perfect compliment to articles that prompt opinion and debate.
The advantages over letters, e-mails and comments are that with online surveys all the feedback gathered is properly managed and easily measured with sites like Survey Galaxy providing you with real time polls and charts that you can either keep to yourself or share with your readers.
It’s not even one or the other now
By linking each article to an online survey it will not only extend the life of the article, as people have a channel to express their views, but it will involve your readers in the discussion and in a way where they know their opinion will be counted.
If you think they would rather send an email? - no problem - include the facility within the survey and get the best of both worlds.
It’s quick, low cost, and easy to do; it will empower and engage the reader, provide first class feedback and having established a communication channel you then have the opportunity to promote other related articles.
Try it for yourself and record your view of this article here:- Readership Feedback Survey
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This post was written by Perry Lowers on May 9, 2009




