I love AI.
But the past few months I’ve noticed something that’s hard to admit.
AI makes it dangerously easy to skip the difficult learning phase and jump straight into implementation.
The result is everyone shipping half-assed AI marketing slop at breakneck speeds.
Every brand now sounds the same because they’re using the same tools and same processes.
Have Claude or ChatGPT do “deep dive research” on your market.
Pump out ad and email copy.
Complain online that Meta and Gmail’s algorithms are making your marketing performance tank
The problem isn’t the distribution channel.
It’s that the average person is highly suspicious that EVERYTHING they see online is AI.
If your marketing has obvious AI patterns, people are ignoring you.
So this week we’re going back to some old school marketing fundamentals.
Understanding your market with surveys.
Why Surveys Matter
The “secret” to good marketing comes down to two simple principles
Knowing your product
Knowing your market
That’s it.
It’s knowing WHAT your product does and WHY people buy it.
The best way to get these answers is to simply ask people questions at critical moments of their customer journey.
Here’s how we do that.
The Four Survey’s All Brands Need Live.
1. Prospects - Why didn’t you buy?
Send this 30-45 days after someone joins your email list but did not buy. And ask two questions
Why didn’t you buy?
What are you going to buy instead?
The goal is to learn what objections or questions stopped prospects from buying. Typically most of them will be around pricing (so you could roll out some Opt In Offer Testing), but you’ll also get some incredibly valuable insights that you can address in your welcome series / checkout abandoned and paid ads.
2. New Customer - Why Did You Buy
Send this survey almost immediately after a customer buys for the first time. Right after someone buys they’re in a very emotional, dopamine inspired state and you want to capture their thoughts.
In this survey I ask four questions
-What motivated you to finally make this purchase?
-Is there a specific goal you’re hoping to achieve?
-Before you placed the order, was there anything you were unsure about?
-If you feel comfortable, tell us a little about yourself.
The goal of these questions is to pull out desires and objections.
This is so valuable for writing better ads and emails. People will literally give you the exact reason why and then you can take that and sharpen your messaging.
3. Churned Customer - Why didn’t you buy, again?
Send this survey to first time customers who haven’t placed a second order in the last 3-6 months.
The timing really depends on what kind of product you’re selling and what your churn risk window looks like so you need salt and pepper to taste on this one.
Ask two questions:
-What’s the main reason you haven’t placed another order yet?
-What would make you more likely to buy again?
The goal of this survey is to see if there are gaps in the product and customer experience.
It’s a good idea to go through these with your customer service team to see if there are any recurring patterns you can fix.
P.S.
If you sell a high AOV product that doesn’t have a big repeat purchase cycle, like pizza ovens or bikes, then you could probably skip this one.
4. VIP Customer - Why do you love us?
I send this out to the VIP customers who have made another purchase. I usually just go with placed order = 3 or 4 to send this. I’m looking for customers who clearly love the brand and porduct.
Here are the questions.
-Are there any products that you'd LOVE to see us make?
-What keeps you coming back to us?
-What do you love most about our products?
-What could we improve to make our products or experience even better?
The goal of this survey is to pull out ideas for new products. When it comes to retention there is really no bigger lever to pull than creating NEW products. And your VIP customers will straight up tell you what they want to buy.
Ok… now what?
Once these surveys are set up you need to let them run for a few weeks to start collecting answers.
Then the fun part.
You read them with your own eyes.
Yes. You can, and should have AI help you identify patterns.
But you need to read them yourself and use your own brain to understand what people are saying.
Don’t outsource all your thinking to AI.a
If the thought of setting up all these surveys by yourself without using Claude Co-work is too much to bear.
Click below to reach out. We can get all these set up for you.
💸 If you’re running a 7–8 figure eCom brand but it still feels like nothing’s working book a free strategy call with me Here.
📺 YouTube: Get free email + retention marketing videos Here
🐥 Twitter / X: Follow Me Here
