by flickr.com/dashka
We recently evaluated the pricing of the survey offered by email marketing service providers VerticalResponse and Constant Contact – and now, after doing a trial of both products, we have found that the customization options in Constant Contact’s ListenUp! survey product are far superior to those of VerticalResponse. Want to poll your clients, but want to make sure the survey reflects your brand? Constant Contact makes that easy – and goes above and beyond with available formatting options.
Both VR and CC provide the ability to create a survey from scratch or work from existing templates that have pre-written questions you can edit. If your survey questions are pretty standard or if you just don’t have a need for much design customization, then the provided templates from either service are a fine starting point.
But if you prefer to create your survey from scratch or need to create a more stylized and visually engaging survey that reflects the design of your website, for example, then we recommend Constant Contact’s Survey product. The formatting options Constant Contact offers for their survey product blow VerticalResponse out of the water.
Here are some formatting features you can utilize only with Constant Contact to help increase your response rate and get the most from each survey blast:
- Create emphasis on important words and phrases by having the choice of formatting font by type, size and color universally throughout survey or per question
- Hyperlink single words or phrases in question text so you can link to the product/service you are referring to or for more information
- Add images on both questions and answer choices to help with any necessary clarification or even just to break up large amounts of text
- Easily drag and drop questions to rearrange the order
- Avoid typos with Spellcheck
- Use Skip Logic to allow respondents to skip over irrelevant questions based on answers they select
- Start with a landing page or have the user begin the survey immediately once the link is clicked on
- Have a closing page or just have the user forwarded to a promotion page upon clicking ‘Submit’
While Vertical Response has a solid, easy to use survey product, the additional features that Constant Contact offers makes it the obvious winner in terms of flexibility of customization. CC provides the tools to create a professional appearing and visually appealing survey that your respondents will notice and engage with.
