A common marketing mistake, is using the wrong language with clients.

An example of wrong language is the flight information provided by the captain over the intercom: “Our aircraft is flying at 625 knots Indicated Air Speed“ Knots? I can barely convert miles to kilometres. Air-speed? I would rather know the aircraft speed.

I would recommend not to use techie jargon with your clients. Fit with your client’s measurement system, or s/he will continue to nap.

Have you ever filled a super-long survey that “shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes?”

As marketers, we design questionnaire for qualification calls. Some questions are required by the sales team, some others by the company veterans. Questionnaires often turn out being a long and bothering list of questions; a key fiasco factor for any marketing survey.

Surveys should start with a brief product description, before asking maximum five questions. Gather only the information you need, and gather it as efficiently as possible.

1. Tell about the software benefit in (few) plain words
2. Follow up with a brief questionnaire
3. Be nice and entertaining
4. Reward the responder somehow. A paper of his interest would be fine.

Ethic of reciprocity: don’t do to others what you don’t want to be done to you.