How to capture open ended responses (along with some best practices)

Capturing one-of-many answers to questions is a great way to segment your email list and capture quantitative data about the needs and wants of your audience.

However, it often makes sense to capture "in their own words" raw responses.

In this guide, we'll talk about how to do this with RightMessage, and provide some ideas on how to best implement open ended data collection.

Two playbooks for open ended data collection

Anytime you have an "Other" option, you'll want to use our 'Capture Other' option to make it so that you can dig deeper into what exactly they mean by other. Over time, you'll be able to revamp the answer options you're providing using this data. (And in the Audience Insights area of RightMessage, we'll automatically help you do this using the data you capture.)

The other is to capture more freeform data about what people need from you, which can help you improve your overall messaging and positioning. More on this below...

Quantitative vs. Qualitative

If you want to personalize your marketing, it's crucial that you have clear, structured data to work with. For example, if you ask someone "What's your favorite food?" and they answer "Pizza", you can then deliver a hard-hitting series of pizza related messages to them.

This is what we call quantitative data, and it should be the bedrock of your personalization strategy.

However, the quantitative data you're collecting might not be the right data.

And, on top of that, you're missing out on crucial Voice Of Customer raw data that you can use to strengthen your overall messaging.

That's why we recommend capturing quantitative and qualitative data with your surveys and quizzes.

When to ask open ended questions

Open ended data capture should always be near the end of your survey or quiz.

While raw data is great, it's much easier for your visitors to click a button than it is to type something custom into a text input.

Therefore, it's almost always best to begin your survey or quiz with a series of easy questions, and then go deeper further down your funnel.

What to ask

One of the best ways to use open ended data collection is to have it follow a choose one-of-many regular question.

For example, you could ask someone what their current challenge is:

And then, based on how they answer, you can follow up with a personalized ask that asks them to share more about how this challenge is holding them back:

Now, when someone answers that understanding their audience is holding them back, you can follow-up with a pointed question that asks them to share more.

Why this works so well

Not only will you have the structured, quantitative data you need to personalize (i.e. you know this person's challenge is "Understanding my audience better"), but you'll also likely collect some great data about how this affects them.

What you learn from this will allow for a few things:

1. You can use these raw responses to improve the messaging for others who struggle with audience understanding. After all, in the words of expert copywriter Joanna Wiebe, "the best copy is curated, not created." You can use the exact sentiment that your audience shares with you to better connect with them.
2. Your RightMessage reports will become more useful. In the Audience Insights area, you'll get recommendations for how to improve the question you're asking, including the available answer options, based on the raw data you've collected.