The Art of Asking ‘How Did You Hear About Us’ in Marketing

You went to try this new coffee place during your work break. It’s mostly empty other than the friend group in the corner. The barista hands you a steaming latte and casually asks, “By the way, how did you hear about us?”

I used to think this question was a formality. Another box to check. But after my time in marketing, I’ve seen how this one question can reveal where each customer began their journey. 

This simple question is what connects your marketing efforts to real people making real decisions. Each answer to this question is a clue to figuring out what’s working in your marketing strategy & what needs improvement.

However, the secret of making the most of this question lies in knowing when & how to ask this question, and what to do with the answers. Let’s explore how to master this art of Asking “How Did You Hear About Us” with no further delay.

Why do you need a “How did you hear about us” survey

You can gather valuable insight into where your customers are coming from through a “How did you hear about us” survey form. Unlike the analytics tools, you know the data from this survey is real as a real person submits every entry.

Besides, a “How did you hear from us” survey converts more customers than most other surveys since the form is very short and very easy to fill. There are only one or two questions in each survey and the answers are mostly checkable. 

What’s more, this survey also tells you what methods people use to find products in your industry. For example, whether they conduct extensive research to land on the best or simply come across an advert and click on the product, etc.

This survey helps you optimize your marketing by focusing on channels driving traffic and conversions. Additionally, change your approach with the channels that aren’t driving as much result.

How to build a “How did you hear about us” survey form

Let’s see step-by-step how you can build a “How did you hear about us” survey form all by yourself. First, download Fluent Forms (trusted by 500,000+ businesses) from the WordPress plugin repository or the Fluent Forms homepage if you haven’t already. Install and activate the plugin. 

Step 1

From your left-hand panel, go to Fluent Forms → New Form → Create a New Form. To create a form from scratch, select New Blank Form.

Step 2

From the input fields, select the Radio Field. Click the radio field to make customizations (add options, edit labels, etc.)

Step 3

This step is optional. We’ve added an option titled other in the radio fields. If someone checks that option, we’d like to know from which source they found us. So we’ll add a Simple Text field where they can write that.

Step 4

We want to show the simple text field only to the people who check Other in the radio field in order to keep the form clean. So we have to apply conditional logic to the Simple Text field to achieve that. 

Go to the advanced section of the Simple text field’s input customization option. Check Yes under Conditional Logic. The condition works as the text field will show if How did you hear about us equals Other in the radio field. 

You will see three boxes under the condition match option. Select How did you hear about us in the first box, equal in the second box, and Other in the third box from the dropdown. Now condition is applied to the text field.

Step 5

Click Save Form from the upper right corner, and you’re done. Click Preview & Design to style your form, customize background color, set padding, margin, border, change colors, border radius, customize box shadow, button style, etc.

“How did you hear about us” survey examples & templates

Let’s get familiar with different types of “how did you hear about us” survey forms that you can benefit from in this section. We’ve added a responsive & customizable survey form template with each example.

You can download the zipped JSON file for these templates (click the respective Download Template button), unzip it, and import it directly to your website using Fluent Forms.

If the form has custom CSS, simply swap the imported form’s ID with your Fluent Form ID in the custom CSS section from settings.

Basic “how did you hear about us” form

This is more of a generalized approach to a “how did you hear about us” form. You can use it on a webpage or your blog pages so it’s visible to your website visitors. It’ll give you insight into where your website traffic is coming from.

“How did you hear about us” lead capture form

You can add a How did you hear about us survey question with your lead capture forms. This way you will know how your leads are finding you. Add this type of form on your blog pages, landing pages, etc.

“How did you hear about this product” customer survey

You can learn where your customers are coming from through a “How did you hear about this product” customer survey. Keep this form on your checkout page, right before or after the payment is processed.

“How did you hear about this job” survey form

Assess the success of your recruitment process through a “How did you hear about this job” survey. Find out where potential recruits are finding your vacancy. It’ll help you understand which platforms are frequented by people with similar skills as your team. Simply add the question on your job application form or add a separate survey on your career page.

“How did you hear about us” form best practices

In this section, we’re going to learn about the best practices, so we can apply all the pro tips when we create a how did you hear from us form.

Strategic placement options

You can add multiple “How did you hear about us” survey forms on your website for different purposes. You just have to understand where to place the form on your website for maximum conversion.

Depending on the purpose as mentioned above, you can add a “How did you hear about us” survey on your homepage, feature pages, or blog pages as a sticky or an exit-intent pop-up that only appears to first-time visitors to learn where your traffic is coming from.

Moreover, you can find out how customers are finding your product/service by adding a survey form on the product page, checkout page, or with the post-purchase success message.

Response options to include

The usual response options for this survey form include search (Google/Bing, etc.), social media, blog/resource, referral, ads, etc.

If most of your leads are from social media, you can break down the social media option further and include the names of the social platforms that you’re most active on. It’ll give you insight into the preferred social channel of your target audience, whether you’re targeting the right people, etc. 

Moreover, you must include an “Other” option. Whoever didn’t find you from the provided sources, will check the other box. Checking this box will reveal a text box where the lead can type in how they heard about your brand.

Note: Most WordPress forms builder offers Conditional Logic feature for this purpose. Fluent Forms also offers this, find out more about Conditional Logic.

Design best practices

Keep in mind that a form’s conversion rate highly depends on how welcoming and clean it looks. Keep your survey form clutter-free. Don’t ask too many questions, or people will drop it fearing it’ll take up too much time. Adding too many options might appear distracting as well, so include fewer answer options.

Use checkboxes or radio buttons for options, it’ll allow users to fill out the survey form with a single click. Using checkboxes will allow users to check multiple options where a radio field only allows one answer. Use conditional logic to hide the text input box unless someone checks the “Other” option.

Don’t use distracting colors in your form. Use color psychology to your advantage. For example, red might look like a warning or a threat, so instead go with blue to inspire trust, or green to inspire growth, etc. Use colors similar to your brand colors, or complementary colors that make your form look appealing against the page it’s embedded on.

You can easily create great-looking forms if your form plugin has an advanced form styler. An advanced form styler offers you the flexibility to customize the look of your form. You can set custom color, shadow, border, padding, border radius, etc. for each element. You can also change the normal and hover position looks of the buttons. Moreover, you can change the form’s background with a custom color, gradient, or image.

Common response options & what they reveal

Responses to a “How did you hear about us” survey reveal the true success of your marketing efforts. For example, if most of your leads are coming from a different source than most of your customers, then you learn that you’re targeting the wrong audience.

Let’s explore some of the common response options and what they reveal.

Search engines

If most of your users or leads are coming from search engines, that means you have a great site SEO and when people are actively looking for products in your industry, your brand comes up top. 

It could also mean that there aren’t enough active social media communities in your industry where users could look for solutions.

Social media

If the majority of your leads are coming from social media, that means you’re doing an incredible job promoting your brand on social platforms. 

Identify which social media channels your target audience frequents and optimize those. In this case, you can also consider influencer marketing to boost your reach further. 
However, if your social media endeavors aren’t paying off, follow the social media lead-generation tactics to convert more audience with ease.

Word of mouth

If most of your customers are checking referrals/friends/colleagues, this means your products have earned a reputation that you need to uphold and improve.

You can get full advantage of this by creating loyalty or affiliate programs. You can also ask your customers to leave a review which you can then display on your website or post on social media to capture more leads.

Ads

If most of your leads are visiting your site/landing page, that means you’ve targeted those ads to the right demography. It measures the success of your ad campaign, discount deals, new product promotions, etc.

However, if those leads aren’t becoming paying customers or repeat customers, then it’s not a very good investment & you should refine your products first.

On the other hand, if most of your leads and subscribers are organic, you can focus more on producing fresh content and limit your ad campaigns.

Optimize your marketing strategy continuously with the insight you gain from this survey result for planned resource management and maximize your return on investment (ROI).

Key takeaway

A “How did you hear about us” form is a must-have for every business for real communication with prospects and customers. It’s vital to know how customers are finding you.

For one, a customer’s first impression of a brand matters, and you want to polish the platforms they’re finding you on. On the other hand, you can research what you’re doing right to the channel that’s bringing you most of your customers and apply those techniques to your other marketing channels as well.

However, you can’t limit your efforts only to the platforms that are bringing you customers. It’ll take away your opportunity to grow. Continue promoting your brand on a wide range of channels, so when one of the lesser-known platforms gets popular, you’re the first brand your audience finds.

Let us know what you think of our “How did you hear about us” form tips, how our survey templates are performing on your site, and share your insights in the comments!

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