Everybody has opinions, but with regard to businesses, very few people share theirs unless they are upset. Brands asking for feedback from customers rarely receive any – and even most people with negative opinions don’t necessarily volunteer that information to the brand itself. This can make it incredibly difficult to see proverbial blind-spots in your day-to-day brand operations.

However, online brands do have some useful tactics at their disposal that can encourage audiences to leave genuine feedback. Given how valuable this information is to long-term productivity and success, there is little to no reason not to adopt them.

As such, we’ll talk about some clever methods that can get consumers to talk about their experiences with your brand.

Analyze Your Website’s Search

Chances are you already have a huge treasure trove of consumer feedback and data sitting on your website: user search data! By pinging to Google Analytics requests for site searches, you can compile all of the queries visitors have entered while searching on your website. This can be incredibly valuable in that it tells you exactly what those who are visiting your website wish to find.

This can help with everything from restructuring your navigation to drumming up new ideas for products and content. You may find a load of effective recommendations and forms of feedback in this search data that you previously hadn’t considered: if you’re using Google Analytics, then there is no reason not to give this data a look-through!

Incentivize Your Surveys

Asking people to fill out generic surveys is akin to pulling teeth, but you can certainly improve the chances of consumers filling out these surveys. Consumers have plenty of opinions, but sharing them without being compensated for their time and effort is unlikely in most cases. As such, many brands have put together strategies that ensure consumers are rewarded for their efforts.

Depending on your brand and business model, the reward can vary substantially. In some situations, a discount on a product may suffice. In other cases, you may be relegated to using cold, hard cash to encourage customers to participate. Whatever the incentive, providing consumers with a reward can turn something that would otherwise be unappealing into a very attractive opportunity. The end result will leave you with the data and feedback you need to evaluate future strategies.

Scour the Web for Brand Mentions

Arguably one of the simplest strategies out there, looking across the web for mentions of your brand is a sure-fire way to collect responses. Given that there is no need to proactively fetch information from unwilling participants, this method of collecting feedback can be quite efficient. By monitoring mentions across search engines, news outlets and social media, you can figure out how people perceive your brand.

Whether you’re pinging to Google searches for past mentions or scouring real-time information following a promotion, event or even scandal, you can fetch both positive and negative commentary. This feedback can be crucial in planning future strategies.

There are many reasons why brands value consumer feedback. Learning how to extract this information as easily as possible from audiences can be difficult, but using the three ideas above can help loosen their proverbial lips and give you the data and responses necessary to prosper.