In the research and planning stages of your clothing line you will need to find out as much as you can about the people that you are selling your clothing to. Larger clothing companies will often buy this information from independent companies that conduct this research. As it is unlikely that your budget is going to stretch far enough to obtain these services you will need to conduct this research yourself in the form of a survey.
This article primarily focuses on using the internet as a means of getting feedback from your survey. If you need more information about what you need to know about your customers and what questions you should ask them, refer to section one of the Start A Clothing Line ebook.
An online survey is a script that runs on a web server that is connected to a database in order to save the results taken. You will build the survey online and then send the url of that survey for people to submit their answers. There are two main ways you can achieve this. The first is to use a third party service in which you would create an account, log into your control panel and create your survey with the tools provided. The second option would be to install a script to your own web host and build the survey from within the application.
These are third party services that will host the script and the data on their servers. These are usually a paid subscription for online survey software that does not require you to have your own hosting or have any technical knowledge. Because of the ongoing monthly fee, it is not recommended to use these services if you do not plan on regularly conducting surveys. A downside, also, is that if you cancel your subscription or fail to make payments you can be locked out of your survey result data.
Much like their premium brothers, but these services allow you too create surveys for free. Obviously with any free online services, there is going to be some kind of catch, and this is usually in the form of advertising on the survey that you will send out. If you are trying to create a good brand image for your clothing line then this method is not recommended.
Installing software to your server is the method I would recommend. With a one off payment for the software you can use it over and over again to keep up to date with your customers needs. However if you lack the technical knowledge of installing and configuring web based applications, this may not be the option you are looking for.
Once you have built your survey it is time to get people to submit their answers. This is the tricky part. You need to post the link to your survey online asking people in your target market to submit their answers. It is important however that you do not ‘spam’ your survey as this could create a negative association of your brand.
