Small business owners, marketing professionals, and customer experience managers in touch with their market segments react to crucial trigger points indicating a surge in demand. Sometimes, they’re one-offs, going viral, only to die as a “fad.” In other cases, the spikes in revenue recur year after year at the same time, lasting for days or weeks before receding. These are seasonal market events, with Thanksgiving (typically in this category) catching millions of consumers’ attention in late November.<\/p>\n
We frequently forget that Thanksgiving weekend, conceived as a family get-together opportunity, represents much more than a 24-hour event. Indeed, it\u2019s the opening act of the next few weeks of festivity extravaganza, shopping, traveling, and letting one’s hair down. It signals that opening one’s wallet or purse with Black Friday and Cyber Monday hot on Thanksgiving’s heels is okay, then rest briefly before engaging with Christmas and New Year. (Read more about holiday sales<\/a> like Black Friday and Cyber Monday!)<\/p>\n So, every stakeholder who relies on the Thanksgiving events surrounding it (without the rest of the festive season’s coverage) should read on. This content narrowly focuses on Thanksgiving surveys, implying research of shopping events, entertainment, in-home or destination gatherings, travel to destination hotels, fine dining, and more (i.e., activities specific to enjoying Thanksgiving Day).<\/p>\n Which strategists will benefit most from these Thanksgiving survey tips?<\/p>\n Marketers\u2019 understanding of the different steps involved in the following is crucial:<\/p>\n In short, this article is a must-read if your small business or enterprise relies on Thanksgiving as a revenue generator.<\/p>\n Never heard of a Thanksgiving survey at all? You’ve come to the right place! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n Businesses want to measure customer trends, preferences, and perspectives as they approach Thanksgiving, which covers items such as:<\/p>\n Our Thanksgiving survey tips focus on all the above to help you streamline your marketing strategies to stand out as a compelling value proposition in the intensely competitive few days surrounding this historic holiday.<\/p>\n Thanksgiving surveys can yield valuable quantitative data from well-thought-out questions requiring simple “Yes” or “No” answers or ratings from one to ten with qualitative probes to measure feelings and thoughts on critical motivators. The more you know about your audience’s Thanksgiving customer experience<\/a> (CX), the better your chances of steering attention toward your brand.<\/p>\n Unique pain points drive Thanksgiving shopping, so discovering the ones pertinent to your value proposition is vital. With that knowledge at your fingertips, you can connect with customers with a differentiated offer more emphatically than competitors. Thanksgiving surveys are a viable research tool providing the peak-season perspectives you need to accelerate customer loyalty for this and future festive season celebrations.<\/p>\n Here are a few pain points related to Thanksgiving:<\/p>\n The other side of the “pain point coin” is “opportunity” if you can insert your brand as a solution to consumers’ lifestyle disruption, inconvenience, and stress created by overwhelming to-do lists and time pressures. My Thanksgiving survey tips can be the open sesame, making your brand a winner this year and every future festive event from late November into the New Year.<\/p>\n Online spending growth is one of the most important considerations in reviewing marketing strategies.<\/p>\n Countrywide online sales in 2023 Thanksgiving touched $5.6 billion<\/a>, an incredible leap from 2017\u2019s $2.87 billion – nearly 100% six-year growth in e-commerce as a holiday season buying channel. Other notable 2023 Thanksgiving Day trends included:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Now that you’re aware of the value of maximizing the opportunities that can come your way during the Thanksgiving season, consider the timing of your outreach. What do you need to know and when do you need the information in order be able to put it to use? Consider three key stages.<\/p>\n These surveys – as the name implies – emerge before Thanksgiving to create insights into how your customers and prospects are going to shop over the Thanksgiving weekend or the few days preceding it. They reveal consumers’ go-to resources, preferred buying channels, unique feelings, and thoughts toward the short Thanksgiving shopping period (separate from Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas). A pre-Thanksgiving survey allows you to structure your marketing and sales strategies professionally.<\/p>\n Extraordinary advantages emerge when you enter Thanksgiving with the insights pre-seasonal surveys provide. They enable you to control inventory better, ensure distribution and delivery facilities are top-notch, and develop resonating messages in your promotions, aside from:<\/p>\n “Real-time surveys” during Thanksgiving generally create insights valuable for future events on similar late November dates. There’s little one can do to adjust in 12 hours unless you count days preceding the actual day as “real-time.” Indeed, a longer-time perspective – considering the trend to early buying behavior – is practical. Still, it works best for businesses with the agility and resources to quickly adjust to unexpected trends during Thanksgiving shopping.<\/p>\n Much depends on what you’re surveying. Questions differ based on (for example):<\/p>\n On the one hand, you have brand familiarity; on the other hand, you don’t know if your brand is anywhere near consumers’ shopping lists.<\/p>\n Looking to track consistently? Keep it simple by changing the pre-Thanksgiving question tenses from \u201cwill you\u201d to \u201care you.\u201d<\/p>\n Consider asking similar questions relating to discounts, delivery times, confirmation notices, website navigation, loyalty incentives, and more.<\/p>\n Any marketer that ignores the power of omnichannel adaptation (with particular emphasis on mobiles), will lose shopper connection left, right, and center and thus quality response rates to real-time surveys. Remember that questionnaires popping up during shopping activity can be irritating, and extra traffic can slow down survey results. A few tips:<\/p>\n In other words, this deals with how surveys can improve next year’s promotions.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a challenging research phase for Thanksgiving, considering many respondents have already transitioned into Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping – pushing Thanksgiving into the background. Again, small gift incentives to respond will help to create acceptable response rates, using professional advice to develop insights that make a difference. Questions such as the following can help you plan better for 2025 and beyond:<\/p>\n Apply the approach above — rating based on key metrics and ranking based on competitors, as well as asking for follow-up explanations — to any other insights vital to your success.<\/p>\n The questions above go to the heart of gift preferences, shopping habits, promotions, discounts, service satisfaction, and future Intentions for Thanksgiving weekend. It’s challenging to be Thanksgiving-specific, considering that so many events (like Cyber Monday and Black Friday) merge into each other. Standard question formats are rare. Why? Timing considerations, survey length, quantitative versus qualitative probing, and prospects or loyalist focus require customization.<\/p>\n Developing a Thanksgiving Survey strategy that’s guaranteed to be successful depends on contracting a professional who follows best practices and provides access to cutting-edge technology software. It’s crucial to align your planning to optimize speed, flexibility, customer personalization, and connection with thoughts and emotions. The Sogolytics team has the Thanksgiving program experience and essential skills to give your Thanksgiving programs the edge in the holiday season, whether it’s this holiday, Cyber Monday, Black Friday, or Christmas research. With the latest data analytics at our fingertips, we cover every component, from timing to devising penetrative questions. Contact us today to learn more.<\/a><\/p>\n Q1: What are Thanksgiving surveys?<\/strong><\/p>\n A: Businesses want to measure customer trends, preferences, and perspectives as they approach Thanksgiving, where consumers travel to, how long they stay in away destinations, what at-home celebrations look like, menus, delicacies, gifts for guests and hosts, and more. Thanksgiving surveys focus on all the above to help you streamline your marketing strategies and stand out in the intensely competitive few days surrounding this historic holiday.<\/p>\n Q2: Why should businesses conduct Thanksgiving surveys?<\/strong><\/p>\n A: For deeper insights into how surveys can improve next year’s promotions and customers\u2019 buying behavior during the Thanksgiving phase of the festive season.<\/p>\n Q3: What types of questions should be included in a Thanksgiving survey?<\/strong><\/p>\n A: Questions that focus on gift preferences, shopping habits, promotions, discounts, service satisfaction, and future Intentions. It’s challenging to be Thanksgiving-specific, considering that so many events merge into each other. There’s no standard question list. Why? It depends on timing (pre-season, Thanksgiving, or after), the customer category under focus (prospects, loyalists, etc.), and the available resources.<\/p>\n Q4: How can small businesses use a holiday promotion survey effectively?<\/strong><\/p>\n A: Partner with professionals like Sogolytics to manage your programs from corner to corner. It\u2019s less costly in the long run with fewer trial and error actions.<\/p>\n Q5: What is the best time for sending out Thanksgiving surveys to maximize engagement?<\/strong><\/p>\n A: Pre-holiday, during-holiday, and post-holiday surveys all have a role to play. See more on this in the article above.\n
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Why Thanksgiving survey tips are essential<\/h2>\n
What are Thanksgiving surveys?<\/h3>\n
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Benefits of collecting customer feedback for Thanksgiving campaigns<\/h2>\n
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Holiday promotion surveys and insights that help shape your marketing strategy<\/h2>\n
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Critical types of Thanksgiving surveys for businesses<\/h2>\n
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1. Pre-holiday promotion surveys: Understanding customer expectations<\/h2>\n
Typical questions in pre-Thanksgiving surveys:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Business benefits of pre-holiday surveys<\/h3>\n
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2. On-Thanksgiving-Day surveys: Real-time insights on customer experience<\/h2>\n
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Thanksgiving survey questions for prospects<\/h3>\n
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Thanksgiving survey questions for current customers<\/h3>\n
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3. Post-Thanksgiving survey questions to evaluate success<\/h2>\n
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Small business success with holiday promotion surveys<\/h2>\n
Top Thanksgiving survey FAQs<\/h2>\n
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