When you survey your customers, you have a unique chance to hear what they want and what they would buy more of from your business. This gives you the opportunity to create things tailored specifically to your customers wants and needs - and, as an extra bonus, you'll get to hear them describe their problems in their own terms, which will certainly be helpful when the time comes to write sales copy.

You're probably wondering what sorts of questions you should ask your customers, now that you know you need to send surveys to your customers. The best idea is to ask these questions to people who have already bought your products - not only is it easier to retain a customer than to find a new customer, but conversion rates tend to be much higher among people who have already bought your products. If you're creating products that people who are already your customers want, then you'll have a much easier time selling them.

On to the three ways to survey your customers:

1. Ask them what's already great. Ask them what their favorite features are, that they feel couldn't be improved upon at all - because they're just that great. Once you know what these features are, you can make absolutely sure that they're included in any future iterations of that product, and you can add them to other products (if they're not already a part of the product in the first place).

2. Ask them what needs improving. This might sting your ego a bit, but it's what you need to hear. If your customers aren't happy with something, it needs to change. It's fairly obviously how you should use this information - use it to change your existing products for the better, and to avoid those issues in future products.

3. Ask them what they want to see more of. These are features that your customers love, but feel are underutilized. By figuring out what exactly the features are that your customers want to see more, you can increase those features - which, combined with your other two questions and the actions you take from them, results in an overall greatly improved product.

Try to keep your surveys short, so that they don't take up too much of your customers' time. Have as many multiple choice questions as possible, but don't overuse them - you don't want to limit your customers' answers. Consider collecting demographics on your surveys as well, so that you can see if different parts of your audience feel differently about certain features; this could lead to you creating two versions of a product that will make each part of your audience happy.

One of the most important steps you can take is make these changes visible. Email the customers that took the survey and tell them that you appreciated their time and input, and detail a list of the ways that you're implementing their suggestions. Give your customers visible proof that you care about their input and you'll use it, and they'll be happy to provide you with more valuable market research in the future that you can continue to use to improve your products.