Michael Epps Utley 
Have you ever taken an online assessment? It’s likely that you came away with new knowledge about yourself, your career, or your business that makes you want to take action to improve some aspect of your life.
Online assessments have become powerful marketing tools because, if structured correctly, they help people uncover insights and act on them. Self-knowledge is a powerful motivator for purchasing things, including home improvement services, gym memberships, medical procedures, and more.
In addition, online assessments are a proven way to generate business leads. People feel compelled to provide contact information so they can see the results of their evaluation and receive them via email.
Finally, assessments provide valuable data through the answers test takers provide that allow you to target your marketing to them more effectively.
This guide explains everything you need to know to add online assessments to your digital marketing mix.
What Are Online Assessments?
Online assessments are a type of digital testing. They are typically simple and quick to complete and should deliver meaningful insights to people completing them. Online assessments have become popular as more marketing has moved online, and people have become highly interested in self-improvement. Ideally, the results of an appraisal should encourage people to take steps to improve their lives, which typically involves buying a beneficial good or service.
Some examples of successful online assessments include:
A financial evaluation that identifies gaps in the test taker’s finances and knowledge about investing and compels them to meet with a financial advisor.
A·fitness assessment that finds gaps in strength, stamina, and body weight to encourage people to join a gym.
A home décor quiz that helps people determine their decorating style and nudges them to hire a contractor to realize their dream home.
Businesses in most industries can generate creative ideas for online assessments that drive business. The only limitation is your imagination.
Benefits of Online Assessments
Here are some key benefits of using online assessments in your marketing.
Gathering Information About Prospects
Online assessments generate results that can be stored and used for marketing purposes. Leverage the information from them to target your marketing better so it resonates with prospective consumers. For instance, if you own an online home furnishings business, you could use the results from a home style quiz to make product recommendations aligned with a person’s style and color preferences.
Easy to Develop
Online evaluations are relatively easy to develop, often more so than videos and blog posts. Many website generators are available as plugins on WordPress or apps that generate code that allows you to add your evaluation to your website easily.
Cost-Efficient
Most online assessment plug-ins are free or inexpensive and allow you to develop as many evaluations as you want. Even though they are relatively cheap to produce, they tend to generate better results than other forms of marketing, making them a very cost-effective option.
Reveals Qualified Leads
Have your sales reps been dealing with too many leads that don’t convert into customers? It’s a common issue most small businesses face. If you properly structure the questions and lead generation forms in your assessments, you can gather the information needed to qualify and score leads so your sales team can focus more of their time and effort on the ones most likely to convert.
How to Create an Assessment
The process for developing an online assessment is similar regardless of which tool you use.
Select your plug-in or assessment development app. Many are available that make it easy to generate online quizzes. Some focus on right and wrong answers. Others are more about scoring. Some make it easy to develop experiences centered on imagery. Some online research will help you find a solution that will meet your needs.
Come up with your assessment strategy. Figure out what you want your assessment to accomplish and structure your questions based on your goals.
Develop your questions and scoring. Write a series of questions and develop a scoring method that will help you gather the information you want from prospective customers. Make sure your questions are simple, straightforward, and easy to answer. Limit the number of them to what you need to develop a satisfying experience for you and the people who experience it.
Create your quiz. Leverage the steps in the app to create your assessment. Make sure you set things up so the results from the quiz feed into your customer relationship management or marketing software so you can leverage the information to deliver more personalized marketing experiences.
Test your quiz. Be sure to test your quiz with several people on multiple devices to ensure it functions as intended.
Embed your quiz. People need to be able to access your evaluation online. Insert the embed code generated by your quiz onto a page on your website so people can experience it while also being able to explore other parts of your site.
Monitor results and improve your online evaluations over time. Your first, second, or third online evaluation won’t be perfect. Watch your results and performance to make better and better online experiences that will generate even more positive business results.
Online Assessments: The Final Word
Online assessments are a popular marketing tactic for many reasons.
They are easy to create.
They are relatively inexpensive to develop and generate excellent results.
They help you understand consumers better and target your marketing to them more effectively.
They can make your sales process more efficient and effective.
Leverage the information in this guide to start exploring the world of online assessments and find out how they could benefit your business.
