Bingo cards are one of the most powerful and misunderstood tools in marketing research. Though bingo cards are often used for fun at events like conferences and trade shows, bingo is a great way to capture consumer data, too. Here’s how it works:
- Consumers fill out your survey, which you administer either at an event or online (or both).
- The consumers receive a digital “bingo card” that they can use to play bingo with other people at the event (or online if you’re doing that kind of event)
- The more surveys they complete accurately, the more chances they have to win prizes by getting “bingo.”
- Meanwhile, your team is using all that survey data to make informed business decisions!
| Key Takeaways |
|---|
| – Bingo cards can serve as an innovative and engaging tool for conducting marketing research. |
| – The versatility of bingo cards allows for creative data collection and customer interaction strategies. |
| – Incorporating gamification elements through bingo cards can enhance participant engagement and response rates. |
| – Bingo cards enable researchers to gather insights while providing participants with an enjoyable experience. |
| – Utilizing bingo cards in market research can lead to valuable data analysis, trend identification, and informed decision-making. |
Tip #1: Get Unbiased Feedback
Use a Bingo Card template to get unbiased feedback from your target audience.
Bingo cards are an easy way to collect unbiased feedback from customers, prospects, and partners. A typical bingo card has ten squares on it that you can use to ask questions and get answers.
The key is that people answer the questions without knowing what they’ll be asked in advance meaning you can ask anything you want, including potentially sensitive topics like “How would you feel about my product if it was more expensive?”
Or “Would you buy more of our products if they came with more accessories?”
The best part of using this tool is being able to quickly analyze all of your results at once—and then use them to inform future decisions about how best to engage with each person who took part in the survey or bingo game.
Building a strong foundation for your market research doesn’t have to break the bank. Discover effective strategies in our guide on how to conduct market research for free, and gather valuable insights without compromising your budget.
Tip #2: Build The Right Team
The second tip is to build the right team. You may have heard that you need a diverse team, but what does that mean?
Diversity means having different skills, perspectives, and backgrounds on your research panel. If everyone has the same perspective and experience level, they will all see bingo cards in the same way.
By having a diverse team, you can get different points of view on your findings and better understand how people react to them.
Tip #3: Use A Bingo Card Template
The third tip is to use a Bingo Card Template.
This is the most important of all three tips. Using a template will make your life so much easier and make it much more likely that you’ll finish your project on time.
Templates are available for free on the internet, but they can be hard to find if you don’t know where to look.
We created our templates that include everything you need in one place and even include example cards for each category (but we won’t tell you what those are!). You can download them by clicking below:
- Bingo Card Examples
- To help with this process, here are some tips for using templates:
Planning to run a survey? Ensure success by following these 14 essential tips before conducting a survey. From crafting questions to analyzing results, this comprehensive guide will help you make the most out of your research efforts.
Tip #4: Choose The Right Card Format
The next step is to choose the right card format for your research. For example, if you’re conducting a survey that asks questions about customer behavior, then a six-sided bingo card with five questions on each side might be best.
But if you’re doing research on something like employee satisfaction and want to collect qualitative feedback from employees, then an 8×10 grid of cards may be better suited.
In general, three things matter when choosing the card format: (1) how easy it is for participants to understand; (2) how easy it is for participants to use; and (3) how easy it is for participants to write responses on.
Tip #5: Match Your Branding
For your bingo cards to be effective, you’ll want to make sure they match your branding. Many brands use a specific color palette, logo, or font on their website and business materials.
To ensure that the message being conveyed by your bingo cards matches that of other marketing efforts (such as web pages or social media posts), use the same colors, logo, fonts, and voice/personality in each piece of content.
For example, if your brand has one set of colors on its website but another set for its social media channels (which may differ from the official corporate identity), then it makes sense for these segments of branding to have different looks as well.
Even if this means going against what might be considered best practice for online marketing campaigns.
Tip #6: Set Clear Goals
Once you’ve decided to use bingo cards as a research tool, the next step is to define your goals. What do you want to achieve? Is it more leads? An understanding of your customers? A better understanding of their buying process?
Defining your goals will help you focus on what matters most and ensure that you get the most valuable information out of each bingo card session. It will also help ensure that everyone on the team has a shared understanding of what success looks like for this project.
You should also set goals for each card that’s completed during this exercise. For example, if one of your primary objectives is gathering information about how customers make decisions about which products or services are right for them.
Then one goal might be “record how many times people click on each item in categories related to decision-making criteria.”
Diving into the world of marketing research involves understanding its different facets. Explore our breakdown of 16 types of marketing research and why you need them to gain insights into the diverse approaches that can fuel your business growth.
Tip #7: Focus On One Topic/Question Per Card
When it comes to creating cards, one of the most important things you can do is focus on one topic per card. By doing so, you’ll be able to keep each card focused on the question being asked by the participant.
In other words, each question should have a clear answer that fits into one of these five categories: “What are we trying to solve?”; “How can we solve it?”; “What does our solution look like?”; “How do I use our solution?” and “Why does this matter for me (the customer)?”
Tip #8: Make Your Questions Relevant
As you are creating your bingo card and writing out the questions, it’s important to make sure that they are relevant. You may have a general idea of what you want to be answered, but often the answers can come in unexpected ways.
For example, if you’re looking for feedback on the design of your new smartphone app and you ask people “What do you think of our new phone app?” some people might say “I love it,” while others might say, “I hate it.”
With this type of question, there isn’t much room for further conversation or insight into why someone feels that way.
If instead, you ask them what features they like most about their current phone apps or which features they wish their current phones had then there is potential for more responses and deeper conversations about how each person uses their phone (or doesn’t).
Tip #9: Use Actionable Language
Using actionable language will get your audience to take action.
Actionable language is clear and concise. It’s specific, direct, and positive. It’s simple.
The following are some examples of what not to do:
- Use passive voice in your copywriting
- Make statements that include “you” without explaining why or how the person should do something with those words
- Include words like “sometimes” or “kinda” (and similar phrases) unless you want people to think of their options as a gray area
Reddit isn’t just a platform for discussions; it can be a goldmine for market insights. Learn how to leverage this social platform with our guide on how to use Reddit to conduct market research, and tap into a wealth of user-generated data for your marketing strategies.
Tip #10: Avoid Leading Questions
Avoid questions that start with “would you” or “do you” and use a more open-ended question like “What do you think?”
Avoid questions that start with “do you agree,” “do you think,” or any other form of the word “think” (e.g., “Do you think it’s important to find new ways to market your business?”).
Asking someone if they agree or think about something can lead them to respond in a way that may not reflect their true feelings on the subject.
For example, if someone is asked if they agree with something but don’t, they will probably answer yes just to avoid conflict and this can skew results.
Similarly, avoid using leading words such as like and dislike in survey questions because these words imply agreement (e.g., “Wouldn’t it be great if there were more hours in the day?”).
By using these types of words instead of neutral ones like good/bad and right/wrong, we trick people into thinking about things in terms of our own opinions rather than theirs so we won’t get an accurate assessment of their true feelings towards something in particular.*
Tip #11: Create Multiple Options
While it’s important to provide multiple options for each question, it is equally important that you do not provide too many options. Don’t overwhelm the respondent with an overwhelming amount of choices, or they may not take the survey seriously.
You should also try to avoid providing too narrow a range of choices for each question. For example, if you ask respondents about their favorite restaurant in town, don’t offer three restaurants that are all Mexican restaurants and no other types of food.
That will give more weight to one type of cuisine over others and skew your results toward Mexican food when perhaps there are plenty of other good options out there!
Tip #12: Keep The Layout Clean And Simple
You don’t want to give your customers a headache, do you? If you’re planning on using bingo cards for research, be sure to keep everything clean and simple.
Use a simple layout that uses one or two colors and keeps things consistent across the board. Don’t have too many fonts (more than three), and don’t use different sized fonts unless it’s necessary.
Keep the color scheme consistent with your brand’s overall look and feel. For example, if your brand is more muted and earthy, then use earth tone colors on your bingo cards; if your brand is bright and colorful, then stick with those hues for the bingo cards as well!
Use grids when possible they make everything appear more organized even though there are many words/images packed into each card (and they help people read faster).
Effective marketing research goes beyond data collection—it’s about refining your approach. Explore the challenges and solutions in our article on marketing research: why it doesn’t always work and how to do it better, and discover how to enhance the outcomes of your research endeavors.
Tip #13: Use White Space To Separate Content Sections
- Use white space to separate content sections:
- Use white space to create contrast:
- Use white space to help your customers focus on what’s important and read further:
- Use white space to make your content more readable, whether you’re writing an article or creating a brochure:
Or, use the same techniques when designing a poster or flyer with lots of text (which is often unpleasantly dense). This way readers can quickly scan the information they care about without getting overwhelmed by all the words on the page!
Tip #14: Design For Completion
Here’s a tip for you: If you’re designing a survey or bingo card, make sure to design for completion. This means that every question should be clear and relevant, easy to answer, short and to the point, and not too specific or general.
You want your participants to feel motivated by each question and see their answers as valuable contributions that will contribute toward an outcome they care about.
By making sure these things are true to all of your questions, you’ll have created an engaging experience for yourself and your users (or whatever other kind of participant you’re working with).
Conclusion
All right, you’ve got some quick tips for creating bingo cards. For the most part, the goal here is to keep them simple and let the data speak for itself but if you feel like there’s more you can do to make your results more clear or relevant, go for it!
In the end, a bingo card is just one of many ways to collect valuable information about your customers or prospects.
It might not be perfect or as detailed as other research methods; but when you need to make a quick decision based on real customer data, no tool will get you better results and with less effort than a well-designed bingo card.
Further Reading
Explore these additional resources to deepen your understanding:
How to Ruin Your Business with Marketing: Discover common mistakes to avoid and best practices for effective marketing strategies.
Using Alteryx to Generate Bingo Cards: Learn how to use Alteryx to create dynamic bingo cards for various applications.
What’s the Best Way to Select Bingo Game Development: Gain insights into the process of choosing the right approach for developing bingo games.
FAQs
How can marketing mistakes negatively impact my business?
Marketing mistakes can have detrimental effects on your business, leading to wasted resources, a damaged brand reputation, and a decline in customer trust.
What are the key benefits of using Alteryx for generating bingo cards?
Alteryx offers a powerful platform for creating customized bingo cards efficiently, allowing you to tailor them to different contexts, from educational activities to entertainment events.
What factors should I consider when selecting a bingo game development approach?
When choosing a bingo game development approach, factors like target audience, platform compatibility, game mechanics, and user experience should be carefully evaluated.
How can effective marketing strategies contribute to business growth?
Effective marketing strategies can boost brand visibility, attract new customers, and drive sales growth, positioning your business for long-term success.
What role does innovation play in bingo game development?
Innovation is essential in bingo game development to enhance user engagement and deliver unique gameplay experiences that cater to the evolving preferences of players.
Costantine Edward is a digital marketing expert, freelance writer, and entrepreneur who helps people attain financial freedom. I’ve been working in marketing since I was 18 years old and have managed to build a successful career doing what I love.