I received a GREAT survey from Timberland today. In addition to gathering some additional customer data, they specifically are soliciting feedback on new, not yet available, women's footwear. How many brands have you known that engage in very expensive, very time-intensive, and very resource intensive efforts to conduct customer research?

Many.

Don't get me wrong, at times this level of engagement is absolutely appropriate; however, other times it's not...

Overall, Timberland is taking advantage of the power of email and web to solicit some initial feedback on several new products. The feedback they'll receive will be cheap (the cost of an email and a web survey), fast (they'll have it in minutes), and not that intensive (a few days vs. weeks to months).

As a subscriber I'm then left with the impression that Timberland cares about my input - thus building a much stronger affinity to their brand. Further, they incented me to participate by offering me a token promotion - 10% off my next online purchase; thus making it more likely for me to participate vs. simply deleting the message.

Are you soliciting customer feedback? If not, you should.

Here's a glance at their creative: