what is market research survey

Business growth

Marketing tips

How to conduct your own market research survey (with example)

After watching a few of those sketches, you can imagine why real-life focus groups tend to be pretty small. Even without any over-the-top personalities involved, it's easy for these groups to go off the rails.

So what happens when you want to collect market research at a larger scale? That's where the market research survey comes in. Market surveys allow you to get just as much valuable information as an in-person interview, without the burden of herding hundreds of rowdy Eagles fans through a product test.

Table of contents:

What is a market research survey?

Why conduct market research, primary vs. secondary market research.

6 types of market research surveys

How to write and conduct a market research survey

Tips for running a market research survey.

Market research survey campaign example questions

Market research survey template

Use automation to put survey results into action

A market research survey is a questionnaire designed to collect key information about a company's target market and audience that will help guide business decisions about products and services, branding angles, and advertising campaigns.

Market surveys are what's known as "primary research"—that is, information that the researching company gathers firsthand. Secondary research consists of data that another organization gathered and published, which other researchers can then use for their own reports. Primary research is more expensive and time-intensive than secondary research, which is why you should only use market research surveys to obtain information that you can't get anywhere else. 

A market research survey can collect information on your target customers':

Experiences

Preferences, desires, and needs

Values and motivations

The types of information that can usually be found in a secondary source, and therefore aren't good candidates for a market survey, include your target customers':

Demographic data

Consumer spending data

Household size

Lots of this secondary information can be found in a public database like those maintained by the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics . There are also a few free market research tools that you can use to access more detailed data, like Think with Google , Data USA , and Statista . Or, if you're looking to learn about your existing customer base, you can also use a CRM to automatically record key information about your customers each time they make a purchase.

If you've exhausted your secondary research options and still have unanswered questions, it's time to start thinking about conducting a market research survey.

The first thing to figure out is what you're trying to learn, and from whom. Are you beta testing a new product or feature with existing users? Or are you looking to identify new customer personas for your marketers to target? There are a number of different ways to use a marketing research survey, and your choice will impact how you set up the questionnaire.

Here are some examples of how market research surveys can be used to fill a wide range of knowledge gaps for companies:

A B2B software company asks real users in its industry about Kanban board usage to help prioritize their project view change rollout.

A B2C software company asks its target demographic about their mobile browsing habits to help them find features to incorporate into their forthcoming mobile app.

A printing company asks its target demographic about fabric preferences to gauge interest in a premium material option for their apparel lines.

A wholesale food vendor surveys regional restaurant owners to find ideas for seasonal products to offer.

Market surveys are what's known as "primary research"—that is, information that the researching company gathers firsthand. Secondary research consists of data that another organization gathered and published, which other researchers can then use for their own reports. 

Primary research is more expensive and time-intensive than secondary research, which is why you should only use market research surveys to obtain information that you can't get anywhere else. 

Lots of this secondary information can be found in a public database like those maintained by the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics . There are also a few free market research tools that you can use to access more detailed data, like Think with Google , Data USA , and Statista . 

Or, if you're looking to learn about your existing customer base, you can also use a CRM to automatically record key information about your customers each time they make a purchase.

6 types of market research survey

Depending on your goal, you'll need different types of market research. Here are six types of market research surveys.

1. Buyer persona research

A buyer persona or customer profile is a simple sketch of the types of people that you should be targeting as potential customers. 

A buyer persona research survey will help you learn more about things like demographics, household makeup, income and education levels, and lifestyle markers. The more you learn about your existing customers, the more specific you can get in targeting potential customers. You may find that there are more buyer personas within your user base than the ones that you've been targeting.

2. Sales funnel research

The sales funnel is the path that potential customers take to eventually become buyers. It starts with the target's awareness of your product, then moves through stages of increasing interest until they ultimately make a purchase. 

With a sales funnel research survey, you can learn about potential customers' main drivers at different stages of the sales funnel. You can also get feedback on how effective different sales strategies are. Use this survey to find out:

How close potential buyers are to making a purchase

What tools and experiences have been most effective in moving prospective customers closer to conversion

What types of lead magnets are most attractive to your target audience

3. Customer loyalty research

Whenever you take a customer experience survey after you make a purchase, you'll usually see a few questions about whether you would recommend the company or a particular product to a friend. After you've identified your biggest brand advocates , you can look for persona patterns to determine what other customers are most likely to be similarly enthusiastic about your products. Use these surveys to learn:

The demographics of your most loyal customers

What tools are most effective in turning customers into advocates

What you can do to encourage more brand loyalty

4. Branding and marketing research

The Charmin focus group featured in that SNL sketch is an example of branding and marketing research, in which a company looks for feedback on a particular advertising angle to get a sense of whether it will be effective before the company spends money on running the ad at scale. Use this type of survey to find out:

Whether a new advertising angle will do well with existing customers

Whether a campaign will do well with a new customer segment you haven't targeted yet

What types of campaign angles do well with a particular demographic

5. New products or features research

Whereas the Charmin sketch features a marketing focus group, this one features new product research for a variety of new Hidden Valley Ranch flavors. Though you can't get hands-on feedback on new products when you're conducting a survey instead of an in-person meeting, you can survey your customers to find out:

What features they wish your product currently had

What other similar or related products they shop for

What they think of a particular product or feature idea

Running a survey before investing resources into developing a new offering will save you and the company a lot of time, money, and energy.

6. Competitor research

You can get a lot of information about your own customers and users via automatic data collection , but your competitors' customer base may not be made up of the same buyer personas that yours is. Survey your competitors' users to find out:

Your competitors ' customers' demographics, habits, and behaviors

Whether your competitors have found success with a buyer persona you're not targeting

Information about buyers for a product that's similar to one you're thinking about launching

Feedback on what features your competitors' customers wish their version of a product had

Once you've narrowed down your survey's objectives, you can move forward with designing and running your survey.

Step 1: Write your survey questions

A poorly worded survey, or a survey that uses the wrong question format, can render all of your data moot. If you write a question that results in most respondents answering "none of the above," you haven't learned much. 

You'll find dozens of question types and even pre-written questions in most survey apps . Here are a few common question types that work well for market surveys.

Categorical questions

Also known as a nominal question, this question type provides numbers and percentages for easy visualization, like "35% said ABC." It works great for bar graphs and pie charts, but you can't take averages or test correlations with nominal-level data.

Yes/No: The most basic survey question used in polls is the Yes/No question, which can be easily created using your survey app or by adding Yes/No options to a multiple-choice question. 

Multiple choice: Use this type of question if you need more nuance than a Yes/No answer gives. You can add as many answers as you want, and your respondents can pick only one answer to the question. 

Checkbox: Checkbox questions add the flexibility to select all the answers that apply. Add as many answers as you want, and respondents aren't limited to just one. 

Ordinal questions

This type of question requires survey-takers to pick from options presented in a specific order, like "income of $0-$25K, $26K-$40K, $41K+." Like nominal questions, ordinal questions elicit responses that allow you to analyze counts and percentages, though you can't calculate averages or assess correlations with ordinal-level data.

Dropdown: Responses to ordinal questions can be presented as a dropdown, from which survey-takers can only make one selection. You could use this question type to gather demographic data, like the respondent's country or state of residence. 

Ranking: This is a unique question type that allows respondents to arrange a list of answers in their preferred order, providing feedback on each option in the process. 

Interval/ratio questions

For precise data and advanced analysis, use interval or ratio questions. These can help you calculate more advanced analytics, like averages, test correlations, and run regression models. Interval questions commonly use scales of 1-5 or 1-7, like "Strongly disagree" to "Strongly agree." Ratio questions have a true zero and often ask for numerical inputs (like "How many cups of coffee do you drink per day? ____").

Ranking scale: A ranking scale presents answer choices along an ordered value-based sequence, either using numbers, a like/love scale, a never/always scale, or some other ratio interval. It gives more insight into people's thoughts than a Yes/No question. 

Matrix: Have a lot of interval questions to ask? You can put a number of questions in a list and use the same scale for all of them. It simplifies gathering data about a lot of similar items at once. 

Example : How much do you like the following: oranges, apples, grapes? Hate/Dislike/Ok/Like/Love

Textbox: A textbox question is needed for collecting direct feedback or personal data like names. There will be a blank space where the respondent can enter their answer to your question on their own. 

Step 2: Choose a survey platform

There are a lot of survey platforms to choose from, and they all offer different and unique features. Check out Zapier's list of the best online survey apps to help you decide.

Most survey apps today look great on mobile, but be sure to preview your survey on your phone and computer, at least, to make sure it'll look good for all of your users.

If you have the budget, you can also purchase survey services from a larger research agency. 

Step 3: Run a test survey

Before you run your full survey, conduct a smaller test on 5%-10% of your target respondent pool size. This will allow you to work out any confusing wording or questions that result in unhelpful responses without spending the full cost of the survey. Look out for:

Survey rejection from the platform for prohibited topics

Joke or nonsense textbox answers that indicate the respondent didn't answer the survey in earnest

Multiple choice questions with an outsized percentage of "none of the above" or "N/A" responses

Step 4: Launch your survey

If your test survey comes back looking good, you're ready to launch the full thing! Make sure that you leave ample time for the survey to run—you'd be surprised at how long it takes to get a few thousand respondents. 

Even if you've run similar surveys in the past, leave more time than you need. Some surveys take longer than others for no clear reason, and you also want to build in time to conduct a comprehensive data analysis.

Step 5: Organize and interpret the data

Unless you're a trained data analyst, you should avoid crunching all but the simplest survey data by hand. Most survey platforms include some form of reporting dashboard that will handle things like population weighting for you, but you can also connect your survey platform to other apps that make it easy to keep track of your results and turn them into actionable insights.

You know the basics of how to conduct a market research survey, but here are some tips to enhance the quality of your data and the reliability of your findings.

Find the right audience: You could have meticulously crafted survey questions, but if you don't target the appropriate demographic or customer segment, it doesn't really matter. You need to collect responses from the people you're trying to understand. Targeted audiences you can send surveys to include your existing customers, current social media followers, newsletter subscribers, attendees at relevant industry events, and community members from online forums, discussion boards, or other online communities that cater to your target audience. 

Take advantage of existing resources: No need to reinvent the wheel. You may be able to use common templates and online survey platforms like SurveyMonkey for both survey creation and distribution. You can also use AI tools to create better surveys. For example, generative AI tools like ChatGPT can help you generate questions, while analytical AI tools can scan survey responses to help sort, tag, and report on them. Some survey apps have AI built into them already too.

Focus questions on a desired data type: As you conceptualize your survey, consider whether a qualitative or quantitative approach will better suit your research goals. Qualitative methods are best for exploring in-depth insights and underlying motivations, while quantitative methods are better for obtaining statistical data and measurable trends. For an outcome like "optimize our ice cream shop's menu offerings," you may want to find out which flavors of ice cream are most popular with teens. This would require a quantitative approach, for which you would use categorical questions that can help you rank potential flavors numerically.

Establish a timeline: Set a realistic timeline for your survey, from creation to distribution to data collection and analysis. You'll want to balance having your survey out long enough to generate a significant amount of responses but not so long that it loses relevance. That length can vary widely based on factors like type of survey, number of questions, audience size, time sensitivity, question format, and question length.

Define a margin of error: Your margin of error shows how much the survey results might differ from the real opinions of the entire group being studied. Since you can't possibly survey every single person in your desired population, you'll have to settle on an acceptable percentage of error upfront, a percentage figure that varies by sample size, sample proportion, and confidence interval. According to University of Wisconsin-Madison's Pamela Hunter , 95% is the industry standard confidence level (though small sample sizes may get by with 90%). At the 95% level, for example, an acceptable margin of error for a survey of 500 respondents would be 3%. That means that if 80% of respondents give a positive response to a question, the data shows that between 77-83% respond positively 95 out of 100 times.

Market research survey campaign example

Let's say you own a market research company, and you want to use a survey to gain critical insights into your market. You prompt users to fill out your survey before they can access gated premium content.

Survey questions: 

1. What size is your business? 

<10 employees

11-50 employees

51-100 employees

101-200 employees

>200 employees

2. What industry type best describes your role?

3. On a scale of 1-4, how important would you say access to market data is?

1 - Not important

2 - Somewhat important

3 - Very important

4 - Critically important

4. On a scale of 1 (least important) to 5 (most important), rank how important these market data access factors are.

Accuracy of data

Attractive presentation of data

Cost of data access

Range of data presentation formats

Timeliness of data

5. True or false: your job relies on access to accurate, up-to-date market data.

Survey findings: 

63% of respondents represent businesses with over 100 employees, while only 8% represent businesses with under 10.

71% of respondents work in sales, marketing, or operations.

80% of respondents consider access to market data to be either very important or critically important.

"Timeliness of data" (38%) and "Accuracy of data" (32%) were most commonly ranked as the most important market data access factor.

86% of respondents claimed that their jobs rely on accessing accurate, up-to-date market data.

Insights and recommendations: Independent analysis of the survey indicates that a large percentage of users work in the sales, marketing, or operations fields of large companies, and these customers value timeliness and accuracy most. These findings can help you position future report offerings more effectively by highlighting key benefits that are important to customers that fit into related customer profiles. 

Market research survey example questions

Your individual questions will vary by your industry, market, and research goals, so don't expect a cut-and-paste survey to suit your needs. To help you get started, here are market research survey example questions to give you a sense of the format.

Yes/No: Have you purchased our product before?

Multiple choice: How many employees work at your company?

<10 / 10-20 / 21-50 / 51-100 / 101-250 / 250+

Checkbox: Which of the following features do you use in our app?

Push notifications / Dashboard / Profile customization / In-app chat

Dropdown: What's your household income? 

$0-$10K / $11-$35K / $36-$60K / $61K+

Ranking: Which social media platforms do you use the most? Rank in order, from most to least.

Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / LinkedIn / Reddit

Ranking scale: On a scale of 1-5, how would you rate our customer service? 

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

Textbox: How many apps are installed on your phone? Enter a number: 

Market research survey question types

Good survey apps typically offer pre-designed templates as a starting point. But to give you a more visual sense of what these questions might look like, we've put together a document showcasing common market research survey question types.

You're going to get a lot of responses back from your survey—why dig through them all manually if you don't have to? Automate your survey to aggregate information for you, so it's that much easier to uncover findings. 

Related reading:

Poll vs. survey: What is a survey and what are polls?

The best online survey apps

The best free form builders and survey tools

How to get people to take a survey

This article was originally published in June 2015 by Stephanie Briggs. The most recent update, with contributions from Cecilia Gillen, was in September 2023.

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Amanda Pell

Amanda is a writer and content strategist who built her career writing on campaigns for brands like Nature Valley, Disney, and the NFL. When she's not knee-deep in research, you'll likely find her hiking with her dog or with her nose in a good book.

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Market Research Survey: The Complete Guide

This process involves gathering primary (self-conducted) and secondary (information already researched and made available) sources, to fully assess how a business will fare within a particular market and audience.

A market research survey is typically a source of primary information that businesses can use as part of their market research campaigns. It can also exist as a secondary source, in which case, its studies and results are published online or in a print publication.

This article will take a close look at the market research survey, so that you can use it to the optimum benefit for your business.

What Can you Achieve with Market Research?

A market research survey, as its name entails, is used for research purposes. Before we dive into all the aspects of this survey, it is apt to learn how you can use market research to your full advantage.

Market research is critical for a variety of purposes, including marketing , advertising , and branding campaigns. 

Aside from providing data-based support for these macro purposes, market research gains you invaluable insight into particular markets. For example, you may consider running a research campaign for the retail market . Market research will help you gather all the relevant information pertaining to this specific market.

Aside from retail, you can conduct market research in a number of verticals, including ecommerce , technology, real estate and many others.

There are plenty of other applications for market research. Here are some of the ways to use market research to your advantage:

• Observe data to prepare for challenges in advance
• Gauge the demand for your product or service
• Learn key market trends and staples
• Discover how your competitors are winning or losing
• Uncover your target market’s desires, preferences, aversions and thoughts

The final point is remarkably crucial for market research and for generally keeping your business afloat. And so, we’ll now dig deep into the market research survey, as this tool is especially useful for this purpose.

Defining a Market Research Survey

This tool is the most commonly used market research method — and for good reason. A market research survey allows you to gather data on your target market. Moreover, it allows businesses to do so by accessing any insights they need, as long as they form corresponding questions to their investigation.

Surveys have a far-reaching history, as they date back to ancient civilizations such as Greece and Rome. There was a surge in survey use in 1930s America, in which the government sought to understand the economic and social state of the nation.

Surveys have taken up a variety of forms, including analog forms, such as paper and mail-in formats . 

Telephone surveys were the medium of choice for survey research during the 1960s-90s. But, as technological advancements would have it, those have declined in usefulness as well.

In the present day, surveys are conducted online, particularly through the use of designated software platforms. This type of software has paved the way for easy access to primary research. 

Businesses can use online survey software and tools and to carry out all their survey research (save for creating the screener and questions). Many such tools available both allow you to build surveys along with deploying them. 

To reiterate, market research surveys are powerful tools, in that they empower businesses to ask any question they choose to better understand their market and consumer base. They also can offer key insights into competitors. 

The Components of a Market Research Survey

This tool contains two major components: the screener and the questionnaire . These form the bulk of the insights your primary research will gather.

There are also two auxiliary components to incorporate to make your survey research successful. These include the call-out (introduction) and the thank you message (conclusion).

Unlike the essential components, the need to use these will vary based on your survey deployment method and campaign. For example, an emailed survey won’t require a call-out, as the email itself serves this purpose.

A web or mobile survey, on the other hand, will need a call-out to get the attention of your respondents. 

Here is a break-down of each component, beginning with the essential elements:

• These conditions often deal with demographics, which is incredibly important, as you would need to first and foremost, survey your target market. The screener will ensure it is only your target market that takes part in the survey.
• The screener is often comprised of 2-3 questions.
• The questionnaire should ask all the necessary questions you need for a particular campaign or sub-campaign. Or, if used in a preliminary stage of your market research, they can deal with questions particularly designed to segment your target market.
• If respondents are contacted via email, the call-out is in the email’s body, inviting participants to take it, listing why it’s important, its length and what it’s used for.
• If the survey exists within a website (either as a banner, or button), the call-out is the clickable element itself (the button/banner to the survey). It too should explain the survey to respondents.
• If the survey is on a website/app, the call-out has to be visible and attractive enough for users to notice it and click on it.
• The survey often routes users to another page with a thank you message. 
• It’s important, as it lets participants know that their survey has in fact been submitted.

How to Create a Market Research Survey

Here are a few steps to take into consideration when starting on a market research survey project.

Step 1: Find a topic your business needs to learn more about.

This is particularly important if it is a topic that has little to no secondary sources. In this case, opting for a survey is the best way to learn more about it firsthand, from the people who matter most: your target market. Pay attention to any problems your business may experience, as surveys should help resolve them. 

Step 2: Consider the topic in regards to your target market

When you’ve narrowed down a problem or two, think about your target market. Do you know who constitutes it? If yes, tailor your survey topic into a subtopic that they’ll be most likely to respond to. For example, if your target market is middle-aged men who watch sports, consider whether your problem/topic will be relevant to them.

If you don’t know your target market, you should conduct some secondary research about it first, then perform market segmentation (surveys can help on this front too).

Step 3: Find the larger application of the survey campaign

Now that you’ve settled on a topic/problem and decided on whether it’s fitting for your target market, consider what the parent campaign of the survey would be. Let’s hypothetically say your topic is related to a product. Would a survey on that topic benefit a branding campaign like finding your next slogan? Would it be better suited to settle on a theme for an advertising campaign? 

Once you find the most appropriate application or macro campaign to house the survey, your market research will be organized and your survey will be better set up for success.

Step 4: Calculate your margin of error

A margin of error , in simple terms, is a measurement of how effective your survey will be. Expressed as a percentage, it measures the difference between survey results and the population value.

You need to measure this unit, as surveys represent a large group of people, but are made up of a much smaller group. Therefore, the larger the margin of error, the less accurate the opinions of the survey represent an entire population. 

Step 5: Create your survey(s)

Now that you’ve calculated the margin of error, start creating your campaign. Decide on how many surveys you would need, in regard to your margin of error and your market research needs. 

Start with a broader topic and get more specific in each question. Or, create multiple surveys focused on different but closely related subtopics to your main topic.

Send out your surveys through a trusted survey platform. 

Questions to Ask for Various Campaigns

The steps laid out above are part of a simple procedure in developing a market research survey. However, there is much more to these steps, especially that of creating the survey. 

Namely, you would need the correct set of questions, as they are the lifeblood of a survey. With so many different survey research campaigns and purposes, brainstorming questions can seem almost counterintuitive. 

To avoid information overload and any confusion that creating a survey may incite, review the below question examples. They are organized per campaign type, so you can discern which questions are most suitable for which corresponding research purpose.

Questions for Branding

Branding campaigns include efforts that build the identity of your business; this includes gathering data-backed ideas on logos, imagery, messaging and core themes surrounding your brand. You can use these when embarking on a new campaign, revamping an existing one or when you’re looking to change your brand’s reputation and style.

• Which of these brands do you know?
• What do you like most/least about this brand?
• Which idea is more important? (Use an idea behind setting up your brand’s image/style)
• Which images do you find the most inspiring? (To compare images you’ll use in your marketing/ definitive to your brand)
• What do you like about [brand]? (Can be open-ended)

Questions for Advertising

Using market research for advertising will help you obtain ideas for new advertising campaigns, testing already established campaign ideas and predicting the success of new ones.

• How would you rate the motivating power of this ad?
• Which of the following ads resonate the most with you?
• Do you remember this ad? (Name and image/video of a popular ad within your industry)
• How do you feel after watching this ad?
• What kind of use do you think this product/service produces?

Questions for Comparing Yourself with Competitors 

Studying your competitors is often associated with secondary research, but you can gain intelligence on this topic through your own survey research. The great thing about surveys is that you don’t have to focus on one competitor when managing these surveys.

• How often do you use this product/service?
• Which brand do you use for this product/service? (Include one open-ended answer).
• Which of the following products (same kind, different brand) do you find the most useful?
• What about [competitor product] would you like to see change?
• Which brand has improved your life? (Include one open-ended question).

Questions for Market Segmentation

This application is possibly the most challenging, as it involves understanding who your target market already is, then further segmenting it. We understand coming to terms with your target market first, before narrowing it any further down.

Here is how to segment your target market; you’ll notice that the questions are much more granular than the typical questions associated with each topic. (Ex: demographics typically ask for race, age, gender, income, etc).

• Demographic segmentation: Which of the following groups do you identify with most closely? (It can involve anything from music, to shopping habits, to lifestyle choices)
• Geographic segmentation: Which of the following areas do you typically spend time in to make physical purchases?
• Psychographic segmentation: How do you feel about retailers who test their products on animals?
• Behavioral segmentation: How often do you buy this kind of product?
• Sentimental segmentation: How do the following [practices, images, actions] make you feel?

Securing the Most Benefits Out of Your Market Research Survey

As we can deduce from this guide, the market research survey is a critical tool for market research . There is so much to discover about your industry, competitors and chiefly, your customers. But before making any hasty decisions, it is vital to peruse all your research documents, not just the primary research ones, such as surveys.

When you combine primary and secondary research sources, you’re setting up any business move for greater success. 

That’s because market research involves studying more than one source. It may appear daunting, but with the right tools, you can design better products, innovate on existing products, appeal to a wider audience and gain more revenue from your marketing efforts. 

Thus, pair your market research survey with other research means for a lucrative market research campaign. Knowledge truly is power. 

Frequently asked questions

What is a market research survey.

A market research survey is a survey used for conducting primary market research and is the most commonly used market research method. Market research surveys help you understand your target market, gathering data necessary to make informed decisions on content creation, product development, and more.

What are the components of a market research survey?

There are 4 major components in a market research survey. First, we have the callout to get digital visitors to participate in a survey. Next is the screener which determines who is eligible to take the survey based on their demographics information and answers to screening questions. Then, there is the questionnaire—-- this is the heart of the survey, containing a set of open-ended or closed-ended questions. Lastly, there’s the callout. This introduces the survey to respondents. Next, there’s the thank you message. This acts as the conclusion to the survey.

How can you create a market research survey?

Creating a market research survey starts with identifying the topics your business needs to learn more about. Next, you consider topics within the context of your target market and find the larger application of the survey campaign. Calculate your margin of error and then create your survey using online software.

What types of questions should you ask on your market research survey?

You can ask branding related questions to gather information on how your identity of your business is perceived. You can also ask questions that spark ideas for new advertising campaigns. To supplement your secondary research on competitors, ask questions about your business’s place in the industry. Questions can also be used for market segmentation. These are questions on demographic, geographic, psychographic, behavioral and sentimental topics.

How can you get the most benefits out of your market research survey?

You can get the most out of your market research survey by using the correct online survey platform-- one with specific audience targeting for real consumers, radius targeting and quality screening questions-- you’ll get relevant answers from the right audience.

Do you want to distribute your survey? Pollfish offers you access to millions of targeted consumers to get survey responses from $0.95 per complete. Launch your survey today.

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How to conduct a market survey that works

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Knowing your audience is the backbone of success whether you’re a small business or a household name. And to know your audience, you need to do some all-important market research. But what’s the best way to go about doing that? Well, the easy answer is to use our market research platform to get on-demand insights into your existing audience and your potential customers.

But, if you want to take the long route, you could conduct a good old fashioned market research survey yourself.

What is a market research survey?

We’re glad you asked. A market research survey is a way of gaining information, insights, and attributes about your target consumers, so you can better understand them and what makes them tick. These surveys are typically conducted by market research companies . More information means more knowledge, which leads to more understanding – helping drive more successful campaigns.

But market research surveys don’t just help you improve your targeting and create campaigns that have impact. They provide valuable insight into the feelings, attitudes, and preferences of your audience – guiding everything from concept testing and launching new products, to brand positioning and customer satisfaction.

But what does it really take to conduct a market survey that works? Let’s get into it.

1. Set a clear goal 2. Know who to survey 3. Get help from survey-savvy people 4. Figure out the best way to get answers 5. Focus on the execution 6. Understand analysis is the answer 7. Uncover the bigger picture

1. Set a clear goal

Start by setting a clear objective of what you want from your market research. This will be determined by your marketing goals. If you’re launching a new product, for example, you’ll want to know what the demand is, how aware people are of your existing products/brand, if they currently use a competitor, and how frequently they buy.

Be precise about the outcome you’re looking for so you can get the answers you need to nail your future marketing campaigns .

• Why are you doing the survey?
• What do you want to find out from your research?
• Is it for product improvements with an existing audience?
• Are you looking to launch a new product into the marketplace and therefore need to know if there’s sufficient demand?
• Are you looking to improve your customer experience?

Knowing what you want to find out will help you identify what information you need. And it’ll help you determine whether a qualitative or quantitative approach works best.

The aim is to find out what your customers are looking for and improve satisfaction with your brand. 

Uncovering consumer attitudes could reveal some invaluable insights that will guide your strategy with the customer at the heart.

2. Know who to survey

Market research starts with identifying which market you’re targeting. Who’s your audience? Are you looking at existing customers? Or are you looking to find out more about potential customers? 

Think back to your goal here. Keeping in mind what you’re looking to achieve from your market research can help guide who you survey. For example, if you want to build on your customer offering by introducing a priority service, you may just want to gather information from people living in a certain area or earning over a certain amount.

Use regional data to attain precise information about the target customer whose data you need, and narrow it down to support your ultimate goal. 

Determine key demographics of your target audience like where they live, their age, gender, or income bracket. You’ll also need to establish the market size of your target market in order to calculate your sample size.

3. Get help from some survey-savvy people

Who knows about surveys? We do. 

We teased this at the start, but turning to an existing, ongoing survey (or multiple) could save you a helluva lot of time – and money. So if you need a faster way to understand digital consumers, we give you an on-demand window into their worlds. All in a few quick clicks, in one reliable audience insights platform.

GWI data spans 53 markets and represents over 2 billion internet users, making it the world’s leading market survey on digital consumers. 

We provide a level of detail you can’t find elsewhere. Survey research is tricky. So why not leave it to the market research experts? And if you want something super bespoke for your business needs, our Custom research offering might be just the thing. 

4. Figure out the best way to get answers

Cast your mind back to steps 1 and 2. Thinking about who you’re looking to survey and what you’re looking to gain will help determine how you get those answers from the right target market. 

Knowing the difference between primary research and secondary research, as well as qualitative and quantitative, can go a long way to helping you figure out the best approach. 

For example, primary market research is where you gather data that hasn’t been collected before – it’s new, essentially. You can gather primary research via surveys or observations. On the other hand, secondary market research is where you gather data that’s already been collected or conducted before by other people. You can find secondary research in published reports or studies. 

Surveys can be carried out in a number of ways, no longer exclusive to telephone surveys and focus groups. The online survey is another option that allows you to take a step away from the time-consuming paper survey. You can also conduct market research in groups or on an individual basis. 

Once again, the optimum approach for your brand will depend on your goals and the information you’re trying to capture, as well as your target audience, market share potential, and overall preferences.

If you want to gather in-depth information from Gen Z , for example, you might want to head over to Instagram. With 28% of Gen Zs saying that Instagram is their favorite social media platform, you’re most likely to find them scrolling here where you can try out polls to get answers, and  ask follow-up questions that dig a little deeper.

Using quantitative panel data to back this up, market researchers can come away with powerful insights and market analysis they can trust.

 5. Focus on the execution

Once you’re clear about your goals, the data you want, the people you need to talk to, and the best way to gather your survey data, it’s important to maximize the sample size. 

This means reaching people at the right time, checking out where they’re likely to be, and setting a realistic timeframe for them to share their thoughts.

You’ve got to really keep your target audience in mind here. If you’re physically interacting with people, think about the places they’re likely to visit, and at what times they’ll be there. There’s no use setting up camp at the mall on a weekday if you’re looking to talk to corporate big fish.

If it’s an online survey, understanding which social media platforms or websites they are likely to hang out on, and at what times they tend to be online is vital to getting those survey form completion numbers to hit the high notes. 

Conducting some data analysis ahead of the survey can go a long way in helping make the survey easier to reach the right audiences. Take the guesswork out of your marketing research.

6. Analysis is the answer

Once you’ve gathered your market survey responses, they need to be analyzed thoroughly to pull out key trends and findings to allow you to gain some tasty, actionable insights from the data. So, what do you need to be looking at?

• Examine qualitative answers for stand-out quotes and detailed feedback about attitudes and behaviors
• Calculate averages from your quantitative answers
• Compare your results against global and local secondary market research

There are plenty of ways to cross-examine and analyze your market research data based on the type of data you’ve collected and what you’re looking for.

7. Uncover the bigger picture

Conducting a single market research survey is invaluable to brands, but when carried out in isolation, market research can lack real-world relevance.  

To get more from your analysis, large-scale market survey data allows you to compare your findings across multiple data points. You can cross-reference it with local subgroups and compare against global averages to clearly see where the value truly lies.

Use case: Identifying affluent consumer behaviors on social media

Here’s a hypothetical example. Let’s say you sell a luxury product. You’ve identified from your own survey results and analytics that social media is prominent in your customers’ lives. 

But you need more detail to target high-earners on the channels where they’re most active.

By using a deep data set to dig down into their activity on social media, you can uncover exactly where they spend their time:

Combining this with questions designed to reveal their motivations for using social media takes your understanding to the next level:

Here, 30% of affluent consumers follow/subscribe to companies and brands they purchase from, so we’re more inclined to say they can be targeted with a good social media strategy from brands to be enticed into buying from them. 

Uncovering insights like this is key to delivering a well-positioned message that sticks. 

Now, you can create a campaign specifically targeted to hit your ideal target market, where they hang out and in a way that speaks to their interests.

Market research surveys are pivotal to success

Market surveys can be used in a variety of ways to help a brand focus more on its target audience and take a more people-based approach.

You can use it to get a better understanding of the perceptions around your brand, test the appetite for a new product, and find customer demographics to accurately pitch an ad campaign. A marketing research survey enables you to gather information about your audience and help to build a buyer persona for each sector of your target audience for more personalized, effective marketing strategies.

Data holds the answers you need to achieve almost every business goal.

But data is powerless without effective analysis. And without effective analysis, no insights can be drawn. So it pays to have third-party survey data sets at your disposal to contextualize your findings. A skillfully-planned market survey that catches customer feedback and experience will deliver findings that could spell the difference between success and failure in a marketing strategy. Leveraging GWI’s data platform means getting clued up on your audience fast, and making decisions you can stand behind.

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Why use surveys?

Survey research methods.

• Conducting market research surveys
• Common mistakes with market research surveys?

The different types of survey methods

Survey tools for your survey method, what can businesses do with these types of surveys, how to write a research survey (free example templates), try qualtrics for free, types of market research surveys.

20 min read There are different types of survey research you can run, but the majority of research is conducted with just a handful of research survey methods. We explore what they are and how to use them.

What is a market research survey?

A market research survey is a way of getting feedback directly from the people who have the ultimate say in your organization’s success: your customers.

Unlike focus groups or interviews, market research surveys allow you to get detailed feedback at scale — from behaviors to overall experiences — and in a standardized format. Also, as the data is easy to process, you can quickly turn it into actionable insights .

Surveys are used to collect primary research, which means market research data that you collect yourself. The other type is secondary data, which is obtained from other sources, for example census data.

Surveys are among the most popular methods of primary market research, since they can be used to gather qualitative and quantitative research on market trends, and they can cover a huge range of respondents across your customer base. They’re also a format familiar to many people.

Get started with our free survey software

Surveys are ultimately about understanding your target audience, but they can go beyond your customer base. They can be taken by anyone — employees, potential future customers, and even those who don’t want to engage with your business (helping you to identify the ones that do).

However, a survey isn’t a stand-alone solution. It can work alongside other survey methods, such as focus groups, field studies, observation, and market analysis, to help you get a clear picture of your market and decide what direction to take.

But with all these different types of survey methods, and some being better than others in specific areas (e.g. data quality, collecting feedback), where should you start?

To get the best out of each survey research type, consider what you can invest in terms of:

• Time: How quickly do you need the survey research? Do you have time to conduct research?
• Money: Do you have the budget to invest in research overheads?
• Knowledge of analytics: Are you trained to interpret the collected data? If not, do you have a partner you can work with to get the insights you need?
• Research expertise: Do you have clearly defined problems or challenges that you want to explore or understand through surveys?
• Technology capability: Is your survey software up to the task of analyzing the data?
• Your audience’s response: Is it likely that your audience will respond? What survey types (online surveys, etc.) would they be most receptive to?
• Slow responses: Do you have a strategy in place to avoid low response rates?

Conducting market research surveys: best practices

Today’s market research industry is advancing rapidly, thanks in part to new technologies which make it easier to conduct market research, and offer more power and sophistication when it comes to analyzing your data.

Data-driven research is the standard across market research and other disciplines, and within the sector competition between brands is driving progress towards better and better market research tools. Beyond customer satisfaction, demographic questions and competitive analysis, today’s tools can dive deeper into your data, unearthing key drivers behind trends and even providing aggregated data on emotions and attitudes in customer feedback.

However, none of these technological advances can replace humans. To conduct market research successfully, you need to be able to combine tech with insight, intelligence and intuition, especially when you’re dealing directly with target customers, for example during a phone interview or when you’re approaching existing customers whose relationship to your brand needs to be maintained.

As we’ll see in this guide, market research can be used in a huge range of contexts, including brand tracking, customer experience research, employee experience programs, and of course product development. Whichever application you’re looking at, it’s essential to prepare thoroughly before sending out your surveys.

• Make sure your research question has been formulated and agreed by everyone involved in the project
• Develop a communications plan to maximize the chances of people engaging with your survey, including introductions, publicity, reminders and follow-up
• Consider using pre-testing before you fully launch your survey to thoroughly road-test it and iron out any issues
• Close the loop – after the study is complete and actions have been taken, let participations know how their contribution helped
• Consider a research panel for future surveys, either one you’ve built yourself or one managed by a third party provider

What are some common mistakes with market research surveys?

With the right survey tools and appropriate support from your survey platform provider, everything should go smoothly, even if you’re not an expert at doing your own market research. However, there are a few things to watch out for.

Choosing the wrong people to survey

Figuring out who you’re going to survey in the first place may seem like an obvious first step and not one you need to spend much time on. But in fact it’s possible to get it wrong, survey the wrong people and end up running a market research study with unreliable data. This is sometimes called ‘sample framing error’

Getting your sample size wrong

If your sample is too small, you run the risk of getting a sample group that doesn’t adequately reflect your target population. This can throw your entire market research survey off course. But if the sample is too large, you spend time and money on research that doesn’t add significant value. Have a look at our sample size calculator to help determine the right sample size for your market research surveys.

Using the wrong kinds of analysis

Do you know your conjoint analysis from your T-test? Understanding the basic types of statistical tests you can use to analyze market research survey data is essential if you’re not using a survey tool with built-in analytics. You’ll need to match the kind of data you’re collecting to the analysis method you choose in order to get accurate insights from your market research surveys.

Writing confusing survey questions

Survey questions aren’t like the questions we use in everyday speech, or even like the ones we ask in formal writing. They need to be highly specific, include appropriate context, and be free of any kind of descriptive or persuasive element that might introduce bias. For a primer on writing great market research survey questions, see our guide to great survey questions

You should choose your survey method based on your target audience, distribution capabilities, and the questions you want answered. For example, interviews are far more personal and explorative by nature, but they’re difficult and costly to scale. Online surveys, on the other hand, have far greater reach and much more affordable — but you lose the opportunity to connect with respondents. Let’s go through the different types and how you can use them.

Online surveys

Online surveys are accessible to any participant across the globe, providing they have an internet connection. You can create online surveys using survey platforms and distribute them via email using a link, or respondents can go directly to the online survey and complete it.

Paper surveys

Paper surveys (or written surveys) are printed surveys filled in by hand. This method works well if respondents have enough time (and incentive) to complete the survey, and the researcher is happy to manually collect the data before collating and interpreting the answers.

Mail surveys

Mail surveys provide exceptional geographical coverage as they can be printed off and sent via the post. However, as recipients need to return the surveys for counting, it’s recommended that you include a pre-paid returns envelope in the original envelope, otherwise you’ll have lower response rates.

Telephone surveys

Telephone surveys involve asking respondents a series of questions over the phone. It’s a popular survey method as it’s convenient for researchers and doesn’t require a lot of capital to do. However, researchers may need to invest time to set up interviews with participants and take notes during the process.

In-person interviews / face-to-face surveys

In-person interviews and face-to-face surveys are great opportunities to get more insightful and valuable responses from participants. You can quickly find out why they think and feel the way that they do, providing an unbiased view of a subject or issue. However, like telephone surveys, they require a lot of time to set up and gather data.

Panel surveys

Panel surveys use a pre-selected group of people as the sample, so that the research can be carried out quickly. It presents a happy medium between the speed and quality of research data.

Based on the type of survey method you choose, here are the types of tools you need and can use for each:

A good internet connection is required for participants to access online surveys, though mobile devices data plans mean that most people can connect to the internet easily.

A good survey software platform is needed to give you full functionality and flexibility, so your online surveys can be customized and optimized. However, businesses can get more for their money with a survey software system that does more for the company.

For example, the Qualtrics XM Platform™ is a best-of-breed experience operating system for experience management. It brings all your operational and experience data together from across the organization to help create and improve experiences for employees, customers, prospects and more. It automatically updates records, has an in-built analytics engine and can handle research projects, from start to finish, in a few clicks.

All you need are paper, ink, pens and clipboards — but due to environmental and sustainability concerns, particularly paper waste and ink pollution, you may want to opt for a more digitized solution.

For mail surveys, the resources and concerns are the same as with paper surveys — but the main difference is distribution.

Ultimately, you need a reliable postal service that can deliver to your target audience. It also becomes costly if you want to include international respondents.

As long as you have good connectivity and network coverage, telephone surveys are straightforward. That said, survey calls can last a long time, so if you plan to include international audiences, ensure you can afford the calling costs.

The only requirement for in-person interviews and face-to-face surveys is a venue to hold them in.

These require participants to be available at the time of the research. Traditionally, third-party generated research panels are available as a service to companies that don’t have access to the audiences they need.

The surveys we explored can be used for four purposes in any business:

1. Market surveys

These help you understand who’s out there, what they want, and how you can best meet their needs.

Market description surveys

Purpose: to determine the size and relative market share of the market. Such studies provide key information about market growth, competitive positioning, and tracking share of the market .

Market profiling / segmentation surveys

Purpose: to identify who the customers are , who they are not, and why they are or are not your customers. This is often a descriptive market segmentation and market share analysis.

Stage in the purchase process / tracking surveys

Where is the customer in the adoption process? This information shows Market Awareness – Knowledge – Intention – Trial – Purchase – Repurchase of the product.

2.   Customer experience surveys

This kind of survey helps you put yourself in the customer’s shoes and look at your business from their perspective.

Customer intention – purchase analysis surveys

Purpose: Directed at understanding the current customer. What motivates the customer to move from interest in the product to actual purchase? This is key to understanding customer conversion, commitment, and loyalty .

Customer attitudes and expectations surveys

Purpose: Used to direct advertising and improve customer conversion, commitment, and loyalty. Does the product meet customer expectations ? What attitudes have customers formed about the product and/or company?

Learn how you can set up and run customer attitudes and use surveys

Sales lead generation surveys

Purpose: Sales lead generation surveys are for

• assuring timely use and follow-up of sales leads
• qualifying sales leads (thereby saving valuable sales force time)
• providing more effective tracking of sales leads

Customer trust / loyalty / retention analysis surveys

Purpose: Especially helpful for high-priced consumer goods with a long decision and purchase processes (time from need recognition to purchase), this type of study explores the depth of consumer attitudes formed about the product and/or company.

Salesforce effectiveness surveys

Purpose: A combination of measures that focus on the sales activities, performance, and effectiveness in producing the desired and measurable effect or goal. Often measured as a 360-degree survey completed by the salesperson, the client (evaluating the sales call), and the supervisor responsible for evaluating the salesperson.

Customer service surveys

Purpose: Akin to customer satisfaction surveys, customer service surveys instead focus in detail on the actual customer service that was received, the process involved in receiving that service, and the evaluation of the participants in the service process.

Customer service representative (CSR) surveys

Purpose: CSRs often exhibit frustration, burnout, and high turnover . Surveys focus on CSR retention, reducing costs, and increasing the quality of customer relationships.

Attitudes, burnout, turnover, and retention: CSRs hold attitudes that reflect on their job-related activities including:

• the allocation of time
• solutions to customer needs
• how to improve their job
• best practices
• how well internal departments help customers

3. Product surveys

As part of product development, surveys help you find out what features, benefits and attributes appeal most to your customers, and how best to package your product, experience or service.

New product, service or experience concept analysis surveys

Purpose: Concept test studies are appropriate in the initial screening of new product concepts . Likes and dislikes about the concept and evaluation of acceptability and likelihood of purchase are especially useful measures.

Concept optimization, demand estimation, and cost analysis surveys (conjoint analysis)

Purpose: Determines an optimal bundle of features and benefits, and estimates associated demand. This kind of survey develops market share estimates of market potential for the alternative potential products.

Habits and practices, or attitude and usage surveys

Purpose: Directed at understanding usage situations, including how, when, and where the product is used. Habits and practices studies sometimes include a real or virtual pantry audit. Attitude and usage studies are used to understand consumer attitudes towards the product category and to life in general. They also look at product and brand usage, including how, when and where the product is used.

Product satisfaction surveys (attribute, features, promised benefits)

Purpose: Evaluation of the product’s promised bundle of benefits (both tangible and image). Are expectations created for the product by advertising, packaging , and the product appearance fulfilled by the product?

Competitive benchmarking surveys

Purpose: A “best practices” study of “how does the market view us relative to the competition?” Competitive positioning analyses often compare the attributes and benefits that make up the product using multidimensional scaling. These analyses also include an evaluation of key competitors, looking at the same KPIs and attributes as product satisfaction surveys.

Sales forecasting and market tracking surveys

Purpose: Sales forecasting and market tracking studies can include expert opinion (experts estimate the market), judgmental bootstrapping (expert-based rules describing how to use available secondary market information), conjoint analysis (estimation of consumer intentions based on product attributes that are important in the decision), and intentions evaluations (consumer self-reported intentions of future purchases).

Price setting surveys and elasticity of demand analysis

Purpose: Price surveys estimate the elasticity of demand and show optimal price points, including prices too low or too high. Price surveys may estimate the demand for different product or service segments, or different usage situations.

4. Brand surveys

A survey can help you understand how consumers perceive your brand and what values and ideas they associate with it. You can explore what value your brand has and whether people would choose you over competitors in your market niche.

Brand equity analysis surveys

Purpose: What is the psychological value that a brand holds in the marketplace? Brand equity is a composite of brand awareness , brand quality, brand associations, and brand loyalty measures.

Advertising value identification and analysis surveys

Purpose: Advertising value analysis focuses on mapping the hierarchical attributes, benefits, and values that are associated with and portrayed by an advertisement. Means-end analysis is often part of this type of study.

Advertising message effectiveness surveys (media and message)

Purpose: Message effectiveness testing identifies the impressions, feelings, and effectiveness in moving the respondent to a desired goal (increased awareness, more product information, trial, repeat purchase).

Once you know the right type of survey to run, the next step is to write a survey that your respondents will love to take!

Survey methods can be used to help collect data on real business issues and help you answer questions. Qualtrics supports customer surveys on every channel, at every journey stage to get you answers for more informed decisions.

We’ve put together a range of survey example templates that you can use for free to help you get started:

• Employee satisfaction survey template
• Employee exit survey template
• Customer satisfaction (CSAT) survey template
• Ad testing survey template
• Brand awareness survey template
• Product pricing survey template
• Product research survey template
• Employee engagement survey template
• Customer service survey template
• NPS survey template
• Product package testing survey template
• Product features prioritization survey template

In addition, for large-scale research studies, Qualtrics offers market research services to help with everything from questionnaire design and survey methods, to implementation and analysis.

Related resources

Post event survey questions 10 min read, best survey software 16 min read, close-ended questions 7 min read, survey vs questionnaire 12 min read, response bias 13 min read, double barreled question 11 min read, likert scales 14 min read, request demo.

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18 Ways to Use Market Research Surveys

A market research survey is a tried and tested tool to help you uncover vital intel about consumer sentiment, something any business can benefit from.  In a perfect world, we’d know exactly what people want, think, and feel about our products and company all the time. Sadly, it’s neither feasible nor realistic. And that’s ok.

With the best products, messaging, and delivery, there’s always room for improvement. And even when you get it just right, market and consumer behaviors can shift at a moment’s notice.

Enter market research surveys – the most favored and widely used qualitative research tool there is right now.

What is a market research survey?

A market research survey is a qualitative research method used to gather feedback from a person or group. It provides vital insights that support strategic decisions , allowing organizations to analyze and understand consumer behavior or motivations in more detail. Responses are collected in various forms, such as paper, in-person, mailings, or online.

What information can a market research survey tell you?

Market research surveys collect feedback from individuals by using a range of questions to find out about things like:

• Experiences
• Characteristics
• Preferences
• Motivations
• Needs & Demands

What are the benefits of market research surveys?

Here’s the top five advantages of using online market research surveys:

• Quick to set-up
• Easy to create
• Immediate feedback
• Extensive reach

“As a business that provides market research survey tools, our mission is to help companies collect crucial information so they can understand the people’s opinions, behaviors, and knowledge of specific industries, products, and services. Data collected through market research surveys are essential for making decisions about product development, marketing strategies, and business operations.”

Market research survey uses and types in action

Market research surveys are both valuable and versatile . But many organizations fail to realize their true potential; and don’t always extract the maximum ROI. Here, I’m sharing 18 different ways to use online surveys.

1. Measure customer satisfaction

Market research surveys are an ideal way to measure and obtain feedback about customer satisfaction ; they’re often referred of CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) surveys, indicating what consumers like and dislike. They also allow organizations to keep track of their Net Promotor Score (NPS). Typically, these surveys ask questions to uncover insights about a service, product, or experience. Sending timely feedback surveys to help resolve issues before they become a problem , giving you the chance to transform a poor experience into a good one.

Here’s three examples of typical questions asked in customer service surveys:

• Please rate the service you received when you visited our store today – Availability of staff (1-5) – Staff knowledge (1-5) – Friendly and helpful attitude (1-5)
• Were you recommended any additional products or services? (yes/no)
• If we could improve one thing about your experience at our store today, what would it be? (open text)

2. Do opinion polling

A great way to gather mass consensus from a large group of people. Typically, they’re short and sweet, asking just 2-3 questions. It’s one of the fastest ways to establish public opinion on a chosen topic. There are three types of opinion poll surveys you can use. They are:

• Rating – Usually a sliding scale between 0-10.
• Multiple choice – This offers three to five- options to choose from (always include ‘other’ as one of these with a free text field to uncover insights you might not have considered).
• Free text – Useful, but a little prohibitive if used too much. It’s important to balance the use of this option with quick and easy ratings and checkbox formats.

Here are three examples of opinion polling survey questions:

• What is the main reason you are attending the event?
• Do you like the changes to the lunch menu?
• What would be your ideal work setup? Office, WFH, or Hybrid?

3. Conduct audience research

Also known as buyer persona surveys, use them to better understand who your customers are, their motivations, and demographics . The results allow you to develop better value propositions and create more informed marketing campaigns that convert better and drive revenue.

Here are a few examples of audience research survey questions:

• Which social sites do you look at most?
• How often do you check your emails?
• How much research would you do before making a buying decision?
• Which search engine do you use most?
• What information formats do you most engage with?
• What tools do you use most in your daily work?

4. Automate testimonials & reviews

Testimonials can build a boatload of authority and buyer confidence. 85% of people trust reviews from strangers as much as peers, making them one of the most valuable forms of content. Automate the process, sit back, and watch the feedback roll in. During set-up, use a mix of rating-based questions and open-text fields. Once collected, they’ll support brand awareness , boost credibility, and assist with other marketing-related activities.

5. Measure employee satisfaction

It’s no secret that happy employees are more engaged and productive . According to research, happiness makes us about 12% more productive . On the flip side, low morale or job dissatisfaction can harm an organization’s reputation, culture, and bottom line. Surveys are a low-cost, effective, and easy way to measure employee satisfaction . You can also use them as exit interview surveys, a must for any business of any size.

Pro Tip: To surface any drivers of employee dissatisfaction, people need to know they can be brutally honest and open with their responses; anonymity in the survey is the only way to achieve this.

6. Validate product development ideas

Online surveys are a great way to validate whether or not a new product idea is worthy of investment. It can help you quantify demand by asking direct questions about specific features or concepts you are considering. Within our own business, we review new products or feature ideas internally and then validate their impact and potential with customers in the same way. Simply put, a quick research survey can uncover vital intel that shapes the what, how, and when to enhance your offering.

7. Measure lead generation effectiveness

Research surveys can help determine the efficiency of your lead qualification process . In short, they can measure and track how well a sales team is doing and assess things like timeliness, follow-up activities, and more. The information helps organizations find new ways to improve the management of lead generation activities and take actions that directly impact conversions in the future.

8. Improve market segmentation

Market surveys for better understand customers can help you better understand customers and prospects. With this, you can separate customers into smaller groups based on interest, demographics , geography , usage, or brand preferences. This gives you the ability to do more targeted marketing and a clearer view of why people in a specific group have or haven’t done business with you.

Segmentation survey example: A spa owner could use segmentation to group clients based on their treatment type or specific brands or products they prefer. They’re then able to offer specific promotions that involve the cross-pollination of products and services. This is just a single example; the possibilities are endless.

9. Qualification of pricing models

Surveys help you qualify any initial work on pricing new products or services. They can provide a clear indication of price ranges to consider and in some cases, give insights that shape pricing models and strategies that better serve the needs of different groups in a market. For demand analysis, these surveys are designed to determine if prices are set too high or too low.

10. Choose the right create assets

Establishing what types of creative assets most appeal to a target audience saves time and money while increasing the potential for success . For example, suppose you’re considering a few different titles for a major email campaign or trying to decide between a physical billboard campaign vs. digital marketing. In that case, a targeted survey can give you a general inclination of what will or won’t work.

Even with a sample network to target, you can get valuable insights to help you prioritize resources.

11. User experience

User experience (UX) surveys are one of the most important things you can do when designing or improving a product or service. The key to success is crafting an unbiased UX survey that enables people to freely open up about their preferences and attitudes. The questions you ask will be largely determined by what you want to achieve. User experience surveys can take place live from within an app or on a website, but can be confused with usability testing; a method that evaluates how easy a product is to use by testing it with actual users.

Here’s a few tips to get you started:

• Ask the right questions:
• Avoid using closed questions (yes/no) as they’ll often not provide usable intel about a customer’s mindset
• Use task-driven questions like ‘can you tell me more about your experience using our mobile app to make your booking?’
• Ranking questions, like ‘how would you rate the ease of booking via our app?’
• Avoid leading questions to avoid bias, like ‘if you enjoyed this product, should we create more like it?’
• Keep your survey short, clear, and simple – no more than eight questions is ideal.

12. Conduct a competitive analysis

You can use market surveys to get a quick taste of consumer appetites for a rival’s product, marketing efforts, and pricing. Here, I’ve highlighted three areas, along with specific questions to gather telling feedback about your competitors.

Where a market survey delivers value is by asking focused questions about sentiment and perception. Questions like:

• Do you perceive company x’s products to be high-quality or low-cost vs. our own?
• Do you find x feature valuable or not?
• Would you be prepared to pay more for a new feature that does x, y, or z?

Here’s a few questions you can ask:

• Which channels do you prefer to interact through, phone, app, live chat, etc.?
• What made you decide to purchase with us vs. a competitor?
• Do competitors offer promotions that would compel you to buy from them over us?
• What would deter you from buying x product from a competitor?

Enables you to clearly see which assets people respond to most positively. Aside from using a rival’s website to see their latest marketing campaigns, look at social media too. Do your competitors have a mobile app?

• If so, then you need to download it and experience things from your customer’s perspective.
• If not, do a survey to find out whether there’s an appetite for this or not?

Pro Tip: Use market research surveys to show your target demographic a selection of marketing materials from different competitors; ask them which they prefer and why, but make sure you remove their branding to avoid bias.

Here’s a few good questions to ask:

• How does this ad make you feel?
• Would you be more or less likely to buy if you saw this?
• What perception of the company or product do you have after seeing this ad?

Using surveys for competitive market research is just one of the many methods of gaining market intelligence to stay informed and gain market share . Surveys take time, and you need to consider how you tap into audiences that are aware of your rival’s offering and your own. Here’s a link to an article with some competitive analysis examples to help you find other ways to do this.

13. Monitor and track brand perception

Good brand perception can do wonders for your business. If people believe in your brand, it can open doors to new partnerships, boost buyer confidence, and make launching products easier. Brand tracking surveys give you a low-cost, effective way to monitor and benchmark brand perception regularly. Run them quarterly to get trackable results, and use a sliding scale, allowing people to indicate whether they’re more or less interested in specific products, features, or services.

Pro Tip: Brand tracking surveys aren’t just for customers and prospects, but employees, partners, and other stakeholders. Make sure your distribution accounts for this.

14. Analyze purchase or intent analysis

The consumer decision-making process typically consists of five stages, sometimes more.

Taking time to understand purchase intent allows you to capitalize upon and generate future demand for products, uncovering key drivers behind consumer intent. As a result, you can build more effective campaigns based on genuine consumer patterns; and discover what drives consumers to move from interest to purchase.

Different types of questions can be used to measure purchase intent. Always consider the objectives of your survey first before selecting the questions you’re going to ask; the format of the question will directly determine the type of information you yield.

Scale survey questions

These are used to determine feelings and opinions. For instance, to determine the likelihood of a future purchase from a specific set of customers, you can present respondents with a statement like this.

Q. I will probably purchase a new walk-in shower in the next 12 months

• Strongly agree
• Neither agree, nor disagree
• Strongly disagree

Ranking questions

Enable you to understand a service or product’s popularity. These are used more so in the early stages of a purchasing journey and can tell you how you compare with competitors, and which products most appeal to certain groups of people.

Q. Rank the following walk-in shower brands in order of preference

Rating scale questions

Use a numerical scale (usually 0-10) that allows respondents to rate the likelihood they’ll choose your offering over a rival.

Multiple-choice questions

These are the most widely used survey question type because they’re quick and easy for people to answer. They can help you establish purchase timeframes, which ties into demand and sales projections. An example of this could be:

Q. When do you expect to buy a new walk-in shower?

• Within 3 months
• Within 6 months
• Within 12 months
• I have no plans to buy a walk-in shower in the near future

Feedback from a survey question like this means your sales division can turn its attention to prospects who indicate they’re likely to purchase in the near future.

15. Discover factors that impact customer loyalty

Customer loyalty surveys tell you ‘why’ people love you or leave you, providing a valued measurement for your NPS. Using surveys for loyalty purposes lets you translate raw data into actionable insights that shape future strategies, campaigns, and messaging.

Here are a few examples of questions to ask in a customer loyalty survey:

• How likely are you to continue using our services?
• On a scale of 0-5, how satisfied are you with our company?
• Do you deal with any other companies for a similar product or service?
• How do you rate the value we offer for the money you pay?

16. Do B2B market research

The global B2B eCommerce market is growing , so much so that it’s expected to reach over 25 trillion by 2028. Needless to say, having effective tools to help with B2B market research is key. Market research surveys are a quick and easy way to target a large group of people at a low cost.

Here are a few ways to use B2B market research surveys, with sample questions included:

• Demographical information – Who are your target customers? – What is your line of business? – How many employees does your company employ? – What is your position at the company?
• Need vs. demand data – Does your business ever buy x products? – Do you use any apps or tools to boost productivity? – Who is the person responsible for buying x products? – Where do you go if you’re looking to buy x?
• Buying pattern insights – What’s the most important feature when buying promo products for your customers? – What motivates you to spend more money buying from a new vendor? – What business issues motivate you to invest in new products or marketing campaigns?

17. Measure advertising effectiveness

Conversion and click-through rates are widely regarded as the best way to measure advertising effectiveness. The often-forgotten about survey tool is another way to test how strong or relevant your ads or messaging is. The results can give you deeper insights that help you shape future marketing efforts for better results.

Here, you’re looking to find out:

• How much an advert motivates people to purchase?
• Are they memorable?
• Did customers understand them?
• What do customers think or feel about a specific slogan or tagline?

Pro Tip: You can also use this type of survey to uncover how people think about your ads vs. those of your rivals.

18. Improve content marketing strategy

Online surveys are a lesser-known but highly valuable tool to enhance your content marketing strategy . Instead of simply crunching the regular performance metrics, develop a quick online survey to gauge feedback from your content VIPs (your audience). It gives you the chance to connect with your readers, show them you care , and ensure your content efforts exceed expectations.

The questions asked should address experiences, likes, dislikes, and preferences. Ask about their preferred content formats, and find out if they’d like to hear more or less about a theme or topic. Another easy way to do this is by adding a rating score at the bottom of an article that asked people if they found it useful, or not.

Read more: this article outlines 99 market research questions you should be asking, some are for you, others for your customers.

Best Online Market Research Survey Tools for 2022

We’ve all likely heard of names like SurveyMonkey, Typeform, and Qualaroo, either from personal experience or through marketing. One thing that surprised me was the sheer volume of tools for online surveys; far too many to list here (48 and still counting).

For now, here are nine of the best.

• SurveyMonkey
• Branded surveys
• Google forms

Wrapping Up

There’s no doubt that a well-constructed market research survey can be golden for your business. But, there are now more efficient ways to gain insights into most of the same things I’ve covered in this post. Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence is a great example of this in action.

Features like website demographics , search keyword analysis , market analysis , audience interests , industry analysis , segment analysis , and competitive analysis are just a few relevant places where you can uncover instant insights to help you shape strategic decisions around marketing, growth, and product development.

Enjoy 360 Visibility 24/7

Get the data you need to adapt to market changes and industry trends in an instant.

Further Reading:

• Market Research Tips Straight From the Experts
• Get Growing with Small Business Market Research
• 7 Highly Successful Market Research Examples
• The Complete Guide to Desk Research
• Market Research Trends to Conquer 2022
• 64 Market Research Questions You Should Be Asking

How do you choose which type of market research survey to use? Answer these questions to determine the best type of survey to use:

• Size of the survey base – how many people are you likely to survey? (monthly/yearly)
• How many times will you conduct surveys? (monthly/yearly)
• What format will you use? (Online, telephone, in-person, paper)

What are the things to consider before doing a market research survey? Note down what you want to achieve, and consider the type of structure you will use to collect responses. For instance, surveys can be based on ratings, rankings, open text, or a mixture of all three. Another consideration is anonymity and whether you will offer an incentive to participants who take the survey.

Should you incentivize market research survey participants? If you’re surveying a niche market or audience, and their input is of high value, or you have a survey that’s more than 5-minutes to complete, you might want to offer an incentive to encourage a response. It’s now considered common practice to offer incentives via promotional codes, PayPal credits, or charitable donations to entice participation.

Can you automate market research surveys? Automating market research surveys is the best way to ensure relevant questions are asked at the right time. Specifically for surveys about customer satisfaction, testimonials, and reviews, these are very easy to automate and quick to set up.

Is a market research survey the same as market research? Market research surveys are a type of qualitative research, which is one type of market research method.

Related Posts

From AI to Buy: The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Retail

How to Conduct a Social Media Competitor Analysis: 5 Quick Steps

Industry Research: The Data-Backed Approach

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Market Research Surveys Guide with Examples

Market research surveys are a method of collecting data from a group of individuals to gain insights into their behaviors, attitudes, and preferences towards products or services. They are typically used by businesses to inform their marketing strategies and make informed decisions about their products or services.

Table of contents

What are Market Research Surveys?

Benefits of market research surveys, drawbacks of market research surveys, types of market research surveys.

• When to use Market Research Surveys
• Tips for writing good Market Research Surveys

Market research surveys are valuable for any business to understand its customers, competitors, and market trends. Collecting data directly from your target audience can gain valuable insights that inform your marketing strategy, product development, and overall business decisions.

However, creating and conducting effective market research surveys can be complex. From designing questions that accurately capture the information you need to analyzing and interpreting the data you collect, there are many factors to consider.

Market research surveys are surveys that businesses and organizations use to gather information about their target market, industry trends, and consumer behavior. These surveys can be conducted through various methods, such as phone surveys, online surveys, or in-person interviews. Here are some key features and uses of these surveys:

• Survey Design – These research surveys capture a range of information about the target market, such as demographic information, purchasing habits, product preferences, and opinions on marketing messages.
• Competitive Analysis – Market research surveys provide valuable insights into competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. Businesses can identify areas where they can differentiate themselves in the market by asking questions about competitors’ products, services, and marketing strategies.
• Product Development – These surveys inform product development by gathering feedback on product features, pricing, and packaging. By understanding the needs and preferences of their target market, businesses can develop products that meet customer needs and are more likely to succeed in the market.
• Branding and Marketing – Surveys help businesses refine their branding and marketing strategies. By gathering information on how customers perceive their brand and messaging, businesses can identify areas for improvement and develop more effective marketing campaigns.

Market research surveys are important for businesses and organizations looking to gather information about their target market and make data-driven decisions. By designing effective surveys and gathering accurate data, businesses can gain insights that can help them stay ahead of the competition, develop successful products, and refine their branding and marketing strategies.

Market research surveys offer a range of benefits for businesses and organizations looking to understand their target market and make data-driven decisions. Here are some of the key benefits of market research surveys:

• Insight into Customer Behavior Market surveys can give businesses valuable insights into customer behavior, such as purchasing habits, product usage, and opinions on marketing messages. This information can inform product development, pricing strategies, and marketing campaigns.
• Competitive Analysis This survey type can help businesses understand their competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. By gathering information on competitors’ products, services, and marketing strategies, businesses can identify areas where they can differentiate themselves in the market.
• Risk Reduction These research surveys can help businesses reduce the risk of launching new products or entering new markets. By conducting surveys before launching a product or expanding into a new market, businesses can gain insights into customer needs and preferences and make data-driven decisions that reduce the risk of failure.
• Improved Decision-Making Market research surveys can help businesses make more informed decisions by providing data-driven insights. Businesses can make better product development, pricing, marketing, and more decisions by gathering accurate information about customer behavior, market trends, and competitive landscapes.
• Increased Customer Satisfaction Surveys can help businesses improve customer satisfaction by gathering feedback on products and services. By addressing customer concerns and suggestions, businesses can improve their products and services and increase customer loyalty.

These surveys are important for businesses and organizations looking to understand their target market and make data-driven decisions. Businesses can reduce risk, improve decision-making, and increase customer satisfaction by gathering accurate information about customer behavior, market trends, and competitors.

Here are some of the key drawbacks of market research surveys:

• Cost Conducting surveys can be expensive, particularly if large sample sizes or specialized research methods are required.
• Sampling Bias These surveys are only as accurate as their sample. If the sample is not representative of the target market, the results may be biased and not reflect the true attitudes and behaviors of the target market.
• Respondent Bias Respondent bias can occur if survey respondents provide inaccurate or incomplete information, intentionally or unintentionally.
• Limited Scope Surveys may not capture the full range of consumer behavior factors. For example, surveys may not capture the influence of cultural or social factors on purchasing decisions.
• Timing The timing of these research surveys can also be a drawback. Conducting surveys at the wrong time may yield inaccurate results, as consumer attitudes and behaviors can change over time.

Market research surveys can provide valuable insights for businesses and organizations looking to understand their target market and make data-driven decisions. However, it is important to know potential drawbacks such as sampling and respondent bias, cost, and limited scope and to carefully design surveys to minimize these issues.

Market research surveys are important for businesses and organizations looking to gather information about their target market and make data-driven decisions. Here are some of the different types of research surveys that businesses may use:

• Online Surveys Online surveys are common market research surveys used today. These surveys can be delivered via email, social media, or a website. Online surveys are typically easy to distribute and can reach many people quickly. They are also cost-effective and can be designed to capture a wide range of information, including demographic data, product preferences, and opinions on marketing messages.
• Phone Surveys Phone surveys involve calling a sample of the target market and conducting a survey over the phone. Phone surveys can be used to gather detailed information and can be particularly effective for reaching older demographics who may not be as comfortable with online surveys. However, phone surveys can be more expensive than online surveys and time-consuming to administer.
• In-Person Surveys In-person surveys involve interviewing people face-to-face . These surveys can be conducted in various locations, such as at a retail store, in a public space, or at an event. In-person surveys can be particularly effective for capturing nuanced information and can be tailored to the target market’s specific needs. However, in-person surveys can be more expensive and time-consuming than other surveys.
• Mail Surveys Mail surveys involve sending a survey to a sample of the target market. These surveys can be particularly effective for reaching older demographics that may not be as comfortable with online surveys. Mail surveys can also be designed to capture detailed information and tailored to the target market’s specific needs. However, mail surveys can be more expensive than other types of surveys and can take longer to complete.
• Focus Groups Focus groups bring together a small group to discuss a specific topic. Focus groups can gather detailed information and effectively understand consumer attitudes and behaviors. However, focus groups can be more expensive than other surveys and may not represent the wider target market.
• Panel Studies Panel studies involve following people over time and gathering data regularly. Panel studies can be used to track changes in consumer behavior and can be particularly effective for understanding long-term trends. However, panel studies can be expensive and time-consuming to administer.

In conclusion, market research surveys are an important tool for businesses and organizations looking to gather information about their target market and make data-driven decisions. By understanding the research surveys available, businesses can select the most appropriate method to meet their research needs and capture accurate, valuable insights.

When to Use Market Research Surveys

Market research surveys can be a valuable tool for businesses and organizations looking to make data-driven decisions. Here are some situations where these surveys can be particularly useful:

• Launching a New Product or Service Before launching a new product or service, businesses may use market research surveys to gather feedback from their target market. It can help identify potential issues and areas for improvement before the product or service is launched.
• Testing Marketing Messages Market research surveys can be used to test marketing messages before they are launched, and they can help businesses identify the most effective messages and adjust their marketing strategy accordingly.
• Identifying Customer Needs and Preferences This survey type can gather information about customer needs and preferences. It can help businesses design products and services that meet the needs of their target market, improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Assessing Customer Satisfaction Surveys can be used to assess customer satisfaction and identify areas for improvement. It can help businesses address customer concerns and improve the customer experience.
• Evaluating Brand Perception The surveys can be used to evaluate how customers perceive a brand. It can help businesses identify areas where their brand image may be weak and develop strategies to improve brand perception.

Quick Tips for Writing Good Market Research Surveys

Writing good market research surveys is crucial to obtaining accurate and valuable insights. Here are quick tips to help you write effective market surveys:

• Writing good market research surveys is crucial to obtaining accurate and valuable insights. Here are quick tips to help you write effective market research surveys:
• Use simple and easy-to-understand language in your survey. Avoid using technical jargon or complex language that may confuse respondents.
• Closed-ended questions, such as multiple-choice questions , are easier for respondents to answer and can help reduce survey fatigue.
• Organize your survey questions logically so that they make sense to the respondent.
• A double-barreled question asks two questions in one. Avoid these questions as they can confuse respondents and lead to inaccurate results.
• Provide clear and concise instructions on how to complete the survey. It can help reduce confusion and improve the accuracy of responses.
• Put yourself in the respondent’s shoes when writing the survey questions. Consider how the respondents perceive the questions and ensure they are relevant and easy to answer.
• Mix up the types of questions you use in your survey, including multiple-choice, rating scales, and open-ended questions . It can help keep respondents engaged and provide a variety of insights.
• Avoid asking questions that may lead respondents to a particular answer. It can bias the results of the survey.
• Before launching your survey, pilot-test it with a small group of respondents to identify any issues or areas for improvement.

By following these tips, you can increase the effectiveness of your market research surveys and obtain more accurate and valuable insights.

Market research surveys are essential for businesses and organizations looking to make data-driven decisions. By understanding the different types of surveys, their benefits and drawbacks, and best practices for writing effective surveys, businesses can gather valuable insights to inform their strategic decisions and improve performance.

What is the ideal sample size for a market research survey?

The ideal sample size for a market research survey depends on several factors, including the size of the target population, the margin of error, and the level of confidence desired. Generally, a larger sample size will result in more accurate data but may also be more expensive and time-consuming. It's important to consider the specific goals and budget of the research project when determining the appropriate sample size.

Can market research surveys be conducted online?

Yes, market research surveys can be conducted online through various survey platforms and tools. Online surveys offer several advantages, including faster response times, lower costs, and the ability to reach a larger and more diverse audience. However, online surveys also have limitations, such as potential bias due to self-selection and a lack of personal interaction with respondents. It's important to consider the pros and cons of online surveys when deciding on the best approach for a specific research project.

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Market research is a cornerstone of all successful, strategic businesses. It can also be daunting for entrepreneurs looking to launch a startup or start a side hustle . What is market research, anyway? And how do you…do it?

We’ll walk you through absolutely everything you need to know about the market research process so that by the end of this guide, you’ll be an expert in market research too. And what’s more important: you’ll have actionable steps you can take to start collecting your own market research.

What Is Market Research?

Market research is the organized process of gathering information about your target customers and market. Market research can help you better understand customer behavior and competitor strengths and weaknesses, as well as provide insight for the best strategies in launching new businesses and products. There are different ways to approach market research, including primary and secondary research and qualitative and quantitative research. The strongest approaches will include a combination of all four.

“Virtually every business can benefit from conducting some market research,” says Niles Koenigsberg of Real FiG Advertising + Marketing . “Market research can help you piece together your [business’s] strengths and weaknesses, along with your prospective opportunities, so that you can understand where your unique differentiators may lie.” Well-honed market research will help your brand stand out from the competition and help you see what you need to do to lead the market. It can also do so much more.

The Purposes of Market Research

Why do market research? It can help you…

• Pinpoint your target market, create buyer personas, and develop a more holistic understanding of your customer base and market.
• Understand current market conditions to evaluate risks and anticipate how your product or service will perform.
• Validate a concept prior to launch.
• Identify gaps in the market that your competitors have created or overlooked.
• Solve problems that have been left unresolved by the existing product/brand offerings.
• Identify opportunities and solutions for new products or services.
• Develop killer marketing strategies .

What Are the Benefits of Market Research?

Strong market research can help your business in many ways. It can…

• Strengthen your market position.
• Help you identify your strengths and weaknesses.
• Help you identify your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.
• Minimize risk.
• Center your customers’ experience from the get-go.
• Help you create a dynamic strategy based on market conditions and customer needs/demands.

What Are the Basic Methods of Market Research?

The basic methods of market research include surveys, personal interviews, customer observation, and the review of secondary research. In addition to these basic methods, a forward-thinking market research approach incorporates data from the digital landscape like social media analysis, SEO research, gathering feedback via forums, and more. Throughout this guide, we will cover each of the methods commonly used in market research to give you a comprehensive overview.

Primary vs. Secondary Market Research

Primary and secondary are the two main types of market research you can do. The latter relies on research conducted by others. Primary research, on the other hand, refers to the fact-finding efforts you conduct on your own.

This approach is limited, however. It’s likely that the research objectives of these secondary data points differ from your own, and it can be difficult to confirm the veracity of their findings.

Primary Market Research

Primary research is more labor intensive, but it generally yields data that is exponentially more actionable. It can be conducted through interviews, surveys, online research, and your own data collection. Every new business should engage in primary market research prior to launch. It will help you validate that your idea has traction, and it will give you the information you need to help minimize financial risk.

You can hire an agency to conduct this research on your behalf. This brings the benefit of expertise, as you’ll likely work with a market research analyst. The downside is that hiring an agency can be expensive—too expensive for many burgeoning entrepreneurs. That brings us to the second approach. You can also do the market research yourself, which substantially reduces the financial burden of starting a new business .

Secondary Market Research

Secondary research includes resources like government databases and industry-specific data and publications. It can be beneficial to start your market research with secondary sources because it’s widely available and often free-to-access. This information will help you gain a broad overview of the market conditions for your new business.

Identify Your Goals and Your Audience

Before you begin conducting interviews or sending out surveys, you need to set your market research goals. At the end of your market research process, you want to have a clear idea of who your target market is—including demographic information like age, gender, and where they live—but you also want to start with a rough idea of who your audience might be and what you’re trying to achieve with market research.

You can pinpoint your objectives by asking yourself a series of guiding questions:

• What are you hoping to discover through your research?
• Who are you hoping to serve better because of your findings?
• What do you think your market is?
• Who are your competitors?
• Are you testing the reception of a new product category or do you want to see if your product or service solves the problem left by a current gap in the market?
• Are you just…testing the waters to get a sense of how people would react to a new brand?

Once you’ve narrowed down the “what” of your market research goals, you’re ready to move onto how you can best achieve them. Think of it like algebra. Many math problems start with “solve for x.” Once you know what you’re looking for, you can get to work trying to find it. It’s a heck of a lot easier to solve a problem when you know you’re looking for “x” than if you were to say “I’m gonna throw some numbers out there and see if I find a variable.”

How to Do Market Research

This guide outlines every component of a comprehensive market research effort. Take into consideration the goals you have established for your market research, as they will influence which of these elements you’ll want to include in your market research strategy.

Secondary Data

Secondary data allows you to utilize pre-existing data to garner a sense of market conditions and opportunities. You can rely on published market studies, white papers, and public competitive information to start your market research journey.

Secondary data, while useful, is limited and cannot substitute your own primary data. It’s best used for quantitative data that can provide background to your more specific inquiries.

Find Your Customers Online

Once you’ve identified your target market, you can use online gathering spaces and forums to gain insights and give yourself a competitive advantage. Rebecca McCusker of The Creative Content Shop recommends internet recon as a vital tool for gaining a sense of customer needs and sentiment. “Read their posts and comments on forums, YouTube video comments, Facebook group [comments], and even Amazon/Goodreads book comments to get in their heads and see what people are saying.”

If you’re interested in engaging with your target demographic online, there are some general rules you should follow. First, secure the consent of any group moderators to ensure that you are acting within the group guidelines. Failure to do so could result in your eviction from the group.

Not all comments have the same research value. “Focus on the comments and posts with the most comments and highest engagement,” says McCusker. These high-engagement posts can give you a sense of what is already connecting and gaining traction within the group.

Social media can also be a great avenue for finding interview subjects. “LinkedIn is very useful if your [target customer] has a very specific job or works in a very specific industry or sector. It’s amazing the amount of people that will be willing to help,” explains Miguel González, a marketing executive at Dealers League . “My advice here is BE BRAVE, go to LinkedIn, or even to people you know and ask them, do quick interviews and ask real people that belong to that market and segment and get your buyer persona information first hand.”

Market research interviews can provide direct feedback on your brand, product, or service and give you a better understanding of consumer pain points and interests.

When organizing your market research interviews, you want to pay special attention to the sample group you’re selecting, as it will directly impact the information you receive. According to Tanya Zhang, the co-founder of Nimble Made , you want to first determine whether you want to choose a representative sample—for example, interviewing people who match each of the buyer persona/customer profiles you’ve developed—or a random sample.

“A sampling of your usual persona styles, for example, can validate details that you’ve already established about your product, while a random sampling may [help you] discover a new way people may use your product,” Zhang says.

Market Surveys

Market surveys solicit customer inclinations regarding your potential product or service through a series of open-ended questions. This direct outreach to your target audience can provide information on your customers’ preferences, attitudes, buying potential, and more.

Every expert we asked voiced unanimous support for market surveys as a powerful tool for market research. With the advent of various survey tools with accessible pricing—or free use—it’s never been easier to assemble, disseminate, and gather market surveys. While it should also be noted that surveys shouldn’t replace customer interviews , they can be used to supplement customer interviews to give you feedback from a broader audience.

Who to Include in Market Surveys

• Current customers
• Past customers
• Your existing audience (such as social media/newsletter audiences)

Example Questions to Include in Market Surveys

While the exact questions will vary for each business, here are some common, helpful questions that you may want to consider for your market survey. Demographic Questions: the questions that help you understand, demographically, who your target customers are:

• “What is your age?”
• “Where do you live?”
• “What is your gender identity?”
• “What is your household income?”
• “What is your household size?”
• “What do you do for a living?”
• “What is your highest level of education?”

Product-Based Questions: Whether you’re seeking feedback for an existing brand or an entirely new one, these questions will help you get a sense of how people feel about your business, product, or service:

• “How well does/would our product/service meet your needs?”
• “How does our product/service compare to similar products/services that you use?”
• “How long have you been a customer?” or “What is the likelihood that you would be a customer of our brand?

Personal/Informative Questions: the deeper questions that help you understand how your audience thinks and what they care about.

• “What are your biggest challenges?”
• “What’s most important to you?”
• “What do you do for fun (hobbies, interests, activities)?”
• “Where do you seek new information when researching a new product?”
• “How do you like to make purchases?”
• “What is your preferred method for interacting with a brand?”

Survey Tools

Online survey tools make it easy to distribute surveys and collect responses. The best part is that there are many free tools available. If you’re making your own online survey, you may want to consider SurveyMonkey, Typeform, Google Forms, or Zoho Survey.

Competitive Analysis

A competitive analysis is a breakdown of how your business stacks up against the competition. There are many different ways to conduct this analysis. One of the most popular methods is a SWOT analysis, which stands for “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.” This type of analysis is helpful because it gives you a more robust understanding of why a customer might choose a competitor over your business. Seeing how you stack up against the competition can give you the direction you need to carve out your place as a market leader.

Social Media Analysis

Social media has fundamentally changed the market research landscape, making it easier than ever to engage with a wide swath of consumers. Follow your current or potential competitors on social media to see what they’re posting and how their audience is engaging with it. Social media can also give you a lower cost opportunity for testing different messaging and brand positioning.

SEO Analysis and Opportunities

SEO analysis can help you identify the digital competition for getting the word out about your brand, product, or service. You won’t want to overlook this valuable information. Search listening tools offer a novel approach to understanding the market and generating the content strategy that will drive business. Tools like Google Trends and Awario can streamline this process.

Ready to Kick Your Business Into High Gear?

Now that you’ve completed the guide to market research you know you’re ready to put on your researcher hat to give your business the best start. Still not sure how actually… launch the thing? Our free mini-course can run you through the essentials for starting your side hustle .

About Mary Kate Miller

Mary Kate Miller writes about small business, real estate, and finance. In addition to writing for Foundr, her work has been published by The Washington Post, Teen Vogue, Bustle, and more. She lives in Chicago.

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Market research surveys: The complete guide

Your guide to create and distribute an excellent market research survey., 350+ free survey templates, customer surveys, human resources surveys, marketing surveys, industry surveys, community surveys, academic evaluation surveys, non-profit surveys, what is a market research survey.

Market research surveys are questionnaires that collect responses from a target audience of consumers. A brand uses market research to identify pain points, preferences, and interests of their customers.

A market research survey seeks to understand patterns in a given market. Researchers might segregate markets based on geography, age, gender, or other demographics. Brands can then use Trend analysis , Conjoint analysis , and Turf analysis to analyze their findings and help create actionable insights for their business.

Key attributes of successful marketing research surveys:

Survey research.

Survey research in marketing involves sending customers a questionnaire containing questions about your brand, products, and competitors. Your customers complete the questions according to their preferences. Most brands use online surveys for fast, accurate collection of data.

Send your survey research via email, SMS, QR Code, or other electronic platforms. Participants respond on the web for instant responses.

At QuestionPro, we also offer an offline survey app. The app allows users to capture survey research responses on a mobile or tablet device from anywhere. This is ideal in locations that do not have an internet connection or suffer from an unstable connection.

Good questions

The right survey questions are the most critical part of any market research. Attributes such as language, question type, and answer type help you customize your surveys to fit your needs. Easy-to-read questions that follow a flow receive higher response rates than jumbled, confusing ones.

Survey distribution methods

What’s the best distribution method for high response rates? Will email surveys or a physical mobile kiosk receive higher engagement?

Email surveys remain the most popular form of market research surveys. The popularity of tablet-based kiosks is rising for many B2C businesses as well. These stationary tablets capture live responses from customers at stores and business events.

Specialized survey portals, such as QuestionPro Communities, help generate qualitative research. Through these portals, customers answer less restrictive questions. More open-ended questions pass on more ideas to the company.

Survey analysis

You can’t do much with a bunch of survey responses alone – you need the power to analyze survey data. Online software makes it easy to create, distribute, and analyze surveys in one place.

QuestionPro features a complete set of analytics features:

Trend analysis

• Turf analysis

Gap analysis

Conjoint analysis

MaxDiff analysis

Text analysis

• Strategic analysis (SWOT analysis)

Survey report

A market research survey report showcases the conclusions of your analysis. Reports include current trends and projections of future customer trends and preferences. A good survey report provides company stakeholders with a complete thesis using the available data and analysis from the survey.

Reports streamline the survey result processing. An efficient report process opens the door to implement your findings. You’re able to dive into the innovation process to create products and services that directly help your customers.

Conducting market research surveys

Conducting a successful research survey requires thorough planning and structuring. Follow these tips:

Identify a research objective

Set clear objectives. Take the time to write questions that define your goals and resonate with your customers.

Identify your target audience

Answer two questions to help define your target audience:

Which geographic region does your research target?

What are the qualifying attributes of your ideal survey respondents?

This could include age, gender, household income, or other demographics that narrow your audience.

Create your survey

Survey creation is easy with online tools. Create and send in minutes using survey software. This will free up more time to collect responses and analyze your data.

QuestionPro offers a complete suite of survey creation options with over 350+ ready-made survey templates . Our advanced and standard survey question types allow you to customize surveys for specific demographics. Meet branding requirements with survey design customizations. Powerful logic and branching options help keep respondents engaged and lower drop-out rates.

Distribution, response collection and market analysis

Your survey distribution methods depend on the platform you choose. In QuestionPro, you can distribute custom online surveys through email, SMS, or QR code. We also offer the ability to collect responses offline using our mobile app.

QuestionPro Audience also allows you to purchase respondent data instantly.

Online survey platforms help you receive data in real-time and analyze it much faster. Manual survey input and analysis use Excel sheets. This takes additional time and effort, which reduces the cost-effectiveness of your market research survey.

Why should you conduct a market research surveys for your business?

Knowing the preferences and needs of your target customers is imperative to business success. Without this knowledge, you’re blindly putting out products and services with no idea how they’ll fare.

You need to collect information on the four “Ps” of your business:

P1 - Product

Market research should look at customer behavior and preferences regarding your products and services.

P2 - Placement

A good market research survey provides insights into the most profitable way to position their product in the market. Creative product placements give your business a competitive edge over the competition. Discover the ideal placements through custom market research surveys.

P3 - Pricing

Nothing dictates a product’s journey more than its price. How much are potential consumers willing to pay for a new feature? Will decreasing your product price give you a sales boost? Get the answers to these questions by asking customers.

P4 - Promotions

Use the first three “Ps” to determine the promotion of your products and services. Whether you choose organic or paid promotions, formulate your plan using insights from your research. Successful businesses always conduct thorough market analysis using research studies before making a major promotional push.

Research methods: qualitative and quantitative research

Qualitative market research.

A qualitative market research study focuses on collecting unstructured or semi-structured data from consumers. Information from qualitative research studies drives market insights.

Common methods of successful qualitative market research:

Focus groups

Focus group qualitative research involves getting a few people for a face-to-face discussion. Questions cover what-if scenarios around a specific product or subject of interest.

Platforms like Communities from QuestionPro reduce the need for in-person focus groups. Online portals allow for both data collection and market analysis.

On-call interviews

On-call interviews provide insights into the mind of business leaders or senior officials. This method allows the researcher to “open-up” the survey in the form of a regular conversation. The interview usually spans across several topics of interest.

Innovation research

Innovation research, also referred to as innovation games, seeks to use a group of consumers to generate innovative ideas. Platforms like Communities make it possible for businesses to conduct such qualitative research remotely and tap into global respondents. This allows organizations to get the best ideas from the best minds without the barrier of being physically present.

Advantages of qualitative market research :

Cost-effective

Qualitative research happens on a smaller scale than quantitative research. This reduces the expense to conduct a survey, as you’ll send it to a small group of people.

In-depth insights

The open nature of questions and the freedom for researchers to dive deeper promotes detailed insights.

Flexibility

Researchers enjoy the ability to identify sub-topics of interest as the conversation naturally progresses.

Answering the "Why"

Qualitative market research is a popular option when the objective of the research is to discover why customers do something. Politely pressing respondents to answer crucial questions shows you the reasons behind customer actions.

Quantitative market research

Quantitative market research surveys collect data through structured questionnaires. They use statistical analysis methods to derive meaningful and actionable insights.

Once conducted through pen and paper responses, today quantitative research makes use of advanced market research survey software platforms. Online platforms add additional value to the quality of surveys, responses and insight.

Attributes of quantitative marketing research surveys:

Survey questions

While survey questions may appear to be simplistic, but proper use can elicit the answers you want from customers. Single-select questions, multiple-choice questions, and rating scale questions give you options when creating your survey.

QuestionPro’s survey platform provides a vast range of survey question and question-types with market research survey examples. Varying question types encourage participants to continue through your survey. It’s easy to create your first survey with over 350+ ready-made survey templates available. Simply select, edit, and send!

Survey design

Survey design refers as much to the look of the survey as it does to logic and branching techniques. Good survey design makes questions more precise for the respondents. Add custom logos and brand attributes to create a cohesive, visually appealing questionnaire.

Survey distribution

Email surveys dominate online survey distribution channels. Offline surveys that use kiosks are becoming popular for point-of-sale response collection.

Send or schedule your email market research study with QuestionPro. Our advanced platform also allows you to distribute surveys through QR code, SMS, or embed it on your website.

Survey collection

Survey collection depends on the method of distribution. Survey software platforms make survey data collection easy and allow you to collect data in real-time.

Even better, QuestionPro enables you to track responses. Filter respondents by those who have not started, started but not finished, and those who finished the survey.

Survey analytics in quantitative research includes conjoint analysis , Turf analysis and SWOT analysis .Business and academic researchers often use quantitative research due to the simple application of analytics for data-oriented insights.

In QuestionPro’s market research survey software completes analytics in real-time.

Advantages of quantitative market research surveys:

Fully data-oriented decision making:

The precise nature of quantitative research leads to decision-making based on data.

Zero scope for analytical errors:

Enjoy zero errors with analysis from QuestionPro. By using powerful computing software, our program eliminates human error when analyzing survey data.

Concrete projections:

Projections from the concrete data of quantitative research methods mean you have data-backed insights for your business. Use these projections to accurately predict the spending habits and preferences of your customer base.

Statistical survey analysis techniques

TURF analysis

TURF stands for Total Unduplicated Reach and Frequency. Market analysis using TURF provides details on user frequency and marketing reach without any duplicates. This gives you a real estimate of market potential.

Conjoint analysis explores how different attributes of a given product or service range in importance to a customer. Online survey software makes Conjoint easier than ever before, allowing more businesses to put it to work.

MaxDiff analysis reads consumer preference across different attributes such as branding and advertising. MaxDiff analysis is similar to conjoint analysis, however, it is much simpler to implement.

Gap analysis measures actual performance vs. desired performance. Use gap analysis to determine how to move the needle to a more desirable position.

SWOT analysis

SWOT stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats. A SWOT analysis takes a holistic view of an organization's key strengths and weaknesses from a business standpoint.

Trend analysis looks to collect data over time. It uses the data to identify plottable trends and relationships in the data changes. You can use this analysis to predict future trends.

Cross tabulation

Cross tabulation produces categorical data tabulation. Categorical data involves values that are mutually exclusive to each other.

Text analysis is a technique that researchers implement to arrange and bring structure to unorganized data. The process involves converting text from documents to computer-based language.

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• Market Research

Market research surveys: all you need to know

• November 7, 2022

You know you should spend more time conducting market research surveys, but keep pushing it to the bottom of your “to-do” list. 

Don’t worry. You are not the only one. Many get overwhelmed by the thought of market research because it feels like ‘too much work’. 

You don’t need to be a research expert or a data scientist — all you need is to write practical survey questions, reach out to your audience, and analyze their response. If done correctly, surveys offer many insights into how your customers feel about your business and what you can do to improve. 

Let’s break down everything about market research surveys in this article and help you get started quickly. 

Table of Contents

What is a market research survey? 

Why use market research surveys, different types of market research surveys., step 1: write down your survey questions., step 2: choose a survey platform. , step 3: run a small pilot or test survey., step 4: launch the survey, reach out, and record insights., step 5: analyze the insights., improve your market research survey insights with customer reviews..

A market research survey is a method for conducting qualitative research to gather opinions from your target audience. It offers valuable insights to understand your customers better and help in decision-making. 

A market research survey is the most popular and favored tool among researchers, business owners, and entrepreneurs. 

A market research survey gives you a hang of the consumer pulse to help you stand out in a competitive ecosystem. 

If you have been building and growing something, you would have dreamt of ‘getting inside the head’ of your customers, probably more than once. A market research survey is a tool that makes your dream come true.

A market research survey is like a portal that allows you to peek into your audience’s mind and use the knowledge to improve your business. They’re quick and easy to create and, when conducted well, give your business enough information to: 

• Find untapped market opportunities
• Create and/or improve your product
• Optimize your value proposition 
• Improve your marketing effectiveness 
• Delight your customers

Read More: Why is market research important?

• Online Surveys: Online surveys are the most popular out of the lot and are conducted using a market research tool or platform. You share a survey link with respondents and analyze the results afterward. 
• Paper Surveys:   Manual surveys are generally conducted when a researcher is in direct contact with the respondent. Such surveys are part of focus groups or a research panel. 
• Mail Surveys: Sent to respondents by physical mail, these have become obsolete with the penetration of the internet in modern times. They are still used in some industries that need hyper-local insights.
• Telephonic surveys: Interview-style surveys conducted over a phone call. Online connectivity has now added another element — video to telephonic surveys, which helps analyze the sentiment of the respondent too. 
• Face-to-face surveys: Conducted in person by a researcher or an entrepreneur, these surveys require a lot of time, money and effort. Useful for market research in high-ticket industries like precious metals, jewelry, or real estate.
• Panel surveys: Panel surveys are conducted with a sample set of respondents, i.e., a focus group with representations from all the target audience segments for accurate insights.

How to conduct a market research survey.

Okay! Now that you know the fundamentals, let us move on to the process of creating your first survey. Here are the steps you should follow to launch a market research survey: 

Questions are like the soul of your market research survey. The right questions will give you the desired insights to make informed decisions. 

Before you even think of planning market research, spend time crafting your market research survey questions. While you are at it, keep the following things in mind: 

• A market survey questionnaire should be made with a single goal, like searching for untapped market opportunities or finding pain points with an existing product. 
• Every question should be straightforward and should not confuse the respondent at any stage. 
• Do not over-optimize survey questions to lead the respondent into sharing a biased response. Leave room for opinions and preferences by mixing different types of survey questions. 

Writing effective survey questions is an art as well as a science. If you are unsure about the questions you should include in your survey, you can look for survey question examples online to get inspired. 

Also Read: Market Research Questions

Once you have written relevant questions for your survey, you need a way to share these questions with respondents. If you are conducting an online survey, you should sign up for a market research survey platform to get started. 

A tool like Typeform can help you set up a market research survey, share it with respondents, and gather insights. Remember to try multiple tools before you finalize a survey platform for your market research surveys. 

Read More: Best Market Research Tools in 2022

Now, you have the questions, a way to share your surveys, and a platform to analyze the insights. 

Technically, you should move ahead to launch your survey, but wait, don’t just rush into launching your survey for the public yet. 

Instead, share your survey link with a small batch of ideal respondents. Think of it as a testing phase that will help you improve your chances of gathering valuable insights. 

A small test or pilot will help refine your survey questions and set the right expectations. You will understand how people respond to your questions and get a chance to address red flags such as: 

• Non-responsive prospects or audience. 
• Non-serious or one-word responses to your open-ended questions. 
• Too many ‘none of the above’ answers in your opinion-based questions. 
• Skewed metrics reflecting the same (or similar) response from the entire audience pool. 

When you conduct a pilot and get into any of the above scenarios, you should spend more time refining your survey questions. Also, consider expanding your respondent pool or factor in for margin of error to ensure you get desired results from your survey.

After you have got desired response from your pilot, you can launch your market research survey to all the respondents. 

Reach out to respondents, asking them to complete the survey honestly and allow them enough time to complete it. Depending on the market survey type, region, and industry, it can take days to even months to receive all the responses. Sometimes, people are busy, so don’t jump to conclusions early.

The survey tool you pick will automatically record all the responses that you can access at a later stage to start market research analysis. 

This is the final step of the process, and think of it like sitting on top of a gold mine. 

Any tool that you pick will have a reporting dashboard that will give you access to basic insights, like individual responses, trend charts, and general statistics about your survey. 

Start analyzing the reporting dashboard and make notes to improve your understanding of the audience. Check for cues to validate your hypothesis, make notes of any new insight that was not evident before, and start preparing a document highlighting key takeaways. 

In case you need more profound insights, you can also export the insights to advanced data analytics tools like Tableau. Though, this depends on your need and goals from a market research survey. You can also use Google for market research to expand your understanding of gathered insights. 

Conducting a market research survey is a lot of work that can sometimes take weeks to months. While it is definitely a good source of valuable insights, sometimes it is not feasible in an era of agility and continuous innovation. 

That might be the reason that has stopped you from starting market research until now. You must be thinking if there is a better way to access insights without wasting time, effort, and money. 

Well, you can use online reviews to speed up market research. In a connected world, your target audience, prospects, and customers already share their thoughts, opinions, and valuable insights on social media, forums, and review platforms. You can use these to conduct market research and drive decision-making regarding your product, marketing, and value proposition. 

GapScout analyzes existing online reviews and collates real-time customer insights on a single dashboard. You can use real customer feedback to identify opportunities, develop new products, optimize pricing strategy, drive marketing and make important decisions while saving time and money. 

So, stop thinking and drive your market research efforts in real-time with customer reviews using GapScout.

Ready to Automate Your Market Research? Get exclusive access to GapScout prior to release!

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surveys | April 15, 2020

How to Create an Effective Market Research Survey

Daniel Ndukwu

A market research survey can help you engineer a successful product launch, grow your business, and keep your customers happy.

Without market research, it’ll feel like you’re stumbling in the dark and nothing you do yields the results you want.

Market research is essential whether you’re a billion-dollar organization or just started yesterday. It helps you avoid common pitfalls and gives you the confidence you need to execute your plans well.

In this guide, you’ll learn what a market research survey is and isn’t, how to create a compelling one, and multiple ways it can be used to improve your business.

Table of Contents

What is a market research survey

A market research survey is a process of gathering data from and about your target markets, analyzing the data, and drawing conclusions that can be used to launch products, improve services, or identify markets to enter.

You gather data that includes demographic information such as age and income, social norms, preferences, attitudes, and more. Together, these pieces of data allow you to form a clear picture of your customer segments and the market as a whole.

This data makes it easier for you to launch effective marketing campaigns (or outsource to a paid advertising agency ), choose the right markets, and serve existing customers.

You can outsource market research to a specialized organization or do it in-house. Though they’re referred to as simply “surveys,” it can take many different forms such as:

• Telephone interviews
• In-person interviews
• Focus groups
• Online surveys
• Offline questionnaire s

You can read this article to learn more about the different data collection methods at your disposal.

Types of market research

There are two major types of market research. The one you use will determine how much weight you can put in the data.

Primary research

Primary research is used to gather information that’s specific to a problem you have and is conducted by you. No one else has the data you gather and you’re the first person to use and analyze it. An example of primary research is sending out a customer satisfaction survey to your customers.

It’s more expensive than secondary research because you have to find participants, administer the survey, and analyze the data yourself.

Secondary research

Secondary research is used to gather general information that may or may not have an impact on your specific problems. Its information available through a third-party source that has been gathered and analyzed without your involvement.

Information is available online, in books, academic research, etc. The challenge with secondary research is sifting through all the information available to find the sources relevant to you.

Market research surveys should only be used after you’ve done secondary research and have an initial baseline. It’ll help you formulate better survey questions and focus on the information you can’t get elsewhere.

Creating an effective market research survey

A market research survey can appear deceptively simple. Just ask questions that’ll help you get insights into your problem. The challenge is what questions to ask and how to structure the survey for maximum responses.

Let’s look at the steps you should take.

Get clear on what the goal of the survey is

There are countless types of surveys and not every one of those ones will help you get to the end goal. For example, if you want to understand customer satisfaction then you’d avoid using an NPS survey because that measures loyalty.

Define the following things before you start crafting your survey.

• What problem(s) are you solving with the information? This will inform the kind of questions you ask and who you ask for feedback.
• Where will you use the data? Is it for the data analytics team, the marketing team, or the customer support team?
• How will you use the data? Will you combine it with other data sets or is it to be used alone? Will it be made public in some way?

The questions above are just a starting point. Expand the list with questions relevant to you until you’re crystal clear on the goal and scope of the survey.

Decide who you’ll survey beforehand

Now, it’ll be easier to decide who you should reach out to. For example, if you’re interested in researching a new product line, you may interview customers and non-customers who fit specific criteria. On the other hand, research focused on customer satisfaction would require recent customers.

Here are a few groups to consider when you’re thinking about who you’ll survey.

1.Customers

• Within the last month
• Within the last 6 months
• Customers who’ve not purchased within the last six months

2.Noncustomers

• Those who have heard about your brand
• Those who haven’t heard about your brand
• The people who came across your brand from specific places

3.Demographic groups

• Those with a specific job or work in certain industries
• People over or under a certain age
• Individuals in select geographic reasons

There are many considerations for choosing who’ll take your survey. When done properly, you’ll get clean data that’ll help you grow your brand. If you do it as an afterthought, the surveys may not get you the data you want.

Create a timeline for completion

This is an often overlooked aspect. People start creating survey questions, things crop up, and the survey is saved for later. In the end, it gets done too late or not at all.

A timeline allows you to plan what needs to be done and when it should be completed. This gives the entire project more clarity .

A timeline also helps in another way. You can ensure that the data you collect is timely and relevant. Many people underestimate the effort it’ll take to design, administer, and analyze survey data. In the end, the survey doesn’t have the impact it would’ve had if it was planned properly.

Pro-tip: consider using a solid PM tool to better plan your timeline and the tasks surrounding the market research survey.

Write out your initial questions

You just ask about what you need to know – right? Not exactly. You can only put a limited number of questions in your survey before people start to drop off. This phenomenon is called survey fatigue and the kind of questions you ask has an effect on this.

Let’s look at what questions you should consider asking.

The first question type is focused on understanding the characteristics of the respondent. The questions you ask here will depend on the goal of your survey but they may include demographic questions such as:

• When was the last time you purchased from us

These let you know who the person is and how much weight you should give their responses. Afterward, you’ll ask your most important questions. These can be open-ended or close ended questions . The type you choose depends on how much information you need and your understanding of the problem you want to solve.

For example, “how satisfied are you with our service today?” can be closed ended and have the following answer choices:

• Very satisfied
• Neither satisfied or dissatisfied
• Dissatisfied
• Very dissatisfied

Or, it can be open needed and allow the respondent to explain the way they feel about your service.

Once you’ve created the questions, it’s important to go back and edit them to make sure you’ve not accidentally added biases.

• Avoid leading statements such as “we’re considered the best restaurant in Atlanta. How was your experience today?”
• Remove questions that have an assumption built in like “how much your income increase this year?” The question assumes that income will increase.
• Replace questions that coerce people into answering a specific way. “Will you start exercising this year to stay healthy and reduce your risk of disease?” is a hard question to say no to.
• Watch out for one-sided scales. For example, strongly agree, agree, and disagree are missing an option. To balance the scale, you’d need “strongly disagree” as well.

I can’t name all the possible ways to inadvertently bias your questions so make sure you go through it with a critical eye. Consider sharing it with someone else so they can help you spot questions that bias the respondent.

Order your questions properly

Finally, you want to order your questions in a way that helps you get the maximum number of responses. Remember the survey fatigue I mentioned earlier? Reduce it by ordering your questions properly.

Here’s a simple way to make sure you have the optimal order and reduce certain response biases like the central tendency bias or the acquiescence bias.

Add demographic questions first

Demographic questions help you understand what kind of respondent you’re dealing with. This data makes it possible for you to categorize the data and make meaningful comparisons.

For example, you may want to figure out the perception of a new product line among customers and non-customers or different income levels. Demographic data makes that possible.

Even if people drop off towards the end of the survey, you’ll be able to use the information you do get to draw meaningful conclusions.

Close ended from simple to complex

After demographic data, start with simple or general closed ended questions that shed light on your problem. The survey software you use should allow you to randomize options so you can reduce the impact of showing the same answer first every time.

After the simple and general close ended questions, ask more difficult or complex ones. You may even decide to move into open-ended questions that require more thought to answer.

Open ended questions

The last type of question is open-ended. These require more effort on the part of the respondent because they need to formulate their own answers. It’s also more difficult for you to analyze because of the variability.

Because of this, it can cause users to drop off more than usual. Put them at the end. Even if people do close the survey at this point, you’ve gotten most of the information you need.

There’s an exception. If you’re doing a customer discovery survey then you want to put your single most important question “what’s your biggest challenge related to X?” right after your initial demographic question.

A market research survey – when used properly – can be a huge asset to your organization. The key is using it properly. Instead of throwing it together, follow the process outlined here to make sure it yields the results you’re looking for.

Clarify your goal, focus on a specific segment of your market, set a hard deadline, write out the questions you’ll need, and put them in the right order.

Let me know what you think about market research surveys in the comments and don’t forget to share.

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What is Market Research? Definition, Types, Process, Examples and Best Practices

By Nick Jain

Published on: June 21, 2023

Table of Contents

What is Market Research?

Types of market research, market research process, examples of market research, market research methods, best practices for market research in 2023.

Market research is defined as the systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of data about a specific market, industry, or consumer segment. It involves studying customers, competitors, and market dynamics to identify opportunities, mitigate risks, and make informed business decisions.

Market research provides valuable insights into consumer behavior, preferences, and market trends, helping organizations develop effective marketing strategies, launch new products, and optimize their market positioning.

Key components of market research:

Market research typically involves several key components that contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the market and its dynamics. These components include:

• Market Segmentation: Identifying and dividing the target market into distinct segments based on demographics, psychographics, behavior, or other relevant characteristics. This helps tailor marketing strategies to specific customer groups.
• Data Collection: Gathering relevant data from primary and secondary sources. Primary data refers to information collected directly from the target market through surveys, interviews, observations, or experiments. Secondary data involves leveraging existing research, reports, industry databases, or government sources.
• Research Design: Developing a research plan that outlines the objectives, methodology, and timeline for conducting the research. This includes selecting appropriate research methods, determining the sample size, and defining the sampling technique.
• Qualitative Research: Utilizing techniques like interviews, focus groups , or observations to gain in-depth insights into consumer attitudes, opinions, motivations, and behaviors. Qualitative research helps explore underlying reasons and provides a richer understanding of the market.
• Quantitative Research: Employing surveys, questionnaires, or structured data analysis to gather numerical data on a larger scale. Quantitative research enables statistical analysis, measurement of market trends, and generation of quantitative insights and metrics.
• Competitive Analysis: Assessing competitors’ strategies, strengths, weaknesses, market positioning, and offerings. This helps identify market opportunities, potential threats, and areas for differentiation.
• Consumer Behavior Analysis: Examining consumer decision-making processes, buying habits, preferences, and satisfaction levels. Understanding consumer behavior is crucial for developing effective marketing strategies and targeted campaigns.
• Market Size and Forecasting: Estimating the total market size, growth potential, and future trends. Market sizing helps assess the market’s attractiveness and potential demand for products or services.
• Data Analysis: Applying statistical techniques and tools to analyze collected data and derive meaningful insights. This includes data cleaning, segmentation analysis, correlation analysis, regression analysis, and other statistical methods.
• Reporting and Presentation: Summarizing research findings, insights, and recommendations in a clear and concise manner. Effective communication of research results ensures that stakeholders can make informed decisions based on the findings.

These components work together to provide a holistic view of the market, consumer behavior, and competitive landscape, enabling businesses to make informed decisions and develop effective marketing strategies.

Primary Research: Primary research involves collecting data directly from the target market or consumer segment. It is customized and tailored to address specific research objectives. Primary research methods include surveys, interviews, focus groups , observations, and experiments. Primary research allows for the collection of firsthand data and offers more control over the research process.

Secondary Research: Secondary research involves gathering and analyzing existing data that has been previously collected by other sources. This data can include industry reports, government publications, academic studies, market research reports, and online databases. Secondary research helps to gain a broader understanding of the market, industry trends, and historical data. It is a cost-effective way to access existing information and can provide a foundation for further primary research.

Learn more: What is Customer Experience (CX) Research?

Step 1. Define Research Objectives

The first step in market research is to clearly define the research objectives. This involves identifying the specific information needed, the target audience, and the desired outcomes of the research.

Step 2. Design Research Plan

Once the objectives are defined, the next step is to design a research plan that outlines the methodology, data collection techniques, sample size, and timeline. The research plan should be tailored to address the research objectives and provide reliable and valid data.

Step 3 Data Collection

In this stage, data is collected using primary or secondary research methods. Primary research involves gathering data directly from respondents through surveys, interviews, focus groups , or observations. Secondary research involves gathering existing data from published sources, industry reports, or databases.

Step 4. Market research Analysis

Once the data is collected, it needs to be analyzed to identify patterns, trends, and insights. This can involve quantitative research and analysis, such as statistical techniques, or qualitative research and analysis, such as thematic coding or content analysis. The goal is to derive meaningful insights from the data that can inform decision-making.

Step 5. Final Market Research Insights

After analyzing the data, the next step is to interpret the findings and extract actionable insights. This involves drawing conclusions, identifying key trends, and relating them to the research objectives. The insights should provide valuable information that guides marketing strategies, product development, or business decisions.

Step 6. Reporting Research Findings

The final step is to present the research findings in a clear and concise manner. A market research report is typically prepared, which includes an executive summary, methodology, findings, insights, and recommendations. The report should effectively communicate the research results to stakeholders and provide actionable recommendations based on the insights.

Here are some examples of market research. These examples illustrate the diverse applications of market research across various industries and scenarios:

• Customer Satisfaction Market Research : A company conducts a customer satisfaction survey to gather feedback from its existing customers . The survey includes questions about their experience with the product or service, overall satisfaction, likelihood to recommend, and areas for improvement. The results help the company understand customer satisfaction levels, identify key drivers of satisfaction, and take action to enhance the customer experience .
• Pricing Market Research: A business is considering introducing a new product or service and wants to determine the optimal pricing strategy. They conduct pricing research, which involves surveys or conjoint analysis, to gather data on customer price sensitivity, willingness to pay, and perceptions of value. The research helps the company set competitive pricing that aligns with customer expectations and maximizes profitability.
• Market Trend Research: A market research firm monitors industry trends and analyzes market data to provide insights to clients. They track market size, growth rates, industry dynamics, and consumer preferences through secondary research. The analysis helps businesses understand market trends, identify emerging opportunities or threats, and make informed strategic decisions.
• Concept Testing Market Research: A company has developed several product concepts and wants to evaluate their potential success before investing in product development. They conduct concept testing research, which involves presenting the concepts to a target audience through surveys or focus groups . The research helps assess consumer interest, perceived benefits, and purchase intent for each concept, allowing the company to select the most promising one to pursue further.
• Competitor Market Research: A company wants to assess the strengths and weaknesses of its competitors in the market. They conduct competitor analysis, which involves gathering data on competitors’ products, pricing, distribution channels, marketing strategies, and customer perceptions. The insights obtained help the company benchmark against competitors, identify areas of competitive advantage and develop strategies to differentiate itself in the market.
• Ad Testing Market Research: A company is planning to launch a new advertising campaign and wants to assess its effectiveness. They conduct ad testing research, which involves presenting different versions of the ad to a sample audience and gathering user or customer feedback on message comprehension, brand recall, and emotional response. The research helps the company optimize the ad campaign by identifying the most impactful and persuasive elements.
• Market Segmentation Research: A company wants to understand its target market better and tailor marketing strategies to specific customer segments. They conduct market segmentation research, which involves analyzing demographic, psychographic, and behavioral data to identify distinct customer segments with different needs, preferences, and buying behaviors. The segmentation analysis helps the company develop targeted marketing campaigns, messages, and product offerings for each segment.

Learn more: What is Customer Feedback?

• Qualitative Market Research Methods

Qualitative market research methods focus on non-data intensive methods of information gathering and analysis. These methods focus on a small sample of respondents who are probed for an in-depth understanding of a subject. The goal of such a method is to gain an in-depth understanding of the market and consumer behavior based on open-ended questions and discussions.

For example, focus groups , one-on-one interviews, case studies, etc are popular qualitative methods of market research.

• Quantitative Market Research Methods

Quantitative market research focuses on data-intensive methods that return solid data that can be quantitatively analyzed in bulk. These methods often rely on a large sample of respondents who answer a common questionnaire, which may further have an internal logic to branch out to new questions based on answers to previous questions.

Examples of quantitative market research methods are physical survey questionnaires, online feedback surveys, Twitter polls, Net Promoter Score (NPS) questions after a product purchase, customer satisfaction (CSAT) feedback forms, etc.

Market research is a crucial process that helps businesses understand their target market, consumer preferences, industry trends, and competitive landscape. By gathering and analyzing relevant data, companies can make informed decisions and develop effective marketing strategies. Here are some best practices for market research:

1. Define your research objectives: Clearly articulate the goals and purpose of your research. Identify the specific information you need to gather, such as customer insights, market size, competitor analysis, or product feedback.

2. Identify your target audience: Determine the specific demographic or customer segment you want to study. This will help you tailor your research methods and questions to gather the most relevant data.

3. Choose the right research methods: Select the most appropriate research methods based on your objectives and target audience. Common methods include surveys, interviews, focus groups , observation, secondary research, and data analysis.

4. Develop a research plan: Create a detailed plan outlining the research methodology, timeline, and resource allocation. This will ensure that the research is conducted efficiently and effectively.

5. Use a combination of qualitative and quantitative research: Qualitative research methods , such as interviews and focus groups , provide in-depth insights and opinions, while quantitative methods , like surveys and data analysis, offer statistical data and measurable metrics. Combining both approaches provides a comprehensive understanding of the market.

6. Collect data from multiple sources: Gather information from diverse sources, including primary data (collected directly from customers or target audiences) and secondary data (existing research, industry reports, and government data). This multi-source approach enhances the reliability and accuracy of your findings.

7. Maintain data quality and integrity: Ensure the data collected is accurate, reliable, and relevant to your research objectives. Use standardized measurement scales and survey techniques to maintain consistency.

8. Analyze and interpret the data: Use appropriate statistical analysis tools and techniques to analyze the collected data. Look for patterns, trends, and correlations that can provide valuable insights for decision-making.

9. Keep an eye on competitors: Conduct a competitive analysis to understand your competitors’ strategies, strengths, weaknesses, and market positioning. This information can help you identify opportunities and develop effective marketing plans.

10. Stay ethical and maintain privacy: Adhere to ethical guidelines and protect the privacy of participants and their data. Obtain informed consent and ensure confidentiality throughout the research process.

11. Communicate and act on findings: Present your research findings in a clear and concise manner. Translate the insights into actionable strategies and recommendations that can drive business growth.

12. Continuously monitor the market: Market research is an ongoing process. Keep a pulse on industry trends, consumer preferences, and market dynamics to stay ahead of the competition and identify new opportunities.

By following these best practices, businesses can conduct effective market research that informs decision-making, helps identify growth opportunities, and supports the development of successful marketing strategies.

Learn more: What is Online Focus Group?

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Market Research Surveys – Types, Steps, Tips, & 20+ Questions

Are you tired of feeling like your business is constantly falling behind the competition? No matter what you do, you just can’t seem to catch up! As a business owner, it can be frustrating to watch your sales decline and not know what you’re doing wrong. The answer to this lies in a powerful tool that has helped many business owners stay ahead of the game — market research surveys. By conducting these surveys, you can make data-driven decisions to improve your products, services, and marketing strategies. In this guide, we’ll provide you with a quick overview of market research surveys, including what they are, why they’re important, how to conduct them, their purpose, types, benefits, actionable tips, and more. So, let’s dive in and explore how market analysis surveys can help you grow your business in 2023.

What Is a Market Research Survey?

A market research survey is a questionnaire designed to gather data from a specific group of people about their opinions and preferences related to a particular product, service, or industry. According to a Statista report, among all the quantitative methods used for market research, online surveys account for a major share of 89%.

Market research surveys differ from other types of surveys because they are specifically designed for a particular market or industry. They are typically more focused and targeted than general surveys. These surveys can provide valuable insights into customer preferences, behavior, and opinions. This information can then be used to improve products and services, develop more effective marketing strategies, and stay ahead of the competition.

Purpose of Market Research Surveys

Just like it takes extensive skills to be a winner in the playing field, similarly, you need deep insights to steer any new concept or product deftly enough to win the market.

Let’s explore a few reasons why businesses employ market research surveys:

1. Gather Actionable Insights

Conducting market research surveys can help businesses make data-driven decisions, improve their products and services, and develop more effective marketing strategies. These surveys provide businesses with objective data that can be used to make informed decisions. By gathering data directly from customers, businesses can better understand their needs and preferences.

2. Improve Product Quality

Imagine this: You are a software provider and find it challenging to understand the specific features, functionalities, and integrations that would best cater to your target customers’ needs. To ensure that you develop a product that truly meets their requirements, who better to provide valuable insights than your customers themselves? In a situation like this, a market research survey can get you the right data on customer preferences that you can use further to develop new products that better meet their needs.

3. Validate The Demand

The probability of your product failing amplifies when you are planning to launch a product and then trying to find potential buyers. Well, to keep such a situation at bay, validate the demand and profitability of your product before diving into the production/development process. Market research surveys could help you attain the desired customer, market, and competitor’s data to save both the cost and efforts that could end up wasted otherwise.

Read More: Product Market Fit: An Ultimate Guide

4. Make Products Cost-Effective

Budget often remains a potential concern for businesses while planning to launch a new product in the market. Hence, incorporating the survey for market research helps you avoid huge losses. Depending on other sources, such as focus group discussions, can limit the responses to a certain number of participants and usually requires massive budgets. On the other hand, the availability of Market Survey tools makes it more effective to garner advanced market insights while saving a lot of time and money.

5. Understand Competitor Products Better

What can you do to keep your customers from switching to your competitors? Well, the foremost is to offer a better deal after analyzing your competitors’ data. For example, if you are unaware of the competitive prices of a similar product, you might end up charging way more than the prevailing prices. In doing that, you will lose a large chunk of your potential market and eventually take your product toward failure.

Read More: What is the Purpose of Surveys & What Are Its Benefits ?

How Market Research Surveys Can Help Your Business

The scope for market research services is expanding rapidly, showing a significant interest in market research as we enter 2023. The global revenue of the market research industry exceeded 81 billion U.S. dollars in 2022 and has grown more than twofold since 2008.

If you want to stay ahead of the competition, it’s time to start investing in market research surveys. Here are some benefits of conducting these surveys:

• Understand your customers Market research surveys can help you understand your customers’ needs, preferences, and behaviors. This information can help you improve your products and services and tailor your marketing strategies to better meet your customers’ needs.
• Identify market trends Market research surveys can help you identify market trends and steer ahead of your peers. By understanding what’s popular and what’s not, you can adjust your products and services to cater to the changing needs of your target audience.
• Improve customer satisfaction Market research surveys can help you identify areas where your customers are dissatisfied and make improvements to increase customer satisfaction. This can lead to increased customer loyalty and retention.

• Optimize pricing strategies Market research surveys can help you determine the optimal price points for your products and services. By understanding what your customers are willing to pay, you can set prices that are competitive and profitable.
• Make informed business decisions By gathering data and insights through market research surveys, you can make informed business decisions. This can help you minimize risks and maximize opportunities for growth and success.

Here is a quick video on how to access recent activity reports for your surveys:

How to Conduct a Market Research Survey?

While jotting down all the factors to create market research surveys, it’s best to keep your business objectives in mind. This will help you craft relevant questions that can fetch detailed and accurate insights. 

It is also important to remember that there’s no such thing as the ‘best market research survey questions’ because it is a widely subjective industry with different demands and requirements. 

Market research surveys could cover a wide range of topics to effectively gauge deep market insights, and because of the nature of your queries and business goals, the types of questions included in a survey will also differ. 

Follow through this section to discover some of the best ways to nail your market research efforts via effective surveys:

1. Determine the target audience & sample size:

Before creating a survey, determine who your target audience is and how many people you need to survey to get accurate insights. 

For example, if you’re conducting a survey about a new product, your target audience would be potential customers. Also, ensure that your sample size is large enough because a small survey pool is prone to doling out skewed results.

Read More: How to Find Survey Participants & Respondents

Here are some examples of market research goals stated as examples:

• What other products are similar to our brand?
• Who are our top competitors?
• What do customers like most about a competitor’s new product/service?
• What made people choose another company over ours?

2. Develop a set of survey questions that are clear, concise, and unbiased

The survey questions should be designed to collect the information that is relevant to your research objectives. It’s important to use clear and concise language to avoid confusion or misinterpretation. Avoid using leading questions or questions that are biased towards a certain answer. For example, asking a double-barreled question like “How important is it for the product to be fast and user-friendly?” will not get you separate insights on how users prefer user-friendliness or fast products. Here, asking the questions separately could get you more precise data than otherwise.

Read More: Survey Question: 250+Examples, Types & Best Practice

3. Distribute the surveys & collect responses

Once the survey is created, it’s time to distribute it to the target audience. There are several ways to distribute a survey, such as via email, social media, direct links, or embedding it on your website. It’s important to choose the appropriate distribution method that is most convenient for the target audience. As the survey is distributed, responses will start to come in. Keep track of the responses and ensure that all responses are recorded accurately. You can use ProProfs Survey Maker to automate this process, as the app has a feature to collect and analyze the responses in its built-in dashboard without requiring manual handling.

4. Incentivize participation to increase response rates

Offering an incentive, such as a discount or a chance to win a prize, can increase survey participation rates. However, it should also be noted that perks such as monetary incentives could skew the results by making them speak only positively about your brand – resulting in erroneous data. Go for an incentive that offers a free initial subscription to a premium product or service, urging the respondents to be glued to your brand for long periods rather than walking away after collecting discount coupons.

5. Ask relevant questions & follow up regularly

Ensure the survey questions are focused on gathering data that is relevant to the business’s goals. This helps increase the probability that the insights gained are actionable. As the next step, test the survey with a small group of people to help to identify any issues with the survey questions or the survey platform. Amidst all this, don’t forget to follow up with your targets regularly. Following up is the gesture to gently remind people who might have missed completing your survey in their busy lives. Once you are in the middle of your first phase, consider sending follow-ups to the participants who haven’t completed their surveys yet. Also, if you aren’t already offering incentives, include them with follow-ups to ensure better response rates.

Read More: Proven Tips to Avoid Leading and Loaded Questions in Your Survey

Types of Market Research Surveys

Considering the plausible benefits associated with market research surveys, professionals across the globe leverage several ways to garner market insights for their upcoming products. Let’s discuss some common ways:

1. Brand Awareness Survey

Have you ever wondered how well-known your brand is among your target audience? Conduct a brand awareness survey to find it out! This type of survey is designed to measure how familiar your target audience is with your brand and how well they recognize it.

Brand awareness surveys can be helpful in several ways. Firstly, it can help you identify any gaps in your brand awareness strategy. For example, if your target audience is not familiar with your brand, you may need to focus on increasing visibility through marketing campaigns or social media. Secondly, it can help benchmark your performance against your competitors. This lets you understand how your brand is perceived in the market and scope out areas for improvement. When designing a brand awareness survey, it’s important to ask questions that measure both aided and unaided brand awareness.

• Aided awareness refers to how well your target audience recognizes your brand when they are given a prompt, such as a logo or a tagline.
• Unaided awareness refers to how well your target audience recognizes your brand without any prompts. It’s important to ask both types of questions to get a complete picture of your brand awareness.

In addition, you can ask questions about your brand’s reputation and attributes. This can help you understand how your brand is perceived by your target audience and identify areas for improvement. The business insights gleaned from such surveys are used to gauge and improve purchase decisions among both existing and potential customers. For example, you can use these questions to make the most out of your brand awareness surveys:

• What is the first brand you think of to purchase an XYZ product? (Characters remaining 100)
• What aspects can we improve on our existing product? (Characters remaining 500)
• What words come to mind when you think of our brand? (Characters remaining 100)
• How would you describe our brand to a friend? (Characters remaining 100)

2. Customer Satisfaction Surveys

A Customer Satisfaction Survey measures how satisfied customers are with their experience of a particular product or service. It’s a great way to get feedback from customers and understand how well your business is meeting their needs and expectations.

The main goal of a Customer Satisfaction Survey is to identify areas where your business is doing well and areas where it can improve. By measuring satisfaction and gathering feedback, businesses can identify areas for improvement and develop effective strategies to enhance the customer experience. This can lead to increased customer loyalty, better word-of-mouth marketing, and, ultimately, more business.

But what makes a good Customer Satisfaction Survey?

Well, it’s important to ask questions that are clear, concise, and unbiased. You want to get honest feedback from your customers, so it’s important to avoid leading questions or questions that are too general. Also, make sure that the survey is easy to complete and not too time-consuming.

Read More: 15 Best Online Survey Tools & Software in 2022

3. Product Feedback Surveys

Needless to say, a lot of products exist that offer exactly the same features and cater to the similar needs of the people just as your own products. If you want to know how you are faring against your competitors, a Product Feedback survey is your best bet.

Product Feedback surveys aim to understand how customers use your products or services, what they like about them, and what they don’t like. This can help businesses make informed decisions about product development, marketing, and customer service. By listening to customer feedback, businesses can improve their products or services and create a better customer experience. Product feedback surveys also provide you with a data-centric understanding of your existing products. This will not only help you with your new product launch but also let your customers test out your existing products to understand what’s best about them and what could be improved.

Read More: Product Feedback Surveys: Questions, Examples & Types

4. Market Segmentation Surveys

Market Segmentation Surveys are a type of survey that helps businesses divide their target market into smaller groups based on specific characteristics, such as demographics, interests, or behaviors.

It’s a great way to understand the different segments of your target audience and tailor your marketing campaigns to each group based on their unique needs and preferences. This can help your brand develop effective marketing strategies that resonate with each group and drive more sales.

To make your survey stand out, you should:

• Clearly define the specific characteristics you want to measure. This will help you tailor your questions to gather the most relevant information.
• Avoid using complex language or industry jargon that may confuse respondents. Use concise and easy-to-understand questions instead to get the data that you can actually use.
• Take the time to analyze your survey results and identify the different segments within your target audience. Use this information to tailor your marketing campaigns to each group and improve your overall business strategy.

5. Concept Testing Surveys

If you are a business owner considering launching a new product or service, you might want to consider using concept testing surveys to evaluate your ideas before launching them! Concept testing surveys allow you to gather feedback from potential customers on your product or service concept. Using these, you can identify potential issues or areas for improvement before investing in the development and launch of a new product or service. This feedback considerably reduces the risk of a new launch failing simply because it doesn’t resonate with your target audience. Additionally, these surveys can help you figure out the shortcomings in your existing products. By gathering feedback on specific features or benefits, you can make changes to better meet the needs of your target audience.

They are usually conducted online or through phone interviews, where the respondents are asked to provide feedback on the features, benefits, and overall appeal of your product or service.

6. Advertising Effectiveness Surveys

As important as launching business campaigns are, it is equally important to gauge how effective they are in achieving their goals, lest your budget is squandered for nothing.

• That’s where advertising effectiveness surveys come in. These surveys are designed to measure how well your advertising is working and how it’s impacting your target audience.
• They typically gather feedback on your advertising, such as-
• How memorable it is
• How persuasive it is
• Whether it’s driving them to take action, etc.

These surveys get you in-depth feedback on how well your ad strategies are resonating with your target audience, which, in turn, can help you make informed decisions about how to improve your advertising campaigns and make them more effective.

Additionally, you can identify which advertising channels are working best for your business. For example, you might find that your social media advertising is more effective than print advertising. This will help you allocate your advertising budget more effectively and get the most out of your campaigns.

7. Pricing Research Surveys

As one of the most important types of market research surveys out there, these surveys are all about determining the right price for your product or service. Pricing Research surveys might ask questions like, “How much would you be willing to pay for this product?” or “Do you think this product is too expensive?” to gain valuable insights into how your target audience perceives the value of your product or service.

This feedback can help you make informed decisions about how to maximize sales and profitability. Additionally, Pricing Research surveys can help you identify which pricing strategies are most effective for your business. For example, you might find that offering a discount or bundling your product with another product is more effective than simply lowering the price.

7 Tips for Creating Effective Market Research Surveys

With so many factors to consider, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and end up with a survey that doesn’t provide the insights you need. But fear not! With these tips and tricks, you can create a market research survey that not only provides valuable insights but also engages your target audience.

1. Define your research objectives:

Before creating a survey, it’s important to define your research objectives. What do you want to learn from the survey? What decisions will you make based on the results? Having clear research objectives will help you create a focused and effective survey.

2. Keep it short and simple:

People are more likely to complete a survey if it’s short and easy to understand. Keep your survey concise, and avoid using technical jargon or complex language.

3. Eliminate survey bias:

Make sure your survey is free of various forms of bias, such as-

• Sampling bias
• Acceptance and dissent bias
• Question order bias
• Personal bias

4. Use clear and specific questions:

Your survey questions should be clear and specific to avoid confusion or misinterpretation. Avoid asking leading questions or questions that are too general.

5. Use a mix of question types:

Using a mix of question types, such as multiple-choice, open-ended, and rating scales, can provide more comprehensive insights into your target audience.

Read More: Different Question Types for Surveys and What They Mean

6. Test your survey:

Before distributing your survey to your target audience, test it with a small group of people to ensure it’s effective and easy to understand.

7. Consider the timing and distribution method:

Timing and distribution methods can impact response rates. Consider the best time to distribute the survey and the most effective distribution method for your target audience.

Read More: How to Fix Survey Problems: Your Ultimate Guide

20+ Market Research Questions for Your Survey Campaigns

Given are some sample market research questions for your survey campaigns, categorized by survey type. Concept Testing Surveys:

• How appealing is the concept of our new product/service?
• Which features of our product/service are most appealing to you?
• How likely are you to purchase our product/service?
• What do you think is the main benefit of our product/service?
• How does our product/service compare to our competitors’ offerings?

Brand Awareness Surveys:

• Have you heard of our brand before?
• What do you know about our brand?
• How likely are you to recommend our brand to a friend?
• What comes to mind when you think of our brand?
• How likely are you to purchase from our brand in the future?

Customer Satisfaction Surveys:

• How satisfied are you with our product/service?
• How likely are you to purchase from us again?
• How responsive is our customer service team?
• How easy is it to use our product/service?
• How well does our product/service meet your needs?

Market Segmentation Surveys:

• What is your age?
• What is your gender?
• What is your income level?
• What is your occupation?
• What is your educational background?

Pricing Research Surveys:

• How much would you be willing to pay for our product/service?
• How does the price of our product/service compare to our competitors’ offerings?
• What pricing strategy would be most appealing to you?
• How does the price of our product/service impact your purchase decision?
• What is the maximum amount you would be willing to pay for our product/service?

Remember, these are just sample questions. You should tailor your survey questions to your specific business needs and target audience. By asking the right questions, you will be able to uncover precious data that will drive well-informed decisions for your business!

Create a Strong Market Research Survey Regime to Dominate Your Field

Have you ever wondered what your customers really want? What sets you apart from your competitors? What are the latest trends in your industry? These are the questions that market research surveys can answer for you. But, designing a survey that yields accurate and reliable data can be challenging. That’s why it’s essential to ensure that your survey is well-structured, relevant, and easy to understand. Once you’ve collected the data, it’s equally important to analyze it thoroughly and use the insights gained to make informed decisions. As Peter Drucker famously said, “What gets measured, gets managed.” market research surveys are a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes to achieve their goals and stay ahead of the competition. So, don’t wait any longer. Start your survey today with a modern market research solution such as ProProfs Survey Maker and take your business to new heights!

About the author

Jared cornell.

Jared is a customer support expert. He has been published in CrazyEgg , Foundr , and CXL . As a customer support executive at ProProfs, he has been instrumental in developing a complete customer support system that more than doubled customer satisfaction. You can connect and engage with Jared on Twitter , Facebook , and LinkedIn .

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Different types of market research surveys (with templates)

Product design is a bit of a “chicken and egg” situation — should we get the product idea first and then attempt to find product-market fit (PMF), or research a market to see if there’s a product that’s missing from it? Well actually, both are great approaches and market research surveys can help with either of them.

In this article, you’ll learn about the different types of market research surveys, what each type is useful for, and what questions to put in them to ensure that you make great data-driven decisions about your products and overall brand.

Table of contents

What is market research, what is a market research survey, buyer persona surveys, competitor analysis surveys, brand awareness surveys, market-field research, market research diary studies, market research interviews, market research focus groups, market research conjoint analysis.

Market research is the process of gathering information about a market. More specifically, the customers and opportunities to thrive within it (if any), and how it feels about your products and brand if such exists. In a nutshell, this information is used to determine product-market fit .

Market research surveys are used to map out markets and the customers within them, determine target markets, reposition brands within the markets that they’re already in, or simply just reaffirm that the products are in the best positions and that the brand is perceived in the right way.

Now let’s take a look at the different types of market research surveys.

The different types of market research surveys

There are different types of market research surveys. We’ll cover the following:

Buyer persona surveys are used to understand who buys the type of product you’re selling or thinking about selling. This is the market research survey you’d start with but also carry out periodically, investigating further should the market appear to change.

These are the questions that I’d ask (but feel free to adapt as necessary):

• What is your age?
• What is your gender identity ?
• What is your highest level of completed education?
• What is your employment status?
• What motivates you to [buy/subscribe to] [product]?
• What is your average [e.g., monthly] spend on [product]?
• How important are the following factors when [buying/subscribing to] [product]?
• How do you typically learn more about [product]?

You can access this buyer persona market research survey template on Google Docs:

Find out where customers of the product “hang out” and send them this survey.

You won’t acquire any insights from observing the results at face value — you’ll need to identify trends within them. For example, different age demographics might have different motivations for buying. For this reason, you’ll usually learn about the size and motivations of multiple submarkets as well as the market overall.

You’ll also learn where customers hang out most by the number of responses per source. In addition, the “How do you typically learn more about [product]?” question provides additional sources of respondents to the survey.

Ultimately, you’ll learn who and where.

Competitor analysis surveys are used to see how dominated, underserved, or untapped a market is. They’re also used to discover opportunities for improvement, the shortcomings of rivals to exploit, and even fresh product ideas. When combined with buyer personas, you’ll be able to position or reposition your product in the market, or if necessary, call it a day and exit the market entirely.

Again, these are the questions I’d ask (adapt as necessary):

• When you hear “[product]”, who comes to mind?
• How often do you see their marketing campaigns?
• (Conditional) What do you like and/or dislike about them?
• (Conditional) How do they compare to us?
• (Conditional) Why did you choose that answer?
• (Conditional) How likely are you to choose their [product] over ours?

You can access this competitor analysis market research survey template on Google Docs:

The audience for this survey is the same as that of buyer persona surveys — customers who use the type of product in question. Run it periodically, especially if you’re seeing low sales. However, if you’re fishing for a product idea, start with this survey (feel free to be a bit more vague; for example, ask about coffee rather than coffee shops) and then lead into your buyer persona survey after that.

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Competitor analysis surveys are a bit more qualitative than buyer personas, so you’ll want to synthesize the data by using affinity mapping to quantify the insights.

You can use brand awareness surveys to see how your brand is perceived by a target market. This is less about product needs/wants and more about how people see your brand overall, which in turn affects whether or not people are willing to consider or recommend your products.

Sometimes it can seem like you’re doing everything right, yet the market looks to your competitors. In this case, it could be that people are just unhappy or unaware of your brand, and this is where brand awareness surveys come in. Previously mentioned market research surveys cover brand awareness a bit, but this focuses on it.

These are the survey questions I’d recommend:

• How familiar are you with our brand?
• How did you first hear about our brand?
• How often do you see our marketing campaigns?
• Have our marketing campaigns influenced you to buy from our brand?
• Have you used our products before?
• Which of our products have you used?
• How likely are you to recommend our brand to friends or family?

And here’s the brand awareness survey template for you to adapt and use:

Send this one to your target market specifically.

It’s a quantitative survey, so once again, synthesize the results using affinity mapping and then use the insights to make data-driven decisions about your brand.

Other types of market research

Market research surveys should be utilized alongside other types of market research. Let’s take a quick look at what those types are.

With market-field research, you’d carry out your survey in-person and more contextually. For example, if you were researching an existing or potential market for coffee shops in a neighborhood, you’d benefit from surveying people at those establishments or whatever you think is the next best thing. You can approach this as a 1:1 interview or as what’s referred to as participant observation (which in this scenario is coffee and casual conversation!).

There’s also direct observation, where you’d just observe from a distance (in this scenario, you’d perhaps observe how long customers spend in coffee shops). If you’d really like to lean into this type of market research, I’d suggest doing both as part of a general market-field research case study.

Also, ethnography is a type of field research where entire social settings are observed, but this has very few use-cases.

The point of field research is to catch people in context, where their thoughts and feelings are at their most intense. Diary studies are similar, except that participants will record their experiences with a product (or lack thereof) over a specific course of time. Do whichever feels most applicable.

Market research interviews are 1:1 conversations to be used in place of market research surveys or as follow-ups to them.

Market research focus groups are essentially interviews but with all of the interviewees at once. The main benefit of focus groups is that a participant’s remark can help other participants to discover their unconscious thoughts. They’re also faster than conducting 1:1 interviews individually, but slower than surveys.

Different people open up in different situations depending on their personality type, so if resources allow I’d recommend doing all of them.

Conjoint analysis helps you to determine how much customers are willing to pay and for which features. If you’ve ever come across a useful feature but the overall product seemed expensive and/or had too many unwanted features, you either weren’t the target market for it or they didn’t do any conjoint analysis.

There are also many types of product pricing surveys — generic price testing , willingness-to-pay, price laddering, Van Westendorp’s price sensitivity meter — that are typically used during the product design process. While these are more for product research than market research, they can still be useful and you’ve probably done them already, so the best way to avoid reinventing the wheel is to see what kind of insights product designers are already sitting on.

Closing thoughts

Market research surveys are extremely useful for defining target markets, actually targeting them, repositioning ourselves within the markets that we’re already in, or reaffirming that we’re already in the right positions for product success.

However, market research surveys alone aren’t enough — we must also utilize other types of market research (as mentioned above) and utilize them in a strategic way. Kimberly Hale put together a great high-level guide to the overall market analysis process that demonstrates how to approach market research strategically.

As always, thanks for reading. Drop your thoughts and questions into the comment section below!

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Methodology

• Survey Research | Definition, Examples & Methods

Survey Research | Definition, Examples & Methods

Published on August 20, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on June 22, 2023.

Survey research means collecting information about a group of people by asking them questions and analyzing the results. To conduct an effective survey, follow these six steps:

• Determine who will participate in the survey
• Decide the type of survey (mail, online, or in-person)
• Design the survey questions and layout
• Distribute the survey
• Analyze the responses
• Write up the results

Surveys are a flexible method of data collection that can be used in many different types of research .

Table of contents

What are surveys used for, step 1: define the population and sample, step 2: decide on the type of survey, step 3: design the survey questions, step 4: distribute the survey and collect responses, step 5: analyze the survey results, step 6: write up the survey results, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about surveys.

Surveys are used as a method of gathering data in many different fields. They are a good choice when you want to find out about the characteristics, preferences, opinions, or beliefs of a group of people.

Common uses of survey research include:

• Social research : investigating the experiences and characteristics of different social groups
• Market research : finding out what customers think about products, services, and companies
• Health research : collecting data from patients about symptoms and treatments
• Politics : measuring public opinion about parties and policies
• Psychology : researching personality traits, preferences and behaviours

Surveys can be used in both cross-sectional studies , where you collect data just once, and in longitudinal studies , where you survey the same sample several times over an extended period.

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Before you start conducting survey research, you should already have a clear research question that defines what you want to find out. Based on this question, you need to determine exactly who you will target to participate in the survey.

Populations

The target population is the specific group of people that you want to find out about. This group can be very broad or relatively narrow. For example:

• The population of Brazil
• US college students
• Second-generation immigrants in the Netherlands
• Customers of a specific company aged 18-24
• British transgender women over the age of 50

Your survey should aim to produce results that can be generalized to the whole population. That means you need to carefully define exactly who you want to draw conclusions about.

Several common research biases can arise if your survey is not generalizable, particularly sampling bias and selection bias . The presence of these biases have serious repercussions for the validity of your results.

It’s rarely possible to survey the entire population of your research – it would be very difficult to get a response from every person in Brazil or every college student in the US. Instead, you will usually survey a sample from the population.

The sample size depends on how big the population is. You can use an online sample calculator to work out how many responses you need.

There are many sampling methods that allow you to generalize to broad populations. In general, though, the sample should aim to be representative of the population as a whole. The larger and more representative your sample, the more valid your conclusions. Again, beware of various types of sampling bias as you design your sample, particularly self-selection bias , nonresponse bias , undercoverage bias , and survivorship bias .

There are two main types of survey:

• A questionnaire , where a list of questions is distributed by mail, online or in person, and respondents fill it out themselves.
• An interview , where the researcher asks a set of questions by phone or in person and records the responses.

Which type you choose depends on the sample size and location, as well as the focus of the research.

Questionnaires

Sending out a paper survey by mail is a common method of gathering demographic information (for example, in a government census of the population).

• You can easily access a large sample.
• You have some control over who is included in the sample (e.g. residents of a specific region).
• The response rate is often low, and at risk for biases like self-selection bias .

Online surveys are a popular choice for students doing dissertation research , due to the low cost and flexibility of this method. There are many online tools available for constructing surveys, such as SurveyMonkey and Google Forms .

• You can quickly access a large sample without constraints on time or location.
• The data is easy to process and analyze.
• The anonymity and accessibility of online surveys mean you have less control over who responds, which can lead to biases like self-selection bias .

If your research focuses on a specific location, you can distribute a written questionnaire to be completed by respondents on the spot. For example, you could approach the customers of a shopping mall or ask all students to complete a questionnaire at the end of a class.

• You can screen respondents to make sure only people in the target population are included in the sample.
• You can collect time- and location-specific data (e.g. the opinions of a store’s weekday customers).
• The sample size will be smaller, so this method is less suitable for collecting data on broad populations and is at risk for sampling bias .

Oral interviews are a useful method for smaller sample sizes. They allow you to gather more in-depth information on people’s opinions and preferences. You can conduct interviews by phone or in person.

• You have personal contact with respondents, so you know exactly who will be included in the sample in advance.
• You can clarify questions and ask for follow-up information when necessary.
• The lack of anonymity may cause respondents to answer less honestly, and there is more risk of researcher bias.

Like questionnaires, interviews can be used to collect quantitative data: the researcher records each response as a category or rating and statistically analyzes the results. But they are more commonly used to collect qualitative data : the interviewees’ full responses are transcribed and analyzed individually to gain a richer understanding of their opinions and feelings.

Next, you need to decide which questions you will ask and how you will ask them. It’s important to consider:

• The type of questions
• The content of the questions
• The phrasing of the questions
• The ordering and layout of the survey

Open-ended vs closed-ended questions

There are two main forms of survey questions: open-ended and closed-ended. Many surveys use a combination of both.

Closed-ended questions give the respondent a predetermined set of answers to choose from. A closed-ended question can include:

• A binary answer (e.g. yes/no or agree/disagree )
• A scale (e.g. a Likert scale with five points ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree )
• A list of options with a single answer possible (e.g. age categories)
• A list of options with multiple answers possible (e.g. leisure interests)

Closed-ended questions are best for quantitative research . They provide you with numerical data that can be statistically analyzed to find patterns, trends, and correlations .

Open-ended questions are best for qualitative research. This type of question has no predetermined answers to choose from. Instead, the respondent answers in their own words.

Open questions are most common in interviews, but you can also use them in questionnaires. They are often useful as follow-up questions to ask for more detailed explanations of responses to the closed questions.

The content of the survey questions

To ensure the validity and reliability of your results, you need to carefully consider each question in the survey. All questions should be narrowly focused with enough context for the respondent to answer accurately. Avoid questions that are not directly relevant to the survey’s purpose.

When constructing closed-ended questions, ensure that the options cover all possibilities. If you include a list of options that isn’t exhaustive, you can add an “other” field.

Phrasing the survey questions

In terms of language, the survey questions should be as clear and precise as possible. Tailor the questions to your target population, keeping in mind their level of knowledge of the topic. Avoid jargon or industry-specific terminology.

Survey questions are at risk for biases like social desirability bias , the Hawthorne effect , or demand characteristics . It’s critical to use language that respondents will easily understand, and avoid words with vague or ambiguous meanings. Make sure your questions are phrased neutrally, with no indication that you’d prefer a particular answer or emotion.

Ordering the survey questions

The questions should be arranged in a logical order. Start with easy, non-sensitive, closed-ended questions that will encourage the respondent to continue.

If the survey covers several different topics or themes, group together related questions. You can divide a questionnaire into sections to help respondents understand what is being asked in each part.

If a question refers back to or depends on the answer to a previous question, they should be placed directly next to one another.

Before you start, create a clear plan for where, when, how, and with whom you will conduct the survey. Determine in advance how many responses you require and how you will gain access to the sample.

When you are satisfied that you have created a strong research design suitable for answering your research questions, you can conduct the survey through your method of choice – by mail, online, or in person.

There are many methods of analyzing the results of your survey. First you have to process the data, usually with the help of a computer program to sort all the responses. You should also clean the data by removing incomplete or incorrectly completed responses.

If you asked open-ended questions, you will have to code the responses by assigning labels to each response and organizing them into categories or themes. You can also use more qualitative methods, such as thematic analysis , which is especially suitable for analyzing interviews.

Statistical analysis is usually conducted using programs like SPSS or Stata. The same set of survey data can be subject to many analyses.

Finally, when you have collected and analyzed all the necessary data, you will write it up as part of your thesis, dissertation , or research paper .

In the methodology section, you describe exactly how you conducted the survey. You should explain the types of questions you used, the sampling method, when and where the survey took place, and the response rate. You can include the full questionnaire as an appendix and refer to it in the text if relevant.

Then introduce the analysis by describing how you prepared the data and the statistical methods you used to analyze it. In the results section, you summarize the key results from your analysis.

In the discussion and conclusion , you give your explanations and interpretations of these results, answer your research question, and reflect on the implications and limitations of the research.

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Student’s  t -distribution
• Normal distribution
• Null and Alternative Hypotheses
• Chi square tests
• Confidence interval
• Quartiles & Quantiles
• Cluster sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Data cleansing
• Reproducibility vs Replicability
• Peer review
• Prospective cohort study

Research bias

• Implicit bias
• Cognitive bias
• Placebo effect
• Hawthorne effect
• Hindsight bias
• Affect heuristic
• Social desirability bias

A questionnaire is a data collection tool or instrument, while a survey is an overarching research method that involves collecting and analyzing data from people using questionnaires.

A Likert scale is a rating scale that quantitatively assesses opinions, attitudes, or behaviors. It is made up of 4 or more questions that measure a single attitude or trait when response scores are combined.

To use a Likert scale in a survey , you present participants with Likert-type questions or statements, and a continuum of items, usually with 5 or 7 possible responses, to capture their degree of agreement.

Individual Likert-type questions are generally considered ordinal data , because the items have clear rank order, but don’t have an even distribution.

Overall Likert scale scores are sometimes treated as interval data. These scores are considered to have directionality and even spacing between them.

The type of data determines what statistical tests you should use to analyze your data.

The priorities of a research design can vary depending on the field, but you usually have to specify:

• Your research questions and/or hypotheses
• Your overall approach (e.g., qualitative or quantitative )
• The type of design you’re using (e.g., a survey , experiment , or case study )
• Your sampling methods or criteria for selecting subjects
• Your data collection methods (e.g., questionnaires , observations)
• Your data collection procedures (e.g., operationalization , timing and data management)
• Your data analysis methods (e.g., statistical tests  or thematic analysis )

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Market Research: A How-To Guide and Template

Discover the different types of market research, how to conduct your own market research, and use a free template to help you along the way.

MARKET RESEARCH KIT

5 Research and Planning Templates + a Free Guide on How to Use Them in Your Market Research

Updated: 02/21/24

Published: 02/21/24

Today's consumers have a lot of power. As a business, you must have a deep understanding of who your buyers are and what influences their purchase decisions.

Enter: Market Research.

Whether you're new to market research or not, I created this guide to help you conduct a thorough study of your market, target audience, competition, and more. Let’s dive in.

Table of Contents

What is market research?

Primary vs. secondary research, types of market research, how to do market research, market research report template, market research examples.

Market research is the process of gathering information about your target market and customers to verify the success of a new product, help your team iterate on an existing product, or understand brand perception to ensure your team is effectively communicating your company's value effectively.

Market research can answer various questions about the state of an industry. But if you ask me, it's hardly a crystal ball that marketers can rely on for insights on their customers.

Market researchers investigate several areas of the market, and it can take weeks or even months to paint an accurate picture of the business landscape.

However, researching just one of those areas can make you more intuitive to who your buyers are and how to deliver value that no other business is offering them right now.

How? Consider these two things:

• Your competitors also have experienced individuals in the industry and a customer base. It‘s very possible that your immediate resources are, in many ways, equal to those of your competition’s immediate resources. Seeking a larger sample size for answers can provide a better edge.
• Your customers don't represent the attitudes of an entire market. They represent the attitudes of the part of the market that is already drawn to your brand.

The market research services market is growing rapidly, which signifies a strong interest in market research as we enter 2024. The market is expected to grow from roughly $75 billion in 2021 to $90.79 billion in 2025 .

Free Market Research Kit

• SWOT Analysis Template
• Survey Template
• Focus Group Template

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Why do market research?

Market research allows you to meet your buyer where they are.

As our world becomes louder and demands more of our attention, this proves invaluable.

By understanding your buyer's problems, pain points, and desired solutions, you can aptly craft your product or service to naturally appeal to them.

Market research also provides insight into the following:

• Where your target audience and current customers conduct their product or service research
• Which of your competitors your target audience looks to for information, options, or purchases
• What's trending in your industry and in the eyes of your buyer
• Who makes up your market and what their challenges are
• What influences purchases and conversions among your target audience
• Consumer attitudes about a particular topic, pain, product, or brand
• Whether there‘s demand for the business initiatives you’re investing in
• Unaddressed or underserved customer needs that can be flipped into selling opportunity
• Attitudes about pricing for a particular product or service

Ultimately, market research allows you to get information from a larger sample size of your target audience, eliminating bias and assumptions so that you can get to the heart of consumer attitudes.

As a result, you can make better business decisions.

To give you an idea of how extensive market research can get , consider that it can either be qualitative or quantitative in nature — depending on the studies you conduct and what you're trying to learn about your industry.

Qualitative research is concerned with public opinion, and explores how the market feels about the products currently available in that market.

Quantitative research is concerned with data, and looks for relevant trends in the information that's gathered from public records.

That said, there are two main types of market research that your business can conduct to collect actionable information on your products: primary research and secondary research.

Primary Research

Primary research is the pursuit of first-hand information about your market and the customers within your market.

It's useful when segmenting your market and establishing your buyer personas.

Primary market research tends to fall into one of two buckets:

• Exploratory Primary Research: This kind of primary market research normally takes place as a first step — before any specific research has been performed — and may involve open-ended interviews or surveys with small numbers of people.
• Specific Primary Research: This type of research often follows exploratory research. In specific research, you take a smaller or more precise segment of your audience and ask questions aimed at solving a suspected problem.

Secondary Research

Secondary research is all the data and public records you have at your disposal to draw conclusions from (e.g. trend reports, market statistics, industry content, and sales data you already have on your business).

Secondary research is particularly useful for analyzing your competitors . The main buckets your secondary market research will fall into include:

• Public Sources: These sources are your first and most-accessible layer of material when conducting secondary market research. They're often free to find and review — like government statistics (e.g., from the U.S. Census Bureau ).
• Commercial Sources: These sources often come in the form of pay-to-access market reports, consisting of industry insight compiled by a research agency like Pew , Gartner , or Forrester .
• Internal Sources: This is the market data your organization already has like average revenue per sale, customer retention rates, and other historical data that can help you draw conclusions on buyer needs.
• Focus Groups
• Product/ Service Use Research
• Observation-Based Research
• Buyer Persona Research
• Market Segmentation Research
• Pricing Research
• Competitive Analysis Research
• Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Research
• Brand Awareness Research
• Campaign Research

1. Interviews

Interviews allow for face-to-face discussions so you can allow for a natural flow of conversation. Your interviewees can answer questions about themselves to help you design your buyer personas and shape your entire marketing strategy.

2. Focus Groups

Focus groups provide you with a handful of carefully-selected people that can test out your product and provide feedback. This type of market research can give you ideas for product differentiation.

3. Product/Service Use Research

Product or service use research offers insight into how and why your audience uses your product or service. This type of market research also gives you an idea of the product or service's usability for your target audience.

4. Observation-Based Research

Observation-based research allows you to sit back and watch the ways in which your target audience members go about using your product or service, what works well in terms of UX , and which aspects of it could be improved.

5. Buyer Persona Research

Buyer persona research gives you a realistic look at who makes up your target audience, what their challenges are, why they want your product or service, and what they need from your business or brand.

6. Market Segmentation Research

Market segmentation research allows you to categorize your target audience into different groups (or segments) based on specific and defining characteristics. This way, you can determine effective ways to meet their needs.

7. Pricing Research

Pricing research helps you define your pricing strategy . It gives you an idea of what similar products or services in your market sell for and what your target audience is willing to pay.

8. Competitive Analysis

Competitive analyses give you a deep understanding of the competition in your market and industry. You can learn about what's doing well in your industry and how you can separate yourself from the competition .

9. Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Research

Customer satisfaction and loyalty research gives you a look into how you can get current customers to return for more business and what will motivate them to do so (e.g., loyalty programs , rewards, remarkable customer service).

10. Brand Awareness Research

Brand awareness research tells you what your target audience knows about and recognizes from your brand. It tells you about the associations people make when they think about your business.

11. Campaign Research

Campaign research entails looking into your past campaigns and analyzing their success among your target audience and current customers. The goal is to use these learnings to inform future campaigns.

• Define your buyer persona.
• Identify a persona group to engage.
• Prepare research questions for your market research participants.
• List your primary competitors.
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A generative AI reset: Rewiring to turn potential into value in 2024

It’s time for a generative AI (gen AI) reset. The initial enthusiasm and flurry of activity in 2023 is giving way to second thoughts and recalibrations as companies realize that capturing gen AI’s enormous potential value is harder than expected .

With 2024 shaping up to be the year for gen AI to prove its value, companies should keep in mind the hard lessons learned with digital and AI transformations: competitive advantage comes from building organizational and technological capabilities to broadly innovate, deploy, and improve solutions at scale—in effect, rewiring the business  for distributed digital and AI innovation.

About QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey

QuantumBlack, McKinsey’s AI arm, helps companies transform using the power of technology, technical expertise, and industry experts. With thousands of practitioners at QuantumBlack (data engineers, data scientists, product managers, designers, and software engineers) and McKinsey (industry and domain experts), we are working to solve the world’s most important AI challenges. QuantumBlack Labs is our center of technology development and client innovation, which has been driving cutting-edge advancements and developments in AI through locations across the globe.

Companies looking to score early wins with gen AI should move quickly. But those hoping that gen AI offers a shortcut past the tough—and necessary—organizational surgery are likely to meet with disappointing results. Launching pilots is (relatively) easy; getting pilots to scale and create meaningful value is hard because they require a broad set of changes to the way work actually gets done.

Let’s briefly look at what this has meant for one Pacific region telecommunications company. The company hired a chief data and AI officer with a mandate to “enable the organization to create value with data and AI.” The chief data and AI officer worked with the business to develop the strategic vision and implement the road map for the use cases. After a scan of domains (that is, customer journeys or functions) and use case opportunities across the enterprise, leadership prioritized the home-servicing/maintenance domain to pilot and then scale as part of a larger sequencing of initiatives. They targeted, in particular, the development of a gen AI tool to help dispatchers and service operators better predict the types of calls and parts needed when servicing homes.

Leadership put in place cross-functional product teams with shared objectives and incentives to build the gen AI tool. As part of an effort to upskill the entire enterprise to better work with data and gen AI tools, they also set up a data and AI academy, which the dispatchers and service operators enrolled in as part of their training. To provide the technology and data underpinnings for gen AI, the chief data and AI officer also selected a large language model (LLM) and cloud provider that could meet the needs of the domain as well as serve other parts of the enterprise. The chief data and AI officer also oversaw the implementation of a data architecture so that the clean and reliable data (including service histories and inventory databases) needed to build the gen AI tool could be delivered quickly and responsibly.

Creating value beyond the hype

Let’s deliver on the promise of technology from strategy to scale.

Our book Rewired: The McKinsey Guide to Outcompeting in the Age of Digital and AI (Wiley, June 2023) provides a detailed manual on the six capabilities needed to deliver the kind of broad change that harnesses digital and AI technology. In this article, we will explore how to extend each of those capabilities to implement a successful gen AI program at scale. While recognizing that these are still early days and that there is much more to learn, our experience has shown that breaking open the gen AI opportunity requires companies to rewire how they work in the following ways.

Figure out where gen AI copilots can give you a real competitive advantage

The broad excitement around gen AI and its relative ease of use has led to a burst of experimentation across organizations. Most of these initiatives, however, won’t generate a competitive advantage. One bank, for example, bought tens of thousands of GitHub Copilot licenses, but since it didn’t have a clear sense of how to work with the technology, progress was slow. Another unfocused effort we often see is when companies move to incorporate gen AI into their customer service capabilities. Customer service is a commodity capability, not part of the core business, for most companies. While gen AI might help with productivity in such cases, it won’t create a competitive advantage.

To create competitive advantage, companies should first understand the difference between being a “taker” (a user of available tools, often via APIs and subscription services), a “shaper” (an integrator of available models with proprietary data), and a “maker” (a builder of LLMs). For now, the maker approach is too expensive for most companies, so the sweet spot for businesses is implementing a taker model for productivity improvements while building shaper applications for competitive advantage.

Much of gen AI’s near-term value is closely tied to its ability to help people do their current jobs better. In this way, gen AI tools act as copilots that work side by side with an employee, creating an initial block of code that a developer can adapt, for example, or drafting a requisition order for a new part that a maintenance worker in the field can review and submit (see sidebar “Copilot examples across three generative AI archetypes”). This means companies should be focusing on where copilot technology can have the biggest impact on their priority programs.

Copilot examples across three generative AI archetypes

• “Taker” copilots help real estate customers sift through property options and find the most promising one, write code for a developer, and summarize investor transcripts.
• “Shaper” copilots provide recommendations to sales reps for upselling customers by connecting generative AI tools to customer relationship management systems, financial systems, and customer behavior histories; create virtual assistants to personalize treatments for patients; and recommend solutions for maintenance workers based on historical data.
• “Maker” copilots are foundation models that lab scientists at pharmaceutical companies can use to find and test new and better drugs more quickly.

Some industrial companies, for example, have identified maintenance as a critical domain for their business. Reviewing maintenance reports and spending time with workers on the front lines can help determine where a gen AI copilot could make a big difference, such as in identifying issues with equipment failures quickly and early on. A gen AI copilot can also help identify root causes of truck breakdowns and recommend resolutions much more quickly than usual, as well as act as an ongoing source for best practices or standard operating procedures.

The challenge with copilots is figuring out how to generate revenue from increased productivity. In the case of customer service centers, for example, companies can stop recruiting new agents and use attrition to potentially achieve real financial gains. Defining the plans for how to generate revenue from the increased productivity up front, therefore, is crucial to capturing the value.

Upskill the talent you have but be clear about the gen-AI-specific skills you need

By now, most companies have a decent understanding of the technical gen AI skills they need, such as model fine-tuning, vector database administration, prompt engineering, and context engineering. In many cases, these are skills that you can train your existing workforce to develop. Those with existing AI and machine learning (ML) capabilities have a strong head start. Data engineers, for example, can learn multimodal processing and vector database management, MLOps (ML operations) engineers can extend their skills to LLMOps (LLM operations), and data scientists can develop prompt engineering, bias detection, and fine-tuning skills.

A sample of new generative AI skills needed

The following are examples of new skills needed for the successful deployment of generative AI tools:

• data scientist:
• prompt engineering
• in-context learning
• bias detection
• pattern identification
• reinforcement learning from human feedback
• hyperparameter/large language model fine-tuning; transfer learning
• data engineer:
• data wrangling and data warehousing
• data pipeline construction
• multimodal processing
• vector database management

The learning process can take two to three months to get to a decent level of competence because of the complexities in learning what various LLMs can and can’t do and how best to use them. The coders need to gain experience building software, testing, and validating answers, for example. It took one financial-services company three months to train its best data scientists to a high level of competence. While courses and documentation are available—many LLM providers have boot camps for developers—we have found that the most effective way to build capabilities at scale is through apprenticeship, training people to then train others, and building communities of practitioners. Rotating experts through teams to train others, scheduling regular sessions for people to share learnings, and hosting biweekly documentation review sessions are practices that have proven successful in building communities of practitioners (see sidebar “A sample of new generative AI skills needed”).

It’s important to bear in mind that successful gen AI skills are about more than coding proficiency. Our experience in developing our own gen AI platform, Lilli , showed us that the best gen AI technical talent has design skills to uncover where to focus solutions, contextual understanding to ensure the most relevant and high-quality answers are generated, collaboration skills to work well with knowledge experts (to test and validate answers and develop an appropriate curation approach), strong forensic skills to figure out causes of breakdowns (is the issue the data, the interpretation of the user’s intent, the quality of metadata on embeddings, or something else?), and anticipation skills to conceive of and plan for possible outcomes and to put the right kind of tracking into their code. A pure coder who doesn’t intrinsically have these skills may not be as useful a team member.

While current upskilling is largely based on a “learn on the job” approach, we see a rapid market emerging for people who have learned these skills over the past year. That skill growth is moving quickly. GitHub reported that developers were working on gen AI projects “in big numbers,” and that 65,000 public gen AI projects were created on its platform in 2023—a jump of almost 250 percent over the previous year. If your company is just starting its gen AI journey, you could consider hiring two or three senior engineers who have built a gen AI shaper product for their companies. This could greatly accelerate your efforts.

Form a centralized team to establish standards that enable responsible scaling

To ensure that all parts of the business can scale gen AI capabilities, centralizing competencies is a natural first move. The critical focus for this central team will be to develop and put in place protocols and standards to support scale, ensuring that teams can access models while also minimizing risk and containing costs. The team’s work could include, for example, procuring models and prescribing ways to access them, developing standards for data readiness, setting up approved prompt libraries, and allocating resources.

While developing Lilli, our team had its mind on scale when it created an open plug-in architecture and setting standards for how APIs should function and be built.  They developed standardized tooling and infrastructure where teams could securely experiment and access a GPT LLM , a gateway with preapproved APIs that teams could access, and a self-serve developer portal. Our goal is that this approach, over time, can help shift “Lilli as a product” (that a handful of teams use to build specific solutions) to “Lilli as a platform” (that teams across the enterprise can access to build other products).

For teams developing gen AI solutions, squad composition will be similar to AI teams but with data engineers and data scientists with gen AI experience and more contributors from risk management, compliance, and legal functions. The general idea of staffing squads with resources that are federated from the different expertise areas will not change, but the skill composition of a gen-AI-intensive squad will.

Set up the technology architecture to scale

Building a gen AI model is often relatively straightforward, but making it fully operational at scale is a different matter entirely. We’ve seen engineers build a basic chatbot in a week, but releasing a stable, accurate, and compliant version that scales can take four months. That’s why, our experience shows, the actual model costs may be less than 10 to 15 percent of the total costs of the solution.

Building for scale doesn’t mean building a new technology architecture. But it does mean focusing on a few core decisions that simplify and speed up processes without breaking the bank. Three such decisions stand out:

• Focus on reusing your technology. Reusing code can increase the development speed of gen AI use cases by 30 to 50 percent. One good approach is simply creating a source for approved tools, code, and components. A financial-services company, for example, created a library of production-grade tools, which had been approved by both the security and legal teams, and made them available in a library for teams to use. More important is taking the time to identify and build those capabilities that are common across the most priority use cases. The same financial-services company, for example, identified three components that could be reused for more than 100 identified use cases. By building those first, they were able to generate a significant portion of the code base for all the identified use cases—essentially giving every application a big head start.
• Focus the architecture on enabling efficient connections between gen AI models and internal systems. For gen AI models to work effectively in the shaper archetype, they need access to a business’s data and applications. Advances in integration and orchestration frameworks have significantly reduced the effort required to make those connections. But laying out what those integrations are and how to enable them is critical to ensure these models work efficiently and to avoid the complexity that creates technical debt  (the “tax” a company pays in terms of time and resources needed to redress existing technology issues). Chief information officers and chief technology officers can define reference architectures and integration standards for their organizations. Key elements should include a model hub, which contains trained and approved models that can be provisioned on demand; standard APIs that act as bridges connecting gen AI models to applications or data; and context management and caching, which speed up processing by providing models with relevant information from enterprise data sources.
• Build up your testing and quality assurance capabilities. Our own experience building Lilli taught us to prioritize testing over development. Our team invested in not only developing testing protocols for each stage of development but also aligning the entire team so that, for example, it was clear who specifically needed to sign off on each stage of the process. This slowed down initial development but sped up the overall delivery pace and quality by cutting back on errors and the time needed to fix mistakes.

Ensure data quality and focus on unstructured data to fuel your models

The ability of a business to generate and scale value from gen AI models will depend on how well it takes advantage of its own data. As with technology, targeted upgrades to existing data architecture  are needed to maximize the future strategic benefits of gen AI:

• Be targeted in ramping up your data quality and data augmentation efforts. While data quality has always been an important issue, the scale and scope of data that gen AI models can use—especially unstructured data—has made this issue much more consequential. For this reason, it’s critical to get the data foundations right, from clarifying decision rights to defining clear data processes to establishing taxonomies so models can access the data they need. The companies that do this well tie their data quality and augmentation efforts to the specific AI/gen AI application and use case—you don’t need this data foundation to extend to every corner of the enterprise. This could mean, for example, developing a new data repository for all equipment specifications and reported issues to better support maintenance copilot applications.
• Understand what value is locked into your unstructured data. Most organizations have traditionally focused their data efforts on structured data (values that can be organized in tables, such as prices and features). But the real value from LLMs comes from their ability to work with unstructured data (for example, PowerPoint slides, videos, and text). Companies can map out which unstructured data sources are most valuable and establish metadata tagging standards so models can process the data and teams can find what they need (tagging is particularly important to help companies remove data from models as well, if necessary). Be creative in thinking about data opportunities. Some companies, for example, are interviewing senior employees as they retire and feeding that captured institutional knowledge into an LLM to help improve their copilot performance.
• Optimize to lower costs at scale. There is often as much as a tenfold difference between what companies pay for data and what they could be paying if they optimized their data infrastructure and underlying costs. This issue often stems from companies scaling their proofs of concept without optimizing their data approach. Two costs generally stand out. One is storage costs arising from companies uploading terabytes of data into the cloud and wanting that data available 24/7. In practice, companies rarely need more than 10 percent of their data to have that level of availability, and accessing the rest over a 24- or 48-hour period is a much cheaper option. The other costs relate to computation with models that require on-call access to thousands of processors to run. This is especially the case when companies are building their own models (the maker archetype) but also when they are using pretrained models and running them with their own data and use cases (the shaper archetype). Companies could take a close look at how they can optimize computation costs on cloud platforms—for instance, putting some models in a queue to run when processors aren’t being used (such as when Americans go to bed and consumption of computing services like Netflix decreases) is a much cheaper option.

Build trust and reusability to drive adoption and scale

Because many people have concerns about gen AI, the bar on explaining how these tools work is much higher than for most solutions. People who use the tools want to know how they work, not just what they do. So it’s important to invest extra time and money to build trust by ensuring model accuracy and making it easy to check answers.

One insurance company, for example, created a gen AI tool to help manage claims. As part of the tool, it listed all the guardrails that had been put in place, and for each answer provided a link to the sentence or page of the relevant policy documents. The company also used an LLM to generate many variations of the same question to ensure answer consistency. These steps, among others, were critical to helping end users build trust in the tool.

Part of the training for maintenance teams using a gen AI tool should be to help them understand the limitations of models and how best to get the right answers. That includes teaching workers strategies to get to the best answer as fast as possible by starting with broad questions then narrowing them down. This provides the model with more context, and it also helps remove any bias of the people who might think they know the answer already. Having model interfaces that look and feel the same as existing tools also helps users feel less pressured to learn something new each time a new application is introduced.

Getting to scale means that businesses will need to stop building one-off solutions that are hard to use for other similar use cases. One global energy and materials company, for example, has established ease of reuse as a key requirement for all gen AI models, and has found in early iterations that 50 to 60 percent of its components can be reused. This means setting standards for developing gen AI assets (for example, prompts and context) that can be easily reused for other cases.

While many of the risk issues relating to gen AI are evolutions of discussions that were already brewing—for instance, data privacy, security, bias risk, job displacement, and intellectual property protection—gen AI has greatly expanded that risk landscape. Just 21 percent of companies reporting AI adoption say they have established policies governing employees’ use of gen AI technologies.

Similarly, a set of tests for AI/gen AI solutions should be established to demonstrate that data privacy, debiasing, and intellectual property protection are respected. Some organizations, in fact, are proposing to release models accompanied with documentation that details their performance characteristics. Documenting your decisions and rationales can be particularly helpful in conversations with regulators.

In some ways, this article is premature—so much is changing that we’ll likely have a profoundly different understanding of gen AI and its capabilities in a year’s time. But the core truths of finding value and driving change will still apply. How well companies have learned those lessons may largely determine how successful they’ll be in capturing that value.

The authors wish to thank Michael Chui, Juan Couto, Ben Ellencweig, Josh Gartner, Bryce Hall, Holger Harreis, Phil Hudelson, Suzana Iacob, Sid Kamath, Neerav Kingsland, Kitti Lakner, Robert Levin, Matej Macak, Lapo Mori, Alex Peluffo, Aldo Rosales, Erik Roth, Abdul Wahab Shaikh, and Stephen Xu for their contributions to this article.

This article was edited by Barr Seitz, an editorial director in the New York office.

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• The US healthcare industry is massive, with healthcare spending accounting for over 18.3% of US GDP in 2021.
• We break down the industry’s various sectors and recent trends hoping to reduce costs while improving care.
• Do you work in the healthcare industry? Get business insights on the latest tech innovations, market trends, and your competitors with data-driven research.

The US healthcare industry is massive, and is continuing to grow as the population swells. Many different types of companies and healthcare institutions work together to provide patient satisfaction and a better quality of care—but sometimes it comes at a large cost. 

Could new digital health startups help reduce costs while improving health care services? Insider Intelligence examines the healthcare industry, its latest trends, and what the future has in store.

US Healthcare Industry Size & Spending

The global healthcare market will reach $665.37 billion by 2028, according to Verified Market Research. US national healthcare expenditure reached $4.3 trillion in 2021, or $12,914 per person, and is estimated to reach $6.2 trillion by 2028, per the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

US healthcare is more expensive than most countries. According to the Commonwealth Fund, the US spent nearly 16.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) on healthcare in 2019. Germany was the second-highest ranking country, spending 11.7%, followed by Switzerland, spending 11.3%.

Deloitte estimates that, if the current trajectory continues, health spending will triple to nearly $12 trillion by 2040, or 26% of the GDP. The consulting firm also suggests that this growth is largely driven by inequities in the US healthcare system. Unnecessary healthcare spending that stems from structural inequities and biases, specifically related to race, gender, and socioeconomic status, currently costs the country $320 billion.

Another driver of these high costs is healthcare companies’ adoption of emerging health-focused technology. US healthcare providers and facilities spent $17.9 billion on cloud-based technologies in 2022—a figure that is expected to jump to $29.15 billion in 2026.

To offset costs, healthcare providers are leveraging the increase in consumers who want to play a more active role in monitoring their own health by encouraging tech that promotes vital tracking, early detection, and prevention of disease. Specifically, remote patient monitoring (RPM) tools, which enable a continuous stream of real-time health data between patients and their doctors, will account for much of this savings.

In 2023, the RPM space in 2023 will be rife with players, from providers to retailers. In fact, some 57% of provider organizations already use RPM to monitor patients’ vital signs at home, according to a January 2022 survey conducted by Sage Growth Partners on behalf of Rhythm. And, by 2024, over 75% of US medical practices will be leveraging the technology.

Like what you’re reading? Click here to learn more about Insider Intelligence’s leading Health research.

US Healthcare Sectors

Healthcare involves many parties working together. From healthcare staffing and administration to providers and patient care, the market is buoyed by a variety of different workers and technologies. Some healthcare sectors include:

• Health insurance
• Healthcare marketing
• Pharmaceuticals
• Healthcare tech 
• Health administration

US Healthcare Industry Trends

House calls are making a comeback—in a way. Insurers and retailers are now buying home health companies to expand into in-home care. Remote patient monitoring (RPM) and at-home diagnostic tests are helping to boost these efforts. Up to $265 billion in care services for traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage (MA) beneficiaries could migrate from traditional facilities to the home by 2025, per McKinsey & Company. Expect more big brands to move in.

Retailers and Insurers

Providing in-home care can reduce costs related to emergency room visits, decrease hospital readmissions, and even speed recovery time. Over the past year, big companies—including retailers like Amazon—have spent billions to stake a claim in the home healthcare market.

Baby boomers looking to “age in place” will be prime candidates for in-home healthcare. By 2030, all of the nearly 70 million boomers (now 58 to 76 years old) will be 65 or older, with the oldest close to 85. Most will be using some form of Medicare for their health coverage.

Demand for convenience and distanced care continues, and RPM adoption will only increase post-pandemic. We estimate there will be 70.6 million RPM users in the US by 2025, up 56.5% from 2022. In three years, more than one-quarter of the US population will be regularly using a device that remotely tracks or collects their well-being or medical data for their doctors to assess.

At-Home Tests  

The do-it-yourself healthcare market is booming. While sales of COVID-19 tests are waning, manufacturers and providers are rolling out other types of at-home tests, including those for sexually transmitted diseases—now considered an “out-of-control” situation in the US.

The global home diagnostics market was estimated at $5.42 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $8.15 billion by 2030,  according to Precedence Research.

Mental Health Coverage  

Mental health benefits are now a priority for both employees and employers. Offering virtual mental health care programs helps to mitigate employee “burnout” and keep costs low.

Rising prescription drug costs and treating chronic health conditions, however, are adding pressure on employers every year. At the same time, inflation has led 13% of adults to  cut healthcare costs completely , per an August 2022 First Insight report.

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U.S. Cap Rate Survey H2 2023

Tighter lending standards and distress expected but yields could be nearing their peak.

March 5, 2024 4 Minute Read

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Introduction.

The H2 2023 Cap Rate Survey provides a fresh perspective of where market sentiment is trending.

Welcome to CBRE’s H2 2023 Cap Rate Survey (CRS).

To read the full report, please download the PDF.

This survey comes at a unique time for real estate capital markets as limited investment volume has caused pricing uncertainty. The data driving this report was gathered from mid-November through December 2023 and informed by deals that occurred throughout the second half of 2023. We acknowledge that market conditions are fluid but believe that the CRS provides a useful base and unlocks important truths about how investor sentiment is changing.

The CRS captures 3,600 cap rate estimates across more than 50 geographic markets to generate key insights from a wealth of data.

More than 250 CBRE real estate professionals completed the H2 2023 CRS with their real-time market estimates in late 2023. Given the current rapidly changing investment landscape, estimates may not reflect recent events or the most current market conditions. Readers should view all cap rate estimates within this context.

Cap Rates Trended Upward in H2 2023 as Bond Yields Stalled

• H2 2023 was a volatile period for bond markets with yields peaking at 5% in October 2023 before falling back below 4% by year-end.
• This rise in bond yields was a headwind to deal flow and caused cap rate expansion to accelerate relative to H1 2023. The average cap rate increased from 6.4% to 7% in H2 2023, with expansion across multiple property types.
• In the final weeks of H2 2023 signals from the broader capital markets and the CRS suggest higher yields may not last. CBRE Econometric Advisors expects that yields are near a peak level, although offices may face further upward pressure.

Figure 1: Real Estate Cap Rate and Bond Yields, Period Average (%)

Cap Rate Expansion Continued, Especially for Commodity Office Stock

• Figure 2 compares stabilized cap rate estimates from the current CRS (horizontal axis) against H1 2023 estimates (vertical axis) for every property type and geographic market. Dots to the right of the 45-degree line represent markets where cap rates are higher than previous estimates.
• Cap rates expanded the most for commodity office assets, including a 100+ basis point (bp) increase for Class C urban properties. Suburban yield expansion was generally limited to less than 50 bps.
• Cap rate expansion was not limited to offices. The pace of decompression accelerated within the multifamily sector, with cap rates up +50 bps as some key cities are seeing weakening fundamentals.
• Neighborhood retail pricing remains the most stable.

Figure 2: H1 2023 Stabilized Cap Rate Estimates Versus H2 2023 Estimates

Most Respondents Believe That Cap Rates Have Peaked

• Every CRS asks respondents to estimate the direction and magnitude of cap rate movement during the next six months. Figure 3 aggregates all answers by property type and displays the results as a fraction of responses expecting further yield increases. The most common response across all categories was “no change.”
• The share of respondents expecting further devaluations is highest within the office sector, reflecting the uncertainty around fundamentals.
• Fewer survey respondents believe cap rates will increase in H1 2024 than did so in H1 2023. This likely reflects investor expectations of a more accommodative Federal Reserve policy and bond yields decline from October 2023 highs.

Figure 3: How will cap rates trend over the next six months?

Definitions

• Markets conform to metropolitan area and metropolitan divisions as defined by U.S. Census Bureau.
• The cap rates presented in this report are based upon estimates by CBRE capital markets and valuation professionals. These estimates are informed by recent trades within their respective markets and discussions with investors. The ranges represent the cap rates at which a given asset is likely to trade in the current market. Cap rates within each subtype vary, occasionally falling outside the stated ranges, based on asset location, quality and property-specific characteristics.
• Stabilized properties are assets leased at market rents with typical lease terms and have vacancy levels close to market averages.
• Stabilized cap rates are the ratio of stabilized net operating income (NOI) to the acquisition price of the asset.
• Value-add cap rates are the ratio of stabilized NOI after property enhancements to the acquisition price of the asset plus value-add capital.
• The NOI calculation is based on net income less operating expenses.

Related Insights

2024 u.s. investor intentions survey.

January 26, 2024

Investors cited higher-for-longer interest rates, tight credit conditions and differing buyer and seller expectations as the biggest impediments to commercial real estate investment activity in 2024.

U.S. Cap Rate Survey H1 2023

July 26, 2023

The H1 2023 Cap Rate Survey provides a fresh perspective of where market sentiment is trending.

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Global President, Capital Markets

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• Mobile +1 310 227 6309

Kevin Aussef

Americas President, Investment Properties

• Phone +1 949 809 3798

James Millon

U.S. President, Debt & Structured Finance

• Phone +1 212 984 8041
• Mobile +1 347 901 3644

Chris Riley

• Phone +1 404 923 1541
• Mobile +1 404 915 3670

Kelli Carhart

• Phone +1 512 482 5588
• Mobile +1 512 745 2227

Christopher J. Decouflé

Executive Vice President

• Phone +1 404 504 7900

Valuation & Advisory Services Contact

Thomas edwards, frics, cpv.

Global President, Valuation & Advisory Services

• Phone +1 214 863 3322
• Mobile +1 214 728 3746

Global Client Care Contact

Spencer levy.

Global Client Strategist & Senior Economic Advisor, CBRE

• Phone +1 617 912 5236

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