Do you employ market research surveys in your marketing mix? Understanding the mindset of customers has long been one of the biggest mysteries for businesses that offer products or services. Before the internet age, this was a near impossible task that usually went on either time-consuming focus groups or going on hunches. Twenty-five years after the internet came into being, most e-commerce businesses use market research surveys to help understand the demographics they want to attract. It is a key method you should implement to ensure your next product launch or marketing campaign is a success.
Where Do You Start in Creating a Research Survey?
We have all grown up with surveys in one form or another, sometimes on-site of a business, or ones by snail mail. In the digital age, it is easier to send research surveys through marketing emails where you can gauge what your prospective customers think. To start, ask yourself how you will use your gathered data. Knowing what you are looking for will help you understand how to format your survey so you will attract more participants.
As HubSpot notes in “How to Design a Marketing Survey That Yields Legitimate Results“, question format is usually the best outline. Also, take time to ask the same questions you did in past surveys. Doing so helps create comparisons on how well you did things this year compared to last year. Being consistent in your questions means you can use the results of your marketing research survey in an end-of-year report.
Other Options for Survey Format
The question format is not the only possible format to use in your survey. While usually recommended, it all depends on the types of data you need. You could also consider doing interviews, despite costing more than a survey with questions. Gauging information on social media is an excellent way to gain some insight if you have loyal followers. However, you can also find useful information just by looking in on social conversations under specific hashtags.
Keep Your Surveys Short
It is essential to create a draft of your survey first and share it with your team involved in the campaign. When you are all on the same page about how to format your survey, things will go faster. One key to success is to keep the survey as short as possible. Neil Patel also recommends sticking to the KISS principle, otherwise known as “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” All questions you pose to your prospects should be easy to answer in the shortest amount of time possible. A simple “Yes or No” format can yield more valuable information than you think. Even so, including at least one or two open-ended questions to allow for more elaboration. Such questions are only applicable if you need to find out more than just a Yes or No.
Delve Into Your Biggest Issues
The goal is to construct market research surveys that delve into the prospect’s biggest issues and how your products or service could help them. Some of these questions might address what the prospect’s most significant challenges are. Professional product marketing can address your most burning questions, and features not anticipated by the manufacturing or creative teams.
At New Perspectives, we use market research surveys to help you tap into these insights and so much more. Contact marketing research consultants today to learn more about the market research surveys we use to extract what’s on the mind of today’s consumers.