examples of marketing research questions

68 market research questions to ask (and how to ask them)

Example market research questions, market research questions to ask customers, market research questions for product development, market research questions for brand tracking, pricing survey questions for market research, how to write your own market research questions.

No two market research projects are alike, but happily there are some tried-and-tested questions you can use for inspiration to get the consumer insights you’re looking for.

It’s all about asking questions that are most relevant to the goals of your research. Every so often the best questions are actually quite straightforward, like asking consumers where they do their grocery shopping.

If you’re creating a customer profile, you’ll ask different questions than when you’re running creative testing with your target audience, or getting insights on key consumer trends in your market.

The right market research questions are the ones that will lead you to actionable insights, and give you a competitive advantage in your target market.

Let’s kick this off and get straight into some questions, shall we?

Where do we even begin with this?! There are so many types of research and we’ll get into which questions work for each below, but here are some classic example market research questions to get you started.

These particular questions are good for surveys that you might run when you’re running some essential consumer profiling research.

• Which of these products have you purchased in the last 3 months?
• Which of the following types of >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY< do you buy at least once a month?
• Approximately, how much would you say you spend on >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY< per month?
• What is stopping you from buying more of >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY<?
• When was the last time you tried a new >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY<?
• Please rank the following on how important or unimportant they are when deciding which >INSERT PRODUCT CATEGORY< to buy?
• Which of these brands are you aware of?
• Which of these brands have you purchased from in the last 3 months?
• How do you prefer to shop for >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY<?
• Why do you prefer to shop online?
• Why do you prefer to shop in-store?
• Thinking about the following, how often do you use/listen/watch each of these media?
• Where do you go to keep up to date with the news?
• Which social media platforms do you use daily?
• What mobile phone do you currently own?

Surely you want to talk to your current customers to understand why they buy from you and what they think about your products?

Correct! But your consumer research should definitely not end with current customers!

Here’s why you should think about broadening your research to include other groups and different market research methods :

• Current customers: This is a must! Running research to your current customers will help you understand how you can make your product or service better. These are the people who’ve spent their hard-earned cash on your products so they have a unique perspective on what kind of value you offer. In addition, understanding why your existing customer base chose your brand over others can help you create messaging that resonates with people who are still on the fence.
• Previous customers: People who used to buy your products but don’t anymore can give you valuable insight into areas you might need to improve. Perhaps your brand perception has shifted making some customers buy elsewhere, or maybe your competitors offer customers better value for money than you currently do. These are the kinds of areas you can learn about by running research to previous customers.
• Non-customers: You should also ask people who haven’t bought your products why they haven’t. That way you’ll learn what you need to improve to bring new customers in. You should ideally ask the same kinds of questions, so that you can learn about what product features you need to work on but also things like the messaging you should be putting out there to win people over.

Here are some questions that are perfect for competitive market analysis research. Some of these questions might sound similar to some from our previous section on consumer profiling—that’s because there’s often some crossover between these types of research. Consumer profiling often refers to a more general type of research that covers similar ground to market analysis. If you’re wondering how to calculate market size , questions like these would be a great starting point.

• How often do you usually purchase >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY<?
• Why do you buy >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY<?
• What types of >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY< do you buy?
• How often do you buy the following types of >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY<?
• Where do you buy your >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY<?
• Where do you find out about >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY<?
• Which of these brands have your purchased in the last 12 months?
• How would you feel if you could no longer buy >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY<?
• How important or unimportant do you find the following topics? (e.g. sustainability, diversity and inclusion, ethical supply chain)
• What could be improved about the products you currently use?

By involving consumers in the product development process, you can make sure that your products are designed to meet—and ideally exceed—their needs.

Product market research can be done at several points in the product development process, by asking potential customers in your target market questions about existing products (yours or competitors’), prototypes, or just your own early-stage product ideas.

You can dive into the customer experience, specific product features or simply find out if the product quality matches the value proposition you’re putting out there.

Sometimes you even get a surprising answer to the question: how does our product or service help people?

You might learn from the survey responses that customers are using your product in a different way than you intended, opening you up to new target markets and different product types in the future.

Asking these questions also allows you to get feedback on your designs, so that you can make necessary changes before the product is released. Here’s some inspiration for when you’re conducting product market research.

There are different types of new product development research. A key type is Jobs to be done research. This research digs into the practical reasons people buy products—the jobs they need to get done with a specific product. You use these insights to help you create products that will genuinely help consumers, and that they’ll ultimately want to buy.

• How many times have you carried out [INSERT ACTIVITY] in the last 12 months?
• How much time would you typically spend on this [INSERT ACTIVITY]?
• How important or unimportant is carrying out this [INSERT ACTIVITY]?
• How satisfied or unsatisfied do you feel when carrying out this [INSERT ACTIVITY]?
• What is the best thing about carrying out [INSERT ACTIVITY]?
• How does carrying out [INSERT ACTIVITY] make you feel? Please select all that apply
• What particular problems or challenges do you run into while carrying out [INSERT ACTIVITY]?

When you’re cooking up your brand’s next product, you’ll want to go through a concept testing phase. This is where you ask consumers what they think about your idea and find out whether it’s likely to be a success. Here are some of the questions you could ask in your concept testing research.

• To what extent do you like or dislike this idea/product? [ATTACH IMAGE]
• What do you like about this idea/product?
• What do you dislike about this idea/product?
• Is easy to use
• Sounds tasty
• Is good quality
• Is Innovative
• Is different from others
• Purchase this product
• Replace the product I currently own with this
• What other products this idea/product reminds you of? Please provide as much detail as possible including the product name.
• What feature(s), if any, do you feel are missing from this product?
• How would you improve this idea/product? Be as descriptive as possible!
• What issues do you solve through the use of this product?
• When can you see yourself using this product? Please select all that apply.
• The price for this product is $25.00 per item. How likely or unlikely would you be to buy this product at this price?

Get inspired with NPD survey templates

Our in-house research experts have created New Product Development (NPD) survey templates to give you the perfect starting point for your product research!

Does the perspective of new customers change over time? How do you compare to other brands, and how do you become the preferred brand in your market and increase that market share?

Brand perception and brand awareness are super important metrics to track. These insights can be used to improve customer experience and satisfaction on a higher level than just product: the relationship you have with your customers.

This research can also help you understand how to reach the holy grail of branding: turning loyal customers into brand ambassadors.

You should also remember to ask marketing research questions about your brand to existing and potential customers.

Existing customers might have a different view after having interacted with your team and products, and you can use that to manage the expectations of your target customers down the line. And potential customers can help you understand what’s holding them back from joining your customer base.

Top tip: it’s completely fine (and super beneficial!) to run brand tracking into your competitors’ brands as well as your own. Replicating research for different brands will give you a tailored benchmark for your category and position.

Here are some key questions to ask in your brand tracking research.

• Which of the following, if any, have you purchased in the past 12 months?
• Thinking about >INSERT YOUR CATEGORY<, what brands, if any, are you aware of? Please type in all that you can think of.
• Which of these brands of facial wipes, if any, are you aware of?
• Which of these facial wipe brands, if any, have you ever purchased?
• Which of these facial wipe brands, if any, would you consider purchasing in the next 6 months?
• e.g. Innovative
• Easy to use
• Traditional
• We’d now like to ask you some specific questions about >INSERT YOUR BRAND<.
• When did you last use >INSERT YOUR BRAND<?
• What do you like most about >INSERT YOUR BRAND<?
• What do you like least about >INSERT YOUR BRAND<?
• How likely would you be to recommend >INSERT YOUR BRAND< to a friend, family or colleague?
• Why did you give that score? Include as much detail as possible
• In newspapers/magazines
• On Instagram
• On Facebook
• On the radio
• Through friends/family/colleagues
• When did you last use >INSERT MAIN COMPETITOR BRAND<?
• How likely would you be to recommend >INSERT MAIN COMPETITOR BRAND< to a friend, family or colleague?

Kick off your brand tracking with templates

Track your brand to spot—and act on!—how your brand’s perception and awareness affects how people buy. Our survey templates give you the ideal starting point!

When it comes to pricing your product, there’s no need to wing it—a pricing survey can give you the insights you need to arrive at the perfect price point.

By asking customers questions about their willingness to pay for your product, you can get a realistic sense of what price point will be most attractive to them and, not unimportant, why.

Top tip: good pricing research can be tough to get right. Asking how much people would theoretically be willing to pay for a product is very different from them actually choosing it in a shop, on a shelf next to competitors’ products, and with a whole load of other economic context that you can’t possibly test for. Price testing is useful, but should sometimes be taken with a pinch of salt.

Here are some questions you could use in your pricing research.

• Which of the following product categories have you bought in the last 12 months?
• How often do you currently purchase >INSERT YOUR CATEGORY<?
• At what price would you consider this >INSERT PRODUCT CATEGORY< to be so expensive that you would not consider buying it? (Too expensive)
• At what price would you consider this >INSERT PRODUCT CATEGORY< to be starting to get expensive, so that it is not out of the question, but you have to give some thought to buying it? (e.g. Expensive)
• At what price would you consider this >INSERT PRODUCT CATEGORY< to be a bargain—a great buy for the money? (e.g. cheap)
• At what price would you consider this >INSERT PRODUCT CATEGORY< to be priced so low that you would feel the quality couldn’t be very good? (Too cheap)
• How much do you currently pay for >INSERT PRODUCT CATEGORY<? Please type in below
• Thinking about this product, please rank the following aspects based on how much value they add, where 1 = adds the most value 10 = adds the least value.
• Thinking about the product category as a whole, please rank the following brands in order of value, where 1 is the most expensive and 10 is the least.

Formulating market research questions can be tricky. On the one hand, you want to be specific enough that you can get tangible, useful answers. But on the other hand, you don’t want to ask questions that are so difficult or unclear that respondents will get frustrated and give up halfway through.

Think about what answers you need and what actions you are hoping to take based on those answers.

We’ll help you get started with a list of steps to take when formulating your own market research questions, and putting them together in a survey that makes sense.

1. Define your research goals and link them to actions you can take

Before you can write great market research questions, you need to know what you want to learn from your research.

What are your goals? What do you want to find out? Once you have a clear understanding of your goals, you can start brainstorming questions that will help you achieve them.

2. Know your target market and the language they use

Who are you conducting market research for? It’s important to know your audience before you start writing questions, as this will help you determine the best way to phrase them.

For example, if you’re conducting market research for a new product aimed at teenagers, you’ll want to use different language than if you were conducting research for a new financial planning service aimed at retirees.

3. Keep it simple, and break things into smaller pieces

Don’t make your questions too complicated. Stick to simple, straightforward questions that can be easily understood by your target audience.

The more complex your questions are, the more likely it is that respondents will get confused and provide inaccurate answers.

If you feel a question is too difficult, see if you can break it up into smaller pieces and add follow-up questions on top.

And don’t ever load two questions into one! This falls into Consumer Research 101, but it’s amazing how often it happens. Instead of ‘What’s your favorite chocolate bar, and why?’ ask two questions: ‘What’s your favorite chocolate bar?’ and ‘Why is this your favorite chocolate bar?’

4. Be super specific

Make sure your questions are specific enough to get the information you need. Vague questions will only lead to vague answers.

For example, instead of asking ‘What do you think of this product?’, ask ‘What did you think of the taste of this product?’ or ‘What did you think of the packaging of this product?’.

5. Avoid leading questions

Leading questions are those that suggest a particular answer or course of action. For example, instead of asking ‘Do you like our new product?’, which suggests that the respondent should like the product, try asking ‘What are your thoughts on this product?

This question is neutral and allows the respondent to answer freely without feeling pressured in any particular direction. It’s also brand-neutral: people answering this question will have no idea who’s asking, and their opinion won’t be biased as a result.

6. Make sure your question is clear

It’s important that your question is clear and concise so that respondents understand exactly what they’re being asked. If there is any ambiguity in your question, respondents may interpret it in different ways and provide inaccurate answers.

Always test your questions on a few people before sending them to a larger group to make sure they understand what they’re being asked.

7. Avoid loaded words

Loaded words are those with positive or negative connotations that could influence the way respondents answer the question. For example, instead of asking ‘Do you love this product?’, which has a positive connotation, try asking ‘What are your thoughts on this product?’

This question is neutral and allows the respondent to answer freely without feeling pressured in any particular direction

8. Make sure the question is answerable

Before you include a question in your market research survey, make sure it’s actually answerable. There’s no point in asking a question if there’s no way for respondents to answer it properly. If a question isn’t answerable, either revise the question or remove it from your survey altogether.

9. Use an appropriate question type

When designing your market research survey, be sure to use an appropriate question type for each question you include. Using the wrong question type can lead to inaccurate or unusable results, so it’s important to choose wisely. Some common question types used in market research surveys include multiple choice, rating scale, and open-ended questions.

10. Pay attention to question order

The order of the questions in your survey can also impact the results you get from your research. In general, it’s best to start with more general questions and then move on to more specific ones later on in the survey. This will help ensure that respondents are properly warmed up and able to provide detailed answers by the time they reach the end of the survey.

Make smart decisions with the reliable insights

To make sure you make smart decisions that have real impact on your business, get consumer insights you can rely on. Here’s our rundown of the top market research tools.

Survey questions for market research are designed to collect information about a target market or audience. They can be used to gather data about consumer preferences, opinions, and behavior. Some common types of market research survey questions include demographic questions, behavioral questions and attitudinal questions.

There are many different types of market research questions that companies can use to gather information about consumer preferences and buying habits. They can be divided into different categories, like a competitive analysis, customer satisfaction or market trends, after which you can make them more specific and turn them into survey questions. These are some of the things your research questions can help you answer: – What is the target market for our product? – Who is our competition? – What do consumers think of our product? – How often do consumers purchase our product? – What is the typical customer profile for our product? – What motivates consumers to purchase our product?

When conducting market research, surveys are an invaluable tool for gathering insights about your target audience. But how do you write a market research questionnaire that will get you the information you need? First, determine the purpose of your survey and who your target respondents are. This will help you to write questions that are relevant and targeted. Next, craft clear and concise questions that can be easily understood. Be sure to avoid ambiguity, leading questions and loaded language. Finally, pilot your survey with a small group of people to make sure that it is effective. With these tips in mind, you can write a market research survey that will help you to gather the crucial insights you need.

Elliot Barnard

Customer Research Lead 

Elliot joined Attest in 2019 and has dedicated his career to working with brands carrying out market research. At Attest Elliot takes a leading role in the Customer Research Team, to support customers as they uncover insights and new areas for growth.

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• 33 Best Market Research Question Examples

To build a successful business, it is important to gather useful insights through market research. More than anything else, carrying out market research helps you to collect necessary information and make the right business decisions with regard to market segmentation and product differentiation. 

In this article, we will share sample questionnaires for different types of market research; specifically product, client, and customer market research. We will also show you how to use Formplus to create a simple online research questionnaire in no time. 

What is Market Research? 

Market research is the process of gathering valuable information about the needs of your target market, consumer behaviors, and market challenges. Conducting market research helps you to determine the feasibility of a product or service before its introduction to the market. 

During market research , an organization can collect primary and/or secondary data. Primary data refers to information that is collected directly from the research participants and target markets while secondary data refers to already-processed information about the research context and subject(s). 

Importance of Market Research

• Improves Sales

Market research provides unique insights into the expectations of your customers and clients, which helps you tailor your product to meet their specific needs. This would ultimately help to increase your sales.

• Identifying New Business Opportunities

With market research, you’d be able to spot untapped business opportunities in your industry and work on building a product in line with this. You can discover new geographical concentrations for your target market, for instance. 

• Reduces Business Risks

As a business owner, your priority should be taking calculated risks and this can be achieved when you have forehand knowledge of the dynamics of your industry. Conducting market research arms you with useful insights that will help you make the right business decisions.

• Advertising

Market research also improves your advertising by helping you to identify the best channels to reach your customers. You’d better understand market demographics and also know the channels that can yield the best returns in terms of lead generation and sales. 

• Competitive Advantage

With better knowledge of market needs and consumers’ preferences, you’d stay ahead of your competition. For instance, you can identify neglected market segments and focus on penetrating them. 

Market Research Questionnaire Examples for Product 

Product market research questions trigger responses that reveal how well-suited your product is for the target market. The right product-market research questions provide useful insight into the feasibility of the product before it is launched. Here are 11 question samples for your product market research questionnaire. 

• What is your deciding factor for product patronage?

This question would help you focus your product’s unique selling point on what the target market considers valuable. For instance, if the deciding factor for your target market is affordability, you would want to work on a fair pricing rate for your product.

• How likely are you to purchase groceries online?

Since you want to create a product that satisfies a specific need, you need to be sure your target market would be willing to buy into your idea. If the market has no need for an online grocery store, there’s little or no reason for you to launch one.

• Which product features are most valuable to you?

You can tweak this question in line with your specific product. Data gathered via responses would help you identify the product features you need to invest in.

• Would you be willing to subscribe to a weekly business newsletter?

Questions like this would help you decide whether you need to go ahead with a specific development plan for your business. If you want to launch a newsletter, it helps to know if you have a willing audience for it.

• Would you like to process orders and payments in a single form?

This type of question would help you identify the need(s) of the market and you can work on creating a product or developing a feature to meet this need.

• Who is your trusted internet service provider?

If you’re looking to penetrate a new market, it is important for you to identify the existing competition; that is, organizations that provide similar services in your industry. Asking prospective customers to identify the brands they trust is an essential part of your competitive analysis.

• What challenges do you face with 3rd party logistics companies?

This question would help you to identify the specific needs of your target market. You can focus your product on providing solutions to the challenges highlighted.

• Would you find this product useful?

This is a straightforward question to determine whether your product fills a specific need in the market.

• Would you be willing to pay in installments for this service?

Questions like this would help you identify product features that your target market considers to be valuable.

• How much are you willing to pay for this product?

This question would help you fix a reasonable price for your product. While your product may be excellent, ensuring its affordability is key to penetrating the market effectively.

• How much do you spend on groceries every month?

This question would provide insights into the purchasing power of your target market.

Read: Research Questions: Definition, Types, +[Examples]

Market Research Questionnaire Examples for Customer

To better under your customers’ perceptions of your product, you can create and administer a market research questionnaire. A market research questionnaire for your customers should include questions that focus on the usefulness of different aspects of your product delivered to your customers. 

You’d also want to centralize questions that bother on customer demographics, challenges, specific needs of your customers, and how your product meets these needs. Here are 11 specific questions you can include in your market research questionnaire for customers: 

Demographic Questions

These questions will help you better understand who your customers are and also help you create an accurate buyer persona.  Knowing who your customers are and what appeals to them means that you would be able to focus your product on what appeals to them. 

• What is your monthly income range?

Knowing how much your customers earn gives you a hint of their purchasing power and how much they can typically spend on your product. This will inform the pricing of your product so that you do not price yourself out of business.

• How much do you spend on shopping every month?

Just like you, customers work with a budget and are more likely to purchase products whose costs fit into this. Responses to this question will help you fix an appropriate fee on your product.

• Where do you prefer to shop?

Catering to customer preferences is one way of securing repeated patronage. Responses to this question will inform your business expansion plan. For example, if your customers prefer shopping online, you can set up a Formplus online order form to allow them to place orders for items and make payments conveniently. 

• How old are you?

This question will help you identify the age group that your product appeals to the most. Knowing this would help you craft marketing and advertising campaigns that appeal to the members of this group.

Feedback Questions

These questions help you to collect insightful information about customer experience; that is, how customers perceive your product and overall delivery. Responses to these questions would let you know why your customers buy from you and how well your product meets their needs. 

• What specific needs does our product meet for you?

This question helps you to identify the unique selling point of your product. You would know why customers patronize your brand and you can leverage this information for better marketing and advertising.

• How would you rate our product delivery?

Responses to this question are a direct reflection of your customer’s perceptions of your product delivery. For better insight, you can ask them to provide reasons for their ratings.

• What challenges did you encounter while using our product?

These questions help you to identify business weaknesses from the point of view of the end user. If left unattended to, competitors can capitalize on these weaknesses to increase their customer base.

• How likely are you to recommend our product?

Happy customers are one of the most effective marketing tools as customers will only recommend a product they are satisfied with. If more people are eager to recommend your product, it means that your business and brand is on the right track.

Other market research question samples are:

• How would you rate our customer experience?

Feedback on customer experience is important because it helps you improve your brand’s relations with its customers across different business touchpoints.

• What do you think about product pricing?

This question would help you adjust your product pricing appropriately. If customers think your product is too expensive, they may stop buying from you.

• How often do you use our product?

This question would help you track repeated patronage and to know how your product fits into your customers’ everyday lives.

Market Research Questionnaire Examples for Client 

Clients are individuals and organizations that you provide specific services for. Just like with customer market research questions, market research questions for clients help you assess your service delivery, identify clients’ unique needs, and gather useful insights via feedback. Here are 11 sample questions for you: 

• How would you rate our service delivery?

This is a feedback question that will help you understand how well your service meets your client’s needs.

• What challenges are you experiencing with our services?

Responses to this question would highlight areas needing improvement in your overall service delivery.

• Would you be willing to recommend us to your network?

If the answers to this question are in the affirmative, then you can be sure that your clients are quite impressed with the service you provide.

• What specific needs do our services meet for you?

To clearly map out the value of your product from the clients’ perspectives, ask them to identify the specific needs your services meet for them.

• How can our service delivery be better?

This is another feedback question that would help you improve your services to better cater to the needs of your clients.

• For how long have you been a client?

This question helps you to gather meaningful data to improve your client retention strategies.

• What do you like the most about our services?

This question would help you identify the unique selling point of your services.

• How would you rate your last experience with us?

With this question, you’d be able to gather valuable information about a client’s experience with your services.

• What do you dislike about our service delivery?

This question allows clients to highlight areas needing improvement in your service delivery. The data gathered would help you improve your services for the benefit of your clients.

• Are our services helpful?

This is a simple question that requires clients to highlight the value of your services.

• Why did you choose us?

How to Create an Online Research Questionnaire 

With Formplus, it is easier for you to create and administer an online questionnaire for market research. In the drag-and-drop form builder, you can add preferred form fields and edit them to suit specific research needs. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to go about it: 

• Sign in to your Formplus account. In your dashboard, click on “create new form” to get started on your online research questionnaire.

• Drag and drop preferred fields into your online questionnaire. You can edit form fields to include market research questions. You can also make some fields hidden or read-only depending on your research needs.

• Use the form customization options to tweak the appearance of the online research questionnaire. You can add preferred background images, add your organization’s logo or tweak the form font.

• Finally, copy the form link and share it with form respondents. You can use one or more of the multiple sharing options including the social media direct sharing buttons and the email invitation option.

Conclusion 

While creating your market research questionnaire, it is important for you to tailor its questions to specific contexts. For instance, if you are conducting product market research, you should ask questions that would provide useful information on product feasibility among other things. 

Conducting market research yields multiple benefits for your business. To make the process seamless and easy to coordinate, you can set up an online research questionnaire with Formplus and share this with your customers, clients, and target market(s). 

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132 market research questions to ask.

Market research sounds so formal. Yet it doesn’t have to be. It can be part of your daily marketing activity if you adopt one of the best and easiest techniques: simply ask questions.

Asking market research questions can yield new insights to boost your marketing to the next level. One example of market research involves gathering competitive information to inform your new product and service development.

Another market research example involves creating clear pictures of your ideal customers — called customer personas –for precise targeting. Other market research examples involve gathering feedback from existing customers to measure customer satisfaction.

The key to success, however, is knowing which questions to ask. Below is a list of 132 market research questions to use as templates for your own questions. Use them to ask questions internally to your team, or ask prospects and clients directly.

Types of Market Research Questions

Market research questions.

A good way to start your market research is to size up and describe your target audience. Gather primary and secondary research to assess the following marketing parameters:

• What is the size of our target market? How many potential customers are there?
• Do we have a good set of customer personas developed, to understand ideal target customers?
• Demographic questions: gender, age, ethnicity. Include annual income, education and marital status.
• Firmographic questions: size, industry. Include annual revenues and other relevant factors.
• Psychographic questions: habits, preferences, interests.
• What key consumer trends do we see?
• How do we identify new target segments? How do these new segments differ from those we already have?
• Which neighborhoods and zip codes do we get most of our customers from today?
• Which geographic locations are growing? Are the demographics of growth markets similar to those in which we already operate? If not, what should we change?
• Is online commerce or online service delivery a growth opportunity? Are our competitors doing business online?
• Can we find marketing partners to expand our reach?

Related: How to Conduct Market Research

Questions to Ask Customers

Use the following as survey questions, either post sale or as post-support surveys. Or use these market research questions to conduct a focus group, interview individual customers, or engage potential customers during the sales process.

Make it a point to include respondents who are less than thrilled with your customer service. You learn more than if you only talk with happy customers. Ask:

• How did you hear about us?
• What made you choose us?
• What features do you like most about our product or service?
• Is our product or service easy, fast, convenient to use?
• What do you wish our product or service did that it does not today?
• Are you aware that we offer _________?
• Were our personnel courteous in all dealings?
• Did we answer all your questions or solve your support problem?
• Can we help you get started using our product or service?
• Were you satisfied with our promptness and speed?
• Would you be willing to tell friends, family or colleagues about us?
• How do you rate your experience with us?
• Would you buy from us again?
• Why have you decided to leave us / not renew?
• How likely are you to recommend our product/service to others on a scale of 1-10?
• What is the primary reason for your score?
• Can you describe a situation where our product/service exceeded your expectations?
• What changes would most improve our product/service?
• If you could change one thing about our product/service, what would it be?
• How do our products/services fit into your daily life or routine?
• What other products/services do you wish we offered?

Related: Tailoring Survey Questions for Your Industry and Best Practices for Surveys

Pricing and Value

The following are pricing research questions to ask. Small business owners and marketers may want to assign someone to do a competitive analysis, such as gathering data from competitor websites and putting it into a spreadsheet.

Doing research may also require you to gather information internally. For example, meet with Sales to discuss feedback they receive from possible customers.

You could also ask Customer Support to start tracking when customers give price as a reason to not renew. Here are sample market research questions about pricing:

• Does our team have a compelling sales pitch based on value, not just price?
• How do we create more value to justify our prices?
• How can we position our product as “premium”?
• What are our competitors charging? Are our prices higher, lower or about the same?
• Are our prices allowing sufficient profit to stay in business?
• How often do sales and support staff hear pricing objections? And how often do they overcome them?
• Are we identifying enough people who can afford our products and services, or who want to pay what we ask for?
• Can we more precisely target prospects by income, neighborhoods and other factors to isolate a target audience receptive to our price point?
• In the case of B2B, are we targeting the right industries with needs and pain points we can solve?
• Are we targeting the right job title? Does the target executive have sufficient budget authority?
• How does our business model compare in our industry? Are we missing opportunities?
• What kind of promotions are our competitors advertising? Bulk buys / annual subscriptions? Free gift with purchase? Discounts? Sales events?
• How do our prices compare with the value you perceive from our products/services?
• What pricing model do you find most appealing – subscription, one-time purchase, pay-per-use?
• How sensitive are you to price changes in our products/services?
• What discounts or promotions would encourage you to make a purchase?

Product or Service Questions

Ask yourself or your team these market research questions about your products and services:

• Are our new products or services sufficiently unique compared with what already exists?
• What exactly is our value proposition — the reason customers should choose us? How can we best convey our benefits?
• How are customers currently solving the problem that our product addresses?
• What products do competitors offer? How does our target market view these competitive offerings?
• How do competitors deliver service? Does their process differ from our methods? Are there obvious advantages such as cost or time savings to gain if we adjust?
• Customers have been asking for a certain service — do others in the market offer it?  What do they charge?
• What changes will customers likely want in the future that technology can provide?
• How do we get feedback about our product, so we know what to improve, and what to highlight in sales and marketing messages?
• What technology is available in the market to improve operational productivity or cut costs? What solutions are competitors or big corporations using?
• When considering new product development, do we interview customers to test their interest level?
• Are there any untapped market segments or niches where our products or services could be a perfect fit?
• What are the potential challenges or barriers that customers face when using our products or services?
• Have we conducted customer satisfaction surveys to gauge overall customer experience and identify areas for improvement?
• Are there any complementary products or services that we could offer to enhance our customers’ experience?
• How do customers perceive the quality and reliability of our products or services compared to competitors?
• What are the specific pain points or needs that our products or services address, and how well are we communicating this to customers?
• Have we explored partnerships or collaborations with other businesses to expand our product/service offerings?
• Are there any emerging trends or technologies in the market that could disrupt our current products or services?
• Have we analyzed customer feedback and complaints to identify recurring issues that require immediate attention?
• What are the future trends and demands in our industry, and how can we proactively align our offerings with these trends?
• What additional features would you like to see in our future products?
• How can we improve the user experience of our product/service?
• What would make you choose our product/service over a competitor’s?
• Are there any aspects of our product/service that you find unnecessary or rarely use?

Related: How to Minimize Survey Fatigue

Online Visibility Questions

Online traffic is essential to most small businesses, even local businesses, to drive in-store traffic. Market research questions can assess your company’s online visibility. Get answers from your digital team:

• How much website traffic do we receive compared with competitors? Check free tools like Alexa and SimilarWeb – while not exact they can compare relative levels of traffic.
• How prominently do we appear in search engines like Google and Bing?
• Do we appear in search engines for the queries our audience is searching for, using their words? Or do we need to invest in search engine optimization?
• Which search queries actually send us website traffic? Check Google Search Console or another SEO tool.
• How does our search visibility compare with competitors? A tool like SEMRush or Ahrefs can give this kind of advanced look.
• Have we done a gap analysis and identified which keywords our competitors rank for? Do we have a content marketing plan to attract more visitors?
• Have we claimed business listings like Google My Business and Bing Places, and completed them with engaging content such as photos?
• How prominently do we show up in Google Maps, Apple Maps and Bing Maps?
• Do we give visitors something to do on our website to engage them, such as fill out a lead gen form, read the blog, or schedule an appointment?
• Are our website’s loading speed and performance optimized for a better user experience?
• Do we have a mobile-friendly website that caters to the growing number of mobile users?
• Are we utilizing social media platforms effectively to engage with our target audience?
• Have we analyzed user behavior on our website through tools like Google Analytics to identify areas for improvement?
• Are we actively monitoring and responding to online reviews and comments about our business?
• Have we implemented effective link building strategies to improve our website’s authority and search rankings?
• How do our online advertising efforts compare with competitors in terms of reach and conversion rates?
• Are we using email marketing campaigns to nurture leads and maintain communication with our customers?
• Have we explored influencer marketing as a way to expand our online reach and brand visibility?
• Are we leveraging online customer feedback surveys to gather insights and improve our online presence?
• What type of content would you like to see more of on our website?
• How easy is it to navigate our website and find what you’re looking for?
• Are there any online channels (social media, forums, etc.) where you feel we should have a presence?
• How do you prefer to interact with us online – through email, live chat, social media, or other channels?

Related: How to Interpret Survey Results

Reputation Management

Customers today have extraordinary power to talk about a brand, and its products and services. Customers can choose dozens of social media sites or review sites like Yelp to share opinions.

A big part of market research today is to find out what customers think and say about your business (and also about your competitors). You want answers to the following market research questions:

• Do we have negative reviews online?
• Do we have any other type of reputation issue, such as poor word of mouth in our local community?
• Are competitors spamming with fake reviews?
• What can we learn from bad reviews?
• Do we thank those who give positive reviews and referrals, or do we ignore them?
• Do we address negative reviews or complaints by trying to make good or by correcting wrong facts?
• Can we use an app such as GatherUp.com to make it easy for customers to leave reviews?
• Does our website have compelling testimonials?
• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear our brand name?
• How would you describe our company to a friend or colleague?
• Are there any misconceptions about our brand that you think we should address?
• How do you perceive our efforts in responding to and resolving customer complaints or issues?

Messaging and Advertising

Assess your current marketing messages. Brands will want to know that their messaging supports their marketing goals. Make sure to also assess advertising to make sure it is in sync with goals and performing well:

• Have we identified the milestones in the customer journey, and what customers looking for at each milestone? Are we addressing the milestones?
• What emotions drive our customers’ buying decisions? Fear? Aspirational desire? Does our messaging align with these emotional needs?
• What information sources do prospects rely on? TV, online digital, social media, radio, newspapers?
• Which marketing and advertising channels have been our top performers?
• Have we developed quality content to educate and persuade prospects?
• What are the best advertising methods and media outlets to reach our prospects?
• Are we using our advertising spend to precisely target our desired buyer, or is it spray and pray?
• Where and how frequently do competitors advertise, and what messages do they use?
• Do we have good assets such as display ads and landing pages to drive prospects to? How do they compare with competitors’ assets?
• What social media channels does our target market use? Should we boost our presence on those channels?
• What issues do our target buyers talk about on social media?
• Do we use heat maps, A/B testing or other measurements to test content and calls to action?
• Do our marketing messages align with the values and brand identity we want to convey to our target audience?
• How do our marketing messages address common pain points or challenges faced by our customers?
• Have we conducted focus groups or surveys to gather direct feedback on the effectiveness of our marketing messages?
• Are there any cultural or regional considerations that could impact the resonance of our messaging with different segments of our target audience?
• What unique selling points (USPs) do we emphasize in our advertising, and how well do they differentiate us from competitors?
• Have we tested various advertising messages to identify which ones resonate best with our target audience?
• Are we effectively utilizing storytelling techniques in our marketing messages to create emotional connections with our customers?
• How do we track the success of our advertising campaigns in terms of reach, engagement, and conversions?
• Have we analyzed customer journey data to identify potential gaps in our messaging at various touchpoints?
• Are there any specific keywords or phrases that our target audience commonly uses, and how can we incorporate them into our messaging?
• What messages in our advertising resonate with you the most?
• Are there certain advertising channels where you feel our presence is lacking?
• How do you usually respond to our advertising – visit our website, follow us on social media, make a purchase?
• In your opinion, what could improve the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns?

Related: 9 Strategies to Get More Customer Feedback and When to Use Online Surveys .

These 132 questions and examples of market research should give you plenty to explore. Always come back to the most important question of all: what can we do better? Answering this one question can put your brand well on the way toward long term growth.

Image: Depositphotos.com

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Product Management

80 Market Research Questions for More Valuable Insights (+tips)

Content Writer

Created on:

April 15, 2024

Updated on:

Transform Insights into Impact

Build Products That Drive Revenue and Delight Customers!

There are different types of market research, with 85% of researchers regularly using online surveys as their go-to tool , allowing them to reach broad target audiences in a cost-effective way.

Online surveys can break down geographical barriers and uncover profound customer insights, but only if you come up with the right market research questions.

Your questions shape the data you get, influencing your understanding of customer behavior and key consumer trends.

In this article, you'll find many examples of market research questions organized by categories, followed by tips for creating and analyzing your own market research survey.

80 market research questions to ask for more valuable insights

Demographic questions.

Learning more about your existing customer base can help you identify your ideal customers and adjust your marketing strategy accordingly. During the process, you may also discover that you have different customer personas, and you can later segment your audience.

Also, having detailed demographic data allows you to create targeted marketing campaigns that will convert better.

Here are some questions to explore your target audience:

• What is your age and gender?
• Where do you live?
• Do you have a partner or children?
• What is your highest level of education?
• In what industry do you work?
• What is your current job title?
• What is your annual income?
• What's the category you spend the most money on (e.g., groceries, technology, clothes)?
• What's the average amount you spend on _____ (mention a particular category relevant to your industry)?
• What websites, newspapers or magazines do you use to stay informed?

Product opportunities

Almost half of the startups fail because they're building products for which there's no real market need . That's why it's essential to do a product opportunity assessment before you invest time and money into building a product that may not have a big enough target market.

The following market research interview questions will help you discover burning issues and problems that your new product or service can solve.

• What challenges and problems do you currently face in _____ (name specific area) that you can't find an adequate solution for?
• Are there any existing products that you find close to meeting your needs but still fall short in some aspects, and which?
• How do you currently cope with the absence of a dedicated solution for that problem?
• Hypothetically speaking, what would an ideal solution for that problem look like?
• What features would you like this product to include?
• Would you purchase this product if it was available today? If not, why?
• What is the one feature that would make our product a must-have for you?
• Are there any untapped market segments or niches where our product could solve the existing problems?
• If you were to brainstorm about a product that anticipates future needs in your industry, what would be its main features?
• How would you prioritize the importance of the following features? (you can provide them with a list of features they need to rank from the most important to the least important)

If you've already started developing your product, read this article on how to get feedback for early-stage products and validate your product.

Customer feedback

If you've already launched a product or service, you should ask your existing customers for feedback and suggestions for improvement. This is an essential component of continuous product discovery , which is the best way to increase customer satisfaction by anticipating their needs.

Here are some questions you can use:

• How long have you been using our product?
• How often do you use our product?
• What made you decide to purchase our product?
• Describe how you use our product and what problems it solves for you.
• Which features of our product do you use the most?
• Which features of our product do you use the least or not at all?
• What is the best feature of our product in your opinion?
• What might be the weakest feature or the biggest area for improvement in our product?
• Have you had any issues or problems with our product?
• What would you miss the most if our product was no longer available?

Click here to discover 13 proven ways to collect customer feedback . Also, here are some additional questions for your product feedback survey .

Brand awareness

Market research surveys can help you see how existing and potential customers perceive your brand and whether you need to raise brand awareness or adjust your brand image.

• Have you heard about our brand before?
• How did you hear about us?
• What is the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions our brand?
• What emotions or feelings do you associate with our brand?
• How would you describe our brand in one sentence?
• Are you currently using our products, and how often?
• How likely are you to purchase our products again?
• Are you aware that we also offer _____? (this can be an excellent opportunity for up-selling)
• How often do you see our posts or ads on social media?
• You can also calculate the Net Promoter Score by asking your current customers: On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our product to a friend or colleague?

Pricing analysis

The following market research survey questions will help you explore the balance between product quality, features, and cost and assess the perceived value of your product.

• What is more important to you: product quality or price?
• In your opinion, what's a fair and reasonable price for a product like this?
• What is the price range within which you'd feel comfortable purchasing this product?
• What is the maximum amount you'd be willing to spend on this product?
• If you think the price is too high, what additional features or improvements would justify the current price of our product?
• Are there specific payment options or financing plans that would make you consider purchasing our product?
• Do you find our pricing information clear and easy to understand?

Customer preferences

This set of questions will help you learn more about consumer preferences and their purchasing habits so that you can adjust your strategy accordingly.

• What factors are influencing your purchasing decisions the most?
• Where do you look for products you want to buy?
• Do you prefer offline or online shopping, and why?
• Do you read customer reviews, and on which websites?
• Are you looking for recommendations from your friends and family?
• Do you use social media to follow brand accounts, and which platforms do you use the most?
• What is your preferred way to receive information and updates about a brand (e.g., social media, email newsletter, SMS)?
• How do you prefer to consume information: through video, audio or reading?

Customer concerns

Understanding why people are not buying from you is essential for adjusting your offer and marketing. This set of questions will help you uncover potential objections you can address on your website.

• Is there anything that's preventing you from buying our product?
• What would need to happen for you to purchase our product today?
• If now is not the right time to buy it, why is that?
• Do you have any doubts or questions about our product?
• What was your biggest concern before purchasing our product?
• What is the main reason for canceling your subscription / not ordering again?
• Did you encounter any problems or challenges when using our product?
• If there was one thing about our product that would have made your decision-making process faster, what would it be?

Competitive analysis

It's important to research your competitors and learn both about their unique selling points and their weaknesses from users’ perspectives, which can help you discover your own competitive advantage and do a thorough market opportunity analysis.

• How are you currently dealing with the problem that our product solves?
• Are you already using a product with similar features?
• Which products or brands would you consider as an alternative to ours?
• Why did you choose our product over other options?
• Did you consider any other options?
• Does our product miss some features that our competitors' products have?
• Are our prices higher, lower or similar to those of other companies?
• Which of these products have you tried? (provide a list of your competitors' products)
• What is your preferred brand?
• If our product was no longer available, what other product would you choose instead?

The following market research questions can be applied to your website, landing page, social media platforms or any other channel you use to share information about your product or service or communicate with your customers.

• Was it easy to find information on our website?
• Is our website easy to navigate and user-friendly?
• Is some information missing on our website?
• Is product information clear and transparent?
• Do you think we should add any features to our website, and which ones?
• What kind of content would you like to see on our blog?
• Did you have any difficulties using our website?

Market research questions: Best practices

Here are a few tips to consider when creating your own market research questions:

• Define clear objectives: Before starting, you have to be clear on what you want to get out of the market research. Learning more about your potential customers? Identifying your competition? Evaluating a new product idea? Identifying different customer segments?
• Use neutral language: If you want to get unbiased results to drive customer-led product growth , use neutral language to avoid leading participants toward a particular response.
• Use different types of questions: You should combine multiple-choice questions, Likert scales and open-ended questions, as each of them helps you gather different types of data. While close-ended questions are great for collecting and analyzing large amounts of quantitative data, the open-ended format can be better when creating interview questions for market research as it provides you with deeper customer insights .

Writing questions and conducting market research is just the first step. The second and even more important step is to analyze the data you've gathered so you can uncover insights and patterns.

The best way to do so is through a customer feedback platform like Zeda.io, which provides you with a centralized workspace to collect and manage feedback and analyze data from all customer interaction points in one place.

Our platform helps you transform customer feedback into actionable insights that can help you decide which product to build or how to prioritize product features .

Thanks to advanced AI algorithms, we can help you spot product opportunities by uncovering the features users desire the most.

It can also help you analyze customer feedback to detect issues and frustrations reported by users so that you can enhance customer experience by promptly fixing them.

We can also spot trends in user feedback and calculate a potential revenue impact from adding new features.

We hope you were able to pick some ideas for creating your next customer survey or interview questions for market research.

After conducting research, it's crucial to thoroughly analyze your market research questionnaire using the right user feedback tools .

Zeda.io is an AI-powered tool that transforms raw customer data into actionable insights, helping you better understand your customers and spot emerging trends before competitors.

It helps you take the guesswork out of product discovery and confidently create products your target market will love.

Sign up today, and let's uncover burning issues and market gaps together.

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How do you write a good market research question?

Good market research questions are the ones that are clear, concise, specific and aligned with your goals. To get unbiased data, avoid leading questions and suggesting particular answers to your target audience.

What questions should I ask for market research for a new product?

You should ask target customers about their pain points, struggles, challenges and desires. See how they're currently solving those problems, whether they're using any other similar product and whether some features of that product could be added or improved.

What are the 7 basic questions in market research?

Here are the key market research questions: What problem is our product solving? Who is our target audience? What product features are the most important for them? What influences their purchasing decisions? How much are they willing to pay? What's preventing potential customers from buying our product? Who are our main competitors?

What are the elements of market research?

The main elements of market research are researching your target audience, their needs and problems, doing a competitor analysis and spotting market trends.

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Market Research Questions: What to Ask for Better Insights

You see the value in market research and have support from your stakeholders to get started on some projects, but when you sit down to draft your questionnaire, you don’t quite know where to start. Sound relatable? If so, read on to learn some key market research questions to ask for actionable customer feedback.

Table of Contents: 

• Why ask market research questions? 

Types of market research questions to ask

Market research questions for various research goals, question formatting options.

• Tips for getting the most out of your market research questions 

Why ask market research questions?

Market research questions help us get to the core of consumer behavior - such as why consumers act the way they do and how they go about their buyers’ journey. Market research surveys are a means of answering these questions, so brands can optimize their offerings (be it products or services) according to customer needs. Without asking your customer base what they want or need, you’re left making assumptions that may or may not hit the mark - which can lead to a waste of valuable time and budget.

Back to Table of Contents

Some of the most basic examples of market research questions are those related to demographics (who consumers are), yet these are some of the most foundational questions a survey can ask to make other insights more powerful. Beyond demographic traits, psychographics (what consumers are like - attitudes, aspirations, etc.) and behavioral questions (how consumers act) also paint a detailed picture of a target market.

Examples of market research question types:

Demographic questions : e.g. Where do you live? How old are you? What is your gender? Annual income?

Psychographic questions : e.g.   What interests you? How do you like to spend your free time?

What are your goals for the year?

Behavioral questions:  How often do you grocery shop? Do you prefer to shop in-store or online?

On which days of the week are you most likely to watch television (and subsequently see advertising)? How much money do you usually spend on X products? Which retail brands do you buy from?

The type of questions you’ll want to ask in your market research survey will depend on your research goals. Are you trying to get to know your existing customers? Are you looking to engage with potential customers? Are you hoping to conduct a competitive analysis for your brand? A survey could be crafted around any or all of these objectives to fully explore each topic.

Once you determine the goal of your research, you can begin drafting your questionnaire using some of the question types above. Beyond capturing basic demographic questions among every survey respondent, below are a few examples of psychographic and behavioral question types:

Market research questions for existing customers

For brands who already have a solid customer base and want to get to know them better to improve customer retention, ask things like:

Why did you start using our [product or service]?

Would you buy from us again?

Would you recommend us to your family and friends?

Are there similar products that you use for different reasons?

What, if anything, would you improve about or product or service?

Market research questions for potential customers

If you’re looking to gather information about new customers you don’t already reach, get to know them through in-depth market research survey questions:

What factors influence your purchasing decision when shopping for a new [product or service type]?

Which of the following products [or services] are most appealing to you?

Where do you typically shop for [product or service]?

When will you be in the market for a new [product or service]?

How much do you typically spend on a new [product or service]?

Market research questions for products

Surveys are a great tool to test reactions and perceptions of your product before you finalize it for launch. Below are some examples of what to ask as you develop your final product so it fits what customers want:

What are the most/least important elements of a [product type]?

Which scents/flavors do you find most pleasant in our existing product line? Which ones do you hope to see in the future?

What pain points are you looking for a product/service to solve?

How does this product compare to others on the market?

Market research questions for pricing

Once you have settled on a product, you’ll need to determine the pricing for it. You can’t just set any price you want and expect consumers to pay it. The best way to go about pricing decisions is to actually survey your target customers to see what they’d be willing to spend:

Do you think the product is priced fairly?

What do you think is the ideal price for our [product or service]?

Are there any conditions in which you’d pay a higher price for our [product or service]?

What price is so high that you’d not even consider buying our [product or service]? (i.e. price sensitivity ).

Market research questions for branding

Lastly, a brand might have its target audience figured out, with a solid product that’s appropriately priced, but it needs to be marketed and branded . Ask questions like: 

Are you familiar with our brand? (i.e. brand awareness)

Describe your customer experience so far with our brand.

How would you rate your customer satisfaction with our brand?

How likely are you to recommend our brand to family and friends?

For more on branding, consider a brand health tracker that can capture category entry points and the mental availability of brands: 

Once you’ve determined the question content you’d like to ask in your survey, there are multiple ways you can go about actually programming each one. Below are some common question formats, and when to use each one: 

Multi-select: Use when you want a respondent to select as many items as apply to them from a list.

Rating scale/matrix: Use when you want respondents to provide a numeric rating on a single item (scale) or a list of items (matrix); (i.e. 1-5 likeness toward each, 1-5 level of satisfaction with each, etc.)

Open-ended questions : Use when you want respondents to provide written feedback to a question (i.e. ‘tell me about your latest shopping experience in-store’, or ‘what do you love about this product/service?;)

Tips for getting the most out of your market research questions

Asking the right questions in an online survey only goes so far if you don’t base your research on a marketing strategy that strengthens your competitive advantage.

1. Start with a goal

The first step is to set a clear goal for your market research questionnaire. That goal could be to understand your buyer persona, learn how to maintain loyal customers, improve your website’s user experience, increase market share, or launch a new product.

2. Review what you already know

Conducting market research should aim to only answer questions that you don’t already have the answers to from previously-collected customer insights. Start by reviewing your own market research findings from past studies to see if you can answer any current questions. You can also look into customer reviews (if available), social media comments, and other external sources to see what people are saying about your brand.

3. Don’t make assumptions

Don’t ever assume you know something about a consumer without data to support it. For example, you may think that all customers use your product/service year-round when really, they’re only using it in the winter. You need to collect data to support any business decisions you’re making. That’s the only way to ensure you’re making good use of your time and budget, and that customer needs are met appropriately.

quantilope’s Insights Automation Platform makes a brand, product, or customer survey as simple as a drag & drop of questions. The platform is equipped with a number of automated survey tools (piping, pre-programmed survey templates , etc.) along with a suite of thirteen automated, advanced methods (i.e. market segmentation, key driver analysis, a/b testing, and many more). With results available in real-time, quantilope users begin diving into customer feedback instantly, with final results ready in a matter of days.

Ready to collect data for your own market research study? Get in touch below:

Get in touch to start building better insights!

Related posts, a full year of better brand health tracking in the soda category, non-probability sampling: when and how to use it effectively, survey results: how to analyze data and report on findings, how florida's natural leveraged better brand health tracking.

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Home Market Research

Market Research Questions: Types and how to best use them

What is Market Research?

Market research is the process of collecting, analyzing and examining information about a market, related to a product or service that is offered by a certain brand.

Market research has evolved through the years, the internet has now replaced the conventional face-to-face interaction or personal interviews to gather first-hand information. They are primarily categorized into two types:  Quantitative Market Research and Qualitative Market Research . Today, the best way to conduct market research is through surveys or questionnaires: ask the right market research questions!

LEARN ABOUT: Market research vs marketing research

Accurate information is the pillar of any successful business because it provides the perspective of new and existing customers and business competition. It helps business or organization owners to determine if the resources and financial investments that they are aligning with a new product or service will reap any profitability in future or not.

LEARN ABOUT: Open-Ended Questions

Fundamental Levels of Measurement in Market Research Questions

There are 4 basic fundamental measurement scales, n ominal, ordinal, interval and ratio ; that help arrange data collected in market research for statistical data analysis purposes. These are used to capture data in the form of surveys and questionnaires, where each being a multiple-choice question . In statistical analysis, distinguishing between categorical data and numerical data is essential, as categorical data involves distinct categories or labels, while numerical data consists of measurable quantities.

LEARN ABOUT: Level of Analysis

Each scale is an incremental level of measurement, meaning, each scale fulfills the function of the previous scale and all survey question scales such as Likert, Semantic Differential, Dichotomous questions etc, are the derivation of this these 4 fundamental levels of variable measurement. Before we discuss all four levels of measurement scales in details, with examples, let’s have a quick brief look at what these scales represent.

• Nominal Scale – 1st Level of Measurement

Nominal Scale , also called the categorical variable scale, is defined as a scale used for labeling variables into distinct classifications and doesn’t involve a quantitative value or order. The options are assigned a number that can be decided by the researcher but changing the order of the options doesn’t impact the scale as the variables are independent of the options. Nominal data can never be quantified but the data analysis can be conducted by asking an open-ended question and coding the subsequent responses or having pre-coded multiple choice question types . Examples of a nominal scale are gender, place of work or residence, preference of pizza toppings, etc.

• Ordinal Scale – 2nd Level of Measurement

Ordinal Scale is the 2nd level of measurement that reports the ranking and ordering of the data without actually establishing the degree of variation between them. Examples of the ordinal scale satisfaction, happiness and grades. This makes the Likert Scale a perfect example of an ordinal scale as it provides options on the basis of lowest to highest but doesn’t provide quantifiable difference between two options. Ordinal scale data is generally represented in a tabular form to allow for easy further market research analysis.

Learn more: Nominal Scale vs Ordinal Scale

• Interval Scale – 3rd Level of Measurement

The Interval Scale is defined as a numerical scale where the order of the variables is known as well as the interval between these variables. In other words, the variables are measured in actuals and not as a relative manner, where the presence of zero is arbitrary. For example, temperature, income, IQ etc. can be defined by the interval scale. Net Promoter Score, Semantic Differential Scale, Bipolar Matrix Table etc. are the most-used interval scale examples. The interval scale data can be added or subtracted but cannot be divided or multiplied.  Since interval data is a quantitative analysis data type, multiple data analysis methods like SWOT analysis , TURF analysis , conjoint analysis and trend analysis can be conducted.

• Ratio Scale – 4th Level of Measurement

The Ratio Scale is the penultimate measurement scale that has the features of all the above 3 scales along with the presence of an absolute zero. It is calculated by assuming that the variables have an option for zero, the difference between the two variables is the same and there is a specific order between the options. Some examples of ratio scale are weight, height, time etc. where there is no presence of a negative value. The ratio data scale values can be added, subtracted, divided and multiplied and a unique statistical analysis is possible for ratio data.

Learn more: Interval Scale vs Ratio Scale

Types of Market Research Questions: 10 Market Research Question Types with Examples

The fundamental of market research is asking the right questions to collect the right data, be it qualitative or quantitative data . Qualitative data can be collected by focus groups, interviews, longitudinal studies and more. Quantitative data can be collected through surveys, questionnaires and interviews . Some of the most widely used question types are:

Market Research Questions: Open-ended or Close-ended?

A good conversation involves asking the right questions to know more. Similarly, in market research, there is a lot of value in asking questions to get the most appropriate information.

So what are the types of question should one ask to get an apt response: open-ended questions or closed ended questions ?

Both these market research question types have their fair share of advantage, but in this section, we shall focus more on open ended questions.  

Deploying a questionnaire or face to face interviews open ended questions generate better responses. This market research question type lets the respondent answer the question in depth and gives them the liberty to respond without inhibition, contrary to closed ended questions where the respondents to need to choose from the already existing answer options.

However, it is often seen that closed-ended and open-ended questions are used in conjunction. It’s easier to answer a Yes/No question, but if it is followed by an open ended question then you’ll  often get better participation from your respondents.

Closed-Ended vs Open- Ended Market Research Questions

How to best use the market research questions.

It’s certainly not an easy task to know what your customers think. But you will be able to better connect with them through the right market research questions. To make sure you’re getting the most responses to your market research questions follow these tips.

1. Understand your target audience: You need you know why you are reaching out to your respondents. Knowing about their demographics will help you frame your market research questions better.

2. Don’t bug your respondents: Make sure you send survey or questionnaires to your respondents at intervals. Don’t  bug your respondents to a point where they stop responding to you.

3. It’s all about great timing: Make sure your surveys are sensibly timed and has appropriate questions, for example, it’s always good to send a feedback survey to a customer after he has made a purchase with you so that he/she is able to give a better feedback about their experience.

4. Make your respondents feel valuable: Let your respondents know, their responses to the research questions are valuable and will be put to practice and that their suggestions will be implemented to improve the services or the product.

LEARN ABOUT: Product Survey Questions

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What market research questions should you be asking: With examples

• October 19, 2019
• 10 min read
• Market research

Primary market research question examples

Secondary market research question examples, first things first: who is our customer, good market research questions: what is important to ask, 1. who is our ideal customer, 2. what is the biggest challenge for customers, 3. what do customers really want, 4. what sets us apart from the competition, 5. what price is right, write the best market research questions with surveyplanet.

Before launching your next product or business, it’s important to take time to complete some marketing research, which will provide information about what competitors are doing and if your ideas are profitable.

An essential part of market research is refining the target audience, which will help in creating an effective marketing strategy. While there are many different market research components, the most important is asking the right questions.

SurveyPlanet is here to help with examples of good market research questions. Read through our market research 101 guides and discover the best market research questions to ask your target market.

Primary market research

Before diving into specifics, it’s important to grasp the main concepts of market research. There are two basic categories: primary research and secondary research.

Primary research is gathering firsthand information about a market, customers, and competition. It is generally completed with focus groups, interviews, and online surveys that provide information about specific challenges customers face. Such research also helps gather details about the brand awareness of a company. Conducting primary research is a way to establish buyer personas and segment the market.

Here are some examples of primary market research questions that will gather valuable insights about a target market:

Demographics and background

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

Product or service perception

• What is your familiarity with our product/service?
• What do you perceive as the primary benefits of our product/service?
• How would you rate the quality of our product/service?
• How likely are you to recommend our product/service to others?

Consumer behavior

• How frequently do you purchase similar products/services?
• What factors influence your purchasing decisions?
• Where do you typically do research or seek information before making a purchase?
• What channels do you use for purchasing products/services?

Brand awareness and perception

• Are you familiar with our brand?
• How would you describe our brand personality?
• What do you associate our brand with?
• How likely are you to consider our brand over competitors?

Pricing and value perception

• How do you perceive the value-for-price equation of our product/service?
• What price range would you consider reasonable for our product/service?
• Would you be willing to pay a premium for additional features or benefits?

Customer satisfaction and feedback

• How satisfied are you with our product/service?
• What improvements or changes would you like to see in our product/service?
• How likely are you to repurchase our product/service in the future?
• Would you recommend our product/service to others? Why or why not?

Market trends and competitor analysis

• Are there any emerging trends or innovations in the market that you find appealing?
• How familiar are you with our competitors?
• What do you perceive as the strengths and weaknesses of our competitors’ offerings?
• What factors would make you switch from our product/service to a competitor?

Remember to tailor questions to your specific industry, target audience, and research objectives. The answers to these questions will provide valuable insights about the market, customer preferences, and areas for improvement, enabling informed decision-making and refined marketing strategies.

Secondary market research

The main purpose of secondary market research is to analyze data that is already published and draw conclusions from it. This involves analyzing public records, industry content, market statistics, and sales data. Secondary research is especially helpful for analyzing competitors. Most secondary research is done using a combination of public, commercial, or internal sources.

Public sources include government statistics such as data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau. Commercial sources usually come in the form of a market report compiled by research agencies. Finally, internal sources include customer retention rates, average revenue, and data from both old and new accounts. Together, all this data may help determine what buyers want right now and help develop market research questions to ask clients.

Here are some examples of secondary market research questions that can help guide the search for existing information and data.

Market size and growth

• What is the current market size for [industry or product category]?
• What is the projected growth rate for the [industry or product category] in the next few years?
• Are there any specific regions or demographics driving the market growth?

Target market segmentation

• How is the target market segmented within the [industry or product category]?
• What are the key characteristics or demographics of each market segment?
• Are there any emerging or untapped market segments within the industry?

Competitive landscape

• Who are the major competitors in the [industry or product category]?
• What is their market share and positioning?
• What are their strengths and weaknesses compared to each other?

Consumer behavior and preferences

• What are the current consumer trends and preferences within the [industry or product category]?
• What factors influence consumer purchasing decisions?
• Are there any notable shifts in consumer behavior in recent years?

Industry regulations and compliance

• What are the regulatory requirements and compliance standards for the [industry or product category]?
• Are there any upcoming regulatory changes or potential impacts on the industry?
• How do these regulations affect product development and marketing strategies?

Pricing and revenue models

• What are the typical pricing structures and models within the [industry or product category]?
• Are there any pricing trends or changes affecting the industry?
• What are the revenue models commonly used by businesses in the industry?

Technological innovations and disruptions

• What are the emerging technologies or innovations relevant to the [industry or product category]?
• Are there any disruptive technologies that could impact the industry?
• How are businesses adopting or integrating technology within the industry?

Consumer feedback and reviews

• What are consumers saying about products or services within the [industry or product category]?
• Are there any common issues or concerns raised by consumers?
• What are the key factors influencing consumer satisfaction or dissatisfaction?

Marketing and advertising strategies

• What are the prevailing marketing and advertising strategies used in the [industry or product category]?
• Are there any successful or noteworthy campaigns that have garnered attention?
• How are businesses utilizing digital platforms and social media for marketing purposes?

Industry publications and reports

• What industry publications or reports provide insights into the [industry or product category]?
• Are there any reputable market research firms or organizations that publish relevant data?
• What recent studies or reports offer valuable information about the industry?

Remember to search for reliable and up-to-date sources of information like industry reports, market research publications, government data, and reputable news outlets. Secondary market research can provide a foundation of knowledge about the industry, market trends, and consumer behavior, allowing you to make informed decisions and develop effective strategies.

Once you have collected primary market research, it’s time to sit down and define buyer personas and focus groups. Ask who the ideal customer is. What is their age? Where do they live? What do they do for a living? Defining buyer personas helps form a better understanding of your audience.

Key characteristics of a buyer persona include:

• Job Title(s)
• Family Size

Companies may have more than one buyer persona; that’s completely fine. The reason to create buyer personas is to know exactly who your potential audience is. Buyer personas will help optimize campaigns and content to spark their interests.

Conducting a market research survey

Market research surveys are an efficient way to gain data based on insights from real customers. Companies can send surveys to existing and/or potential customers. Surveys give valuable insight into opinions about products, the company, and its customers. Companies use market research questions to make changes to products and improve or enhance features. Surveys may also answer whether the business idea is a good one. Find below some examples of market research questions to ask in a survey.

Explore and use our market research survey templates to get the data you need to make the right decisions.

Market research questions are extremely important for everyone—from small businesses to corporations.

Market research can help better understand customers and, maybe even more importantly, nourish relationships with them by making them feel influential and special. In this way, the goal is not just satisfied customers, but loyal ones too. Examining people’s needs can improve business decisions and help with product development.

Market research questions can also ask clients and associates their thoughts about your cooperation so far.

Online surveys are one of the simplest research methods—they are flexible, dependable, and cost-effective. Read here our tips for creating an engaging survey. But what are good market research questions to ask a target market?

We prepared a few examples of market research questions—with detailed explanations.

Market research surveys should include questions about customers, including gender, age, income level, job title, location, and education level. This is an especially important step for start-up companies new to the market that have yet to nail down their target audience. It’s one thing to create buyer personas; it’s another to verify they are correct based on actual customers.

Don’t hesitate to ask for details in order to learn more about the ideal customer. A pet shop needs to know what kinds of animals customers own. How many? In what type of home do they live? The more information you can learn about customers, the better.

Market research involves learning about customers’ pain points, which will help create better solutions. For example, if an online textbook store sent out a survey to students and asked about pain points, they might find that “textbook prices are too high.” The company could take this information and compare prices to a competitor’s. If their prices are too high, they can lower them or offer discounts to combat this challenge.

Ask customers about their top five to seven problems regarding a service or product. If there are enough similar responses, business owners may need to improve or create a new product to counteract these frustrations.

It doesn’t hurt to ask customers exactly what they want. Asking open-ended market research questions like this will provide answers that you might not have realized were needed. If people show reluctance to answer this question, give them the option to rate certain products or services. This will at least provide guidance about which ones they like or dislike.

For example, a shoe store might send a survey with an email asking about this season’s sandals. Customers have the option to rate the sandal and answer specific questions about it. The company can use this information to learn more about what their customers like and what to provide in the future.

Learning the difference between quantitative and qualitative research can help you choose market research methods and questions.

Ask this question to find out what customers really think about you. Choose open-ended questions and encourage respondents to describe everything in detail. One way to do this is by asking specific questions related to what you offer that competitors don’t.

For example, a bakery might offer gluten-free and vegan options, but they’re unsure if their customers care. The bakery could ask in the survey, “How important is it to you to have gluten-free or vegan options at a bakery?” The responses are rated on a scale from not important to very important. The answers will tell you if what sets you apart matters to the customer.

The survey should also include sections that allow a customer to agree or disagree with statements. For example, “I can count on Phil’s Auto Shop to offer competitive pricing.” Such questions provide insight into the emotional benefits customers perceive from your business.

New businesses benefit from including pricing questions since it can be difficult to pinpoint the right price to charge, especially if you don’t have a true competitor. Pricing products or services fairly can generate the right balance of revenue and customer satisfaction. Pricing products too high can result in a lack of customers. Pricing them too low can result in a profit loss. So how to price just right? Figure out a comfortable profit margin and then ask customers their opinions on prices. Realize that there will always be businesses that charge more or less. Pricing fairly is a matter of creating brand loyalty and excellent customer experience.

While conducting a market research survey, ask customers if they find the prices too low, fair, or too high. Display different products and services with prices and have customers rate them. For example, a marketing agency might wonder if their website design price is appealing. In their survey, they can include an example of a website design, what it includes, and their current price. Customers will have the option to decide if it’s fair or not. To gain more insight, they might also include their other services in the survey.

With these suggestions, you might now be wondering how to use them. SurveyPlanet is a great place to start. We offer a free plan that allows for the creation of unlimited surveys that can be sent to customers. And if you don’t want to write market research material, we have over 90 pre-written surveys and plenty of examples to choose from. All you have to do is press send.

For companies that would prefer to customize their surveys, we offer a Pro plan that allows the creation of custom themes, branch questions , export results, and so much more. Whether you need something basic or more extensive, both our free and paid versions can help get the job done. Start conducting market research by signing up for SurveyPlanet today.

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Home | Blog | 79 Market Research Questions For Better Results

79 Market Research Questions For Better Results

By Magellan Solutions

Updated on May 2, 2024

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Valuable answers come from practical questions.

In this article, you’ll learn about the top market research questions you can ask to obtain valuable insights from your potential and existing market.

What you’ll learn:

What is market research, how to write market research questions, examples of market research questions.

• For new businesses
• For a new product
• For existing customers
• For potential customers
• For competitive analysis
• For customer service improvement

Market research is the systematic process of getting and analyzing feedback from different market segments. Using this approach, you can identify the potential of your product or service when offered to a specific consumer demographic.

In other words, it helps you find the right customers to patronize your business. It also enables you to determine the pain points of your target market. Through this, you can develop or improve products or services that can resolve the struggles of your existing customers or target audience. 

It has three main methods:

• Online survey – This tool can gather information from a sample population online. To help you get started, check out some of the methods for conducting surveys: – If you are starting a business, you can begin by utilizing email and social media to send survey questions or polls to your target market.- You can also embed it into your website or app, but since it is a reactive method, the chances of getting feedback are lower.- If you think you have the budget for it, you can send it to paid survey sites to get higher response rates.
• Phone interview – Have you experienced receiving cold calls from certain companies asking about your opinion on a particular product or service? If yes, then you’re probably familiar with market research. A phone interview is a proactive way of conducting market research surveys. It guarantees you a faster and more accurate response from your target demographics. Some companies outsource to a survey call center to expand their reach while saving time and money.
• Face-to-face interviews – This is the traditional way of conducting customer surveys. It is one of the best ways to get actual, first-hand opinions. Unlike the first two methods, it requires you to go out to the street and into the houses of your sample respondents. Here, you can encourage consumers to participate by giving freebies or samplers. While this is an excellent way to build personal relationships with your ideal customers, it is not as efficient as phone interviews and online surveys.

Aside from gathering first-hand consumer data, you can also keep track of economic trends .

Secondary information provided by existing sources enables you to kick-start your market research. It gives general and quantifiable data on industry trends, demographics, and potential competitors.

Some of the best secondary information sources include government census data, statistics and research reports published by independent market research firms, and business news.

It’s easy to think of and write questions right off the bat. But first, make sure you’re square on the following details:

• What is the problem you want to solve?
• What are your goals/objectives?
• Who is your target audience?

From there, you can start brainstorming questions that would provide insightful information for your marketing, sales, and research and development departments.

Here are some things you can consider that will add depth and dimension to your market research process:

• Demand is the number of products consumers are willing to purchase at any given time.
• Market size – the number of potential consumers within a specific market.
• Customer demographics – any given sector of a population segmented using different factors such as age, gender, occupation, income, location, etc.
• Location – the place where the target market resides.
• Market saturation – the number of similar products available to target customers.
• Economic indicators – any economic activity in the location of your business that is presented in metric format.
• Pricing – the cost of products or services based on target consumers’ economic status and competitors’ current pricing.

Once you’ve listed enough questions based on some of these elements, the next step is to select questions that bring you closer to your objectives. Make sure to remove those that won’t give enough value.

While answering those questions, create a clear picture or a registry of the possible target audience response. Ask only what is necessary to prevent your respondents from getting bored. Remember that if it takes too long, they might get triggered to answer questions hastily.

Also, keep your market research process simple. Through this, you will not only keep the attention of your respondents, but it will also enable you to obtain valuable answers.

Do you still find yourself struggling to come up with appropriate market research questions? If yes, check out these examples and carefully select what you need.

Market research questions for new businesses

If you’re opening a new business, it pays to gather extensive information about the industry, market size, target audience’s buying behaviors, competitors, and competitive advantage. 

• Who are your target customers?
• What are the core problems of your customers?
• What is your product or service?
• How can your product or service solve the problems of your customers?
• Does your product fit into the current market? 
• Is it possible to create a new market for your product?
• What is the current market size? What is the potential size of the market?
• Will the market size grow or contract? Why?
• What are the buying habits in the market? How can we exploit them?
• What are the existing segments of the market?
• In which segments do you plan to compete?
• Which of the segments are growing, and which are contracting?
• Who are your direct competitors? What are their strategies for attracting customers?
• What is your competitive advantage?
• Where do you plan to establish your business?
• What is the current economic status of your target customers from that location?
• How much do you plan to charge your customers for availing of your products or services?
• How much are you going to spend on customer acquisition?

When starting a new business, position yourself as an expert. This means having in-depth knowledge about your customers, the industry, the market trends, and competitors.

It is essential to curate questions that can show you opportunities to succeed. Assess your edge over your competitors. For example, you can ask your target market how your competitors can improve their products or services. Once you’ve analyzed their answers, it will be easier to figure out what you can add or enhance to meet customer expectations.

Market research questions for new product launch

Expanding your product line also requires lots of research and market testing. Here are some of the questions you can ask.

• How do you plan to test your new product?
• What will you test? (Product, marketing collaterals, marketing message, etc.)
• Where will you find users who will test the product?
• How high is the current demand for your new product?
•  How are you going to promote it?
• What channels are you going to use?
• Where do you plan to promote it?
• Who will be your market?
• How much do your competitors charge for a similar product?

Before launching a new product, you must know your target customers, the demand for the product, your marketing or advertising strategy, and your possible competitors.

Questions to ask existing customers

When researching existing customers, the main goal is to find out how they feel about your brand. Since they have first-hand experience using your products, they are the ones who can show you their strengths and weaknesses.

You can use a rating scale or a checklist for these questions. This way, it will be easier for your customers to answer your survey.

Checklist with ‘other’ option in case the answer isn’t indicated on your survey form:

• How did you hear about us?
• How long have you been our customer?
• What problem does our product solve for you?
• What features do you like most about our product?
• What do you like the least about our product?
• What made you choose us over the other products in the market?
• How often do you purchase our product?
• Would you avail of our product/service again?
• What else can we do to improve your experience with our brand?

Rating scale

• How well does our product meet your needs?
• How would you rate your last experience with us?
• How likely are you to recommend our product to a friend?
• How will you rate the speed and promptness of our customer service team?

The goal of conducting market research among your existing customers is to know their satisfaction with your brand. This will let you see what you need to continue doing and the areas you need to improve.

Market research questions to ask potential customers

When interviewing your potential customers, get enough information about their demographics, socioeconomic status, and unique interests.

These are the essential information you need to acquire:

• Address (doesn’t need to be specific, especially if confidentiality is required)
• Education level
• Profession/Job
• Household income
• Household size

On the other hand, these are some questions you can ask to help you better segment your target audience:

• What are your hobbies and interests?
• What are the common challenges you encounter regularly?
• What are your main goals?
• What products do you consider the most important for your everyday life?
• Where do you usually discover new products?
• How much do you spend when purchasing (specify here the type of product you’re offering)?
• How often do you buy (again, specify here the type of product you’re offering)?
• How likely are you going to buy our product?

You can also add more questions about your brand to get the necessary information when improving your marketing message.

These questions will help your marketing team create value-added promotional materials that appeal to your target audience. 

Questions for competitive analysis

Competitive benchmarking lets you compare your performance against your direct competitors. Here are some questions to help you get started:

• How’s your brand’s performance compared to your competitors?
• How do your competitors advertise or market their products?
• What are the other brands’ customer acquisition strategies?
• How much web traffic does your competitor receive?
• What keywords are your competitors using?
• What type of content are they producing?
• Are you using the same keyword on your website?
• What other channels do your competitors use aside from their websites?
• How many inbound links do your competitors have?
• How active are the other brands in producing backlinks with authority websites?

Measure your success by knowing the performance of your competitors. Analyzing their products, services, marketing strategies, sales, authority in the industry, customer acquisition strategies, and branding will let you see where you can thrive better than your competitors.

To improve customer service

Customer service is a crucial element in customer retention. It serves as the fine line between repeat business and an abandoned transaction. Do it right , and your customers will come back for more. Neglect it, and your customers are likely to move to your competitors.

Always check the quality of customer service you provide to keep your loyal customers.

• How fast do you respond to inquiries?
• How well and quickly do you resolve customer complaints?
• What are your customer satisfaction ratings?
• What problems do your customers often experience concerning your customer service?
• How can you improve your customer service?
• How can you measure your customer experience?
• Do your customers know all of the features, products, and services your business offers?
• Do you provide a personalized experience?
• How convenient is it to reach your business?
• What customer service channels are you using?
• Is your website or mobile app user-friendly?
• Is the experience consistent across all channels?
• Does your brand appear trustworthy based on online reviews?
• If you have international clients, do you provide multilingual options ?

As high as 49% of US customers leave a brand due to poor customer service. Don’t let this happen to your brand! Regularly assess the quality of your customer service to provide positive customer experiences. 

In conclusion

Market research can save a lot of trouble and financial heartbreaks when done right. Whether starting a business, chasing growth, creating better marketing messages, or improving your processes, market research can bring you the answers you need to develop dynamic strategies. Ask the right questions, and you’ll surely get valuable results.

Do you need the help of a market research call center to reach a wider audience within a shorter time? Magellan Solutions is here to help! We offer tailor-fit solutions to meet the needs and budget of your business. If you want to know more, contact us using the form below.

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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.
• Summarize your findings.

1. Define your buyer persona.

You have to understand who your customers are and how customers in your industry make buying decisions.

This is where your buyer personas come in handy. Buyer personas — sometimes referred to as marketing personas — are fictional, generalized representations of your ideal customers.

Use a free tool to create a buyer persona that your entire company can use to market, sell, and serve better.

Don't forget to share this post!

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Free Guide & Templates to Help Your Market Research

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Marketing Research Questions and How to Craft Them Effectively

Crafting impactful marketing research questions is a crucial skill in building effective customer personas for all realms of expert digital marketing .

From content marketing services to search engine optimization (SEO) to and even web or mobile development, formulating well-crafted survey queries can help you understand customers better – thus allowing you to create more powerful digital strategies and executions in the long run.

Asking the right questions can return answers that yield valuable insights – but how might one craft these data-driven marketing research questions and examples for things like social media marketing or user experience (UX) design? What are some best tips and practices that you can follow to design comprehensive inquiries for a digital execution?

Discover important techniques to identify and craft these queries with this comprehensive guide today. From pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to digital analytics and more, utilize these analytical tips to improve your customer experience strategies and executions for better digital wins this year.

The importance of good marketing research questions

To be able to craft an effective set of research queries for your digital marketing services and buyer persona needs, you have to understand the importance and relevance of such inquiries first.

A good marketing research question can help you gather consumer insights in an incredibly focused and strategic way. Inquiries that are open-ended, deep, and comprehensive allow you to easily uncover authentic customer sentiments, thus providing you better insight into your audience’s motivations towards your brand.

Well-crafted queries shape the quality of your digital strategies. With open-ended questions aided by analytical tools, you can collect critical insights such as customer needs, pain points, desires, and contexts.

These insights inform business strategies, shape the foundation of data-driven decisions, and help drive wins for things like your content marketing , PPC advertising, and other customer experience executions in the long run.

Best practices to design examples of marketing research questions

Now that you understand the importance of such a research tool to your promotional needs, it’s time for you to discover the best techniques in designing these queries for your customer experience strategy . You can break these practices down into three tips:

• Start with a clear objective. By defining and clarifying your objective, you’ll be able to guide your question formulation and succeeding investigative design accordingly. This will help you link the objective to your business goals, thus resulting in more focused and relevant research insights.
• Don’t be afraid to probe. Make sure to include follow-up prompts in your market research , in order to delve deeper into your customers’ responses. This will aid you in extracting nuanced insights for a more comprehensive customer persona.
• Balance quantitative and qualitative approaches. Explore both open-ended and close-ended queries that are also qualitative and quantitative; this will yield a better mix of both numerical data and qualitative insights.

By employing these best practices, you can garner more valuable and diverse data that aligns with your brand’s goals and ensures a more comprehensive understanding of your customers’ personas or behaviors. So make sure to enact these digital marketing skills to improve your strategy for data collection and exploration design.

Marketing research survey questions for pain points and desires

The next thing you need to do to further refine your research surveys is to craft them according to user pain points and desires. Here are some reasons why you need to address these specific user needs in the question creation process:

• To resolve customer challenges. By designing inquiries that uncover pain points and elicit genuine user frustrations, you’ll be able to identify concerns that you can inevitably resolve for customers through your brand and its products or services.
• To discover customers’ ideal outcomes. By formulating such queries that reveal a user’s aspirations, motivations, and desires, you can design customer experiences that create ideal outcomes and endear audiences to your business.
• To know where you stand in your industry. Are you able to address user needs, or are you currently lacking in certain service areas? By asking for ways you can address pain points and desires, you’ll know where you stand compared to competitors in your brand’s industry today.

Delve into your customers’ pain points and desires in order to reveal insights that help drive ideal content creation for audiences . This will enhance your buyer persona, thus allowing for more opportunities for user engagement and customer satisfaction for your brand in the long run.

How to identify marketing research questions

Want to enrich your marketing research design even further? Then you need to identify and craft inquiries that seek to understand your audience’s demographics and psychographics. Here’s a quick breakdown of the two for your query-making needs:

• Demographic information. This refers to information that focuses on a person’s age, gender, location, and other similar data points. By identifying this information among your audiences, you can tailor your conversion marketing strategies to even more unique customer personas.
• Psychographic information. This refers to information that covers a person’s interests, values, and lifestyle, like their hobbies, political leanings, or buying habits. With psychographics, you’ll have a deeper understanding of  a user’s desires and motivations for a better digital experience strategy .

By identifying and crafting queries based on demographics and psychographics, you’ll get to collect responses that enrich your understanding of user characteristics or preferences. This inevitably contributes to a more comprehensive customer persona, thus enabling you to tailor-make communication strategies that resonate with specific audience segments.

Good questions to ask in an in-depth research marketing interview

Now that you’re equipped with guidelines on formulating queries for your in-depth market exploration, you might be interested in specific prompts that you can ask throughout your well-crafted data collection process.

These inquiries mainly work for primary market study tools, such as surveys, focus groups, or in-depth interviews. If you wish to collect supplementary information from secondary sources like journals, websites, or competitor materials, then you should conduct social listening and social monitoring for these data points instead.

But for more context-specific inquiries and real-life insights, you’ll need to practice:

• Immersing in a customer’s shoes. Create questions that prompt customers to share their own life experiences. This will allow you to understand their interactions with key touchpoints, like your brand’s own products and services, with more personal and emotional resonance .
• Unearthing pain points through contextual inquiry. You can do this by designing interactive content that specifically asks about customer challenges in real-world scenarios. These may include requests for comments and feedback in areas where your business needs to improve its products and services.

Examples of specific market research questions that you can explore, based on your identified business objective, include:

• How old are you? Where do you live? What gender do you identify as? These are a number of good examples of close-ended, quantitative, demographic queries that should be part of any analysis design.
• What have you heard about X brand? This is a simple example of an open-ended, qualitative, and psychographic survey question that uncovers your target market’s knowledge of your brand.
• How much do you usually spend on X brand products? What is the maximum amount you’d pay for X? This is a comprehensive set of close-ended, quantitative inquiries that allow you to probe deeper and follow up with more queries for your target market.
• From a scale of one to ten (1-10), how likely are you to recommend X product and why? This is both a quantitative and qualitative query that allows for an open-ended response, in order for you to identify your user’s desires or pain points with your brand’s product or service.

These are just a few simple examples of contextual inquiries that you can use on your target market. As simple as these are, however, these types of market surveys can add a dynamic dimension to your buyer persona by prompting audiences to reveal their real-life customer experiences too.

With these kinds of questions included throughout your data collection process, you’ll ultimately be able to formulate an accurate buyer persona, pinpoint areas of improvement for your brand, and enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty in the long run.

Key takeaways

Craft queries that create buyer persona wins for your brand’s own digital strategies and executions today. Bring these final takeaways with you as you embark on this crucial research journey for your business this year:

• Start with an end goal in mind. By establishing a clear objective from the very start, you can provide more direction to your study and map out your succeeding survey journey accordingly.
• Step into your customers’ shoes. Discover the pain points, desires, demographics, and psychographics of your target market so that you can truly discover what makes your audiences tick.
• Improve your strategy constantly. The more questions you ask your audience segments, the more solutions you’ll learn to improve your strategy. Optimize an ever-evolving strategy and execution process when you ask for help from the experts at Propelrr today.

If you have any other comments, send us a message via our Facebook , X , and LinkedIn accounts. Let’s chat.

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83 Qualitative Research Questions & Examples

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Qualitative research questions help you understand consumer sentiment. They’re strategically designed to show organizations how and why people feel the way they do about a brand, product, or service. It looks beyond the numbers and is one of the most telling types of market research a company can do.

The UK Data Service describes this perfectly, saying, “The value of qualitative research is that it gives a voice to the lived experience .”

Read on to see seven use cases and 83 qualitative research questions, with the added bonus of examples that show how to get similar insights faster with Similarweb Research Intelligence.

What is a qualitative research question?

A qualitative research question explores a topic in-depth, aiming to better understand the subject through interviews, observations, and other non-numerical data. Qualitative research questions are open-ended, helping to uncover a target audience’s opinions, beliefs, and motivations.

How to choose qualitative research questions?

Choosing the right qualitative research questions can be incremental to the success of your research and the findings you uncover. Here’s my six-step process for choosing the best qualitative research questions.

• Start by understanding the purpose of your research. What do you want to learn? What outcome are you hoping to achieve?
• Consider who you are researching. What are their experiences, attitudes, and beliefs? How can you best capture these in your research questions ?
• Keep your questions open-ended . Qualitative research questions should not be too narrow or too broad. Aim to ask specific questions to provide meaningful answers but broad enough to allow for exploration.
• Balance your research questions. You don’t want all of your questions to be the same type. Aim to mix up your questions to get a variety of answers.
• Ensure your research questions are ethical and free from bias. Always have a second (and third) person check for unconscious bias.
• Consider the language you use. Your questions should be written in a way that is clear and easy to understand. Avoid using jargon , acronyms, or overly technical language.

Types of qualitative research questions

For a question to be considered qualitative, it usually needs to be open-ended. However, as I’ll explain, there can sometimes be a slight cross-over between quantitative and qualitative research questions.

Open-ended questions

These allow for a wide range of responses and can be formatted with multiple-choice answers or a free-text box to collect additional details. The next two types of qualitative questions are considered open questions, but each has its own style and purpose.

• Probing questions are used to delve deeper into a respondent’s thoughts, such as “Can you tell me more about why you feel that way?”
• Comparative questions ask people to compare two or more items, such as “Which product do you prefer and why?” These qualitative questions are highly useful for understanding brand awareness , competitive analysis , and more.

Closed-ended questions

These ask respondents to choose from a predetermined set of responses, such as “On a scale of 1-5, how satisfied are you with the new product?” While they’re traditionally quantitative, adding a free text box that asks for extra comments into why a specific rating was chosen will provide qualitative insights alongside their respective quantitative research question responses.

• Ranking questions get people to rank items in order of preference, such as “Please rank these products in terms of quality.” They’re advantageous in many scenarios, like product development, competitive analysis, and brand awareness.
• Likert scale questions ask people to rate items on a scale, such as “On a scale of 1-5, how satisfied are you with the new product?” Ideal for placement on websites and emails to gather quick, snappy feedback.

Qualitative research question examples

There are many applications of qualitative research and lots of ways you can put your findings to work for the success of your business. Here’s a summary of the most common use cases for qualitative questions and examples to ask.

Qualitative questions for identifying customer needs and motivations

These types of questions help you find out why customers choose products or services and what they are looking for when making a purchase.

• What factors do you consider when deciding to buy a product?
• What would make you choose one product or service over another?
• What are the most important elements of a product that you would buy?
• What features do you look for when purchasing a product?
• What qualities do you look for in a company’s products?
• Do you prefer localized or global brands when making a purchase?
• How do you determine the value of a product?
• What do you think is the most important factor when choosing a product?
• How do you decide if a product or service is worth the money?
• Do you have any specific expectations when purchasing a product?
• Do you prefer to purchase products or services online or in person?
• What kind of customer service do you expect when buying a product?
• How do you decide when it is time to switch to a different product?
• Where do you research products before you decide to buy?
• What do you think is the most important customer value when making a purchase?

Qualitative research questions to enhance customer experience

Use these questions to reveal insights into how customers interact with a company’s products or services and how those experiences can be improved.

• What aspects of our product or service do customers find most valuable?
• How do customers perceive our customer service?
• What factors are most important to customers when purchasing?
• What do customers think of our brand?
• What do customers think of our current marketing efforts?
• How do customers feel about the features and benefits of our product?
• How do customers feel about the price of our product or service?
• How could we improve the customer experience?
• What do customers think of our website or app?
• What do customers think of our customer support?
• What could we do to make our product or service easier to use?
• What do customers think of our competitors?
• What is your preferred way to access our site?
• How do customers feel about our delivery/shipping times?
• What do customers think of our loyalty programs?

Qualitative research question example for customer experience

• ‍♀️ Question: What is your preferred way to access our site?
• Insight sought: How mobile-dominant are consumers? Should you invest more in mobile optimization or mobile marketing?
• Challenges with traditional qualitative research methods: While using this type of question is ideal if you have a large database to survey when placed on a site or sent to a limited customer list, it only gives you a point-in-time perspective from a limited group of people.
• A new approach: You can get better, broader insights quicker with Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence. To fully inform your research, you need to know preferences at the industry or market level.
• ⏰ Time to insight: 30 seconds
• ✅ How it’s done: Similarweb offers multiple ways to answer this question without going through a lengthy qualitative research process. 

First, I’m going to do a website market analysis of the banking credit and lending market in the finance sector to get a clearer picture of industry benchmarks.

Here, I can view device preferences across any industry or market instantly. It shows me the device distribution for any country across any period. This clearly answers the question of how mobile dominate my target audience is , with 59.79% opting to access site via a desktop vs. 40.21% via mobile

I then use the trends section to show me the exact split between mobile and web traffic for each key player in my space. Let’s say I’m about to embark on a competitive campaign that targets customers of Chase and Bank of America ; I can see both their audiences are highly desktop dominant compared with others in their space .

Qualitative question examples for developing new products or services

Research questions like this can help you understand customer pain points and give you insights to develop products that meet those needs.

• What is the primary reason you would choose to purchase a product from our company?
• How do you currently use products or services that are similar to ours?
• Is there anything that could be improved with products currently on the market?
• What features would you like to see added to our products?
• How do you prefer to contact a customer service team?
• What do you think sets our company apart from our competitors?
• What other product or service offerings would like to see us offer?
• What type of information would help you make decisions about buying a product?
• What type of advertising methods are most effective in getting your attention?
• What is the biggest deterrent to purchasing products from us?

Qualitative research question example for service development

• ‍♀️ Question: What type of advertising methods are most effective in getting your attention?
• Insight sought: The marketing channels and/or content that performs best with a target audience .
• Challenges with traditional qualitative research methods: When using qualitative research surveys to answer questions like this, the sample size is limited, and bias could be at play.
• A better approach: The most authentic insights come from viewing real actions and results that take place in the digital world. No questions or answers are needed to uncover this intel, and the information you seek is readily available in less than a minute.
• ⏰ Time to insight: 5 minutes
• ✅ How it’s done: There are a few ways to approach this. You can either take an industry-wide perspective or hone in on specific competitors to unpack their individual successes. Here, I’ll quickly show a snapshot with a whole market perspective.

Using the market analysis element of Similarweb Digital Intelligence, I select my industry or market, which I’ve kept as banking and credit. A quick click into marketing channels shows me which channels drive the highest traffic in my market. Taking direct traffic out of the equation, for now, I can see that referrals and organic traffic are the two highest-performing channels in this market.

Similarweb allows me to view the specific referral partners and pages across these channels. 

Looking closely at referrals in this market, I’ve chosen chase.com and its five closest rivals . I select referrals in the channel traffic element of marketing channels. I see that Capital One is a clear winner, gaining almost 25 million visits due to referral partnerships.

Next, I get to see exactly who is referring traffic to Capital One and the total traffic share for each referrer. I can see the growth as a percentage and how that has changed, along with an engagement score that rates the average engagement level of that audience segment. This is particularly useful when deciding on which new referral partnerships to pursue.  

Once I’ve identified the channels and campaigns that yield the best results, I can then use Similarweb to dive into the various ad creatives and content that have the greatest impact.

These ads are just a few of those listed in the creatives section from my competitive website analysis of Capital One. You can filter this list by the specific campaign, publishers, and ad networks to view those that matter to you most. You can also discover video ad creatives in the same place too.

In just five minutes ⏰ 

• I’ve captured audience loyalty statistics across my market
• Spotted the most competitive players
• Identified the marketing channels my audience is most responsive to
• I know which content and campaigns are driving the highest traffic volume
• I’ve created a target list for new referral partners and have been able to prioritize this based on results and engagement figures from my rivals
• I can see the types of creatives that my target audience is responding to, giving me ideas for ways to generate effective copy for future campaigns

Qualitative questions to determine pricing strategies

Companies need to make sure pricing stays relevant and competitive. Use these questions to determine customer perceptions on pricing and develop pricing strategies to maximize profits and reduce churn.

• How do you feel about our pricing structure?
• How does our pricing compare to other similar products?
• What value do you feel you get from our pricing?
• How could we make our pricing more attractive?
• What would be an ideal price for our product?
• Which features of our product that you would like to see priced differently?
• What discounts or deals would you like to see us offer?
• How do you feel about the amount you have to pay for our product?

Get Faster Answers to Qualitative Research Questions with Similarweb Today

Qualitative research question example for determining pricing strategies.

• ‍♀️ Question: What discounts or deals would you like to see us offer?
• Insight sought: The promotions or campaigns that resonate with your target audience.
• Challenges with traditional qualitative research methods: Consumers don’t always recall the types of ads or campaigns they respond to. Over time, their needs and habits change. Your sample size is limited to those you ask, leaving a huge pool of unknowns at play.
• A better approach: While qualitative insights are good to know, you get the most accurate picture of the highest-performing promotion and campaigns by looking at data collected directly from the web. These analytics are real-world, real-time, and based on the collective actions of many, instead of the limited survey group you approach. By getting a complete picture across an entire market, your decisions are better informed and more aligned with current market trends and behaviors.
• ✅ How it’s done: Similarweb’s Popular Pages feature shows the content, products, campaigns, and pages with the highest growth for any website. So, if you’re trying to unpack the successes of others in your space and find out what content resonates with a target audience, there’s a far quicker way to get answers to these questions with Similarweb.

Here, I’m using Capital One as an example site. I can see trending pages on their site showing the largest increase in page views. Other filters include campaign, best-performing, and new–each of which shows you page URLs, share of traffic, and growth as a percentage. This page is particularly useful for staying on top of trending topics , campaigns, and new content being pushed out in a market by key competitors.

Qualitative research questions for product development teams

It’s vital to stay in touch with changing consumer needs. These questions can also be used for new product or service development, but this time, it’s from the perspective of a product manager or development team. 

• What are customers’ primary needs and wants for this product?
• What do customers think of our current product offerings?
• What is the most important feature or benefit of our product?
• How can we improve our product to meet customers’ needs better?
• What do customers like or dislike about our competitors’ products?
• What do customers look for when deciding between our product and a competitor’s?
• How have customer needs and wants for this product changed over time?
• What motivates customers to purchase this product?
• What is the most important thing customers want from this product?
• What features or benefits are most important when selecting a product?
• What do customers perceive to be our product’s pros and cons?
• What would make customers switch from a competitor’s product to ours?
• How do customers perceive our product in comparison to similar products?
• What do customers think of our pricing and value proposition?
• What do customers think of our product’s design, usability, and aesthetics?

Qualitative questions examples to understand customer segments

Market segmentation seeks to create groups of consumers with shared characteristics. Use these questions to learn more about different customer segments and how to target them with tailored messaging.

• What motivates customers to make a purchase?
• How do customers perceive our brand in comparison to our competitors?
• How do customers feel about our product quality?
• How do customers define quality in our products?
• What factors influence customers’ purchasing decisions ?
• What are the most important aspects of customer service?
• What do customers think of our customer service?
• What do customers think of our pricing?
• How do customers rate our product offerings?
• How do customers prefer to make purchases (online, in-store, etc.)?

Qualitative research question example for understanding customer segments

• ‍♀️ Question: Which social media channels are you most active on?
• Insight sought: Formulate a social media strategy . Specifically, the social media channels most likely to succeed with a target audience.
• Challenges with traditional qualitative research methods: Qualitative research question responses are limited to those you ask, giving you a limited sample size. Questions like this are usually at risk of some bias, and this may not be reflective of real-world actions.
• A better approach: Get a complete picture of social media preferences for an entire market or specific audience belonging to rival firms. Insights are available in real-time, and are based on the actions of many, not a select group of participants. Data is readily available, easy to understand, and expandable at a moment’s notice.
• ✅ How it’s done: Using Similarweb’s website analysis feature, you can get a clear breakdown of social media stats for your audience using the marketing channels element. It shows the percentage of visits from each channel to your site, respective growth, and specific referral pages by each platform. All data is expandable, meaning you can select any platform, period, and region to drill down and get more accurate intel, instantly.

This example shows me Bank of America’s social media distribution, with YouTube , Linkedin , and Facebook taking the top three spots, and accounting for almost 80% of traffic being driven from social media.

When doing any type of market research, it’s important to benchmark performance against industry averages and perform a social media competitive analysis to verify rival performance across the same channels.

Qualitative questions to inform competitive analysis

Organizations must assess market sentiment toward other players to compete and beat rival firms. Whether you want to increase market share , challenge industry leaders , or reduce churn, understanding how people view you vs. the competition is key.

• What is the overall perception of our competitors’ product offerings in the market?
• What attributes do our competitors prioritize in their customer experience?
• What strategies do our competitors use to differentiate their products from ours?
• How do our competitors position their products in relation to ours?
• How do our competitors’ pricing models compare to ours?
• What do consumers think of our competitors’ product quality?
• What do consumers think of our competitors’ customer service?
• What are the key drivers of purchase decisions in our market?
• What is the impact of our competitors’ marketing campaigns on our market share ? 10. How do our competitors leverage social media to promote their products?

Qualitative research question example for competitive analysis

• ‍♀️ Question: What other companies do you shop with for x?
• Insight sought: W ho are your competitors? Which of your rival’s sites do your customers visit? How loyal are consumers in your market?
• Challenges with traditional qualitative research methods:  Sample size is limited, and customers could be unwilling to reveal which competitors they shop with, or how often they around. Where finances are involved, people can act with reluctance or bias, and be unwilling to reveal other suppliers they do business with.
• A better approach: Get a complete picture of your audience’s loyalty, see who else they shop with, and how many other sites they visit in your competitive group. Find out the size of the untapped opportunity and which players are doing a better job at attracting unique visitors – without having to ask people to reveal their preferences.
• ✅ How it’s done: Similarweb website analysis shows you the competitive sites your audience visits, giving you access to data that shows cross-visitation habits, audience loyalty, and untapped potential in a matter of minutes.

Using the audience interests element of Similarweb website analysis, you can view the cross-browsing behaviors of a website’s audience instantly. You can see a matrix that shows the percentage of visitors on a target site and any rival site they may have visited.

With the Similarweb audience overlap feature, view the cross-visitation habits of an audience across specific websites. In this example, I chose chase.com and its four closest competitors to review. For each intersection, you see the number of unique visitors and the overall proportion of each site’s audience it represents. It also shows the volume of unreached potential visitors.

Here, you can see a direct comparison of the audience loyalty represented in a bar graph. It shows a breakdown of each site’s audience based on how many other sites they have visited. Those sites with the highest loyalty show fewer additional sites visited.

From the perspective of chase.com, I can see 47% of their visitors do not visit rival sites. 33% of their audience visited 1 or more sites in this group, 14% visited 2 or more sites, 4% visited 3 or more sites, and just 0.8% viewed all sites in this comparison. 

How to answer qualitative research questions with Similarweb

Similarweb Research Intelligence drastically improves market research efficiency and time to insight. Both of these can impact the bottom line and the pace at which organizations can adapt and flex when markets shift, and rivals change tactics.

Outdated practices, while still useful, take time . And with a quicker, more efficient way to garner similar insights, opting for the fast lane puts you at a competitive advantage.

With a birds-eye view of the actions and behaviors of companies and consumers across a market , you can answer certain research questions without the need to plan, do, and review extensive qualitative market research .

Wrapping up

Qualitative research methods have been around for centuries. From designing the questions to finding the best distribution channels, collecting and analyzing findings takes time to get the insights you need. Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence drastically improves efficiency and time to insight. Both of which impact the bottom line and the pace at which organizations can adapt and flex when markets shift.

Similarweb’s suite of digital intelligence solutions offers unbiased, accurate, honest insights you can trust for analyzing any industry, market, or audience.

• Methodologies used for data collection are robust, transparent, and trustworthy.
• Clear presentation of data via an easy-to-use, intuitive platform.
• It updates dynamically–giving you the freshest data about an industry or market.
• Data is available via an API – so you can plug into platforms like Tableau or PowerBI to streamline your analyses.
• Filter and refine results according to your needs.

Are quantitative or qualitative research questions best?

Both have their place and purpose in market research. Qualitative research questions seek to provide details, whereas quantitative market research gives you numerical statistics that are easier and quicker to analyze. You get more flexibility with qualitative questions, and they’re non-directional.

What are the advantages of qualitative research?

Qualitative research is advantageous because it allows researchers to better understand their subject matter by exploring people’s attitudes, behaviors, and motivations in a particular context. It also allows researchers to uncover new insights that may not have been discovered with quantitative research methods.

What are some of the challenges of qualitative research?

Qualitative research can be time-consuming and costly, typically involving in-depth interviews and focus groups. Additionally, there are challenges associated with the reliability and validity of the collected data, as there is no universal standard for interpreting the results.

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29 Market Research Questions to Improve Your Marketing Strategy

• Post author: Daniel
• Reading time: 5 mins read
• Post last modified: June 10, 2022

One of the best ways to learn about your market and customers is by asking questions. When you ask the right market research questions, you can identify opportunities to improve your marketing strategy , operations, and industry.

You can gain insights that help you:

• Attract your target audience
• Stand out from competitors
• Improve your products and services
• Better serve your customers

To ask the best questions, it helps to break down your market research questions into the following categories:

• Market research questions
• Questions to ask your target market
• Questions to ask your customers
• Questions for competitive analysis

Some market research questions will require research to find the answers. For example, you may want to know, “How do our competitors drive traffic?” Other questions you can directly ask your customers. For those questions, you can survey or interview customers to find answers and insights.

Here are some examples of questions you can ask for each type of marketing research .

Market Research Questions

General market research aims to help you learn about your market size and potential to connect with customers.

Great qualitative market research questions include:

• How big is our potential market?
• Will this market grow or shrink in the future?
• What other products and services are similar to ours?
• Who are our top competitors?
• What market share do our competitors own?
• What share is available for us to own/take?

To find answers to these questions, use  sites for market research  that help you find information on geographic locations, industry competitors, and economic conditions.

Market Research Questions to Ask Your Target Market

Questions to ask your target market include demographic market research questions that help you get to know who your customers are.

Here are some examples:

• What is your age?
• What is your gender?
• What is your education level?
• Where do you live?
• What is your profession?
• What is your household income?
• What is your household size?

These questions can go deeper and uncover psychographic segmentation details that help you learn about the interests, attitudes, and needs of your customers.

Examples of these questions include:

• What are your hobbies and interests?
• Where do you spend your free time?
• What are your biggest challenges?
• What are your primary goals?
• What is most important to you?
• Where do you go for information?
• How do you like to make purchases?

To gather these details, you can survey or interview your customers.

Market Research Questions to Ask Customers

Existing customers can provide great insight into your business, products, and services.

Market research questions to ask clients or customers include:

• How likely are you to recommend our brand to a friend?
• How long have you been a customer?
• What problem does [product/service] solve for you?
• How does the [product/service] fit into your daily workflow?
• How well does [product/service] meet your needs?
• What do you wish the [product/service] had that it currently does not?
• What do you like [most/least] about [product/service]?
• What made you choose us over a competitor?
• How would you rate your last experience with us?

You can gather this information through audience analysis, in-person interviews with your customers, or online customer surveys.

Pro Tip:  It’s important to collect information from customers who are advocates of your product/service, but also those who did not have an agreeable experience. Asking infrequent or lost customers for their feedback is an excellent way to surface gaps in your product/service and identify opportunities for improvement.

Market Research Questions for Competitive Analysis

Once you assess your industry and customers, start asking market research questions about your competitors. Some questions to ask include:

• How is our brand doing compared to our competitors?
• How do our competitors effectively attract customers?
• How much website traffic do our competitors receive?
• Which keywords are driving traffic to our competitors?
• What sources are driving traffic to our competitors?
• How many inbound links do our competitors have?
• What type of content is performing well for our competitors?

For tips on how to conduct a thorough  competitive analysis , download our free competitive analysis template.

Get Better Answers to Your Market Research Questions

Asking the right market research questions helps you uncover insights to improve customer satisfaction, business operations, and  marketing strategies . But asking questions is only half the process. You also need to make sure you’re collecting the most accurate and authentic answers.

Use the market research questions in this post to direct your inquiries to your business, customers, and industry.

Source: blog.alexa.com

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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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Blog Best Of

• 50+ Market Research Questions To Ask Your Target Audience

Kate Williams

8 April 2024

11 min read

Table Of Contents

What is Market Research?

• 50+Market Research Questions

How to Write Market Research Questions

• 8 Benefits of Market Research
• Reliable Tools for Conducting Market Researchr

Before we learn about market research questions , how about a coke?

Coca-Cola, from classic coke to their famous diet Coke, is a success. No doubt. But they’ve had their share of failures too.

One of these failures happened because of poor market research. Coca-Cola’s highly ambitious product, C2 , which was half regular and half diet coke, tanked badly, as they didn’t ask the right questions to the right audience during market research.

According to the Coca-Cola market research surveys, Coca-Cola lost upwards of $50 million on C2, and we don’t want something similar happening to one of your products. That’s why we focus on market research questions that’ll get the right responses to scale your business to better heights. Here’s a snippet of what we’ll further discuss in this article.

• What is Market Research
• 50+ Research Questions To Use In 2023
• Benefits Of Market Research.
• Tools for Conducting Market Research.

Market research is the process of gaining your target customer’s insights about new products, competitors, preferences, or more. Marketing research is all about getting high-value information on things that could benefit a company and help them grow – and surveys are a great tool for this.

If you struggle with writing questions for your market research surveys, bookmark this blog. The better and more precise these market research questions are, the better the data and the better the decision you make with it.

50+Market Research Survey Questions to Use in 2023

Here we are now –  the 50 most effective market research questions that deliver outstanding results when used in research surveys. We’ve split these questions into five categories so you can pick the right ones at the right time.

 Effective Market Research Questions: 5 Effective Catagories

• New Product Survey Questions
• New Business Survey Questions
• Competition Analysis Survey Questions
• Questions For Your Existing Customers
• Questions To Improve Customer Service

These marketing research questions can be open-ended, multiple-choice, or scale-based questions as per your data requirements.

1. New Product Survey Questions

A new product launch is where most market research happens. As exciting as it sounds, it can cause a massive failure if the new product ain’t what the target audience wants it to be.

To understand that, here are 10 market research survey questions you can ask:

• How excited are you about our upcoming product? Would you be willing to test it?
• Is the product solving your problem accurately?
• What change do you wish to bring to this product?
• If given the responsibility, how would you go about promoting it?
• How much would the competitors charge for a product like this?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to purchase this product once it’s available?
• What features or benefits of the product stand out the most to you?
• Are there any concerns or hesitations you have about the product?
• In comparison to products you currently use or are familiar with, how does our product fare?
• Which marketing channels (e.g., social media, email, TV, etc.) would you most likely notice information about this product?

Need a ready-to-launch e xamples of research questions? H ere’s a survey created with SurveySparrow .

Unlock access to a range of free market research question templates by simply signing up today!

Please enter a valid Email ID.

14-Day Free Trial • No Credit Card Required • No Strings Attached

From audience panel services to 600+ survey templates , get all the tools you need to research a new market, launch a new product, or overhaul your current marketing strategy. Dive in with a free account.

2. New Business Survey Questions

When you’re about to enter a new business or market opportunity, it always works well too:

• Research the audience you’ll target
• The competition you’ll face
• The market size of this new opportunity
• The buying behavior of your target group

These are the ten  market research questions examples for new business:

• Who are the groups or groups that’ll buy from us?
• How big is the market for this opportunity? Will it sustain or shrink in the long run?
• How can we capitalize on customers’ buying habits/behaviors in this market??
• How are our direct or indirect competitors doing their business in this market?
• What are the problems we’ll solve for our target groups here?
• What differentiates our business or offering from existing competitors in the market?
• Which marketing channels most effectively reach our target audience in this new market?
• Are there any cultural, regional, or demographic factors we should know when entering this market?
• What regulatory or compliance challenges might we face in this specific market?
• How open is the target audience to trying a new product or service in this category?

3. Competitive Analysis Questions

Let’s face it. Whatever your business is, there are competitors. Some are big, some are small, but competition is there, and when you’re keeping tabs on them by asking the right market research questions from your teams and customers, you stay ahead of the curve!

Here are ten good market research questions for competition analysis:

• What do you like the most about our (competitor’s name) product?
• Are you content with their product pricing?
• Where do you think our brand stands compared to (competitor’s name)?
• Do you like the way they market and advertise their products?
• What sets (competitor’s name) apart? Is it their product, service, user experience, content, or anything else?
• Which features or benefits of (competitor’s name) do you wish our product/service offered?
• Have you ever experienced any issues or challenges with (competitor’s name) product/service?
• How do you perceive the customer service or support provided by (competitor’s name)?
• If you could change one thing about (competitor’s name) offering, what would it be?
• How often do you consider switching from (competitor’s name) to another brand or solution? What would motivate that switch?

4. Questions For Your Existing Customers

When you and your teams are working on a new product or service or want to bring changes to the existing ones, it’s always best to know your customer’s opinions about it because you want to deliver what they want and the changes that’ll take their satisfaction levels with your brand to the next level.

Check out these 10 market research questions for your customers:

• What changes would improve our product for you?
• Are you facing any consistent issues where you think we can help?
• Do you think our services can improve? If so, we would love to know how.
• Would you buy our products/services at a higher price if we added additional features to them?
• How can we improve our products to enhance your overall experience?
• How would you rate your overall satisfaction with our product/service on a scale from 1-10?
• If you’ve contacted our customer support, how was your experience, and what can we do better?
• Are there other products or services you wish we offered?
• How frequently do you use our product/service, and are there any challenges during its use?
• What’s the one thing you love the most about our product/service and one thing you dislike?

5. Questions To Improve Customer Service

If you thought market research and market research questions were only about new products, new business opportunities, insights from existing customers, and competitor analysis, think again!

Market research has always been about improving according to your customers, target audience, and employee insights. Your customer experience always needs review and timely improvements, and a market research survey backed with the right market research questions would help you big time here.

So, let’s look at ten such examples of market research questions that you can ask about your customer service:

• After raising your query, how much time did our customer service representative take to reply?
• Did our customer service representative directly give you the solution or explain why the issue occurred in the first place?
• How convenient is it for you to reach our customer representative and head?
• Do you wish our customer service team to be available on any other channels apart from the ones they are?
• Do you get consistent customer experience on all channels from our service team?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your overall experience with our customer service team?
• Were our customer service representatives friendly and empathetic to your concerns?
• Did you feel like our team valued your time and was efficient in their assistance?
• Would you say that the solution provided was satisfactory and met your expectations?
• How likely are you to contact our customer service again for future queries or concerns?

Now that might be familiar with market research questions, why not design a survey seamlessly using our ready-to-use templates?

Register below with your email for free access

Here are ten tested tips to create a perfect market research survey that gets results. Make full use of it.To create the perfect market research survey:

• Define the problem you’ll solve with it.  Don’t just conduct market research, hoping to get actionable data.
• Select the right target group. You do not want to collect irrelevant data that’s of no use. So, for a particular problem, select the right people.
• Know your sample size . Whether your method is cluster sampling , quotas , systematic sampling or purposive sampling , figure out the number of survey responses you’ll need for reliable data and keep a safety margin for half-filled or not-responded surveys.
• Select focused questions . Use these twenty-five questions the best you can. You can also check out our go-to guide on how to write better survey questions .
• Use interactive question types – like voice notes, image choice, video backgrounds, and graphical sliders. This will massively increase your response rates.
• Give incentives like free e-books gift cards. This can give respondents the extra encouragement they need to complete the survey.
• Keep it conversational . Market research surveys work when they are treated with the same care and warmth as a conversation. So, build that trust with the tone of your questions.
• Don’t send the survey to all the respondents at once . Send it to a small batch first. Analyze how they answer, make changes if needed, and then go for the full-scale market research.
• Set times for reminders . You don’t want to speed up at the wrong time.
• And last, give enough time for analysis. Specific survey tools can save time with auto-generated survey reports that you can customize.

8 Benefits of Market Research: What Makes it So Important?

While we were explaining market research and market research questions, we mentioned one of its biggest benefits too. The benefit that makes it absolutely important for any business is gunning for long-term and sustained growth.

Guessed it? Well, it’s the benefit of getting rich insights from your target audience. But that’s not the only benefit.

Yes, market research offers a lot more than you can think of. And it’s time we discuss them one by one.

#1 Know Your Business Better

When you get customer and target market feedback about a product or service, you see the difference between your and your customer’s opinions. Observing this difference allows you to bridge that down by aligning the new or existing product based on their wants.

So, when you use the right market research questions in your survey, you get to observe your company through the target audience’s lens, allowing you to better understand the business and its goals.

#2 Get More Business Opportunities

While conducting a market research survey, you often find or realize a new opportunity or avenue where the company can thrive. This realization comes when you analyze the collected survey data and see your target market’s interest in this new opportunity.

#3 Discover New Customer Segments To Target

“The product has come out well. I want to use it, and I think the Genz’s would like it too.”

If the answer to one of your market research questions is something like this, you and your teams know they have a new customer segment to target. That’s a powerful benefit of conducting a well-planned market research survey that contains the right questions.

#4 Massively Reduce The Risk Of Failing

With market research or market research surveys, you don’t just get to know the insights and opinions of your target audience on a certain product, you also come to understand areas where it’s severely lacking and can cause a failure if not duly addressed.

Also, with a few well-crafted market research questions, you get to know the areas where your business is lacking. And if you’re working on those, the chances of your business going under are reduced massively.

#5 Understand Where And How To Market

By using the right market research questions in your surveys, you understand where and how your customers and target group want your teams to market a product.

Give your survey respondents the freedom to express themselves, and you’ll get gold out of your market research. Believe us on that!

#6 Track Your Competition

While conducting market research, you can’t forget about your competitors. As a leader, you need to stay on top of proceedings regarding your competitors and their products. Your teams need to have answers to questions like what new are they bringing, what’s their new campaign like, what are they focusing on at the moment, and many more.

What better way to do that than to ask these subtly by including the right market research questions? And trust us, you’ll get massive information about your competition with these surveys, allowing you to pivot and do better.

#7 Identify New Trends

Scanning the internet for new trends is an absolute time-consuming process. You can replace that with market research and market research surveys to stay updated and well-informed on what new your customers want. Analyzing new trends can be done successfully with  digital marketing training.  The process of obtaining information becomes effective.

If not anything, it’ll save your teams a lot of time, which they can use for other important tasks.

#8 Predict The Future

To sum all the benefits we’ve mentioned, you’ll be able to predict the future of your products, services, and even your business after knowing your customer’s insights and opinions on it. That’ll give you the chance and the freedom to bring the right changes at the right time. Ain’t that impressive?

Reliable Tools for Conducting Market Research

You now know the twenty-five top market research questions to include. But how can you add these questions to a market research survey and send it? What are the different tools you could use for it?

If you have these questions, with no further ado, get your answers here.

A Full-Action Survey Software

There can be nothing better than using survey softwares to conduct market research surveys. Period. But why? Well, survey software is the best way to gather reliable information quickly from your customers and employees about your existing or new products. These surveys would give clarity about your potential and target customers, buyer persona, and the solid feedback you’ll receive will help you strategize and do better eventually.

If you’re looking to use survey software for your research surveys, look no further than SurveySparrow. This Typeform alternative allows you to create engaging forms and surveys with no hassle. These surveys are conversational, easy-to-use, and completely secure. More importantly, it offers features like likert scale questions , interactive dashboards, customization, embedded surveys, recurring surveys, and so much more. And you can use all these features in the 14-Day free trial itself.

Our friendly suggestion: Don’t miss out on this!

Chatbots for the Website

Chatbots are the future of market research, no doubt on that. As per a study, by 2024, the global market for chatbots is projected to be over $994 million. That’s some number! Thousands of brands are implementing or have implemented chatbots in their everyday business task. From doing market research to tracking and answering customer’s queries, chatbots are everywhere.

Do you know what’s the best thing about a chatbot? It’s that it makes a customer’s or employee’s journey more enjoyable, as the conversations are natural and human-like. In addition, a chatbot will always ask a follow-up question to your customers just like a human mostly does. And this helps in market research. How? By making sure you and your teams are always up to date about what your customers want and what their expectations are from your products, services, and support.

SurveySparrow’s no-code Feedbot is made to gather insightful market data with no programming knowledge. Deloitte Digital , a San Francisco-based marketing, and advertising company de-cluttered their data collection process using SurveySparrow’s Feedbot. The company was facing challenges while collecting market data with the paper questionnaire format. However, the chat-like experience and interactive UI of Feedbot helped them gather 804 survey responses out of 1200 surveyed people. That’s a 67% completion rate. Market research conducted most profitably, isn’t it?

360 Degree Feedback Software

You can spend all your dollars on your customers to make them stay, but without your employees’ efforts, it just won’t happen. When we talk about market research, the first thing that comes in our mind is the customers. We want to conduct market research to gain knowledge about customer preferences, insights, and opinions. But, what about employee research to find their satisfaction levels?

In recent times, employee satisfaction and experience have both become popular and crucial topics. Because, no matter the industry, people like to do business with people. And satisfied employees are the most real, and simple people to attract customers and keep them engaged.

That’s why it’s important to use a 360-degree feedback tool like SurveySparrow’s 360-degree feedback solution . With this, you can conduct an employee assessment (research) to increase their satisfaction levels and drive growth. Trust us, you need to conduct such assessments, especially in this new normal.

Let’s Begin!

There you have it, then. You now know the benefits of market research, twenty-five different questions to include in the market research survey, tools to conduct these surveys, and as a bonus, highly effective tips to create the perfect market research survey.

The only thing that’s left now is for you to use these questions and start conducting market research surveys. SurveySparrow and its marketing experience solution can make this process a lot easier, effective, and the least time-consuming for you and your teams. So, check it out, and we’re just this click away if you need help. Waiting to hear from you. Au revoir!

Content Marketer at SurveySparrow

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Market research questionnaire: examples and complete guide

How to make a market research questionnaire? What questions to ask?  When you do market research, the questionnaire is a must. So much so that  questionnaires and market research are often used interchangeably . However, it is only one step in a  complete process  that allows you to get closer to the truth of the market. In this article, we address all these issues and propose  complete examples in B2B and B2C to download .

For more real-life examples, we refer you to the website  etude-de-marche.online , where we list and comment on the questionnaires we find online. You can also find our guide to  writing your questionnaire here .

All about the market research questionnaire in 30 seconds

• The questionnaire is a market research technique . It aims to obtain a quantitative assessment that complements the qualitative view offered by techniques such as individual interviews or focus groups.
• Questionnaire and market research are too often considered interchangeable terms. It is essential to understand that we must combine several techniques to approach the reality of a market. The administration time for a questionnaire should not exceed 10 minutes . This corresponds to about 25 questions.
• The questionnaire is divided into 3 distinct parts : 1) the introduction, 2) the questions specific to the market research, and 3) the collection of information on the respondent’s profile
• 5 questions are recurrent in any market research questionnaire: screening questions, buying habits, needs, buying intentions, and pricing.
• A B2C market research questionnaire will differ from its B2B counterpart. The latter will focus more on competitive aspects, the decision cycle, and the price currently paid by the company.

What is the place of the questionnaire in global market research?

Duration and number of questions not to exceed, the 3 parts of a market research questionnaire, how to adapt your questionnaire for b2b market research.

• Example of B2C market research questionnaire
• Example of B2B market research questionnaire

Download other examples of market research questionnaires

Understanding a market involves approaching it from several angles. Classically,  market research is done in 3 phases :

• desk research (or documentary research)
• qualitative research
• quantitative research (via questionnaire)

To know more about the market research process, visit our free online guide . You can browse the right infographic, representing the global method we have conceptualized. The questionnaire section is #6.

Most questionnaires are now administered in the form of online surveys. As far as our market research firm is concerned, we have to admit that it has been a long time since a customer asked us to conduct a face-to-face administration (on the street, for example) or by post.

We advise our customers  never to exceed 10 minutes and 25-30 questions . This avoids problems such as:

• Attrition : Respondents give up along the way when the questionnaire is too long.
• Fatigue : questionnaires that are too long will tire respondents, who tend to be more distracted and answer poorly. The quality of the answers will be inferior, and your results will be less reliable at the end of the questionnaire.

Two examples to download are waiting for you at the end of this article.

Questionnaire and market research are too often considered interchangeable terms.

In this paragraph, we propose to go through the ideal structure of a market research questionnaire:

• Introductory text
• Recurring themes
• Respondent profile

Part 1: The introductory text

Your questionnaire can start with a short introduction presenting the purpose of the market research. It should not be too long but clear enough for the respondent to understand:

• what do you want to ask them about
• what they will gain from it
• how much time will it take
• what will be done with their data (on this subject, consider reading this article on the  problems posed by the cloud act in market research questionnaires )

Part 2: questions specific to the market research

In B2C and B2B, some themes are almost always present in all market research questionnaires. There are 5 of them:

• screening of the respondent
• buying habits
• purchase intention

As you can see, these questions follow a certain logic. You will first check that the respondent has the right profile to answer (screening), then ask them about their buying habits (the current situation) before moving on.

We propose the following table to give you an overview.

Part 3: Questions about the respondent’s profile

You will finish your questionnaire by asking questions about the respondent’s profile. Age, sector of activity, gender, etc., are all variables that will allow you to cross-reference the results and better segment your target population. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the control variables we use most often in our research.

B2B (for products or services sold to companies):

• company size
• sector of activity
• hierarchical position of the respondent
• geographical location (postal code, region, country)

B2C (for products or services sold to individuals)

• family status
• level of research
• household income

In a B2B context, a market research questionnaire must undergo certain adaptations.

These concern, of course, the questions on the respondent’s profile . Demographic aspects are little important in B2B. However, the hierarchical position, the company’s size, and its sector of activity must be recorded.

Above all, the questions asked will be different. You will probably have to ask more questions to determine the company’s current practices and gather information on the competition. In this respect, B2B market research will also be interested in the price currently paid by the company if it already has a competing solution. In a B2C context, this price aspect may be less important, especially if it is a regular purchase. Do you remember the price of everything you buy in the supermarket as a consumer?

In the B2B context, you will also have to put more emphasis on decision-making . In B2C, the consumer decides alone most of the time. In B2B, this is never the case because there are procedures to follow within any company.

Example of a B2C market research questionnaire

The questionnaire below concerns research on car purchases by individuals. It is, therefore, B2C market research. It includes 26 questions. You can find the internal instructions (in blue) that we put to check that the programming of our questionnaire is correct.

Example of a B2B market research questionnaire

The questionnaire you will find below concerns research on hygiene in companies. It is therefore intended for a professional audience. You will note that we have provided an explanatory text (in blue) for some questions. This is a good practice when the question is complicated or needs to be contextualized.

Many examples of market research questionnaires are available on our dedicated website,  www.etude-de-marche.online . You can find the complete questionnaire, all the questions, and our explanations and reviews in the video.

• Market research methodology

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• → Market research: What it is, how to u...

Market research: What it is, how to use it, + examples

Market research allows you to categorize your target audience to better understand your consumers. Learn more about how to do market research here.

Latest posts on Tips

Typeform    |    05.2024

Typeform    |    04.2024

So, you’ve got the next billion-dollar idea that’ll blow the top off your profit margins. You just know you’re onto a winner! Time to throw a huge budget (or your life savings) at this idea, right? 

Not so fast! You're not likely to get very far in the marketplace if you only rely on your gut instincts.

How can you know if your idea even has a chance of surviving in the cutthroat marketplace? 

The answer: market research. A realistic prediction, based on data , of your chances of success. Basically, it’s a way to find out the market viability of your idea.

If you’re new to market research, don’t be intimidated. This guide will take you from basic concepts through to advanced techniques. Plus, our in-house experts will walk you through real-life examples of how we do it here at Typeform.

What is market research and why does it matter?

Market research is the process of collecting information about your target market and customers so you can:

Learn who your customers are

Find out what they want and/or need

Gauge potential market size

Discover trends in your industry

Get wise about what your competitors are up to

Determine how you can stand out

This way, you’ll better understand how to serve your customers, prioritize, and get higher returns on your own marketing and product development efforts. Market research is an essential part of any business’s strategy, whatever the size of your company.

There are many ways to approach market research, and at Typeform, we’ve developed our own spin on it, thanks to continuous testing and the insights we get from being a market research tool ourselves ( forms and surveys).

Uncertainty is an inevitable part of business—however, it’s still possible to reduce some of the uncertainty.

This is where market research is your best ally. Nothing is guaranteed, but making an informed decision based on comprehensive research beats a stab in the dark. Market research helps reduce the thickness of that fog to see what your options are and which direction you might want to take.

Convinced you shouldn’t be sleeping on market research? Great—let’s dive deeper.

Types of market research

Finding what works best for you is a must for useful and actionable market research. We don’t believe in a cut-and-paste approach for all businesses and markets, nor in one definitive “right” way to do things. However, there are some basic principles that apply across the board. Here are a few types of market research.

Secondary and primary research 

Secondary market research delves into information that you don’t create yourself. It’s data that’s already out there, which you can buy or access for free, and is great for benchmarking. 

Examples of secondary research:

Industry reports

Census data

Research paper

Articles in journals or newspapers

Primary market research involves collecting information yourself—this may be more expensive and time-consuming than secondary research, but it’s a better investment in the long run. Focus on your own target audience and gather information directly relevant to your goals. 

Examples of primary research:

Interviews (face-to-face or over the phone)

Focus groups

User testing

Quantitative and Qualitative

Ahh, the classic quantitative vs. qualitative dichotomy.

Quantitative market research gathers data that's numerical, descriptive, and structured. You can draw statistics from quantitative research. It involves more of the “what” questions and can be done at scale.

This type of market research is usually carried out through surveys and questionnaires and can be internal or external. Internal quantitative research examines your current customers, while external can help you identify new customers and see the actual distribution of the whole market. External is more likely to be objective, as your own customers already know you and will have formed opinions.

Examples of quantitative questions:

“Where do you live?”

“How much do you spend on electricity per month, on average?”

“Do you use this product?”

“How often do you go to the gym?”

“On a scale of 1–10, how satisfied are you with our service?”

Qualitative market research involves more of the “how” and “why” questions. It’s done at a much smaller scale, is less structured and more exploratory, aiming for insight rather than certainty. It helps you find out how customers feel about your product, their opinions and preferences—in other words, things that can't be quantified.

Examples of qualitative questions:

“Why did you choose product A over product B?”

“How does this image make you feel?”

“What do you feel is missing from this service?

“Describe the last time you purchased something online.”

“What are your favorite brands for dog grooming products?”

Usually, this type of market research is done through surveys with open-ended questions or interviews. A small number of interviews are conducted, which are then projected to apply to a larger population. 

Quantitative and qualitative research don’t need to be seen as opposite or distinct techniques. It can be an “and” instead of an “either-or.”

Market research for product development and marketing efforts

Market research tends to inform two main areas in a business: product development and marketing efforts. Whether it’s creating a new product or a new set of features, at Typeform, we always start from the end. 

Who’s going to use this? 

Who will buy it? 

How do I justify engineers spending time on this? 

Market research is one of the most important tools to answer these questions. Nobody wants to invest time, money, and effort into making something that no one wants or needs. Market research allows you to assess the market size, its opportunities, and your competitors. This is also where user research and market research inform one another.

Segmenting the market is one of the main activities in market research, as it gives you your target audience(s). How else will you know who is buying from you already, who to market to, and which marketing messages work best?

Competitor analysis , another cornerstone of market research, helps you craft your positioning. In simple terms: How you're different from your competitors and why should buyers pick you?

How to conduct market research

So you can probably see by now how varied market research is. The way we do our own market research here at Typeform has evolved over the years through testing and experimentation. After much trial and error, we finally landed on the approach that works best for us.

Set your goals

Before we even think about launching market research of any scale, we make sure to have a clear objective in mind. 

Are you trying to enhance a particular metric (such as customer numbers or customer satisfaction level), gauge potential market size, or something else?

Define your objective(s) first, then move on to the next step.

Define your audience 

Whatever your approach, the next thing you should always have at the front of your mind is your customer.

Still, focusing on the customer can mean different things to different people.

Focus on jobs, not personas

Brace yourself, because we’re about to say something controversial: don’t focus on buyer personas.

This flies in the face of what most other market research guides will tell you: Research your audience to create buyer personas and frame your offering around them.

Not that buyer personas aren't important—they are. And at Typeform, we definitely use them, but we also follow the “Jobs To Be Done (JTBD)” model. This is the backbone for how we conceptualize everything, from our marketing messaging to our product development. It informs how we see our customers and how we segment them.

How many people in your business speak directly to customers? The bigger your organization, the smaller this number is likely to be, and the further removed the customer becomes from the decision-making. The job creates a consistent framework for everyone to work with and remains close to the customer’s needs.

As you identify needs that intersect, you can begin to find unique differentiators for your product. 

At the end of the day, your customers don’t care about you or your product or its features. They care about the job or jobs they are trying to get done, and if you provide the best solution, they'll pay you for it. If you don’t, they'll move on to your competition faster than you can say, “job to be done.”

 So how does this all relate to market research?

Rather than framing your market research efforts on creating buyer personas and targeting them, frame them around jobs your customers are trying to get done. There'll be some natural overlap with personas, but you need not be wed to them.

Market segmentation

Market segmentation is the act of dividing a target market into groups (or segments). This lets you tailor your efforts to each segment, whether that be your marketing strategy or deciding on features for your product.

The four most common methods: 

Demographics: age, gender, ethnicity, income, industry, job

Psychographic: lifestyle, values, personality traits, interests

Geographic: country, region, city, town

Behavioral: spending habits, internet browsing habits

Depending on your situation, any of these might be useful focus points, and all of them no doubt provide valuable insight.

The benefits of segmentation include:

A better experience for customers: A better understanding of your customers can only really be a win-win. You’ll be able to tailor each part of your customer experience, from marketing message to product experience, based on their segment.

More targeted marketing: In other words, this means better use of your marketing resources. Rather than casting the net wide and crossing your fingers that you haven’t just thrown a lot of time and money away, your segments let you focus your efforts where they’re likely to have the most return.

Improved product development: Knowing the real demands of your target audience will allow for product development that they'll actually appreciate (read: pay for).

Developing a market research strategy

Now that you’re convinced of the importance of market research and how it can help your business, you’re probably pumped to get started. Having even a basic plan can be the difference between a piece of research that has a real and lasting impact on your business and gathering some interesting insights that are forgotten in two weeks. 

Always start with the question: Why? What’s the purpose of the research? 

Your objective shouldn’t be “to do some research,” nor should you select a method first, whether that be a JTBD-based questionnaire, customer interviews, etc. 

Make sure you’re always starting with a question you want to answer and adapt the method to the question.

Examples of questions to think about:

“How can we increase conversions?”

“Why are people churning after two months?”

“What is the appetite for this product?”

“Which product features are most useful to our customers?”

“In which region(s) should we focus our next marketing campaign?"

Let this always be front and center as you go about planning and executing your research.

Market research tips 

Do preliminary research: Have a basic understanding of the industry and the landscape you’ll be investigating. It doesn't have to be extremely in-depth, but it’s important to have a foundation. This ensures you ask the right questions, know what to assess, and can get a more accurate vision of the market.

Align with potential stakeholders: There may be others in your organization who could benefit from the data you're about to gather. It may be worthwhile checking around to see how you could maximize your research efforts. Even just one extra question on your survey might provide essential data for someone else.

Use the right tools for your market research purposes: Make sure that whichever tools you use are fit for purpose. As technology develops, market research automation becomes more important. Using the right tools won't only save you lots of time and energy; it's also essential for correct and high-quality data.

Market research questions

The questions you ask depend on your objectives. You should write market research questions that are purposeful and will help strengthen your relationship with your customers.

You should also consider running a test first, depending on the scale of your research. Sending your survey to a smaller population and analyzing the first few responses will let you check that you’re getting useful responses that are answering your research questions.

Sometimes, until we start getting results, we’re unaware that a question is ineffective. This may be because the question uses terminology not understood by the target audience. 

For example, you may ask, “What SaaS tools do you currently use?” If you get responses like “iPhone 11” and “desktop computer,” then you know you need to adapt your questions better to your audience! 

Here at Typeform, we sometimes send out test emails to smaller populations (around 10% of the target audience) for this purpose and adjust our surveys if necessary.

How many responses to collect for market research

400 is the magic number.

Well, no, in fact, there is no magic number, sorry.

Generally speaking, 400 is the standard recommended sample size—this just means the number of people who responded to your market research survey. 

But this number can vary greatly depending on your total population (i.e., all the people that this research will apply to) and the way you segment them. 

But there’s a mathematical explanation for the popularity of 400: With 400 responses, your margin of error is 5%. 

For example, say you got 400 customer responses to your market research survey. 80% of your respondents answered “yes” to the question, “Would you buy from us again?” That means there’s a 95% chance that in your total population of customers, around 80% would buy from you again.

Don’t forget that to reach your target sample size, you'll need to reach out to many more people! If sending out surveys by email, open rates tend to hover around 15-25% . The percentage of people who then go on to complete a survey will be even lower. 

To increase your chances of survey opens and completions, offering an incentive is never a bad idea. Prize draws or discounts on your product have worked well for us. And, of course, the experience of answering a market research survey is paramount for completions—make sure your form is user-friendly with a smooth and beautiful interface. 

Try to aim for a sample that'll be a good approximation of your overall population. There’s a risk of bias , depending on the channel through which your research survey is shared. For example, if you share it on social media, you might get a younger average age of respondents, which may not be accurately representative of your total population of customers.

Sample market research template

Below is a sample market research template for planning a piece of primary market data.

A brief summary of why this research was started:

What led to this research being done/requested? 

What needs to be validated or explored?

What's been done prior to this research? E.g., competitive analysis, brainstorming, previous research

What insights will this research generate? 

How will these insights be used?

Business/product objectives

We can't emphasize enough the importance of having a clear goal in mind. What metric(s) are you trying to enhance? E.g., more conversions, less churn. This helps people understand the bigger picture of this research.

State what decisions are going to be made or impacted based on the research. As a general rule, if you’re not prepared to make changes, don’t run the research.

Research objectives 

State the high-level objectives for this research. Try to keep it specific, actionable, and two to three points max. 

Research questions 

Provide a list of market research questions you plan to answer during this research (these questions are not the interview questions). 

Participant criteria 

List the primary characteristics of the people you'll recruit for the research, like:

Job(s) to be done

Also decide on the minimum and maximum number of participants you'll need for your study.

Taking action on market research insights

Remember, data isn't reality—however, market research can give you a pretty decent view of reality.

Data can also be unpredictable. Missing a small detail can skew ‌results significantly, so try to be as methodical and meticulous as you can.

Put our market research survey template to the test with customizable questions and design. Take your questionnaire to the next level with over 1 million photos, videos, and icons, or upload your own. Build your ultimate market research survey today with the help of Typeform.

Useful tools for market research

Demographic survey questionnaire template

User persona survey template

Competitor research tool for the SaaS industry

Margin of error calculator for sample size

Google Sheets

About the author

We're Typeform - a team on a mission to transform data collection by bringing you refreshingly different forms.

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Market research questions: what to ask and how.

9 min read Whether you’re looking for customer feedback, product suggestions or brand perception in the market, the right market research questions can help you get the best insights. Learn how you can use them correctly and where to begin.

What is market research?

Market research (also called marketing research) is the action or activity of gathering information about market needs and preferences. This helps companies understand their target market — how the audience feels and behaves.

For example, this could be an online questionnaire, shared by email, which has a set of questions that ask an audience about their views. For an audience of target customers, your questions may explore their reaction to a new product that can be used as feedback into the design.

Why do market research?

When you have tangible insights on the audience’s needs, you can then take steps to meet those needs and solve problems. This mitigates the risk of an experience gap – which is what your audience expects you deliver versus what you actually deliver.

In doing this work, you can gain:

• Improved purchase levels – Sales will improve if your product or service is ticking all the right buttons for your customers.
• Improved decision making – You can avoid the risk of losing capital or time by using what your research tells you and acting with insights.
• Real connection with your target market – If you’re investing in understanding your target audience, your product and service will more likely to make an impact.
• Understand new opportunities – it might be that your research indicates a new area for your product to play within, or you find potential for a new service that wasn’t considered before.

Get started with our free survey software

Who do you ask your questions to?

Who to target in your market research is crucial to getting the right insights and data back. If you don’t have a firm idea on who your target audiences are, then here are some questions that you can ask before you begin writing your market research questions:

• Who is our customer currently and who do we want to attract in the future?
• How do they behave with your brand?
• What do they say, do and think?
• What are their pain points, needs and wants?
• Where do they live? What is the size of our market?
• Why do they use us? Why do they use other brands?

We’ve put together some questions below (Market research questions for your demographics) if you wanted to reach out to your market for this.

With the answers, you can help you segment your customer market, understand key consumer trends, create customer personas and discover the right way to target them.

Market research goals

Give yourself the right direction to work towards.There are different kinds of market research that can happen, but to choose the right market research questions, figure out your market research goals first.

Set a SMART goal that thinks about what you want to achieve and keeps you on track. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely. For example, a good SMART business goal would be to increase website sales for a top product by 10% over a period of 6 months.

You may need to review some strategic business information, like customer personas and historical sales data, which can give you the foundation of knowledge (the ‘baseline’) to grow from. This, combined with your business objectives, will help you form the right SMART targets tailored to your teams.

Types of market research questions

Now that you have your SMART target, you can look at which type of market research questions will help you reach your goal. They can be split into these types:

• For demographics
• For customers
• For product

Market research questions for your demographics

Demographic information about your customers is data about gender, age, ethnicity, annual income, education and marital status. It also gives key information about their shopping habits.

Here are some questions you can ask in your market research survey:

• What is your age / gender / ethnicity / marital status?
• What is the highest level of education you have achieved?
• What is your monthly income range?
• What methods of shopping do you use?
• What amount do you spend on [product/brand/shopping] each month?
• How regular do you shop for [product/brand]?

Learn more about the demographic survey questions that yield valuable insights .

Market research questions for your customer

These questions are aimed at your customer to understand the voice of the customer — the customer marketing landscape is not an one-way dialogue for engaging prospects and your customer’s feedback is needed for the development of your products or services.

• How did we do / would you rate us?
• Why did you decide to use [product or service]?
• How does that fit your needs?
• Would you recommend us to your friends?
• Would you buy from us again?
• What could we do better?
• Why did you decide to shop elsewhere?
• In your opinion, why should customers choose us?
• How would you rate our customer experience?

Learn more about why the voice of the customer matters or try running a customer experience survey.

Market research questions for your product

These questions will help you understand how your customers perceive your product, their reactions to it and whether changes need to be made in the development cycle.

• What does our [product or service] do that you like or dislike?
• What do you think about [feature or benefit]?
• How does the product help you solve your problems?
• Which of these features will be the most valuable / useful for you?
• Is our product competitive with other similar products out there? How?
• How does the product score on [cost / service / ease of use, etc.]?
• What changes will customers likely want in the future that technology can provide?

There are also a set of questions you can ask to find out if your product pricing is set at the right mark:

• Does the product value justify the price it’s marketed at?
• Is the pricing set at the right mark?
• How much would you pay for this product?
• Is this similar to what competitors are charging?
• Do you believe the price is fair?
• Do you believe the pricing is right based on the amount of usage you’d get?

Have you tried a pricing and value research survey to see how much your target customers would be willing to pay?

Market research questions for your brand

How does the impact of your products, services and experiences impact your brand’s image? You can find out using these questions:

• What do you think about our brand?
• Have you seen any reviews about us online? What do they say?
• Have you heard about our brand from friends or family? What do they say?
• How likely are you to recommend our brand to a friend?
• Have you read the testimonials on our own channels? Did they have an impact on your decision to purchase? How?
• When you think of our brand, what do you think/ feel / want?
• How did you hear about us?
• Do you feel confident you know what our brand stands for?
• Are you aware of our [channel] account?

Learn more about brand perception surveys and how to carry them out successfully.

How to use market research questions in a survey

For the best research questionnaires, tailoring your market research questions to the goal you want will help you focus the direction of the data received.

You can get started now on your own market research questionnaire, using one of our free survey templates, when you sign up to a free Qualtrics account.

Drag-and-drop interface that requires no coding is easy-to-use, and supported by our award-winning support team.

With Qualtrics, you can distribute, and analyse surveys to find customer, employee, brand, product, and marketing research insights.

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AI & Automation

A guide to using ai in content marketing in 2024.

Senior Content Marketing Manager

May 9, 2024

Artificial intelligence is transforming the way marketers create and utilize marketing content. According to a HubSpot survey, 83% of marketers said that using AI helps them produce more content than without it.

They use AI to create fresh content, edit or rephrase existing content, prepare content outlines, research keywords, analyze data, and streamline content production.

There’s no dearth of ways to use AI in content marketing. However, the biggest struggle for content marketers today is that an AI content creation tool cannot produce output as personal, conversational, and accurate as human content.

Still, artificial intelligence is a valuable ally that can save a content marketer time and effort. Read on to learn how to use AI in content marketing correctly. We’ll also share some tips and tricks our own content team uses to maintain quality while still scaling content creation. But first, let’s cover the basics.

Understanding AI in Content Marketing

In its simplest terms, artificial intelligence simulates human-like intelligence in software or machines. This allows machines to perform tasks that traditionally only humans could do, such as learning from past behavior or making strategic decisions.

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a term used to describe AI’s ability to process and understand human language, both spoken and written. This allows it to create, edit, rephrase, personalize, summarize, or translate content.

By understanding how people talk and write, AI can create almost human-like content with high accuracy.

A branch of AI called generative AI is now being widely used for developing AI-created content. 

Tools like ChatGPT and Jasper have simplified the content creation process by helping marketers generate ideas, create outlines, or even write content in seconds, not hours.

Per the previously cited HubSpot survey, these are the key ways in which marketers incorporate AI in marketing campaigns:

Though there are many use cases, AI-generated content also raises some concerns, such as issues with originality. Since AI uses existing data to create content, is AI content truly original or plagiarized?

Also, numerous AI content detection tools can almost accurately recognize AI content. Does this mean there’s still a significant difference between AI and human content? Should content marketers use AI in content marketing?

The short answer is ‘yes.’ Most marketers recognize these concerns and use AI to drive efficiencies rather than using 100% AI-generated content. The key is to strike a balance between AI and human input.

How to Use AI in Content Marketing

Let’s look at the various ways content marketers can use AI and some of its pros and cons. If you aren’t yet sure how to use AI in content marketing, this may inspire your efforts. 

Let’s get right to it.

Using AI for content research and idea generation

One of the primary use cases of AI in content marketing is to generate content ideas. 

Here are some ways of using AI for content research :

• Ask AI to find trending topics by analyzing vast online data from various sources such as search engines and social media channels
• Let AI SEO tools generate topic ideas for specific keywords based on user intent and SERP (search engine results pages) analysis for better search engine rankings
• Use AI content marketing tools to create detailed outlines for blog posts, ebooks, or any other type of content
• Leverage AI tools to study your competitors’ content strategies and generate insights

ClickUp Brain is ClickUp’s all-in-one AI solution that helps with various aspects of content marketing.

Use the ClickUp Content Idea Generator to get a treasure trove of fresh ideas based on input parameters like target audience and keyword.

Next, select the ideas most relevant to your business and use the ClickUp Content Plan Template to make a content schedule.

Its nine custom fields and four custom views allow you to organize your content from creation to publishing. Use it to create a detailed editorial calendar.

After brainstorming and compiling ideas in Docs, use the Content Plan View for an overview of all the content to be created and the Content Calendar View to have the publishing schedule at your fingertips. You can also use the Approval Board View to share content ideas with stakeholders for approval. 

Alternatively, you may also use the ClickUp Content Calendar and organize posts by status , such as Scheduled, In review, Published, etc. You can customize this Folder template to suit your team’s processes. It also lets you view the content calendar in different formats, such as calendar, timeline, and board views.

The ClickUp Calendar Template provides a list view that allows you to see all content scheduled for a week or month at one glance.

You can use it to create a granular view of your weekly content calendar. In addition, you can track approval status, publication dates, and the specific content pillar to which each piece relates. 

Also Read: 10 Free Content Calendar Templates for Social Media & Blogs in 2024

Creating content using generative AI

Generative AI can create different types of content , from blog posts and email to practically any marketing content. Here’s how you can create a detailed blog outline with ClickUp Brain:

However, many marketers prefer using it to create the first draft and then let human writers and editors refine it further. This ensures that content is created quickly but still has a human touch and is accurate.

If you’re looking for an AI content generator that creates accurate, human-like content, then ClickUp Brain is exactly what you need. 

Its Al Writer for Work will help you create role-specific content, anything from a blog post to engaging captions for social media posts.

It’s also useful for creating content templates you may reuse multiple times. This further saves time as you don’t need to start from scratch every time.

Summarizing, rephrasing, or modifying content using AI

Besides creating fresh content, AI writing tools are also used to modify content . This could involve summarizing, rephrasing in a different tone or style, or even rewriting content.

ClickUp Brain, for instance, quickly and accurately summarizes threads and long-form content into bite-sized pieces. It also edits content to fix grammatical issues and improve readability.

You can also refine your content using ClickUp Brain’s AI Writer. Here’s an example:

How AI enhances search engine optimization

AI content marketing tools also contribute to SEO by helping with keyword research, competitor analysis, and other time-consuming tasks essential to content strategy.

Here are some of the many use cases of AI in SEO :

• AI algorithms sift through vast amounts of data to identify relevant keywords for creating content
• AI analyzes and audits content to assess how SEO-friendly it is and whether it meets SERP intent
• Top link-building tools leverage AI to find authoritative websites, broken links, and keyword gaps for building backlinks
• SEO audit tools also utilize the power of AI to conduct in-depth audits of a website and provide tailored SEO recommendations
• One of the most common uses of AI in SEO is to conduct competitor analysis , recommend SEO strategies, and identify content gaps

Overall, AI helps with almost all aspects of SEO and helps create both user-friendly and SEO-friendly content at scale. 

Leverage AI tools to accelerate your content creation process and use the ClickUp Content Production Scaling Template to streamline it. ClickUp’s content team has used the same to manage and scale their blog production! 

Apply this Folder template to your Workspace to plan your content production and publishing weeks . It includes a broad range of custom fields such as Draft URL (for easy editing and approvals), Blog Brief URL (to access the brief easily), Writer Source (to track content from multiple authors), etc. It lets you view your content production by month; once published, posts can be seen in a separate calendar view, too. 

Advantages and challenges of AI in content creation

While AI offers content marketers many benefits, it raises concerns and challenges. Let’s understand both aspects of using AI in content marketing to assess whether the pros outweigh the cons.

Here are some of the key benefits of using AI in content creation.

• Speed and efficiency : AI writing tools speed up the content development process and help generate research-backed content in seconds
• Consistency : AI and machine learning algorithms work based on predefined rules and historical data and deliver consistent results as long as the parameters remain the same
• Scalability : With its numerous applications in content creation and speed, AI helps you ramp up your content creation efforts quickly

So far, we’ve established that AI makes content creation faster and more convenient. However, there are also many challenges concerning using AI content-creation tools . Let’s discuss these briefly.

• Change in workflow : Involving AI in the process requires changing how things are done and maintaining a balance between AI and human involvement. This can be a difficult balance to strike and requires some experimentation to find out what works best in a specific scenario
• Ensuring accuracy and reliability : AI can search for information online and create content based on that, but it often takes human intervention to verify it. Not all information available online is accurate, and AI content may not be 100% reliable
• Ethical considerations : One of the biggest concerns regarding using AI in content creation is that it lacks a human touch. Ensuring that AI doesn’t replace humans but aids them should be a top priority for anyone using AI in content marketing
• Avoiding bias : Since AI relies on training data, one of the biggest fears with AI use is that it can be susceptible to bias. It can lead to the propagation of existing prejudices in society if not checked. 

To conclude, if you understand and navigate the challenges related to AI, it’s a potent tool to boost your content marketing efforts.

AI Content Strategy: Use Cases and Examples

We’ve already covered the various ways AI is useful in content marketing. Now, let’s discuss some real-life applications and examples to help you create your content marketing strategy.

Content ideation 

Some practical use cases of AI in content ideation include:

• Researching relevant keywords and trending topics for content creation
• Preparing content briefs for writers or influencers
• Creating detailed content outlines based on SERP research
• Analyzing competitors’ strategies and content to recommend content ideas
• Monitoring online and social media trends to find trending topics or hashtags using social media AI tools
• Conducting audience research to create tailored content strategies
• Curating content from multiple sources for newsletters or listicles

Example: AI content briefs for content planning (Kasasa)

Kasasa, a financial services company, struggled with streamlining content creation and building website authority. It partnered with the AI company MarketMuse to create high-quality, authoritative content based on AI-powered content briefs.

The result?

92 % more organic traffic YoY, 83% growth in keyword rankings, and 28% more time spent on the page.

Takeaway : Use content marketing strategy templates with AI tools to quickly create a solid content plan that drives great results.

Content creation 

Here are some real-life use cases of AI in content creation.

• Autogenerating in-depth blog posts, articles, case studies, and other long-form content
• Writing engaging email copy and subject lines
• Creating images and videos based on AI prompts
• Converting text to video using AI tools
• Using prompts to let AI copywriting tools generate marketing copy and social media content
• Utilizing AI to generate summaries, captions, and transcripts

Example: AI video creation (Dixa )

Dixa, a customer service software company, uses the AI video generation tool Synthesia to create client onboarding videos to train new customers. Using AI helped it save one-third of the time spent on creating traditional voiceover videos. Instead, the company now uses AI avatars and templates to create videos at scale. 

Takeaway: Use AI-generated content templates to simplify and accelerate your content creation process.

Content optimization

Here are some practical ways AI is used to optimize existing content.

• Fixing punctuation and common grammatical mistakes
• Improving readability, tone, structure, and keyword optimization
• Image optimization, including keyword-rich descriptions and alt texts, and image compression
• A/B testing to compare different elements and understand what works best for a specific audience
• Making content longer or shorter, changing its tone, or rephrasing
• Translating text or video content in multiple languages

Example: AI email testing and optimization by Goosehead Insurance

The insurance company leveraged the AI content tool Jasper to create personalized emails and test them to improve email engagement and conversions. The result was a 22% increase in click-through rate for emails.

Takeaway: Use AI not only to create new content but also to improve existing content. Make use of AI tools for language improvement , conversion testing, image fixes, translation, and more

The Future of AI in Content Marketing

As AI technology grows, it will become more widely adopted and an integral part of the content creation workflow. 

Advances in natural language processing and machine learning will bring AI content closer to human content. Most marketers leverage AI to create first drafts or refine content rather than end-to-end content creation.

This is likely to change as AI content becomes better and more human-like.

Some other emerging AI technologies may revolutionize content creation in the future. Let’s discuss some of these briefly.

• Predictive analytics and recommendation engines : AI will accurately predict content trends and user browsing patterns. This will help businesses make highly personalized content recommendations to site visitors
• Visual AI : AI technology will improve in analyzing and understanding visual content. This can be used to extract insights from images and videos and optimize visual content for better performance
• Generative AI models : Tools like ChatGPT will continue to evolve and answer questions to create content with higher accuracy and reliability
• Voice search optimization : With the popularity of voice searches increasing significantly, optimizing content for these will become more critical. AI technology for voice content optimization and creation will be the new frontier for the use of AI in content marketing

Scale Your Content Marketing Efforts With AI & ClickUp 

AI offers many benefits for content marketers. It helps create or optimize content quickly and efficiently, scaling your content marketing efforts.

However, it’s essential to understand and alleviate the concerns related to using AI-powered tools in content marketing. While deciding how to use AI in content marketing, we must consider the lack of human creativity, the reliability of the information provided, and ethical issues. 

Still, the future of AI content tools. Advancements in natural language processing, predictive analytics, and other AI technologies will revolutionize the content creation process. 

So, if you haven’t yet incorporated artificial intelligence into your content marketing strategy, you must do so now.  

Looking for an all-in-one AI tool that acts like a second brain and helps with all aspects of content marketing? Try ClickUp Brain today. It will help you streamline content creation and scale your content marketing processes.

Sign up for free and check out its features to evaluate everything it can help you with.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. how can ai be used for marketing.

AI can be used for various marketing purposes, from studying market trends to providing personalized recommendations. The ability to analyze vast data sets quickly and accurately and generate human-like responses makes AI-powered tools extremely useful in creating data-backed marketing strategies and improving content marketing processes.

2. How can AI be used as a content creator?

AI content creation tools that use generative AI technology can be used as writing assistants. From preparing content briefs and outlines to writing complete articles, artificial intelligence is helpful in all aspects of AI content creation.

3. How can marketers use generative AI for content creation?

Generative AI, a type of artificial intelligence technology, uses natural language processing to understand and replicate human language. AI content creation tools are widely used for various purposes, such as:

• Creating engaging email subject lines and social media captions
• Using prompts and templates to create engaging content
• Auto-generating blog articles, case studies, and other content
• Drafting outlines for various types of content

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Corporate strategy evaluation (CORE): a new method to measure strategies in organizations

• Original Article
• Published: 07 May 2024
• Volume 4 , article number  60 , ( 2024 )

Cite this article

• Jheyce Milena da Silva Barros   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9908-8951 1 ,
• Brigitte Renata Bezerra de Oliveira   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0038-1053 2 ,
• Telma Lúcia de Andrade Lima   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7140-9290 2 &
• Marcos Felipe Falcão Sobral   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4768-2622 3  

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In response to challenges and constraints within the market, companies frequently embrace corporate strategies and collaborate with other entities to amplify their impact on the market and respond to market threats and limitations, seeking synergy with other companies to increase their market. The adequate adoption of corporate strategies is fundamental for the success of organizations. Despite the importance of strategies, there is no specific procedure for identifying and measuring corporate strategies, and this article introduces a novel method for measuring corporate strategies named CORE: Corporate Strategy Evaluation. The design of the (CORE) started with a systematic literature review, adopting the PRISMA methodology. Five dimension questions were constructed: vertical integration, alliances, mergers, acquisitions, and diversification. Then, aggregation and sensitivity analysis procedures were created. The proposed method was experimentally evaluated in two scenarios with random data to test it. This study aims to enhance decision accuracy and strategic identification through a two-step process. Firstly, diagnostic questions are employed in step 1 to ascertain a company's adoption of a corporate strategy, leading to step 2. This method bringing a new way to mediate corporate strategies, analyze the behavior of companies over time, compare companies in the same segment, compare companies from different elements, identify patterns of strategy, enable future crossings between strategies and variables such as performance, risk, and also with other levels of strategy.

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Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Implementation: A Review and a Research Agenda Towards an Integrative Framework

Meta-analyses on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): a literature review

Data availability.

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Federal Rural University of Pernambuco, Avenida Dom Manoel de Medeiros, s/n – Dois Irmãos, Recife, PE, Brazil

Jheyce Milena da Silva Barros

Departamento de Administração, Federal Rural University of Pernambuco, Avenida Dom Manoel de Medeiros, s/n – Dois Irmãos, Recife, PE, Brazil

Brigitte Renata Bezerra de Oliveira & Telma Lúcia de Andrade Lima

Programa de Pós-Graduação em Administração e Desenvolvimento Rural, Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco, Avenida Dom Manoel de Medeiros, s/n – Dois Irmãos, Recife, PE, Brazil

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JB: Conceptualization, Formal Analysis, Visualization Writing—original draft Writing. BO: Conceptualization Data curation Formal Analysis. TL: Writing—review & editing MS: Project administration, Writing—review & editing, Conceptualization.

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da Silva Barros, J.M., de Oliveira, B.R.B., de Andrade Lima, T.L. et al. Corporate strategy evaluation (CORE): a new method to measure strategies in organizations. SN Bus Econ 4 , 60 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43546-024-00649-y

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s43546-024-00649-y

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