questionnaire for thesis about marketing strategy

Research in marketing strategy

• Review Paper
• Published: 18 August 2018
• Volume 47 , pages 4–29, ( 2019 )

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• Neil A. Morgan 1 ,
• Kimberly A. Whitler 2 ,
• Hui Feng 3 &
• Simos Chari 4  

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Marketing strategy is a construct that lies at the conceptual heart of the field of strategic marketing and is central to the practice of marketing. It is also the area within which many of the most pressing current challenges identified by marketers and CMOs arise. We develop a new conceptualization of the domain and sub-domains of marketing strategy and use this lens to assess the current state of marketing strategy research by examining the papers in the six most influential marketing journals over the period 1999 through 2017. We uncover important challenges to marketing strategy research—not least the increasingly limited number and focus of studies, and the declining use of both theory and primary research designs. However, we also uncover numerous opportunities for developing important and highly relevant new marketing strategy knowledge—the number and importance of unanswered marketing strategy questions and opportunities to impact practice has arguably never been greater. To guide such research, we develop a new research agenda that provides opportunities for researchers to develop new theory, establish clear relevance, and contribute to improving practice.

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The past, present, and future of marketing strategy

Sibel Sozuer, Gregory S. Carpenter, … Donald R. Lehmann

Contours of the marketing literature: Text, context, point-of-view, research horizons, interpretation, and influence in marketing

Terry Clark, Thomas Martin Key & Carol Azab

Special Session: How does Marketing Fit in the World? Questions of Discipline Expertise, Scope, and Insight: An Abstract

We follow Varadarjan’s (2010) distinction, using “strategic marketing” as the term describing the general field of study and “marketing strategy” as the construct that is central in the field of strategic marketing—just as analogically “strategic management” is a field of study in which “corporate strategy” is a central construct.

Following the strategic management literature (e.g., Mintzberg 1994 ; Pascale 1984 ), marketing strategy has also been viewed from an “emergent” strategy perspective (e.g. Hutt et al. 1988 ; Menon et al. 1999 ). Conceptually this is captured as realized (but not pre-planned) tactics and actions in Figure 1 .

These may be at the product/brand, SBU, or firm level.

These strategic marketing but “non-strategy” coding areas are not mutually exclusive. For example, many papers in this non-strategy category cover both inputs/outputs and environment (e.g., Kumar et al. 2016 ; Lee et al. 2014 ; Palmatier et al. 2013 ; Zhou et al. 2005 ), or specific tactics, input/output, and environment (e.g., Bharadwaj et al. 2011 ; Palmatier et al. 2007 ; Rubera and Kirca 2012 ).

The relative drop in marketing strategy studies published in JM may be a function of the recent growth of interest in the shareholder perspective (Katsikeas et al. 2016 ) and studies linking marketing-related resources and capabilities directly with stock market performance indicators. Such studies typically treat marketing strategy as an unobserved intervening construct.

Since this concerns integrated marketing program design and execution, marketing mix studies contribute to knowledge of strategy implementation–content when all four major marketing program areas are either directly modeled or are controlled for in studies focusing on one or more specific marketing program components.

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Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, 1309 E. Tenth St., Bloomington, IN, 47405-1701, USA

Neil A. Morgan

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Kimberly A. Whitler

Ivy College of Business, Iowa State University, 3337 Gerdin Business Building, Ames, IA, 50011-1350, USA

Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Booth Street West, Manchester, M15 6PB, UK

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Morgan, N.A., Whitler, K.A., Feng, H. et al. Research in marketing strategy. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 47 , 4–29 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-018-0598-1

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Received : 14 January 2018

Accepted : 20 July 2018

Published : 18 August 2018

Issue Date : 15 January 2019

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-018-0598-1

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• Questionnaire Design | Methods, Question Types & Examples

Questionnaire Design | Methods, Question Types & Examples

Published on July 15, 2021 by Pritha Bhandari . Revised on June 22, 2023.

A questionnaire is a list of questions or items used to gather data from respondents about their attitudes, experiences, or opinions. Questionnaires can be used to collect quantitative and/or qualitative information.

Questionnaires are commonly used in market research as well as in the social and health sciences. For example, a company may ask for feedback about a recent customer service experience, or psychology researchers may investigate health risk perceptions using questionnaires.

Table of contents

Questionnaires vs. surveys, questionnaire methods, open-ended vs. closed-ended questions, question wording, question order, step-by-step guide to design, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about questionnaire design.

A survey is a research method where you collect and analyze data from a group of people. A questionnaire is a specific tool or instrument for collecting the data.

Designing a questionnaire means creating valid and reliable questions that address your research objectives , placing them in a useful order, and selecting an appropriate method for administration.

But designing a questionnaire is only one component of survey research. Survey research also involves defining the population you’re interested in, choosing an appropriate sampling method , administering questionnaires, data cleansing and analysis, and interpretation.

Sampling is important in survey research because you’ll often aim to generalize your results to the population. Gather data from a sample that represents the range of views in the population for externally valid results. There will always be some differences between the population and the sample, but minimizing these will help you avoid several types of research bias , including sampling bias , ascertainment bias , and undercoverage bias .

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Questionnaires can be self-administered or researcher-administered . Self-administered questionnaires are more common because they are easy to implement and inexpensive, but researcher-administered questionnaires allow deeper insights.

Self-administered questionnaires

Self-administered questionnaires can be delivered online or in paper-and-pen formats, in person or through mail. All questions are standardized so that all respondents receive the same questions with identical wording.

Self-administered questionnaires can be:

• cost-effective
• easy to administer for small and large groups
• anonymous and suitable for sensitive topics

But they may also be:

• unsuitable for people with limited literacy or verbal skills
• susceptible to a nonresponse bias (most people invited may not complete the questionnaire)
• biased towards people who volunteer because impersonal survey requests often go ignored.

Researcher-administered questionnaires

Researcher-administered questionnaires are interviews that take place by phone, in-person, or online between researchers and respondents.

Researcher-administered questionnaires can:

• help you ensure the respondents are representative of your target audience
• allow clarifications of ambiguous or unclear questions and answers
• have high response rates because it’s harder to refuse an interview when personal attention is given to respondents

But researcher-administered questionnaires can be limiting in terms of resources. They are:

• costly and time-consuming to perform
• more difficult to analyze if you have qualitative responses
• likely to contain experimenter bias or demand characteristics
• likely to encourage social desirability bias in responses because of a lack of anonymity

Your questionnaire can include open-ended or closed-ended questions or a combination of both.

Using closed-ended questions limits your responses, while open-ended questions enable a broad range of answers. You’ll need to balance these considerations with your available time and resources.

Closed-ended questions

Closed-ended, or restricted-choice, questions offer respondents a fixed set of choices to select from. Closed-ended questions are best for collecting data on categorical or quantitative variables.

Categorical variables can be nominal or ordinal. Quantitative variables can be interval or ratio. Understanding the type of variable and level of measurement means you can perform appropriate statistical analyses for generalizable results.

Examples of closed-ended questions for different variables

Nominal variables include categories that can’t be ranked, such as race or ethnicity. This includes binary or dichotomous categories.

It’s best to include categories that cover all possible answers and are mutually exclusive. There should be no overlap between response items.

In binary or dichotomous questions, you’ll give respondents only two options to choose from.

White Black or African American American Indian or Alaska Native Asian Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander

Ordinal variables include categories that can be ranked. Consider how wide or narrow a range you’ll include in your response items, and their relevance to your respondents.

Likert scale questions collect ordinal data using rating scales with 5 or 7 points.

When you have four or more Likert-type questions, you can treat the composite data as quantitative data on an interval scale . Intelligence tests, psychological scales, and personality inventories use multiple Likert-type questions to collect interval data.

With interval or ratio scales , you can apply strong statistical hypothesis tests to address your research aims.

Pros and cons of closed-ended questions

Well-designed closed-ended questions are easy to understand and can be answered quickly. However, you might still miss important answers that are relevant to respondents. An incomplete set of response items may force some respondents to pick the closest alternative to their true answer. These types of questions may also miss out on valuable detail.

To solve these problems, you can make questions partially closed-ended, and include an open-ended option where respondents can fill in their own answer.

Open-ended questions

Open-ended, or long-form, questions allow respondents to give answers in their own words. Because there are no restrictions on their choices, respondents can answer in ways that researchers may not have otherwise considered. For example, respondents may want to answer “multiracial” for the question on race rather than selecting from a restricted list.

• How do you feel about open science?
• How would you describe your personality?
• In your opinion, what is the biggest obstacle for productivity in remote work?

Open-ended questions have a few downsides.

They require more time and effort from respondents, which may deter them from completing the questionnaire.

For researchers, understanding and summarizing responses to these questions can take a lot of time and resources. You’ll need to develop a systematic coding scheme to categorize answers, and you may also need to involve other researchers in data analysis for high reliability .

Question wording can influence your respondents’ answers, especially if the language is unclear, ambiguous, or biased. Good questions need to be understood by all respondents in the same way ( reliable ) and measure exactly what you’re interested in ( valid ).

Use clear language

You should design questions with your target audience in mind. Consider their familiarity with your questionnaire topics and language and tailor your questions to them.

For readability and clarity, avoid jargon or overly complex language. Don’t use double negatives because they can be harder to understand.

Use balanced framing

Respondents often answer in different ways depending on the question framing. Positive frames are interpreted as more neutral than negative frames and may encourage more socially desirable answers.

Use a mix of both positive and negative frames to avoid research bias , and ensure that your question wording is balanced wherever possible.

Unbalanced questions focus on only one side of an argument. Respondents may be less likely to oppose the question if it is framed in a particular direction. It’s best practice to provide a counter argument within the question as well.

Avoid leading questions

Leading questions guide respondents towards answering in specific ways, even if that’s not how they truly feel, by explicitly or implicitly providing them with extra information.

It’s best to keep your questions short and specific to your topic of interest.

• The average daily work commute in the US takes 54.2 minutes and costs $29 per day. Since 2020, working from home has saved many employees time and money. Do you favor flexible work-from-home policies even after it’s safe to return to offices?
• Experts agree that a well-balanced diet provides sufficient vitamins and minerals, and multivitamins and supplements are not necessary or effective. Do you agree or disagree that multivitamins are helpful for balanced nutrition?

Keep your questions focused

Ask about only one idea at a time and avoid double-barreled questions. Double-barreled questions ask about more than one item at a time, which can confuse respondents.

This question could be difficult to answer for respondents who feel strongly about the right to clean drinking water but not high-speed internet. They might only answer about the topic they feel passionate about or provide a neutral answer instead – but neither of these options capture their true answers.

Instead, you should ask two separate questions to gauge respondents’ opinions.

Strongly Agree Agree Undecided Disagree Strongly Disagree

Do you agree or disagree that the government should be responsible for providing high-speed internet to everyone?

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You can organize the questions logically, with a clear progression from simple to complex. Alternatively, you can randomize the question order between respondents.

Logical flow

Using a logical flow to your question order means starting with simple questions, such as behavioral or opinion questions, and ending with more complex, sensitive, or controversial questions.

The question order that you use can significantly affect the responses by priming them in specific directions. Question order effects, or context effects, occur when earlier questions influence the responses to later questions, reducing the validity of your questionnaire.

While demographic questions are usually unaffected by order effects, questions about opinions and attitudes are more susceptible to them.

• How knowledgeable are you about Joe Biden’s executive orders in his first 100 days?
• Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way Joe Biden is managing the economy?
• Do you approve or disapprove of the way Joe Biden is handling his job as president?

It’s important to minimize order effects because they can be a source of systematic error or bias in your study.

Randomization

Randomization involves presenting individual respondents with the same questionnaire but with different question orders.

When you use randomization, order effects will be minimized in your dataset. But a randomized order may also make it harder for respondents to process your questionnaire. Some questions may need more cognitive effort, while others are easier to answer, so a random order could require more time or mental capacity for respondents to switch between questions.

Step 1: Define your goals and objectives

The first step of designing a questionnaire is determining your aims.

• What topics or experiences are you studying?
• What specifically do you want to find out?
• Is a self-report questionnaire an appropriate tool for investigating this topic?

Once you’ve specified your research aims, you can operationalize your variables of interest into questionnaire items. Operationalizing concepts means turning them from abstract ideas into concrete measurements. Every question needs to address a defined need and have a clear purpose.

Step 2: Use questions that are suitable for your sample

Create appropriate questions by taking the perspective of your respondents. Consider their language proficiency and available time and energy when designing your questionnaire.

• Are the respondents familiar with the language and terms used in your questions?
• Would any of the questions insult, confuse, or embarrass them?
• Do the response items for any closed-ended questions capture all possible answers?
• Are the response items mutually exclusive?
• Do the respondents have time to respond to open-ended questions?

Consider all possible options for responses to closed-ended questions. From a respondent’s perspective, a lack of response options reflecting their point of view or true answer may make them feel alienated or excluded. In turn, they’ll become disengaged or inattentive to the rest of the questionnaire.

Step 3: Decide on your questionnaire length and question order

Once you have your questions, make sure that the length and order of your questions are appropriate for your sample.

If respondents are not being incentivized or compensated, keep your questionnaire short and easy to answer. Otherwise, your sample may be biased with only highly motivated respondents completing the questionnaire.

Decide on your question order based on your aims and resources. Use a logical flow if your respondents have limited time or if you cannot randomize questions. Randomizing questions helps you avoid bias, but it can take more complex statistical analysis to interpret your data.

Step 4: Pretest your questionnaire

When you have a complete list of questions, you’ll need to pretest it to make sure what you’re asking is always clear and unambiguous. Pretesting helps you catch any errors or points of confusion before performing your study.

Ask friends, classmates, or members of your target audience to complete your questionnaire using the same method you’ll use for your research. Find out if any questions were particularly difficult to answer or if the directions were unclear or inconsistent, and make changes as necessary.

If you have the resources, running a pilot study will help you test the validity and reliability of your questionnaire. A pilot study is a practice run of the full study, and it includes sampling, data collection , and analysis. You can find out whether your procedures are unfeasible or susceptible to bias and make changes in time, but you can’t test a hypothesis with this type of study because it’s usually statistically underpowered .

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

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

Research bias

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

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

Closed-ended, or restricted-choice, questions offer respondents a fixed set of choices to select from. These questions are easier to answer quickly.

Open-ended or long-form questions allow respondents to answer in their own words. Because there are no restrictions on their choices, respondents can answer in ways that researchers may not have otherwise considered.

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

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

You can organize the questions logically, with a clear progression from simple to complex, or randomly between respondents. A logical flow helps respondents process the questionnaire easier and quicker, but it may lead to bias. Randomization can minimize the bias from order effects.

Questionnaires can be self-administered or researcher-administered.

Researcher-administered questionnaires are interviews that take place by phone, in-person, or online between researchers and respondents. You can gain deeper insights by clarifying questions for respondents or asking follow-up questions.

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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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Kate Bojkov

50 marketing survey questions and marketing surveys examples.

Free questionnaires and marketing survey examples that you can copy and create your own survey today.

Conducting a marketing survey is one of the most affordable and effective ways to do profound research and collect real customer feedback , which is considered to be one of the key elements of every successful business/product/service.

Long gone are the days when “ gut feelings ” and making assumptions were good enough. Nowadays, marketing based on data is the foundation to making important and effective decisions regardless of how big or small your business is.

Surveys and the use of all sorts of marketing forms are just part of any marketing team’s DNA. So, having them embedded in your marketing activities comes by default.

Build all your web forms for free

EmbedForms is the only form builder you will ever need to capture web leads, create surveys, or collect feedback on your website.

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Why Marketing Surveys Are Important?

Marketing surveys and marketing research in general, are rightfully considered to be an essential part of every business for a few reasons such as:

Help you identify opportunities and threats

Conducting a marketing survey helps businesses to know in which direction they should move and what to avoid along the road.

The perfect example: coming across unreached segments, meaning people who might not know your brand, opportunities such as business partnerships and collaborations, and various ways to improve your product/service, meaning upsells to more customers.

Minimize risks

Well-done marketing research will provide you with a variety of data that will help you make better decisions and therefore, reduce the risks of failure at any given time.

The perfect example: expanding to new markets – and trust us when we say knowledge is power. The data you’ll collect will help you predict how well your products will sell regionally and whether that expansion is worth it or not.

Stay ahead of your competition

Keeping your eyes wide open and researching your competitors will help you stay ahead in the game. You could look into what they are doing, how they are progressing, what channels they are using, and how they are going with paid advertisements.

The perfect example: when conveying a survey about your competitor’s product, you can gain valuable insights about its least and most valuable features and stay ahead of them by improving your solution based on this data.

? Here’s a list with the best marketing tools and software, both paid and free that will help you along the road.

Connect with your audience

Researching and understanding your customers means only one thing in today’s world – you will be able to connect with your audience better and more effectively. Instead of using a one-size-fits-all approach based on data, you will be able to customize your message.

The perfect example: while doing a buyer persona survey, you will find out the demographic details of your customers plus their interests. According to this information, you could customize the message across all social media platforms – more friendly and easy-going on your Instagram and TikTok, professional and awareness-increasing on your LinkedIn profile.

Survey 1: Market research survey

Researching your market in order to get valuable insights and understand it, is key to every phase of developing and launching your product/service.

Let’s cover some basics before getting into how to do your own market research survey.

According to HubSpot’s team :

“ Market research is the process of gathering information about your target market and customers ” .

Market research can be done in various ways, and in our case via conducting surveys, so we could say – a market research survey is a list of questions answered by your customers/ or potential customers regarding various subjects.

Why do it: conducting this type of survey will not only help you understand your customers and the market you are entering, but it will also help you reach a specific audience, make better decisions, measure brand awareness, help you understand how to position your price on the market, gain insights on your product or a future product, and help you with your content creation and distribution.

Market Research Survey Examples:

• What is your age? What is your gender?
• What is your education level?
• Where do you live?
• What is your profession? What do you do for a living?
• What’s your household income and household size?
• What are your biggest challenges?
• What are your hobbies/interests? What do you do in your free time?
• What is most important to you?
• How do you get your information? What’s your most valuable and reliable source of information?
• How do you like to make purchases? Do you feel comfortable shopping online?

Keep in mind though that market research is a broader term, meaning there are a lot of example questions related to various sub-topics. It’s up to you to choose what part you want to focus on.

For example, besides doing regular marketing surveys, a few years ago, Starbucks created another domain with the goal of doing market research, where people could submit their ideas and proposals. MyStarbucksIdea.com , which is currently not operational, accepted 100 ideas from thousands of people worldwide and implemented them into their business. Ideas like adding vegan options to their menu, etc.

An interesting way to engage the audience, collect data, and do market research on the wants and needs of your customers. Here is a full video of this initiative:

Survey 2: Competitor research survey

Getting to know your competition might feel scary and intimidating, but by looking at the bigger picture, you will gain power and valuable perspective that will definitely help you in the long run.

Why do it : conducting such a survey will help you understand who your competitors are, how people perceive them against your brand/product/service, and how is your offer and price in comparison to your competitors, and ultimately help you with targeting new customers.

Competitor research survey examples:

• Have you heard of our company/brand?
• Have you purchased something from our company?
• If you did, how satisfied were you with your purchase? How long have you been a customer?
• If not, what was the reason?
• How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend?
• Have you heard of #name of a competitor?
• Have you purchased from #name of a competitor?
• What made you choose us over a competitor/ and vice versa?
• What do you wish our product/service had that it currently does not?
• What do you like most/least? How does your product/service fits into your workflow/meet your daily needs?

For example, the Swedish brand Happy Socks with e-mail marketing’s help and surveys are researching their competitors and the overall experience people had with purchasing on their website. To make their survey even more successful they are offering 25% off + free shipping.

Other things worth looking into are: how are your competitors attracting customers, how well are their social media channels performing, how much website traffic do they have and from what type of sources, which keywords are they ranking for, and with what type of content. Helpful tools: Google Trends , Semrush , and AnswerThePublic .

Survey 3: Buyer persona / Customer analysis survey

In the marketing world, buyer personas are fictional individuals that represent your ideal customer.

It’s a Stock image next to an imaginary name, personal information and goals, life challenges and interests, work title, skills and experience, and most importantly, how you fit into their life ( how your product incorporates into their lifestyle/ what problem does it solve ).

Why do it : doing a detailed customer analysis with a marketing survey will help you understand your customers’ needs and problems and empathize with them; based on the data, you will be able to tailor your marketing efforts, understand purchasing decisions, get some behavioral insights, and create more targeted content for every channel.

“In my experience, creating buyer personas and getting to know our (potential) customers was a game-changer. It allowed us to strategically plan our entire content marketing strategy. Across all of our channels, we started personalising the message we wanted to convey, and the content that was being published. This helped us increase the engagement across all channels, increase our organic blog traffic with relevant visitors, and of most importantly increase our sales”.

Customer analysis survey examples:

• Demographic questions such as: What’s your age, gender, educational background, and career path?
• What are your interests and hobbies? What do you do in your spare time?
• What company do you work for/in which industry/ and a number of employees?
• What are your job title and main responsibilities? Whom do you report to, and who reports to you? How is your work measured?
• What are your biggest challenges (both professionally and personally)? What triggers you to find a solution?
• What tools do you use at your job?
• How are you using our product/service/software, and what are your main objectives with it?
• What is the most common reason you’re not buying a certain product?
• How do you learn about new information, and which blogs/publications do you read? What’s your favorite social network?
• How do you purchase things? How do you search for information? How would you describe your last purchase?

Helpful tools when it comes to creating Buyer Persona from your conducted survey: Make My Persona .

An effective marketing survey that will help you to understand customer behavior is to create a very detailed and in-depth feedback form. See the example by Chipotle:

Survey 4: Brand awareness survey

How memorable is your brand? How well do your customers know your brand? How do your customers perceive your brand?

If you are looking into answering these questions and more, it’s about time you conduct a brand awareness survey.

Brand awareness is a combination of four things:

• brand recognition – how recognizable is your brand
• brand recall – how memorable is your brand, and how does your brand come to your customer’s mind
• brand identity – how well are your brand’s mission and vision understood
• brand image – the overall feel and opinion of your brand

Why do it ? Getting to know how your customers perceive your brand will help you improve your positioning on the market and, therefore, help you grow your business and increase your brand awareness and sales.

Take, for example, the everlasting battle between Coke and Pepsi ? – it is no longer a who’s got a better taste kinda battle, but instead who’s got a more loyal community.

Brand awareness survey examples:

• Which brands do you most commonly purchase products from?
• Which of the following brands do you recognize?
• If #name of the brand was a person, how would you describe it? What’s your opinion on it?
• How did you find out about #name of the brand ? How likely are you to recommend it to a friend or family?
• You have #a certain problem – what brand/company do you turn to?
• Which of the following statements do you associate with #name of the brand ?
• How could we make you loyal to our brand? What’s crucial to you?
• What’s the first thing when you think of #name of the brand?
• When was the last time you used the #name of the brand?
• How familiar are you with our brand?

Here are more questions and a premade brand awareness survey template you can start using right now:

Survey 5: Product research survey

Launching a new product takes a lot of effort, money, and time but it also comes with a lot of uncertainty and fear of failure.

You never know whether the product will be a success or not, but there is something to do about your doubts – conduct a product research survey.

A product research survey can be both when launching a new product or when looking into improving an old one.

Why do it : it will help you evaluate your customer’s reaction and opinion regarding your new/improved product and, therefore, help you make better decisions about the product’s functionalities, features, and design.

Product research survey examples:

• How often do you use our product/service during the day/week/month?
• How long have you been using our product/service?
• How would you rate our product/service?
• What problems are you trying to solve with our product?
• What features are missing?
• Which features are most valuable to you?
• Which important features could be better/improved?
• How easy it is to use our product/rate on a scale from 0-10?
• How would you rate the value for money?
• Have you faced any problems while using our product/service?

For example, Alex Tooby wanted to make a pulse check of her audience to understand what kind of content (her type of product) they will want from her to create. It is a perfect marketing survey to see what her target audience needs so she can accommodate her services based on their actual needs.

Steps to conduct a marketing survey

Now that you are aware of the most important types of marketing surveys, it’s only fair to move on to a practical step-by-step of how to conduct a single survey.

Step 1: Set a clear goal

Before starting to write those questions, think about a clear goal of why you’re doing the marketing survey.

Are you looking into expanding to other markets? Are you looking into creating and launching a new product or improving an old one? What exactly are you looking to find out by doing the survey?

Setting clear goals and intentions for the marketing survey will help you get the answers you need.

Step 2: Map out a workflow for the task

This is more of a technical thing to do – but nonetheless, it’s important. Make sure you establish a budget, choose what markets you want to survey, decide whether you’ll hire a market research company to assist you, and, based on your goals – choose what you’ll investigate.

Step 3: Choose a tool in which you’ll create the survey

Make sure you also put a lot of thought into how the marketing survey would look. You don’t want to overwhelm your target group with too many questions at once or have a survey with an inconvenient design.

Step 4: Collect and analyze the data, and lastly

Step 5: take action.

Based on your research findings and the initial goals, you can make a safe decision and choose a direction in which you want to “move”.

Free Marketing Survey Tools

Now that we’ve gone over every how and why, the only thing remaining are the tools with which you can create these surveys, and here are some free options:

• Google Forms – free, fast, and it even automatically saves your results to a Google Spreadsheet so you can analyze your results. There are versatile options for long and short answers, multiple-choice selections, dropdown options, the ability to add both images and videos, create your form as a quiz, etc.
• Microsoft Forms – favoring Microsoft over Google, Excel over Google Sheets? If so, do go with this form builder. It’s free, simple, and connected with Excel, which has more powerful data analytics functionalities.
• Jotform – is another free online survey builder which is most known for its huge forms library with approximately 10,000 surveys. The first five forms are free (everything above – they are charging $24 per month).
• EmbedForms – is an innovative solution that will not only help you create forms but also help you to transform those forms into widgets for your website. Besides being forever free, this builder tool is packed with helpful features such as an advanced drag and drop editor, conditional logic options to create a certain flow of your form, and an easy way to share your marketing survey results.

If you’re looking for more alternatives – here’s a list with more than 25+ Form Builder Tools .

Using surveys is an affordable and effective way to get valuable insights both for the market and your customers, so do make sure to make the most of it!

Now you have all the information needed, so there’s no need to spend additional time searching for the right questions; instead, you can only focus on getting that customer feedback and making better decisions based on data.

Need feedback forms for your website? Embed forms widgets on your website for only $4.99/month !

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Co-Founder of EmbedSocial and Head of Growth. A previous owner of a Facebook Partner Company and a digital marketing agency. Marketing API geek and a Call of Duty fan.

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Top 10 Marketing Surveys and Marketing Survey Questions

As a marketer, you need to understand how customers see your brand and what improvements to make before it's too late. You also need to keep an eye on how your competitors are doing and how much you know about your target market.

One way to answer these questions is by collecting feedback from your customers . It will allow you to make smarter marketing decisions about your pricing, messaging, and any other marketing strategies .

But which surveys and questions should you use to achieve your business goals? I’ve looked at 800 surveys, created by 96 marketers, and sent out using Survicate . Here are the top 10 most popular surveys that I think you should consider running.

Top 10 online marketing surveys

• Customer Research
• NPS (Net Promoter Score) Surveys
• Product Research Surveys
• CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) Surveys
• Content Evaluation Surveys
• Market Research Surveys
• Website Feedback Surveys
• Contact Form Surveys
• Brand Awareness Surveys
• Customer Churn Reasons Surveys

Now, you might be wondering how to use these marketing surveys to understand customer experience and stay competitive. To help you get a clear picture, below we provided a detailed breakdown of each survey, so you can create better marketing strategies.

Also, you’ll get to see what are the most popular distribution channels and integrations of marketing surveys. This lets you in on how other marketers go about surveying their audience!

Ready to jump right into running surveys? Create your free Survicate account now.

1. Customer Research Surveys

The first on our list are customer research surveys, which represent 28% of all the surveys sent out to customers. This is unsurprising as marketers need to find out who their customers are in order to drive growth.

‍ Examples of marketing survey questions for a customer research survey include:

• Which of the following best describes your role in the purchase process?
• What is the main reason you chose X?
• How are you primarily using X?
• What type of business do you represent? What is your role?
• What are the main problems you want to solve with X?
• What is the biggest everyday annoyance when communicating with leads?

Why it’s useful: Sending customer research surveys to people who buy your products will help you find out more about your customers, including their job titles, pain points, and interests. This will let you target and personalize your marketing efforts.

2. NPS (Net Promoter Score) Surveys

NPS surveys , which have become an industry standard, make up 20% of all surveys sent via Survicate. They consist of a question on how likely your customers are to recommend your company to others. Thanks to the responses, you will be able to predict repurchases and referrals .

‍ Why it’s useful: NPS lets you identify the most loyal customers. You can then ask them for case studies, testimonials, quotes, and reviews for marketing collateral.

3. Product Research Surveys

Product research surveys account for 14% of the most popular marketing surveys. If you want to effectively market new features of your product, you need to understand how your customers use them. And to do that, you need to ask effective product survey questions .

‍ Examples of marketing survey questions for a product testing survey :

• How important is feature X to you?
• Do you find the new feature easy?
• What new features would you like to see from us?
• How was your experience with the following aspects of the product?
• Why do you rarely use X?
• How would you rate the X mobile app ?

Why it’s useful: Send product research surveys to better understand your users and their needs. As a result, you will drive better product adoption and market features more effectively.

‍ 4. CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) Surveys

CSAT surveys rank 4th (14% of all surveys), which comes as a surprise. After all, the Customer Satisfaction Score is mostly a customer-support metric, not a marketing one. With that being said, marketers need to keep an eye on the big picture, and measuring customer satisfaction is part of it.

‍ Examples of CSAT survey questions:

• How satisfied are you with X services? Did we meet your expectations?
• How would you measure your satisfaction with our platform in general?
• How would you rate your most recent interaction with our support?

Why it’s useful: CSAT is interaction-based, meaning you measure customer satisfaction at a specific touchpoint, such as closing a support ticket. You can also improve customer experience based on CSAT scores by finding out what your customers are struggling with.

5. Content Evaluation Surveys

Content evaluation surveys are a great way to accelerate and improve content creation . Yet, they constitute only 6% of all marketing surveys. If you're a marketer, don't hesitate to use content evaluation surveys to enhance your content marketing efforts.

‍ Examples of marketing survey questions for a content evaluation survey:

• What is your overall opinion of our webinar?
• What topics would you like to read about next?
• Do you find the newsletter informative?
• How would you rate the blog article you’re reading?
• Is there anything we can do to improve our online events?

Why it’s useful: Evaluate the performance of your content and get ideas of what content to produce next. Google Analytics tells you only one side of the story. For example, it can show you that your page has a high bounce rate, but you might not understand why. That’s why surveys provide the missing piece to unlock deeper insights and improve your content marketing efforts.

💡 YOU MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED IN: Search results accuracy survey template

6. Market Research Surveys

Ranking 6th on our list, research surveys account for 6% of all marketing surveys mentioned in this research. If you want to carry out DYI market research, surveys will help you to learn a great deal about customers in your target market.

‍ Examples of marketing survey questions for a market research survey :

• Apart from our tool, what applications from our category do you use? Do you pay for those applications?
• What tool do you use to complete task X?
• How many tools do you use to manage your operations & projects?
• Do you work with an agency that helps you with your website design, marketing strategy, or your social media presence?
• Could you talk about your experience with sales tools?
• What's your main purpose of using social media?

Why it’s useful: With demographic and target market analysis surveys, you can make more informed decisions about messaging, campaigns, pricing, and more.

7. Website Feedback Surveys

Marketers are yet to recognize website surveys as a valuable marketing tool. One of the cool things they can help you to do is to find out if your website is meeting your users’ needs and what you can do to improve it.

‍ Examples of marketing survey questions for a website feedback survey :

• Is our website easy to navigate around?
• Did you find what you were looking for?
• Before you go, can you tell us what stopped you from starting a free trial?
• What information is missing from your website?
• In general, how satisfied are you with the website experience?
• What are the most common reasons for you to visit our application?

Why it’s useful: With website feedback surveys, you can see if first-time visitors have trouble navigating your site. To do that, set surveys to appear while a user is browsing your website. That way, you get in-context, real-time insights to help your design and content.

8. Brand Awareness Surveys

Brand awareness surveys are surprisingly far down the list, ranking 8th and totaling 3% of all surveys. One of the reasons could be that even though marketers realize it’s important to measure brand awareness, few of them know how to do it.

‍ Examples of marketing survey questions for a brand awareness survey:

• Please describe our product/service in one sentence.
• When was the last time you used this product category?
• When you think of this product type, what brands come to your mind?
• Which value proposition statement resonates with you the most?
• What adjectives would you use to describe X, if it had a personality?
• How did you find us?

Why it’s useful: Find out if it's your brand or your competitor that comes of your customers' mind when they want to purchase a product in your category.

9. Contact Forms

Contact forms are 9th on the list, equaling 2% of all the marketing surveys. You can use contact forms on your website or send them by email. Contact forms are great for getting people to sign up for your newsletter, events, or gated content.

‍ Examples of marketing survey questions for a contact form survey:

• What’s your current job role?
• Would you rather talk to a person? Leave your contact details below!
• Would you like to get updates about new online marketing resources we produce? Sign up for our newsletter to get exclusive content for free!
• What’s your biggest challenge in X?
• What are your preferences when it comes to Y?
• What’s your website?
• How many employees are there in your organization?

Why it’s useful: Use a contact form question in your survey so you can collect new leads, update contact information, and create buyer personas. You can also send the collected information to your CRM or marketing automation tool .

10. Churn Reasons Surveys

Last on our list are churn reasons surveys. As one of the biggest obstacles faced by digital businesses, churn can be avoided or at least reduced with carefully drafted surveys that get to the bottom of the problem.

‍ Examples of marketing survey questions for a churn reasons survey:

• What is the primary reason for canceling your subscription?
• What were your expectations that we couldn't meet?
• What was your main motivation to register with X?
• What alternative did you find?

Why it’s useful: There are plenty of ways to predict churn before it starts affecting your business.

How do marketers send marketing surveys

Would you like to discover the most popular distribution channels, email marketing tools, and integrations used to send these top 10 marketing surveys? Here’s how other marketers go about sending the surveys listed in this blog post.

‍ The most popular survey distribution channels:

• Email and link surveys (50%)
• Website surveys (35%)
• Intercom Messenger surveys (15%)

The most popular survey distribution tools (for email and link surveys):

• Anonymous surveys (33%)
• Intercom (15%)
• HubSpot (13%)
• Pardot (12%)
• Marketo (9%)
• Mailchimp (6%)
• GetResponse , ActiveCampaign , Klaviyo , Sendgrid (3%)

The most popular integrations with a survey tool :

• Google Analytics (26%)
• Intercom (8%)
• Pardot (6%)
• Google Sheets (4%)
• HubSpot (3,5%)
• Marketo (3%)

How to start sending marketing surveys

Now that you've learned what the most popular marketing surveys are, it's time to put that knowledge into practice. Survicate offers over 125 ready-to-use templates so you can get your survey campaign up and running within minutes. What's more, you'll be able to fully customize any of the templates, for instance, to include your branding or add more questions. And, with our 10-day free trial of Business Plan features, there is no excuse not to collect feedback from your customers.

Join Survicate for free and gain access to essential features during our 10-day trial. Unearth valuable customer feedback insights and take a look at our pricing to find the right plan for your business.

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