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100+ Market Research Questions to Ask Your Customers

Author & Editor at ProProfs

Shivani Dubey specializes in crafting engaging narratives and exploring Customer Experience Management intricacies. She writes on vital topics like customer feedback, emerging UX and CX trends, and sentiment analysis.

100+ Market Research Questions to Ask Your Customers

Asking the right market research questions can help you understand your target customers and map their behavior and preferences.

But what does it actually mean?

Let’s look at a sample from a market research survey report for mapping brand awareness:

From this simple Q&A report, you can:

Visualize the proportions of demographic segments among your audience.
Measure how your brand is performing in comparison to others.
Pick the top preferred brand among the customers, explore what makes it stand out, and apply the same techniques to your brand.
See how your target market perceives brand advertisements and promotional efforts.

Now imagine if this type of data set is available for different aspects of your business – product development, marketing campaigns, optimization plans, and more.

That’s what market research does for you.

With the evolution of customer interaction points and constantly changing market trends, more and more businesses are fueling efforts to do in-depth market research, as evidenced by the steady increase in the revenue of the market research industry worldwide.

research questions that you can ask potential customers

Market research can help you develop essential business strategies and maintain a competitive advantage over other brands to increase conversions and customer base.

And it all starts with asking the right questions to the right audience.

That’s why we have created this collection of 100+ market research questions to ask your target market. Each question aims to uncover a specific attribute about your customers. You can use a combination of these customer research survey questions, interviews, and othe marketing questionnaires for customers.

We have also added key tips to help you write your own effective market analysis questions if the needed.

100+ Great Market Research Questions to Ask Your Customers

The main challenge while designing and conducting research is – “What questions should I ask in my customer research survey?

That’s why we have a carefully curated list of market research questions to help you get started.

To Explore New Product Opportunities

What was your first reaction to the product?
Would you purchase this product if it were available today?
What feature would you like to see on the website/product?
Which feature do you think will help improve the product experience for you?
Of these four options, what’s the next thing you think we should build?
What’s the one feature we can add that would make our product indispensable for you?
Would implementing [this feature] increase the usability of the [product name]?
Please let us know how we can further improve this feature.
What problem would you like to solve with our product?

To Collect Feedback on Existing Products

Have you heard of [product name or category] before?
How would you feel if [product name] was no longer available?
How disappointed would you be if you could no longer use [Product/feature name?]
How often do you use [product name]?
How long have you been using [product name] for?
When was the last time you used [product name]?
Please rate the following product features according to their importance to you.
According to you, In which area is this product/service lacking the most? Specify below.
How does the product run after the update?
Rate our product based on the following aspects:
Have you faced any problems with the product? Specify below.
What feature did you expect but not find?
How are you planning to use [product or service]?
How satisfied are you with the product?

To Segment the Target Market

Please specify your age.

Please specify your gender.
Select your highest level of education.
What is your current occupation?
What is your monthly household income?
What is your current marital status?

What is the name of your company?
Where is your company’s headquarters located?
Please specify the number of employees that work in your company.
What is your job title?
In which location do you work?
Which activity do you prefer in your free time?
Which other physical activities do you take part in?
Where is your dream holiday destination?
Please rate the following as per their priority in your life – Family, work, and social life?
Are you happy with your current work-life balance?
Do you describe yourself as an optimist or a pessimist?
How often do you give to charity?
How do you travel to work?
How do you do your Holiday shopping?

To Conduct a Competition Analysis

Which product/service would you consider as an alternative to ours?
Rate our competitor based on the following:
Have you seen any website/product/app with a similar feature?
How would you compare our products to our competitors?
Why did you choose to use our [product] over other options?
Compared to our competitors, is our product quality better, worse, or about the same?
Which other options did you consider before choosing [product name]?
Please list the top three things that persuaded you to use us rather than a competitor.
According to you, which brand best fits each of the following traits.

To Gauge Brand Awareness

[Your brand name] Have you heard of the brand before?
How do you feel about this brand?
How did you hear about us?
Describe [brand name] in one sentence.
If yes, please tell us what you like the most about [your brand name]?
If no, please specify the reason.
How likely are you to purchase a product from this company again?
If yes, where have you seen or heard about our brand recently? (Select all that apply)
Do you currently use the product of this brand?
Have you purchased from this brand before?
Of all the brands offering similar products, which do you feel is the best brand?
Please specify what makes it the best brand for you in the category.
Which of the following products have you tried? (Select all that apply)
On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely would you recommend this brand to a friend or colleague?

To Map Customers’ Preferences

Have you ever boycotted a brand? If so, which brand and why?
What influences your purchase decision more – price or quality of the item?
How many hours do you spend on social media like Facebook, Instagram, etc.?
How do you do your monthly grocery shopping – online or through outlets?
How do you search for the products you want to buy?
Rate the factors that affect your buying decision for [product].
What persuaded you to purchase from us?
How likely are you to purchase a product from us again?
Please rate the following aspects of our product based on their importance to you.
What is the most important value our product offers to you?
Which of the following features do you use least?
How well does the product meet your needs?

To Map Customers’ Reservations

Is there anything preventing you from purchasing at this point?
What’s preventing you from starting a trial?
Do you have any questions before you complete your purchase?
What is the main reason you’re canceling your account?
What are your main reasons for leaving?
What was your biggest fear or concern about purchasing from us?
What is the problem that the product/service helped to solve for you?
What problems did you encounter while using our [product]?
How easy did we make it to solve your problem?
What is your greatest concern about [product]?
Have you started using other similar products? If yes, what made you choose that product?

To Perform Pricing Analysis

Would you purchase the product at [price]
According to you, what should be the ideal price of the [product name]?
Is our product pricing clear?
According to you, what is the ideal price range for the product?

To Collect Feedback on Website Copy

Please rate the website based on the following aspects:
How well does the website meet your needs?
Was the information easy to find?
Was the information clearly presented?
What other information should we provide on our website?
How can we make the site easier to use?
What could we do to make this site more useful?
Is there anything on this site that doesn’t work the way you expected it to?
How easy was it to find the information you were looking for?
Have feedback or an idea? Leave it here!
Help us make the product better. Please leave your feedback.

To Assess Website/Product Usability

Are you satisfied with the website layout?
What features do you think are missing on our website?
What features do you not like on our website?
Was our website navigation simple and user-friendly?
How much time did it take to find what you were looking for on our website?
Was it easy to find the products you are looking for?
Was the payment process convenient?

To Uncover Market Trends and Industry Insights

Did you purchase our product out of peer influence or individual preference?
How do you form your opinion about our product?
Do you follow trends of the product, or do you prefer to go with what you know?
Do discounts or incentives impact your decision-making process?

Market Research Survey Templates

One of the easiest ways to conduct market research is to use survey templates. They can help you save time and effort in creating your own market research surveys.

There are many types of market research survey templates available, depending on your objectives and target audience. Some of the most popular ones are:

Demographic Templates: These templates help you segment your customers based on their location. It can help you tailor your marketing strategies and offers to different customer groups.

Consumer Behavior Templates: These templates help you keep your pulse on your target market.

Industry Insights Templates: These templates help you get detailed information about your target industry and business.

Breakdown of Different Market Research Questions

The answer choices in a market research survey question can significantly impact the quality and reliability of the response data you collect from the audience.

Some answer types help categorize the audience, while others measure their satisfaction or agreement.

So, before listing the customer research survey questions to ask your target audience, let’s understand their types:

Multiple Choice

A multiple-choice question type lets users select more than one answer from the given options. These questions are great for collecting multiple data sets using the same question and gauging people’s preferences, opinions, and suggestions .

Single Choice

In a single-choice question, the respondent can select only one answer from the given options. This question type is great for:

Segregating the users.
Prioritizing product updates based on user consensus.
Disqualifying irrelevant respondents by placing the question at the start of your customer research survey.

Matrix Match

A matrix matching grid can combine multiple market research questions into one to make the survey shorter . There is only one condition – the individual questions should have the same response anchors as shown in the image below:

The questions are arranged in rows while the answer options occupy the grid columns.

Ranking Question

A ranking question can help map customers’ preferences and set priorities for product development . This question type asks the respondent to arrange the given options in their decreasing/increasing preference.

Dichotomous

A dichotomous question poses a simple yes or no scenario to the respondent. These question types can help disqualify irrelevant people from the survey and categorize the users into two groups .

Likert Scale

Likert scale market research questions can help you measure the extent of respondents’ agreement/disagreement with the given statement . The answer options are arranged from positive to negative sentiments or vice-versa, with the neutral option in the middle.

There are two types of Likert scales: 5-point and 7-point .

Open-ended market questions let you explore the respondents’ minds without adding any restrictions to the answer . This question type is followed by a blank space for the respondent to add a free-text response.

You can add an open-ended question as a follow-up after the first question to explore the reasons for the customer’s previous answer. It also lets you collect more in-depth information about their issues, pain points, and delights.

Tools like Qualaroo offer tons of different question types for your surveys. Just pick the question and match its answer option type from the drop-down. To make it more effective, you can add branching to the survey.

How to Write Your Marketing Research Questions

It’s imperative to have a dedicated repository of market research questions for your surveys. But nothing’s better than crafting your questions.

For this, you need to sit with your team and discuss what information you require from the customers. It lets you analyze and document how much data you already have in your system, which can help set the market research scope.

We have listed some questions you need to ask yourself before asking market research questions to your potential customers or target market:

Audience Segmentation Questions

Audience segmentation questions help to size up your target market and provide a granular view of the audience . Not all customers are equal, and audience segmentation makes it possible to focus on each group individually to address their issues, fears, and expectations.

Here’s what you need to know before you start writing customer research survey questions to understand your audience:

Do we understand the demographics of the new market we are trying to target? (Age, location, ethnicity, education, company, annual income, etc.)
What are the locations that drive the most customers to our business? How are these locations different from others?
What are the interests, preferences, and fears of people from our new target market? Have we addressed these situations for our current customer base?
What are the psychographics attributes of the current customers and potential market? Are we targeting these in our campaigns?
What are the most popular engagement channels for our customers? Which channels drive the most traffic to our website?
Do we have enough data to perform value segmentation to separate high-value customers from low-value customers?
How often do these high-value customers make a purchase?

Product-Based Market Research Questions

Product-based market research questions can produce precious insights to channel into your product development and optimization strategies . You can see how changing technology affects customers’ behavior, what new features they want to see in your product, and how they perceive your products and services over the competition.

Start by gathering information about the following:

How does our product compare to the competition based on the features?
What products do our competitors offer?
What new features do customers want to see in our products? Do we have a product roadmap to deliver these updates?
What unique solutions do our products offer? What is the value proposition that reflects this offering?
Does our product incorporate the latest technological advancements?
What channels do we use to collect product feedback from our users?
What are customers’ preferences while choosing our products over competitors?

Pricing Market Research Questions

Pricing analysis can help you make your product more affordable to different customer segments while maintaining the desired gross margin. It also lets you restructure the pricing tiers to provide features depending on the customers’ requirements and company size .

Watch: (1/5) Supercharge Your Revenue With Data-Driven Pricing

Your sales and marketing team can help you hone in on the market research questions to ask your customers for running pricing analysis:

Do the customers ever complain about the difficulty in finding the pricing information?
What is the pricing structure of our competitors for the same products? What features do they include for a specific price?
How do customers find our pricing when compared to the competitors?
Do our products provide value for money to the customers? Does the sales pitch reflect this point?
Can we restructure the pricing, and how will it affect the revenue?
Are there any customer segments that have high-value potential but find the current pricing unaffordable? What are the plans for such customers?
Are we in a situation to offer a basic free plan to encourage customers to try our product before upgrading?
What promotions can we run to attract more customers?
Should we target customers based on income, company size, or type of solution to set our product prices?

Brand Reputation Market Research Questions

A brand reputation questionnaire for marketing research gives you information on how well your target market knows about your brand. You can uncover previously unidentified channels to increase brand awareness and find potential customers to promote your brand .

Start by gauging what customers are saying about your brand:

Which channels receive mentions of our brand? Are these posts positive or negative?
Do we have a system in place to analyze and monitor these reviews and posts?
What are the reviews of our brand on different sites? What is the overall impression of our brand in the market?
How are we currently addressing the negative reviews and complaints? What do our customers think about the handling process?
What is the impression of our brand in our target market?
What brand awareness campaigns are our competitors running?
Is our brand among the top choices of our target customers?

Advertisement & Campaign-Based Questions

These customer research survey questions let you assess the effectiveness of your current value propositions and campaigns . You can channel the customer insights into your advertising strategies to design targeted campaigns for different customer segments to reduce the overall acquisition cost and increase conversions.

Ask the following questions to collect information about the different marketing campaigns that are performing:

What are the best modes to run the advertisement campaigns to reach our target audience?
What is the estimated lifetime value of customers acquired from current campaigns? Is it higher or lower than the acquisition costs?
Which campaigns bring the most ROI and why?
How well do our advertisements present our value proposition to the customers? Do they address customers’ fears and expectations to attract them?
Are we running A/B tests to improve our online campaigns? How are we gathering data to build the A/B test hypotheses – surveys, heatmaps, eye tracking, etc.?
What advertisement campaigns do our competitors run?

7 Question Types to Use in Market Research Surveys

We mentioned earlier that market research questions provide important data for different operations like product development, marketing campaigns, sales pipeline and more.

But to what extent?

Let’s break it down to individual processes and understand how insights from customer research surveys can impact them:

To Know Your Target Market

Understanding your target audience is the fundamental aspect of market research, be it a new target market or existing customers. If you know what marketing research survey questions to ask your target market, you can identify different customer types’ unique traits and preferences.

The data can help you segment the users based on demographic, psychographic, geographic, and other attributes. These include their behavior, purchase preferences, age, location, habits, delights, frustrations, and more.

You can then create various customer personas and fuel your sales strategies to maximize ROI.

Case study – How Avis increased its revenue per customer

Avis, a leading car rental company, was looking to enhance customer experience by offering useful car add-ons like navigation systems, child seats, insurance, etc., to customers with their booking. So, it reached out to AWA Digital to find a way to promote these products and increase their sales.

AWA digital implemented customer research campaigns using targeted surveys to determine which add-ons were popular among the customers and why.

Using these insights, the team added an interstitial pop-up just before the booking page to show relevant add-ons to the customers.

This simple update dramatically increased the sales of add-on items and helped Avis generate more revenue per customer.

Read the entire case study here .

To Plan the Product Roadmap

A product roadmap is a visual representation of the current status of your product and planned updates over time. It shows a high-level summary of planned activities and priorities for different teams to take the product to the next level.

Steve Jobs famously said – “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backward to the technology. You can’t start with the technology then try to figure out where to sell it.”

And market research helps to align your product strategies with the customer demand. Using targeted marketing survey questions, you can gauge what new features or functionality customers want to see in your products.

It helps to plan product development strategies based on customers’ consensus to prioritize the ideas that can have the most impact on customers and replace intuition-based approaches with data-backed decisions.

Customers’ demands change with market trends and technological advancements. That’s why your product map also needs to evolve constantly with time to reflect these changes in your product development cycle.

By designing targeted market research questions to ask the customers, you can uncover their expectations to deliver optimal product solutions.

That’s what our next case study demonstrates.

Case study – How customer research drives Twilio’s operations

Twilio, a cloud communications platform places customer discovery and research at the core of their product development strategies. It helps its teams to anticipate customer needs in a constantly changing market.

Lack of time and budget are the two biggest challenges that the company faces in its product development cycle. So, the team uses targeted market research questionnaires for a product to understand the challenges the customers face today and the ones they will face tomorrow.

With an abundance of ideas and no time to test them all, the feedback data from surveys is used to prioritize the hypotheses to run the tests. It makes the process more efficient and effective in producing positive results.

This data-backed approach is used across 18 different teams at Twilio to release new functionality every week and deliver optimal solutions to the clients.

Read the complete case study here .

To Reduce Acquisition Costs

Your customer base consists of multiple customer segments with different preferences and purchase potential. That’s why you cannot sell to everyone and need to find the right audience for your products.

If an acquired customer doesn’t bring in more revenue than it costs to acquire them, it will increase your acquisition costs over time.

We don’t want that, do we?

For example, let’s say you are targeting the entire market population using the same campaign. If your acquisition cost per customer is $300 and you acquire 20 customers from one campaign, you need to make more than $6000 to register profits.

The difficulty is you don’t know about these customers’ purchase behavior and capacity, so you cannot be sure if you will reach your goals. It adds unnecessary risks to your marketing ventures.

But, if you were targeting a specific segment with high income, regular shopping habits, or proven history of brand loyalty, You can obtain better results.

Now, the question is –

How will you separate these potential long-term customers from one-time buyers and high-value targets from other segments?

One way to do this is by building customer personas using the data from the market research survey questions. A buyer persona defines different attributes of a particular customer segment so you can hone in on the right audience to funnel your marketing efforts.

Here’s what a typical persona includes:

Target regions
Target demographic (age, marital status, gender)
Ideal psychographics (hobbies, social channels, activities they indulge in, goals)
Preferred interaction channels
Favorite brands and products
Total revenue till date
Estimated lifetime value

Once you have a clearer picture of different customers, you can find high-value prospects with the potential to be long-term customers looking for product solutions that your business offers.

You can then design the correct pitch using the market research data to bring in these customers and control the overall acquisition costs.

For example:

Plugin the demographic and psychographic data into CRM software like BIGContacts or Salesforce to convert high-value targets.
Use your CRM to create segmented lists of prospects based on estimated value, location, current status, and more. Then target these groups individually with personalized value propositions to increase conversion rates.
Identify their preferred mode of communication and technographic inclinations to find the right opportunities to pitch your product offering at the precise moment.

Even if acquiring and retaining such customers costs more, their overall revenue can balance the acquisition costs to deliver higher profits.

To Design Targeted Marketing Campaigns

By knowing how your target audience behaves and interacts with your business, you can find the exact opportunities to target them with personalized campaigns.

You can use mail campaigns to target website users with app-exclusive offers to encourage them to download your app and improve app adoption.
Add in-app broadcast messages about upcoming offers, exclusive membership benefits, and other incentives for new users to push them towards the end of the funnel.
Create multiple landing pages to target different customer types.
Design location-based ad campaigns with personalized value propositions based on audience preferences and problems at each location.

Case Study – How Canon’s campaigns generated 700% ROI

AWA digital was tasked by Canon, one of the biggest electronics companies worldwide, to assess and increase the demand for their products in different geographies. So, the AWA team conducted customer research using target market survey questions and discovered the following attributes about customers’ purchase behavior and reservations:

In some regions, people were reluctant to spend money on a Canon camera as they weren’t sure if Canon was an authoritative brand.
In other regions, authority was not as important to the users.

Using these insights, AWA optimized the ads campaigns’ messaging for different locations to include what consumers deemed important purchase factors.

The results?

With in-depth customer feedback, Canon generated an overall ROI of 700% in all regions using personalized campaigns to target the audience.

To Improve Brand Awareness

Whether you are into soft drinks or not, You probably would have heard of Coca-Cola’s 2011 Share-A-Coke ad. This single campaign put the Coke brand back on the map and reversed the 10-year steady decline in sales in the US.

Coke understood what motivates their customers and delivered a product offering that appealed to the masses to increase its brand equity- the excitement to get a Coca-Cola bottle with their name on it.

How did they do it?

In 2011, Coca-Cola rolled out its share-a-coke campaign in Australia. The company debranded the traditional Coke logo from the bottle and replaced it with the phrase “Share a Coke with” followed by a name.

The campaign used the list of the country’s most popular names (nicknames). The purpose was to make people go out and find the Coke bottle with their name on it and share it with their friends. The campaign was subsequently rolled out in 80 countries.

How did it impact Coca-Cola as a brand:

In Australia, it’s estimated that the campaign increased Coke’s share by 4% and increased consumption among young adults by 7%.
#ShareACoke became the top trending hashtag on Twitter globally and received over 1 billion impressions.
In the USA, the campaign increased Coke’s market share by over 2% and brought 11% more sales compared to the previous year.

It’s not limited to big brands only.

Understanding the customers and placing your product’s value offering along with their habits, lifestyle, and behavior can help you extend your brand’s reach.

Today, there are multiple touchpoints to connect with your customers and map their journey to uncover their issues, motivations, and fears to address in your campaigns.

Monitor brand mentions on social media and engage with the users to cultivate an online community and promote your brand.
Reach out to satisfied customers and turn them into your brand ambassadors.
Use targeted ad campaigns that connect people’s emotions and general behavior to imprint your brand’s image in their minds.

Quick Tips for Writing Awesome Market Research Survey Questions

With the inter-team research complete, you are ready to write your own market research questions to ask your target audience. Keep these general dos and don’ts in mind to ensure that the market survey fulfills the purpose without affecting the data quality or response rate.

Use Mutually Exclusive Response Options

If you are using response anchors with specific ranges like age group or income, check that the options do not overlap . Otherwise, it will produce an irregular data set.

Please specify your age:

In the above example, the respondent lying on either extremity of the given age ranges may get confused on which option to choose. For example, a 28-year-old respondent can choose from both second or third options.

Plus, two different respondents of the same age may select different options, which will skew your demographic data.

You can avoid this confusion by creating mutually exclusive groups as shown below:

Always Add A “Not Applicable” Or “Rather Not Say” Option

Since market research questions extract personal information, some respondents may not want to share such details with you. These include questions about age, income, gender, hobbies, social activities, and more.

Forcing such questions on the customers without allowing them to skip can irate them and lead to survey abandonment .

That’s why you can also use Qualaroo’s skip and branching logic to create smart surveys that only ask relevant questions to your respondents based on their previous answers.

Calculate the Required Sample Size

Sample size plays a vital role in your market research questions to determine the reliability of your response data.

If the response volume is low, the results may not be conclusive to point towards customers’ consensus. On the other hand, a larger sample size than required means a waste of the company’s valuable resources and time.

That’s why it’s important to calculate the required sample size to estimate the number of responses you need for your market research survey questions.

You can use any survey sample size calculator available online to get started. Just fill in the required details to get the required sample size.

For example, to reach a statistical significance of 99%, you need at least 3145 responses to your market research questionnaire.

Consider Adding Incentives

Studies show that incentivized customer research surveys or questionnaires fetch higher response rates than general surveys.

The incentives encourage customers to invest their time in a survey and get something in return.

It means creating a gated questionnaire for market research can help you reach the required sample size quickly . The incentive can be a simple discount code, free shipping coupon, free ebook, or other freebies.

However, there is a possibility that irrelevant respondents may fill out the survey randomly just to get to the offer, which may skew the results. You can use screening questions to filter out unsuitable respondents.

Avoid Double-Barreled Market Research Questions

A double-barreled question poses two questions into one. The problem with such questions is that the respondent may have opposing views about the two statements in the questions. It makes it harder for them to choose one answer from the options .

“Please rate the [product name] on a scale of 1-10 based on overall quality and price?”

Here, the respondent may find the product quality appreciable while thinking it to be overpriced at the same time. In such a case, they may skip the question or select any option randomly.

You can easily sidestep this hurdle by breaking your double-barreled market research question into two to make it less confusing for the respondents.

Importance of Market Research

We mentioned earlier that market research questions provide important data for different operations like product development, marketing campaigns, sales pipeline, and more.

Understanding your target audience is the fundamental aspect of market research, be it a new target market or existing customers. If you know what customer research survey questions to ask your target market, you can identify different customer types’ unique traits and preferences.

AWA Digital implemented research campaigns using targeted customer research surveys to determine which add-ons were popular among the customers and why.

Steve Jobs famously said – “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backward to the technology. You can’t start with the technology and then try to figure out where to sell it.”

And market research helps to align your product strategies with the customer demand. Using targeted customer research survey questions, you can gauge what new features or functionality customers want to see in your products.

Image Source: Slide Team

By designing targeted market research questions to ask the customers, you can uncover their expectations to deliver optimal product solutions.

Case study – How customer research drives Twilio’s operations

Twilio, a cloud communications platform, places customer discovery and research at the core of its product development strategies. It helps its teams to anticipate customer needs in a constantly changing market.

With an abundance of ideas and no time to test them all, the feedback data from customer research surveys is used to prioritize the hypotheses to run the tests. It makes the process more efficient and effective in producing positive results.

Your customer base comprises multiple customer segments with different preferences and purchase potential. That’s why you cannot sell to everyone and need to find the right audience for your products.

For example, let’s say you target the entire market using the same campaign. If your acquisition cost per customer is $300 and you acquire 20 customers from one campaign, you must make over $6000 to register profits.

But, if you were targeting a specific segment with high income, regular shopping habits, or a proven history of brand loyalty, you could obtain better results.

Now, the question is –

Image Source: brightspark

Plug the demographic and psychographic data into CRM software like BIGContacts or Salesforce to convert high-value targets.
Use your CRM to create segmented lists of prospects based on estimated value, location, current status, and more. Then, target these groups individually with personalized value propositions to increase conversion rates.

Add in-app broadcast messages about upcoming offers, exclusive membership benefits, and other incentives for new users to push them toward the end of the funnel.

AWA Digital was tasked by Canon, one of the biggest electronics companies worldwide, to assess and increase the demand for their products in different geographies. So, the AWA team conducted a customer research survey using target market questions and discovered the following attributes about customers’ purchase behavior and reservations:

In other regions, authority was not so important to the users.

Whether you are into soft drinks or not, you probably would have heard of Coca-Cola’s 2011 Share-A-Coke ad. This single campaign put the Coke brand back on the map and reversed the 10-year steady decline in sales in the US.

Coke understood what motivates its customers and delivered a product offering that appealed to the masses to increase its brand equity- the excitement to get a Coca-Cola bottle with its name on it.

In Australia, it’s estimated that the campaign increased Coke’s share by 4% and consumption among young adults by 7%.

It’s not limited to big brands only.

Market Research: A Key to Your Business’ Success

Market research is a vital process for any business wanting to understand its customers and market better. By asking the right questions and using the right tools like Qualaroo, you can gain valuable insights that can help you improve your products or services, enhance your customer experiences, and grow your business.

In this blog, we have shared some of the best market research questions to ask your customers, as well as some of the best customer research survey templates to find market trends and industry insights. We hope that this blog has helped you learn more about market research and how to conduct it effectively.

About the author

Shivani dubey.

Shivani has more than 3 years of experience in the modern creative content paradigm and technical writing verticals. She has been published in The Boss Magazine, Reseller Club, and HR Technologist. She is passionate about Artificial Intelligence and has a deep understanding of how organizations can leverage customer support technologies for maximum success. In her free time, she enjoys Nail art, playing with her guinea pigs, and chilling with a bowl of cheese fries.

99 Market Research Questions You Should Be Asking

Asking the right market research questions at the right time can pay dividends. You wouldn’t buy a house without first researching the neighborhood – and it’s unlikely you’d take a job without doing your homework on your prospective employer. So why should starting a business be any different?

Whichever way you look at it, asking the right market research questions makes sense as a first step.

The five parts of market research: definition, methods, steps & tips, examples and importance & benefits.

Do you want to gain a foothold in the market? Get to grips with the competition? Start thinking like your target audience? Introduce a new product or mobile app?

Whatever your goal, market research will help you understand all aspects of your industry, brand, potential customers, and rivals – good market questions can make a world of difference.

Below, we’ll walk you through 99 questions to ask for market research to succeed in the digital world. We started out as a research intelligence tool , so we know our stuff when it comes to defining a market, mapping key players, marketing strategies , and understanding trends , and target audiences.

So read on for all the questions your market research strategy needs – and how Similarweb can help you answer them.

How to choose market research questions

The market research questions you pick will depend on where your business is in its lifecycle. As we’ll get to in a moment, there are a lot of market research questions – so how exactly do you choose?

Pre-start-up – If you’ve not launched a business yet, and are just cultivating an idea – you’ll want to start with some formal market research first. Then, ask more general market research questions, and some targeted at start-ups. This will help you determine if there’s a financially viable market, whether it has blockbuster prospects, or is better off left in the cutting room.

Early start-up – If you’ve just started out, you’ll want to reach out to your target market with survey questions to help you tailor your products and services to them.

Established – If you’ve been around a little longer – and already have a few current customers – you’ll want to learn more about how you can keep improving your customer experience.

Finally, you can look at questions to ask for market research that focus on competitor analysis. These aren’t limited to any particular stage of your business’s journey. After all, getting clued up on the competitive landscape is always handy – whether you’ve just entered the market or are one of its most established players.

A business person conducting market research, analyzing graphs and evaluating data.

99 market research questions: discover, define, drill down

There’s no need to limit yourself! The best types of market research should – and do – include general questions and those addressing both existing and prospective customers. Indeed, an intelligent approach to market research should cover demographic questions all the way to those that’ll help you plan a product launch , drill down into your target market , and get the jump on your competitors.

Read on to see the best examples of market research questions in action!

Generic market research questions

These questions are most useful at the planning stage. They can apply to all businesses at any stage because markets shift, along with consumer behaviors, needs, and demands.

General market research is the process of figuring out how rich the soil is and whether the conditions are optimal to allow your business’s roots to take hold.

Some general market research questions you should be asking include:

1. How large is my product’s total addressable market (TAM)? 2. Will this market hold firm, or will it grow or decrease with time? 3. Are there already similar products or services out there? 4. If so, who’s offering them? (see the competitor analysis questions below for more) 5. Who are my buyer personas ? 6. What pain points does my product address? 7. How much market share is available for my business to take? 8. What external factors might affect the health and viability of my chosen market? 9. Which website demographics will I target? 10. Will I market my product internationally or target a specific geographical location or a single location (if so, why?) 11. Do I need to consider a website alone, or should I invest in a mobile app? (use mobile app intelligence to help to figure this one out) 12. Which suppliers or manufacturers operate in the space, and are they reputable? 13. Which marketing channels will I prioritize, and which affiliates or advertisers could I look to in order to expand my reach?

Market research questions for start-ups

Regardless of your sector, there are key things you need to establish before setting up a business. Read on to discover the fifteen market research questions all start-ups need to ask.

14. What is the total addressable market (tam), serviceable available market (sam), and share of market (som)? 15. What are the latest (and predicted) trends impacting your market? 16. Do you know who your direct and indirect competitors are?

Read through questions 71-99 for examples of market research questions to help you with this.

17. What’s your USP in the market? What’s the value-add that’ll make you stand out? 18. What do your competitors charge, and will you charge the same, more, or less?

You’ll also need to consider pricing models. For instance, pay-monthly, annual subscription, or other?

19. Do you know how much people are willing to pay for a product/service like yours? 20. Can you trial your product or service with a beta group before launch to get feedback and/or testimonials? 21. What are the most effective marketing channels for businesses like yours? 22. How active are your customers and competitors on social media? 23. How will you onboard/welcome new customers? 24. Do rivals offer new customer or loyalty discounts? 25. What kind of customer support will you offer? Look at your rival’s offerings and decide whether you want to stick with the same or do better. 26. Are potential customers driven by price, product, or service? 27. Are your competitors or market impacted by seasonal trends ? 28. What opening hours and service level agreements (SLAs) will you advertise on your site?

Market research questions for a new product

Whether established, pre-launch or newly set up, you may need to ask specific market research questions for a new product launch. Whether you simply want to test the water with an idea or concept or go a little deeper to get clearer insights, these questions will help.

29. Is there a specific pain point your product will address? (if you have already identified an ideal customer, what kinds of things do they struggle with?) 30. Is there a demand for your product in the market? 31. Are there any opportunities to partner with other companies to get referrals for your product? 32. How do you plan to market and launch your product? 33. Will you release a minimum viable product (MVP) to market first?

If you release an MVP or offer a free trial to a select group of people, you’ll need to follow this up with a survey or specific questions to get feedback around usage, benefits, and improvements. A few examples of market research questions like these could include:

34. Which feature of the product did you use the most? 35. What improvements would you like to see? 36. How much would you be willing to pay for this product? 37. Was the product easy to use? 38. Was there anything you experienced during the trial that may deter you from using our product in the future? 39. How often did you use the product? 40. Would you recommend this product to someone else? If yes, why? If no, why?

Market research questions for your target audience

Once you’re sure there’s a viable market for your business, it’s time to drill down into that market – your audience and website demographics .

The six aspects of audience demographics: education level, hobbies or interests, financial situation, profession, age, and gender.

To begin, you’ll want to ask your respondents a few demographic questions to understand the basics. These might include:

41. How old are you? 42. Which gender do you identify as (if any)? 43. What’s your level of education? 44. What’s your profession? 45. What’s your household size? 46. What is your household income? 47. Which ethnic/cultural group do you identify with? 48. Where do you live? 49. Do you have any dependents? 50. What are your hobbies?

These questions provide a top-level understanding of your target audience . So, you can then utilize psychographic segmentation to dig a little deeper. These inquiries are designed to draw out your customers’ attitudes, lifestyles, likes, dislikes, motivations, and beliefs – particularly if they relate to your product or service.

The goal? To match your business with its ideal customer . Examples of these types of market research questions include:

51. Do you actively seek out new experiences or prefer to stick with what you know? 52. What do you most enjoy doing in your free time? 53. What was the last big-ticket item you purchased? 54. Have you ever boycotted a brand? If so, which brand – and why? 55. Which matters more when you make a purchase – price or quality? 56. Would you rather have more time or money? 57. How do you like to make purchases – do you prefer apps or web-based services? 58. How do you prefer to seek customer support? 59. What’s your main source of information?

For a more detailed deep dive into the above, see our guide on the what and why of market segmentation – and how to become a pro at it!

The definition of market segmentation is “the process of dividing a broad target market into smaller, more specifically defined groups.

Market research questions for your customers

So, you’ve established the market for your product, nailed your target audience, and now… you’ve got customers! Congrats – that’s a surefire sign that you’re on the right track.

But simply having new customers isn’t enough. To be truly successful, you’ll need to maintain engagement , foster loyalty to your product, and keep your customers coming back for more – in other words, build your brand.

Fortunately, this is where market research can help. By asking your existing customers a few questions, you can find out what you’re doing well, what you could be doing better, and – crucially – what your brand means to them. With this knowledge, you can do more of what your customers love, and identify key areas for improvement.

Here are some of the market research questions you can ask your customers to get useful feedback:

60. How did you first hear about our brand? 61. What made you choose us? 62. How long have you been a customer? 63. How would you rate your most recent experience with us? 64. Did we answer all your questions and requests for support? 65. Would you use us again? 66. How likely are you to recommend us to a friend? 67. What do you wish our product could do? 68. Do you believe our product is priced fairly? 69. What’s the maximum you’d pay for this kind of product? 70. What do you like most about our product?

Explore our complete guide to audience development for more tips, tricks, and strategies around this type of customer analysis.

Market research questions for competitor analysis

Death, taxes, and… competition .

Yep – no matter how original or innovative your idea is, pretty soon, there’ll be hordes of wannabes targeting the same space with similar products, and guess who they’ll be targetting? Your customers.

So how do you keep your friends close and your competition even closer?

Well, a SWOT analysis is a good place to start. It involves swotting up on your business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It’s a heady mix of evaluating your business and the external factors that could affect it. So it’s naturally a great place to get your competitor analysis and benchmarking off the mark.

The definition of SWOT is strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

You could also begin by asking yourself the following market research questions:

71. Who are our main competitors? 72. What are they doing that we’re not? 73. What’s our unique value proposition? 74. How much web traffic do our competitors receive? 75. Do they have a mobile app? If so, is it on iOS or android? How many monthly or daily active users do they have? 76. What’s their bounce rate ? 77. Which keywords and search terms do they target? 78. Which marketing channels do they prioritize, and how frequently do they advertise? 79. How do the backlink profiles of our competitors compare to our own? 80. Are our competitors seen as more authoritative in the space? 81. What kind of content do our competitors produce? 82. How do our competitors attract customers? 83. What are the unique selling points of our competitors? 84. What do our competitors charge? 85. What social media channels do our competitors use? 86. What kind of discounts and promotions do our competitors run? 87. Which sources and affiliates drive traffic to our competitors’ sites? 88. How does our business model compare to those of our rivals?

Remember, your customers are a potential goldmine of information about your competitors . Reach out to your client base with the following market research questions:

89. Who do you seek advice from when shopping for this kind of product? 90. Are you loyal to a particular brand in the space? 91. If so, what do you love most about this brand? 92. Is there anything that this brand could do better? 93. How did you find the last product you bought in the industry? 94. Is there anything you see our competitors doing that you’d like us to do? 95. What’s most likely to make you buy a product from another brand? 98. Can you tell us the top three things that made you choose us over a competitor? 99. What one thing matters most to you when deciding between brands that offer the same product?

You may also consider including some open-ended questions so you can hear from your loyal customers in their own words. Market research surveys are a great way to uncover and collect this type of data.

If you’re unsure where to start, learn about the seven types of competitor analysis frameworks – and how to use them to get your strategy off the ground.

Similarweb Competitor Analysis Frameworks

Whether you're B2B or B2C, get started with our free and easy to use template

How to answer these questions with Similarweb

Now that you’re armed with the 99 research questions you need to succeed in your market research endeavors, how do you answer them?

Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence is a great place to start. With these tools (which you can try for free) you can effortlessly do market sizing, gauge your audience’s loyalty and engagement rate , uncover mobile app intelligence for your market, improve your site’s retention rates, and more.

Similarweb platform shows the traffic and engagement metrics with its cutting-edge data.

In the same vein, Similarweb can also help you conduct that all-important competitor analysis . You can build a picture of which rival sites your customers frequent and form a data-driven understanding of why.

With Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence, you get an entire suite of market research and analysis tools at your fingertips. You can monitor your industry in real time via a personalized dashboard with on-demand access to industry, company, and consumer trends. With a broad view across web and mobile app intelligence, you can clearly understand the digital landscape that matters to you ( and your customers ) most.

Don’t just take our word for it, though. Check out what Similarweb can do for you today, and start tackling those big questions now!

Level up your market research

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

What is market research?

Market research assesses the viability of a product or service by reaching out to its target market. It can include primary research – such as interviews, focus groups, and questionnaires – and secondary research , like articles and white papers.

What is the best way to ask market research questions to customers?

Because they’re quick to set up, relatively low-cost, and easy to use, market research surveys are a great tool to use if you want to ask a group of people market research questions.

What’s the difference between qualitative and quantitative market research?

While qualitative data is typically mined through close observation with participants – such as in focus groups or face-to-face interviews – quantitative processes tend to involve larger-scale data grabbing. This could use forms, surveys, polls, or questionnaires to collect opinions en masse, often via emails or social media.

Qualitative data captures people’s thoughts and feelings – the prevailing sentiment around a product or service. Its quantitative counterpart, however, is more concerned with the cold, hard facts. That could be traffic metrics, engagement levels, bounce rates: anything that paints a data-driven picture!

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

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Market Sizing: Measuring Your TAM, SAM, and SOM

How to Research a Company: The Ultimate Guide

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Fresh Updates: Analyze Entire Companies With Company Analysis

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20 Market Research Questions To Ask In Your Customer Survey

The primary reason you conduct any customer survey with market research questions is to make effective decisions that grow your business by selling more to both existing customers, as well as by acquiring new customers by increasing the effectiveness of your product/service to suit their needs better. But when you take even a closer look, we’re making these decisions because the main objective is to become the obvious choice for that ideal customer. For that to happen and to reach market research goals, you need to ask:

What are Market Research Questions?

Market research questions is a questionnaire that is answered by customers or potential consumers, to understand their perception and opinion on a given subject, typically pertaining to product or service feasibility, understanding consumer needs and interests, and pricing concepts.

LEARN ABOUT: Dealership Marketing Strategies & Tips

For example: A customer survey on market research of an existing product line that focuses on the usefulness of specific features in a product line. Based on the feedback received from this survey, a business can now decide which features to invest and enhance/improve, and which features to relatively defocus/discontinue. This market research , therefore, enables a business to efficiently allocate resources based on real, data-oriented insights from their own customers.

LEARN ABOUT: Test Market Demand

A similar set of market research questions can also be sent to potential consumers of a product, to understand market absorption capability.

LEARN ABOUT: Consumer Surveys

What Market Research Questions should I ask in my Customer Survey?

Who is our ideal customer? These are typically demographic market research questions such as gender survey questions , education level, income level or location. You can expand these questions to find out your customer’s occupation or if your ideal customer is a parent, pet owner. Don’t skimp on demographics or psychographics . If anything, get really creative with them. You might consider conducting a survey with nothing but profiling questions that include where your customers shop, or where they prefer to eat. It’s critical to know as much as possible about your ideal customer so that you can begin focusing your marketing decisions around their preferences.
What do they struggle with? Another root set of data that market researchers are searching for within their ideal customer is “what they struggle with.” What are the 5 to 7 frustrations that they are dealing with when it comes to interacting with our product or service? Suppose you are a golf accessories company and you ask your ideal customer what frustrates them about their golfing experience. In that case, you might get responses such as “expensive golf clubs getting wet during a rainstorm.” If you get enough of those responses, you may consider developing a golf accessory that protects golf clubs in the rain.
What does your ideal customer really WANT? No matter how you phrase the market research questions (and there are countless creative formats) all we really want to know is what our customer will actually purchase as a solution. What is it that they WANT? Of course, they’re NOT going to say that they want something that doesn’t exist yet — in the 1960’s the average person would NOT have known that they wanted a microwave. They wanted hot food fast. One good way to get at these wants is to give your respondents some examples of product offerings and combinations and see how they rate them.
What sets you apart from your competition? Competitive analysis and bench-marking are critical if you want to increase the profitability of your product and build your brand. An effective way to measure or identify differentiators or competitive advantage is to ask Customer Satisfaction questions . The key to asking these market research questions is getting the attributes right. For example “How important is it that your tires have a run-flat safety feature?” instead of asking “How important is it that your car has tires.”For example, A survey can be conducted by either Apple or Samsung to find out how satisfied are the customers with their products and what are the other features that the consumer prefers from the competitive brand. Using such data a company can incorporate features based on the demand and can also benchmark their features that the customers prefer. A Apple vs Samsung Survey Questions template can help to achieve the data required to compare their products with the competition and strategize accordingly .
What benefits do your customers perceive? Because we all choose and purchase based on emotion — it’s important to understand specifically what emotional benefits our customers receive from our products and services. The more we connect with our customers on an emotional level and provide that benefit — the more likely they are to choose us. This is an ideal place to use matrix questions that rate the degree to which customers agree or disagree with a variety of “benefit” statements. Here is an example “I can count on Service X to pull me out of a bind.”
Who is currently buying from us? A very important research metric to track is the “who” is currently buying a product or a service from you. Deriving a pattern from the current purchasing population, helps you target and market to a similar potential demographic. This also is an ideal place to use demographic questions extensively but it also helps if other factors like geographical metrics are tracked. You don’t want to be ignoring your existing customer base and also be smart and agile in attracting new business to your brand.
Why are other people not buying from us? While it is imperative to know who is your potential customer or map your existing customer base, you need to find out who is not buying from you. This information is essential to understand if there are shortcomings in a product or service and at what milestone customers drop out of the purchasing process . This also helps to identify the way your business is conducted, if additional training is required to make a sale or if your product or service lacks in quality. Understanding why people are not buying from you also helps monitor if there is something fundamentally wrong with what you are offering to the masses.
Who can buy from us in the future? It is a known fact that is about 10x more expensive to create a new customer rather than to maintain the one you currently have. That, however, is no reason not to aim for new business. It is therefore important to have a clear picture of your potential future business. Targeting potential customers, is a mix of customer demographics that have purchased from you in the past and a mix of demographics you advertise and market to. It is therefore important to have a well-rounded product or solution. For example, since your barbecue sauces and rubs are famous and widely used in the midwest does not mean they cannot be bought in the southern states.
Why do people buy from you? What value or need does it fulfill? Customers only buy from you because of a perceived value . This value is either what you depict to potential customers or repeat customers have been privy to the value of your product or service. Customers also make a purchase because of the trust they have either in the product or service or the brand or sometimes even certain individuals. It is therefore important that you understand the value of your brand and stick to the morals and ethics of delivering high quality to ensure that the perceived and actual brand quotient is very high. The other reason why customers purchase from you is if their need is fulfilled by what you have on offer. This could either be a direct or an indirect need.
What would make you a perfect brand? No brand can be perfect! But you can surely be close to perfect. What this means is everything about your product or service is easy to use, intuitive, is value for money, scalable and ancillary support is impeccable. All of this is obviously immaterial if the product does not solve a real problem or make life easier for the customer. Having a very high customer oriented focus gives your brand a positive ring and becomes increasingly the go-to brand. You can use a simple Net Promoter Score question to understand how referrable is your brand and who are the promoters and detractors of your brand.
What single aspect about your brand makes it stand out and makes clients trust you? People buy from you or transact with you mostly when there is a high trust factor. Very rarely is the purchasing decision purely based on need or ease of access. To identify and build on that one factor that makes you a preferred buying choice over your competitors is very important. You can map preferred aspects of your brand to age, sex, geographical location , financial limitations etc. because each of those factors can appeal to your brand differently. It is important that you identify and fortify those aspects of your business. Your brand can also be preferred because of other factors like personnel, customer service , ethos and perception amongst peers, consumers and the society alike. Abercrombie & Fitch was a respected brand but lost a lot of market share and goodwill due to CEO’s words in one isolated incident. It takes lots of work and time to build trust but takes none to lose all of it!
What is the best way to communicate with the kind of people you are trying to reach out to? What’s caused the downfall for a lot of brands is the inability to reach out to target customers despite their product or service being impeccable. Not knowing how to reach your target audience or potential customer makes all your hardwork go down the drain. For example, if a new life saving drug is making its way to the market, but medical professionals and doctors don’t know about it or how to administer it and its benefits, about 20 years of work goes down the drain. You need to identify the right channels and avenues to reach out to the people that will consume your product or service.
What do customers make of your product and/or service line? There are a few brands that have one product or service and that rakes in the customers and money for them because of the nature of the product or service. But most brands aren’t this way! They would need to branch out into multiple products or services or very often, a mix of both. It is, therefore important to understand the value of your products and/or services. It is imperative to know if they solve a problem a customer has or make life easier for the customer or any other such reason. This helps in consolidating the customer base.
What improvements could be made to your products or services to have a wider reach? A product or a service has never achieved the maximum number of customers it can get. There always is someone who could use your product or service; maybe not in the form that it currently is but there is scope to scale. This makes it so much more important to collect periodic feedback on what additions your current customer base would like to see in your brand and what can bring in new customers from your competitors. Chipping away at deadwood features and making increased usability tweaks increases the adoption and use of your product and service. For example, a retail store wants to promote the use of its self-service checkout systems. However, a lot of customers still are not opting for the system. There can be many reasons to why the customer is choosing not to use the system, like complex operation, no readability, or even slow speed of the system. To understand the reason, a Usability survey for self-service checkouts can be conducted. This will enable the store to gather first-hand information from the customers and make improvements in the system accordingly.

Learn More: User Interface Survey Template

What is the right price to charge? Pricing a product or service is one of the most important aspects of your business. Pricing right can decide the revenue, brand perception, profitability and adoption of the product or service. Pricing too slow has a negative connotation and may increase in bringing in lower revenue. Pricing high gives the feeling of being elite and then the profitability and revenue hinge on the factors of per unit adoption rather than a very high adoption. Pricing just right is a myth – what someone finds cheap, someone else could find expensive. Where someone finds your product or service value for money, others may find it exorbitant. Hence, it is important to collect extensive feedback from your existing and potential customers about what they think is an ideal price to play. It is also important to conduct due diligence on competitors to map how they price versus the service and product features they provide. These factors will help you come close to an “ideal price” to charge.
What is the vision for the brand? A vision for a brand dictates the level the brand aspires to be and wants to scale up to be. Apple is now a preferred phone because the vision was to be an experience, not a device. The device is the means to ensuring that vision. They wanted to make the ecosystem so robust that any device you use, that familiarity and ease of use is standardized but also stonewall easy. Despite being expensive and facing ridicule during early days due to the ecosystem being different, they are now a one trillion behemoth, more than the GDP of some countries, due to having a vision for the brand.
What is the way to ensure you reach that vision? A vision is easy to have but tough to follow through on. This is because your vision may see many roadblocks and may not be the current flavor of the market, but it is the right thing to stick with it. Innovate in your product and service lines by taking into consideration what your customers want and need and items they themselves don’t know that they need. Despite enduring hardships, if you stick to your vision, it is easier to use that as a launchpad for being an immaculate and preferred brand.
What should the brand branch out into to avoid stagnation or imitation? While launching a product or service, it’s essential to understand where your competitors stand on the same product type or service line. How soon can they catch up to you and imitate your service or product? On the other hand, stagnation brings the ultimate demise of a brand, product, or service line. With little innovation and competitors saturating the market by imitating your product or service line, you’ll soon see your customer base dwindle. To ensure your customers don’t drop out, the key question to ask is, “What next?”. The best way to innovate or bundle your product or service is to understand what your customers struggle with and what value they are looking for. For example, Sony is known for its PlayStations, but competitors like Xbox don’t take long to catch up to their new products. How Sony does manage to stay ahead of the market is by constantly branching into new products and services.
What bundled service or product you can offer in conjunction with yours? Good partnerships are hard to come by, strategic ones are even harder. This question tackles two of your problems, how to offer something new to your customers and how to reduce competitors in market. Your bundled service or product though has to make sense to the use, should complement your brand and cannot be an operational and logistical nightmare for your brand which then makes it counter-productive. Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram to consolidate on social images and short content rich video, is a strategic initiative to increase customer base as well as reduce competition at the same time. The key to building strong brand partnerships is to ensure your vision and product values align. Summing up, offering a bundled service or product in partnership will not only retain the existing customer base but also attract and increase new customers.

No matter why you are conducting a survey, you’ll find these 20 research questions at the core of “WHY” you want to know. Remember, your respondents will read or spend time with absolutely ANYTHING as long as they are at the center. Be sure to keep these 20 questions in mind when creating your survey and everyone involved will save time, aggravation and money. You can use single ease questions . A single-ease question is a straightforward query that elicits a concise and uncomplicated response.

LEARN ABOUT: Marketing Insight

Beyond these 20 market research questions, here are 350+ Market Research Templates for you to use completely free!

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63 Insightful Market Research Questions to Ask in 2023

Better understand your target customer with these must-ask questions.

Understanding your target market, and how they respond to your product, is the key to successful promotional campaigns. Even if you feel like you understand your market perfectly, markets do change over time. Your customers’ opinions, needs, and wants will change along with current trends in society, politics, pop culture, and other influences. Asking the right market research questions can help you stay on top of your changing market.

The market research questions below will help you understand your market’s most pressing concerns , along with potential pain points.

Market research questions to understand customer demographics and psychology

Aside from basic demographic questions, like age, gender, income, and location, you can create a more specific customer profile. Ask these questions to get to know your customers better:

How do you primarily spend your time?
In which industry do you work?
What kind of hobbies do you regularly participate in?
What are your main interests?
If money or time were not an issue, what do you prefer to spend money on?
What draws you to one brand over another?
How do you choose between brands and products?
Who makes the primary purchasing decisions in your household?
How many people do you shop for on a regular basis?
What’s your preferred method of shopping? Why?
What makes you decide to avoid a brand in the future?
How do you feel about available products in [your product category]?
How often do you shop for [your product category]?
How much do you spend on [product category] on a monthly basis?
How do you use [product type] in your everyday life?

Market research questions for new products

If you’re gathering information to create or launch new products, these questions can provide valuable insight:

What do you look for when purchasing [new product or service]?
What is the most important feature for a [product type]?
How does [product type] make your life easier?
How often do you use [product type]?
Describe how you use [product type].
How much would you prefer to spend on a similar product or service?
What features would encourage you to pay more for a product or service?
Are there any features in [similar product or service] that you wouldn’t use?
Do you feel [competing products] are priced fairly?
What would convince you to try a new product or service in this category?

Market research questions for pain points

Understanding how your customers are responding to your current offerings, whether product, service, advertising, or customer service, can help you understand where your business can improve. Ask these questions to learn more:

When was the last time you purchased from [company]?
Describe your experience with your last purchase.
Where did we succeed in meeting your expectations?
Where did we fail in meeting your expectations?
What would make your experience with [product] better?
Are there any features you don’t use?
What would your ideal product or service include?
Have you ever talked to our customer service team?
Describe your reason for needing customer service assistance.
Describe your experience with our customer service team.
Was your issue resolved?
How quickly was your issue resolved?
Were you satisfied with the outcome?
What would have made the experience better?
What’s the most difficult part of using our products or services?
Do you use our website? How do you use it?
Have you experienced any problems contacting us for assistance? What were they?
Have you experienced any problems on our website? What were they?

Market research questions for pricing and placement

Understanding how your product pricing and placement compare to those of your competitors can be helpful. Use these questions to refine your pricing and promotional strategies:

How much do you currently pay for [product type]?
Do you think our product is priced fairly?
Have you found [product or service] for less? Did you purchase it? Why or why not?
What is a reasonable price range for [product or service]?
What is the ideal price for [product or service]?
Is [price point] too low or too high for a similar product/service?
Have you seen our products in stores before?
Where have you seen our products mentioned/placed/advertised?
Where would you like to see our products or services mentioned/placed/advertised?

Market research questions for advertising and brand awareness

Advertising, marketing, and branding create an image in your customers’ minds. While brand awareness is its own market research niche, these questions will help you understand how customers perceive your brand and advertising campaigns:

Are you familiar with our brand?
How did you find our brand/company?
Have you ever seen any reviews of our brand/product/company? How did they influence your purchase?
Have you ever seen advertisements for our brand/product/company? How did they influence your opinion of us?
Who do you think our target customer is?
When you think of our brand, how do you feel?
Does our advertising and branding accurately reflect your experience with our company?
What should potential customers know about our products and services?
What do you think our brand/company stands for?
Have you ever followed any of our social media channels? Which ones? How do you feel about our social media presence?

Ask the insightful questions with Voiceform

When it’s time to ask the market research questions that will get you the insight you desire, Voiceform will make the process simple. Our feature-rich, innovative multimedia survey platform empowers companies to get the answers they need. From voice and video functions to AI transcription and analysis , this powerful survey platform can help you create, launch and distribute multiple survey types. Learn more about our products today by scheduling a demonstration.

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50+ Must-ask questions for your market research surveys

50+ Must-ask questions for your market research surveys

Şeyma Beyazçiçek

Market research is an essential part of finding answers to your questions. For this reason, market research surveys have a big importance. So, market study survey questions, too . These types of questions help you get essential data about the target audience, conduct competitive analysis, get new ones, or protect existing customers .

We have gathered the most essential data to help you gather information on the target market or target customer. In this article, you will find 50+ market research survey questions and examples about customers, products, social media, etc. You need to seriously consider these business survey questions for market research and learn more!

What is a market research survey?

A market research survey is a document that asks demographic questions or any type of market research questions that aim to collect vital customer feedback to make you better in marketing . The critical point of a market research survey is to learn customer experience and make marketing plans according to it.

A report by Statista shows that since 2008 , the market research sector’s global revenue has increased by more than twice, surpassing $81 billion in 2022 . So, the importance of market research is getting more realized, and you need market analysis survey questions. Good survey questions for market research collect data to help you create definite strategies for a better marketing plan.

50+ Market research survey questions you must ask in your surveys

Each company has its own unique priorities and needs. For this reason, companies should choose questions carefully for their survey. 50+ market research survey questions might differ according to the needs and requirements of a company. Nevertheless, we have gathered the most essential and basic ones to make you grow faster.

If you want to access all these privileges we have discussed so far, you need to have a look at these 50+ must-ask questions for your market research surveys:

Customer survey questions for market research questions

The primary reason for selling a product or service is for customers . Finding the target audience for your company is one of the most important parts of your market research survey. For that reason, you need to have a look at these customer survey questions for market research questions:

1. How often do you shop from us?

Once a week
Twice a week
Once a month
Twice a month
Once every two months
Once every three months
Once every six months
Once a year

2. What is your favorite product/service?

3. What is your least favorite product/service?

4. Why do you choose us?

Your reputation for quality products and services
Your competitive pricing
Your commitment to customer service
Your convenient location
Your wide selection of products and services
Your knowledgeable staff
Your experience in the industry
Your commitment to innovation
Your commitment to sustainability

5. Would you recommend us to your friends/family?

6. Since when do you choose us?

Two Years Ago
Three Years Ago

7. Overall, from 1-10, how do you rate us?

An opinion scale question example about satisfaction

Market research questions for a product

A market research question for a product is an excellent helper for companies to understand and collect data about existing. If you want to learn how your customers are satisfied with your exciting product, you only need to ask them these questions. Here are your market research questions for a product:

8. Have you ever heard of this product before?

9. From 1-10, how would you rate this product?

10. Do you believe this product is useful/helpful for you?

11. What is the likelihood of buying this product again?

Very Likely
Very Unlikely

12. What do you like about this product?

It is easy to use
It is cost-effective
It is reliable
It has great customer service
It has a wide range of features

13. What do you dislike about this product?

Functionality

14. Would you recommend this product to your friends or family?

You can replace the word “ product” with the name of your own product.

A question example about purchasing behavior

New product market research survey questions

New product market research survey questions are perfect for your company if you plan for a new product. Imagine that you are about to launch a new product. You can take fewer risks if you ask questions about the new product before launching it. So you might need these market research questionnaire questions for your new product:

15. Have you seen a similar product?

16. How likely are you to use this product for your business activities?

17. What do you think is the best feature of this new product?

18. What do you think is the least favorite feature of this new product?

19. Do you find the price reasonable?

20. Are you excited about this product?

21. Overall, from 1-10, how do you rate this new product?

A question example about later use

Social media survey questions for market research

Social media is an excellent way of collecting helpful data from your customers because, today, nearly everybody has a social media account. You can have insightful data as long as you know which platform to use and how to use it. So, here are your social media survey questions for market research:

22. Which social media platforms do you use? ( you can choose more than 1 )

23. In which social media platforms do you spend time the most?

24. Do you follow us on your social media accounts?

25. What do you think about our company’s social media account?

It's great!
It could use some improvement.
I haven't seen it

26. Do you believe we can use social media effectively?

27. What can we do to improve our social media accounts?

Post regularly
Run contests and giveaways
Use relevant hashtags
Optimize profile information
Respond to comments
Collaborate with influencers

28. Which influencers do you relate to us the most?

A market research survey question example about social media

Market research questions to ask potential customers

As much as trying to hold your existing customers, you should also try to find potential customers and expand your network. Because only in this way you can grow your business. When you have good market research questions to ask potential customers, as given below, you can easily get what you need:

29. Have you ever heard us before?

30. When you think of our brand, what comes to your mind first?

31. Who is our rival for you?

32. What is your minimum budget?

33. What is your maximum budget?

34. Would you consider choosing our product/service?

35. What are your best aspects, you think?

Market research questions for B2B companies

Just like any sector, B2B companies need to do their best to run market research. As for their market research survey, the questions will be different because they need to aim at businesses directly. If you need them, here are your market research questions for B2B companies:

36 . Who is your ideal customer?

37. What really matters to your ideal customer?

38. Do you think you know your customers?

39. How can you know your customers better?

40. What is your customers’ annual income?

41. What do your customers do in their free time?

42. What attracts your customer?

Demographic questions for your market research survey

Demographic questions allow your company to understand your customer’s background better. Also, if you want to understand the certain characteristics of your target audience, demographic questions are the best option for you. Have a look at these demographic questions for your market research survey:

43. What gender do you identify as?

Genderfluid

44. How old are you?

65 or Above

45. What is your marital status?

46. Can you please specify your ethnicity?

African American
Asian American
Hispanic/Latino
Native American
Pacific Islander
White/Caucasian

47. Where are you located?

United States
United Kingdom

48. What is your education level?

High School
Associate's Degree
Bachelor's Degree
Master's Degree
Doctorate Degree

49. What is your annual income?

$0 - $25,000
$25,001 - $50,000
$50,001 - $75,000
$75,001 - $100,000
$100,001 - $150,000
$150,001 - $200,000
$200,001 and above

50. What is your current employment situation?

Employed full-time
Employed part-time
Self-employed
Not looking for work

A market research survey question example about income

How can I create a market research survey?

In order to collect essential data for your market research, if you want to handle it the fastest way, you will need an online form builder. Also, if you want to build your form with lots of options and create just like you wish and want to do all of them for free, there is only one option left: forms.app .

As long as you follow some basic steps, you can easily create your market research survey and here are the steps:

1. Login or create an account

Firstly, you should log in to your existing account if you do not have one; no worries, you can easily and quickly create an account . Also, do not forget that you have the opportunity to log in via Google, Facebook, and Apple accounts.

2. Start from scratch, choose a temple, or generate with AI

You have access to a wide range of options thanks to forms.app . You must begin from scratch if you wish to pick every aspect of your survey. The site offers pre-made market research survey templates if you do not want to spend too much time on it. However, if you stay current with the latest technology, artificial intelligence can create your survey in seconds!

3. Add your market research survey questions

Based on your company’s primary needs and essential requirements, you should choose your market research survey questions very carefully. Each company’s priorities can differ. For that reason, you need to pay attention while adding them.

4. Customize your survey form

In this step, you can easily change and personalize your online survey . To give an example, you can change the size and type of the font, colors, and order of questions, add your brand’s logo, etc.

5. Share your market research survey

In the final step, you can share your survey with your target via many platforms . You can choose the link to be public, limited, or private while sharing. Additionally, you can preview the link to see whether it has any meta titles, descriptions, or images.

How can I write good market research questions?

One can randomly create market research questions for the survey; however, if you want to be one step ahead of your rivals and be good at writing market research questions, you need to follow the points given below:

Consider your company’s needs : You need to have a moment and consider what your company needs the most. What are your priorities or urgent needs? Or what are your urgent deficiencies to be covered? After answering these questions, you can create better questions.
Think like the customer: The key point is listening to your customers and trying to think like them. When you think like them, you can come up with better market research questions and collect more valuable data for your survey.
Be direct: Questions asked directly are definitely better , instead of asking too many indirect questions or long and complex sentences that might be confusing. So, you need to pay attention at this point.
Key points to take away

As we have discussed so far, the importance of market research is undeniable. If you want to increase your market share and be more successful in your sector, there are some key points for your company to take away. You should not ignore these points:

Design of the survey: Do not forget that the more you pay attention to your market research survey design, the more you will seem professional.
Pay attention to the context: Design is an important factor, but context is the exact reason you run a survey. So, you need to be careful with your questions.
Check the result: At the end of the survey, checking and analyzing the results is a key point. If you will not do that, there is no need to share the survey, isn’t it?

Now that you have read so far, you know all the critical points about the issue and where to start. Take action now and start finding your own effective data collection methods for market research !

Şeyma is a content writer at forms.app. She loves art and traveling. She is passionate about reading and writing. Şeyma has expertise in surveys, survey questions, giveaways, statistics, and online forms.

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90+ Market Research Questions to Ask Your Customers

Market research questions can help you capture the best insights when you are up for launching a new product or a feature. Sending out such surveys about market needs and preferences enables companies to understand how their target market feels and behaves.

But why market research surveys ?

Because market trends change with the change in opinions and preferences of your customer base. Even your most loyal customers will turn to other brands unexpectedly. For this reason, a marketing questionnaire can help you find out what your customers want and think.

However, the key to success is deciding which questions to ask.

In this blog, we have gathered a list of 90+ market research questions that you can use for conducting in-depth market research surveys.

Continue reading to find out.

What are Market Research Questions?

Market research questions are questions that businesses send out to their existing and potential customers to understand their perception and opinion on a given subject.

But how does it actually help?

Market survey questions help businesses collect precise information about the market, audiences, and competitors. This helps businesses validate the market demand and profitability of their product/feature before diving into the development process.

Also, such structured questions have limited answering options, which makes it easier to apply formulas and patterns to accurately analyze the gathered data .

For example, via market research questions, you may collect easy-to-segment data mentioned below:

Job title
Type of industry the respondent works in
Education level
How did they get to know about you?
What are you planning to buy from the [brand name]?
What products do you like to buy from a [competitor name]?
Why do you buy from the [brand name]?

Therefore, with the collected data, brands can serve their customers better and make their upcoming products/features stand out from the competition.

Watch more: How To Create Survey Using ProProfs Survey Maker

Market Research Questions (categories with questions)

Before you start creating a perfect market research questionnaire , you must consider a few crucial parameters. Start by asking yourself:

What is the size of your target market?
Who are your target customers?
What are the primary issues that your customers face?
How can your product or service help solve the issue for your customers?
Does your product perfectly fit into the current market?
What’s the volume of potential customers?
Have you set a good customer persona to understand your ideal target customers?
What are the key consumer trends?
How do you identify new target segments? And, how are these new segments different from the existing ones?
Who are your direct competitors? What are their strategies for attracting customers?
How do you generate leads ?

Therefore, to position yourself as an expert before launching a new product/service, it’s crucial to have in-depth knowledge about your customers, the industry, the market trends, and your competitors .

Once you are done with it, you can start curating marketing research questions that can help your business idea to thrive.

Market Research Questions for New Product Launch

Launching a successful product or a service demands extensive research and market testing. You can include the following product survey questions:

1. How did you hear about [brand name]? 2. What made you choose us? 3. What features do you like most about our existing product or service? 4. What feature would you like to see in the website/product? 5. Is our product or service convenient to use? 6. Which feature do you think will help improve the existing product experience for you? 7. Among these four options, what’s the next thing you think we should launch? 8. What’s the one feature we can add that would make our product more valuable for you? 9. Would the implementation of [feature name] increase the usability of the [product name]? 10. Are you aware that we offer [product/service name]? 11. Did we answer all your questions or solve your problem? 12. How long have you used [product name]? 13. How often do you use [product name]? 14. Did we help you get started using our product or service? 15. For your next purchase, how likely are you to purchase from our brand?

Very likely
Somewhat likely
Very unlikely

16. Compared to other products in the market, would you say that our product is:

Much better
Somewhat better
Almost the same
Don’t know or never used

17. Will you use or purchase our product again?

Might or might not
Probably will not
Definitely, will not

18. Are you willing to refer our product/service to your friends, family, or colleagues about us? 19. Why have you decided to leave us? 20. On a scale of 1-10, how will you rate your experience with us? 21. In your opinion, how can we further improve this product/feature?

Market Research Questions for Potential Customers

These market research questions will help you create an accurate buyer persona by understanding your target customers. The basic things you need to ask are:

Profession/Job
Household income
Household size

22. What are your hobbies and interests? 23. How old are you? 24. What is your monthly income range? 25. What is your current marital status? 26. What is the name of your company? 27. Where is your company’s headquarters located? 28. Please specify the number of employees that work in your company. 29. What is your job title? 30. In which location do you work? 31. What type of activities do you prefer in your free time? 32. Do you take part in physical activities? 33. Where is your dream holiday destination? 34. How would you rate the following according to their priority in your life – family, work, and social life? 35. Are you happy with your current work-life balance? 36. How would you describe yourself: An optimist or a pessimist? 37. How often do you give to charity? 38. How do you commute to work? 39. How do you do your holiday shopping? 40. How much do you spend on shopping every year? 41. What are the common challenges you face regularly? 42. What are your main goals in life? 43. What products do you consider the most important to solve your business problems? 44. Where do you usually search for new products? 45. How much do you usually spend when purchasing (product category)? 46. How likely are you to buy [product name]?

Market Research Questions to Collect Feedback on Existing Product(s)

For product-based organizations, collecting customer feedback is a key to steering their products towards success. For this reason, selecting the right set of market research questions you ask your existing customers is important.

market research questionnaire for a product

47. Have you heard of [product name] before? 48. What specific problems does our product solve for you? 49. How would you feel if [product name] was no longer available? 50. How would you rate our product delivery? 51. Do you face any challenges while using our product? 52. How disappointed would you be if you could no longer use [product/feature name]? 53. How often do you use [product name]? 54. How long have you been using [product name] for? 55. When was the last time you used [product name]? 56. How would you rate our customer experience? 57. What do you think about our product pricing? 58. In your opinion, in which area is this product/service lacking the most? 59. How does the product perform after the update? 60. Have you faced any problems with the product? Specify below. 61. What feature did you expect but not find in [product name]? 62. On a scale of 1-5, how satisfied are you with the product?

Watch more: How To Create a Customer Satisfaction Survey

Market Research Questions for Competitive Analysis

Asking specific competitive analysis questions can help you dig deeper into market share and internal information about your counterparts. You can ask the following questions:

63. How would you feel if you couldn’t use our product anymore? 64. Have you considered other solutions/alternatives? 65. Which other options have you considered before choosing our product? 66. What made you choose our brand rather than a competitor? 67. What do we do better than other company’s products? 68. Which product would you use if our product is no longer available? 69. What are the first three brands in this product category that come to your mind? 70. In your opinion, how can our product stand out from the competition? 71. Please share your overall opinion of our brand? 72. Please share any additional comments or feedback? 73. Have you seen any other product with a similar feature? 74. In what aspects do you compare our products to our competitors? 75. Compared to the other available options, is our product quality better, worse, or about the same? 76. Please list the top three things that helped you choose us rather than a competitor.

Market Research Questions For Concept Testing

Before the final launch, a concept testing survey helps businesses to evaluate product development by collecting feedback from customer segments that make up their target market. This testing helps them avoid mistakes and tailor their products according to the customers’ needs.

You can include the following marketing survey questions to get accurate feedback from the respondents:

77. How would this new feature help you solve your problem? 78. What is your least favorite part of the feature and why? 79. What do you consider before deciding on a version of the product? 80. How do you feel about this new feature? 81. What really excites you about this new feature? 82. Do you think this new feature can extremely help in improving the existing product, and why? 83. Have you seen something similar to this product feature elsewhere? 84. How does this new feature improve your overall experience? 85. Do you think this new feature is appropriate for [product name], and why? 86. How much would you wish to pay for this product? 87. Which of our products appeals most strongly to you, and why? 88. How could this product make a difference in your daily life? 89. Describe why you think this product is innovative? 90. Describe why you think this product is not so innovative? 91. What development stage do you think the product currently is in?

Tips to Create Effective Market Research Surveys

Step 1: choose the best survey software.

With various survey tools available on the market, choosing the right one could be tricky. You just go for a survey maker tool that helps you create, customize and share different types of surveys such as pop-up, scored, NPS, sidebar across email, social media, websites, etc.

The tool should also support multiple question types, and you should be able to measure survey performance and evaluate feedback with built-in intelligent analytics.

Step 2: Choose the Right Survey Questions

Before creating a survey, you should have clarity regarding your end goal based on qualitative and quantitative research . For example, if you are looking for simple yes-no answers, you can choose close-ended questions, whereas if you are looking for comprehensive answers, then you may want to consider open-ended questions .

Or, if you are looking for quick-to-sort feedback that can help you identify trends easily, then multiple-choice, Yes/No, and Likert scale questions work well.

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

Step 3: Ask Questions That Match Your Survey Goals

Before you start creating a survey , think of what information you want to collect from customers. The data you need should directly relate to the problem you want to solve for your business.

For example, you should send out questions related to a new feature before launching it to gather customer insights about your concept.

Whereas, demographic questions are best if you want to know who your potential customers are. Such questions help you gain basic information about the customers, such as their age, place of residence, occupation, income level, and more.

Step 4: Share Surveys at a Suitable Time

Timing is the most essential aspect when it comes to surveys. Wrong timing can reduce the chances of collecting feedback from your target audience . On the other hand, when the timing is right, you can collect actionable feedback about their experiences.

For example, the ideal time to send the survey is just after a customer interacts with your business. Just because the interaction is fresh, they will be able to provide the most genuine and fresh feedback.

Also, the brands can send the survey a few days after the purchase. This will offer the customers some time to use your product and let you genuinely know how happy or unhappy they are, what’s bothering them, and what you can do to improve.

Effectively Capture Market Insights With Market Research Questions

When executed well, market research can save a lot of time and effort in collecting valuable feedback. Whether you’re starting a business, launching a new product/feature, or improving your existing processes, market research questions can fetch you the answers you need to create dynamic strategies.

Ask the right questions to the right audience at the right time and you’ll surely get useful results. However, it’s important to tailor 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 in the current market.

And for a seamless process, you can create a market research questionnaire with powerful tools like ProProfs Survey Maker and Qualaroo and easily share it with your target audience in various forms.

About the author

Emma David is a seasoned market research professional with 8+ years of experience. Having kick-started her journey in research, she has developed rich expertise in employee engagement, survey creation and administration, and data management. Emma believes in the power of data to shape business performance positively. She continues to help brands and businesses make strategic decisions and improve their market standing through her understanding of research methodologies.

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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 maker

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.

More than 11,000 brands and 99 of the top 100 business schools use Qualtrics solutions because of the freedom and power it gives them.

Get started with our free survey maker tool

Related resources

Market intelligence 10 min read, marketing insights 11 min read, ethnographic research 11 min read, qualitative vs quantitative research 13 min read, qualitative research questions 11 min read, qualitative research design 12 min read, primary vs secondary research 14 min read, request demo.

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Product Management

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

Content Writer

Created on:

April 15, 2024

Updated on:

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

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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.

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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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Small Business Trends

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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Multiple Implicit
Penalty Reward
Price Sensitivity
Segmentation
Single Implicit
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Competitive Landscape
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Product Portfolio
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Market Research Questions: What to Ask for Better Insights

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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.

Types of market research questions to ask

Market research questions for different research goals, how to use market research questions in a survey, 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. Below we'll cover some types and examples of market research questions that can help make better business decisions.

Demographic questions

Where do you live?

How old are you?

What is your gender?

What is your current marital status?

What is the highest level of education you have completed?

What is your current employment status?
What's your household's annual income?

Psychographic questions

What interests you?

How do you like to spend your free time?

What are your goals for the year?

What are your top three priorities in life?
How comfortable are you with trying new things?
What are your views on social issues like climate change, inequality, or political polarization?
How important is it for you to be seen as successful by others?

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 and why?

Think about a time you recommended a product or service to someone else. What made you so enthusiastic about it?
Have you ever participated in a brand's loyalty program or rewards system? If yes, what did you like about it?

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:

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?

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]?

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 market research questions for a new product to develop a final offering that 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?

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 ).

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:

When designing a market research survey, careful consideration should be given to both the formatting of the questions and their overall structure. Getting these aspects right can significantly improve the quality and depth of the actual insights you gather - empowering you to make better business decisions. Below we'll explore various question formatting options, including open-ended and closed-ended questions, as well as tips to create a logical flow throughout your questionnaire.

Question formatting options

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?;)

How to structure your questions for better insights

Good questions that are thoughtfully structured will guide respondents through your survey smoothly, minimize confusion, encourage complete responses, and ultimately, yield high-quality results to tailor marketing strategies, product development, and customer service initiatives. Starting with broad inquiries and gradually narrowing the focus enhances respondents' survey experience and enables you to identify patterns and correlations within the data. Below are some tips to keep in mind when structuring your market research survey.

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, quantilope academy is now open to the broader insights community, quantilope & greenbook webinar: tapping into consumers' subconscious through implicit research, master the art of tracking with quantilope's certification course, van westendorp price sensitivity meter questions.

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80+ Market Research Questions to Ask your Target Audiences

To remain competitive in the current business landscape, keeping up with the ever-changing market trends is not just an option but an absolute necessity. By adapting your customer interaction points and developing strategies that not only attract but also convert potential leads into loyal customers, you can solidify your standing in the industry.

But how can you achieve all of this effectively and efficiently? The answer lies in the power of market research and, more importantly, in asking the right survey questions .

Build & Send your Market Research Surveys🔥

Choose from over 30+ question types, add your own themes and create amazing surveys that people love answering.

Market research can navigate your company by helping you understand your audiences and customers better, identify shifting trends, and maintain that sought-after competitive advantage. In this blog, we'll throw light on the most compelling market research questions and best practices that can unveil valuable insights and give you a strategic edge in the ever-evolving market.

Table of Content

What are market research questions.

For Customers
For Startups
For New Product Launch
For Existing Product
To Segment Target Market
For Competitive Analysis
To Check Brand Awareness
Pricing Analysis
For Concept Testing
To Understand Online Visibility
For Reputation Management
For Messaging & Advertising

Best Practices for Market Research Questions

Why do market research, top 10 market research questions.

Market research questions are designed to gather specific information and insights about a target market or audience. These questions play a crucial role in conducting systematic research to understand consumer preferences, behaviors, and opinions, as well as to analyze market trends and competitors.

You can use a market research survey template offered by Zonka Feedback to make informed decisions, identify opportunities, and develop effective strategies to stay competitive. If you are looking for a ready-to-use market research survey template, here is one that can gain you customer insights, consequently increasing customer satisfaction .

Market Research Questions to Gather Insights

Market research questions can help to optimize the decision-making process for businesses across various stages, from product development to marketing and sales. However, choosing the right market research questions should be based on what you want to achieve through market research. You can leverage microsurveys like the Net Promoter Score or Customer Satisfaction Surveys to conduct market research or create a comprehensive survey to gauge various aspects. Let us look at market research questions aimed at different user personas and business goals.

1. For Customers

Understanding customers' preferences, concerns, and buying behavior are vital for your business to provide exceptional customer experiences . With this knowledge, you can focus on enhancing the aspects your customers love while working on areas that need improvement.

What factors influence your purchasing decisions the most? What improvements would you like to see in our offerings? How satisfied are you with our customer service? Would you recommend our product to others? Which specific features of our product/service do you find most valuable?

2. For Startups

For startups, market research is crucial to validate business ideas , identify target markets, and uncover potential opportunities and challenges. Seeking product feedback for your startup in the early stages of brand development can be especially valuable in refining your beta version of the product and can help to create a product that truly resonates with your target audience.

What challenges do you currently face in [relevant industry/problem area]? What features are most important to you when considering a [product/service]? Would you be willing to try a new [product/service] if it addresses your needs more effectively? What would be your primary reason for choosing a product over competitors? How much would you be willing to pay for a product/service that meets your requirements? What are your preferred communication channels to learn about new products/services? How do you prefer to purchase product/service - online, in-store, or through a mobile app?

There are certain questions that you should be establishing as a startup before entering the market. Consider these market research questions to refine your startup's value proposition and make well-informed decisions to position your venture for success.

What are the total addressable market (tam), serviceable available market (sam), and share of the market (som)? What is your USP? Are you planning to refine your beta version of the product with beta testing survey ? How would you onboard new customers? What are the potential barriers or challenges you may face in acquiring customers? How does the pricing of your product/service compare to the perceived value among customers?

3. For New Product Launch

Market research for new products helps locate potential demand, get product feature requests , and identify target markets, reducing the risk of launching a product with limited appeal. Consider these market research questions for new products that you can ask your customers.

How did you first hear about our new product? What is your initial impression of the new product based on the information provided? How interested are you in trying out this new product? What features or benefits of the new product appeal to you the most? How does the pricing of the new product align with your expectations and perceived value? Are there any specific concerns you have about the new product? Would you be open to participating in a trial or beta testing for the new product?

4. For Existing Product

For companies that thrive on product-led growth , customer feedback on the existing product is the key to success. Market research for existing products helps in understanding changing customer needs and market trends, ensuring that the product remains relevant and competitive.

On a scale of 1-5, how satisfied are you with our current product? What challenges are you facing in using our product? What additional features or improvements would you like to see in our product? How does our product compare to competitors in terms of performance and pricing?

5. To Segment Target Market

By asking market research questions, you can segment your target market based on various demographics, interests, behaviors, and preferences. Through user segmentation , you can create more targeted marketing campaigns, tailor products/services to specific needs, and effectively reach and engage your diverse user base. Here are some of the demographic survey questions that you can ask to segment your target market.

What is your age group? What is your gender? Where do you reside? What is your education level? Are you employed, self-employed, a student, or retired? What are your hobbies or interests? What are your preferred modes of communication? How do you prefer to make purchase decisions? What are your primary reasons for purchasing a specific product/service? Which media channels do you use most frequently for information and entertainment?

6. For Competitive Analysis

Understanding competitors' strengths, weaknesses, and strategies can help you dig deeper into market share and identify opportunities to stay ahead in the market. You can leverage survey collection software to perform competitive analysis and gather valuable analytics for marketing and conversion rate optimization. Consider these market research questions to ask your customers about competitors. Consider these market research questions to ask your customers about competitors.

Have you ever used products/services from our competitors? How would you rate the products/services of our competitors in terms of quality? What do you perceive as the main strengths of our competitors' offerings? What factors influence your decision to choose our products/services over those of our competitors? Are there any specific features or benefits offered by our competitors that you find appealing? How do you think our products/services compare to those of our competitors in terms of overall value? How likely are you to recommend our products/services over those of our competitors to others?

7. To Check Brand Awareness

Assessing brand awareness helps businesses measure the effectiveness of their marketing efforts and brand visibility in the market. Market research questions for checking brand awareness can include:

Have you heard of our brand before? How did you first learn about our brand? Which of the following products do you associate with our company? Have you ever used or purchased any products from our company? What feature do you like the most about our product? On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely would you recommend our brand to a friend or colleague?

8. Pricing Analysis

Determining the right pricing strategy is crucial to attracting customers while ensuring profitability. Market research questions for pricing analysis can include:

What price range do you consider reasonable for our product? How does our current pricing compare to competitors in the market? What factors do you consider when evaluating the pricing of a product? Would you be willing to pay more for additional features or benefits?

9. For Concept Testing

Before launching the final product, performing concept testing allows businesses to evaluate the viability of new ideas before investing resources in full-scale development. By doing so, you can tailor your product according to customer needs and assess the overall feasibility of your new product idea.

Please read the description of the new product/service concept carefully. How appealing does this concept sound to you? What specific aspects of the concept do you find most appealing or interesting? How likely are you to consider using or purchasing this new product/service based on the concept description? What would be your primary reason for choosing this new product/service over similar offerings in the market? Is there anything missing in the concept that you believe would make it more appealing or valuable? Is there anything you would change or improve in the concept to make it more appealing to you? How much would you be willing to pay for this new product/service, based on the concept description?

10. To Understand Online Visibility

In the digital age, online visibility is crucial to reach their target audience effectively. Whether you want to drive in-store customers or online, the route is by following online visibility. Conducting an online survey is the easiest way to understand this. Consider these market research questions to understand online visibility.

How did you discover our brand/company online? How frequently do you come across our brand/company while browsing the internet? Have you visited our website? If yes, what was your purpose for visiting? Are you following our brand/company on social media? If yes, which platforms? How do you perceive our brand/company's presence on social media? (e.g., active, engaging, informative) Do you find our website and online content (blogs, articles, etc.) easy to navigate and informative? What do you think about the overall user experience on our website? (e.g., website speed, design, functionality) How does our online presence compare to that of our competitors? Are there any specific online platforms or websites where you would like to see our brand/company more active?

11. For Reputation Management

Monitoring and managing your brand's reputation is essential for improving customer loyalty and business revenue. A major part of market research includes knowing what customers think and speak about your business. Including customer feedback and trends in your analysis will allow for more accurate predictions in your revenue forecasting software . Here are some market research questions for reputation management.

How would you describe your overall perception of our company? What do you think is our company's strengths? How likely are you to recommend our company to others based on your perception? Are there any specific aspects of our company's reputation that stand out to you? How do you feel about our company's responsiveness to customer feedback and concerns? Are there any specific incidents or experiences that have influenced your perception of our company?

12. For Messaging & Advertising

Crafting compelling messaging and advertising campaigns that resonate with the target audience is crucial for driving engagement and conversions. Your advertising should be in sync with your business goals and brand identity to communicate your unique value proposition.

Have you come across any of our recent advertising or marketing campaigns? If yes, please specify where you saw or heard them. How well do you think our advertising aligns with your needs and preferences as a customer? Are there any specific advertising channels or platforms where you believe our brand should have a stronger presence? How likely are you to take action (e.g., visit our website, make a purchase) after seeing our advertising? Which specific elements of our advertising (e.g., visuals, slogans, offers) do you find most memorable? Have you ever shared or engaged with our advertising content on social media? Do you find our advertising to be informative and educational about our products/services?

Before you start framing your market research, it is essential to follow these best practices to ensure the effectiveness and reliability of your data:

Things to Do

Decide your Goals : Clearly define the objectives of your market research. Determine what specific insights you aim to gather and how they will support your business decisions.
Segment your Audience : Understand that different customer segments may have distinct needs and preferences. Tailor your survey questions to target specific groups, allowing for a more focused analysis.
Choose the Right Survey Question Type : Select appropriate question formats based on your goals. Use a mix of multiple-choice questions, open-ended questions , Likert scales , and rating scales to capture both quantitative and qualitative data.
Incentivize your Survey : Offer incentives to encourage participation and increase the response rate. It could be in the form of discounts, gift cards, or entry into a prize draw.

Things to Avoid

Avoid Double-Barreled Questions : Double-barreled questions combine two or more issues into one question, making it challenging for respondents to provide clear and accurate answers. Keep your questions focused on one topic at a time.
Avoid Leading Questions : Leading questions are worded in a way that influences or biases respondents' answers. Aim for neutrality and objectivity in your questions to obtain unbiased data.
Avoid Too Many Questions : Lengthy surveys can lead to respondent fatigue, resulting in incomplete or rushed answers. Keep your survey concise and relevant, ensuring it can be completed within a reasonable timeframe.

All the popular companies in the market currently, whether it is Apple, Zappos, or Spotify, rely heavily on market research. Let us look at the reasons why you must consider market research to drive growth.

Identifying Market Opportunities : Market research helps identify emerging trends, unmet needs, and untapped market segments, providing valuable opportunities for businesses to expand and innovate.
Testing Product Concepts : Before launching a new product or service, market research can be used to gauge customer interest and receive feedback on potential concepts, get product idea validation , and reduce the risk of product failure.
Evaluating Marketing Campaigns : Market research allows businesses to assess the effectiveness of their marketing efforts, whether it is driving NPS campaigns or launching new advertising initiatives. It helps to refine messaging, targeting, and channels for better results.
Measuring Customer Satisfaction : Understanding customer satisfaction levels and identifying areas for improvement is crucial for retaining customers and building brand loyalty.

Now that you know the power of market research and how it can improve your offering and enhance customer experience, let us quickly recall the top 10 market research questions that can drive your business forward.

What are the primary factors influencing your purchasing decisions?
How satisfied are you with our product?
What are the most desirable features you look for in a product?
How did you first hear about our brand/product/service?
What do you consider a fair price for our product?
What improvements or additions would you like to see in our offerings?
On a scale of 1-5, how likely are you to recommend our brand to others?
What are the main challenges you face when using our product?
How well do you think our product compares to competitors in the market?
Which aspects of our advertising or marketing message do you find most compelling?

From identifying market opportunities and testing product concepts to measuring customer satisfaction and tracking brand awareness, market research questions play a vital role in allowing you to adapt and innovate in a rapidly changing marketplace. By listening to your customers and gaining valuable feedback through market research, you can refine your products and marketing efforts to better meet customer expectations .

For creating a market research survey, it is important that you leverage an omnichannel survey software that enables you to create impactful surveys, share them across multiple channels with your target customers, and gather and analyze valuable feedback using reporting features.

Zonka Feedback is one such powerful market research software that can help you do all of that, along with offering survey logic & branching , segmenting your customers, measuring trends, and closing the feedback loop .

You can sign up for a 14 -day free trial to create effective market research surveys and see how it works for you.

Published on Jul 25, 2023. Updated on Apr 30, 2024.

Written by Kanika

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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 June 3, 2024

These market research questions will aid you in getting insights that you can use to improve your business.

Schedule a FREE call with our outsourcing expert now and get a precise quotation that meets your requirements. Don't wait - get started today!

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 Survey Questions Examples to Include in Your In-App Surveys

Have you ever wondered if you are wasting your resources because you don’t know your customers well enough? Some good market research survey questions examples can help you understand your customers better.

Market research survey questions are the key to thoroughly understanding user sentiment . With the help of market research, industry and company-specific data can be analyzed to obtain valuable insights.

In the article, we’ll discuss how you can create the right market research survey questions and 40+ market research questions you can ask your target audience.

Market research is an organized effort to collect information about your ideal customers and their needs and preferences.
Market research questions are questionnaires sent to potential users or existing customers to collect feedback .
Market research surveys help you better understand your target market , optimize pricing, gain insights, learn about market trends, and do competitive analysis.
To write survey questions, set clear market research goals, write straightforward questions, and send targeted surveys at the right time.
The market research survey questions examples discussed here are used for knowing the demography, understanding brand perception, collecting user feedback, doing competitive analysis, prioritizing product development, and analyzing product pricing .
Userpilot lets you create various in-app surveys code-free, trigger surveys across different stages of the user journey, and analyze responses .

What is market research?

Market research, or marketing research, is an organized activity of collecting information about your ideal customers and their needs and preferences.

Market research helps businesses identify and understand their target audience. It’s crucial for developing business strategies and creating a competitive advantage. For example, user feedback on a new product helps in improving the product’s design.

What are market research questions?

Market research questions are a questionnaire sent to potential users or existing customers to get their feedback on a specific topic.

Whether you want to identify your target market, get customer feedback, or understand user perceptions about your brand or product, market research questions offer the best insights.

Why do you need market research surveys?

Market research surveys offer a multitude of benefits. They allow you to:

Better understand your existing customers and your target audience: This helps in product development and improvements to boost customer satisfaction.
Optimize your pricing for your target market: Market research helps you know the expectations of your target market to create optimal pricing strategies .
Gain customer insights regarding your product or service: Both prospective and existing users provide their feedback on your product or service and may also share their opinions on what needs to be improved.
Learn about market trends: You can stay updated on relevant trends in the market to upgrade your product and develop marketing campaigns accordingly.
Perform competitive analysis and work on your unique value proposition: Market research lets you assess your strengths and weaknesses relative to competitors and develop a unique selling point for your product.

How to write market research questions?

If you ever struggle with writing market research questions or need to refresh your memory before getting started, you can always refer to this post. You only have to follow three simple rules.

Set clear market research goals

The first step is to set clear market research goals. Since there are multiple types of market research surveys, it’s imperative to stay aligned with specific research goals for each survey.

Once you identify the problem you want to solve, a goal-setting framework helps to frame how the market research questions are written out.

For example, you may want to get customer feedback and thus create a market research survey to gain customer insights into improvement areas. You ultimately want to increase conversion by 10% by the end of the year.

SMART goals are a highly structured framework for establishing clear, precise goals. It takes a systematic approach to focus your strategies in the right place and improve your productivity.

The SMART acronym stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.

Write clear market survey questions

Keep your questions short and simple to ensure high response rates. The answer options should also be easy to understand.

Use close-ended and open-ended questions to collect quantitative and qualitative data, respectively.

Don’t use biased or leading questions by designing them in a way where you expect a positive or negative response.

Moreover, it is best to avoid double-barreled questions. Here’s an example: “How do you think this [feature name] improves the usability and competitiveness of this product?”

This reduces the quality of the feedback because people would give the same answer for ‘usability’ and ‘competitiveness’ although they are two different issues.

Ask the right market research questions at the right time

Make sure you ask the right market research questions to the right audience at the right time. Surveys should be contextual so users don’t feel bombarded with questions irrelevant to their use case.

Customer segmentation lets you understand how different users interact with your product. Therefore, segmenting users based on shared characteristics will help you send targeted survey questions at the right time.

Suppose you want to survey your new users. Since they are at the initial stage of the customer lifecycle, it’s best to ask them demographic questions in the welcome survey included in the welcome screen.

In another example, you can ask product experience questions after a specific interaction with the customer support team to measure customer satisfaction.

40+ Market research questions to ask your target audience

Now let’s check out the market research survey questions examples. There are six major types of market research questions.

For knowing the demography
To understand brand perception
For collecting user feedback on your product or service
For competitive analysis
To prioritize product development
For analyzing product pricing

Demographic questions

Demographic questions are used to learn about your target market’s age, gender, occupation, company role, etc. These questions help you segment target customers based on their user persona or jobs to be done.

Here are some examples.

What is your current occupation?
What is your job title?
What is the name of your company?
Please specify the number of employees that work in your company.
Please specify your age.

Marketing survey questions to understand brand perception

These questions are needed to gauge brand awareness and how customers perceive the value of your brand. One example is an NPS survey to understand user sentiment and loyalty.

Some examples of marketing survey questions are:

Describe [brand name] in one sentence.
How do you feel about this brand?
Do you currently use the product of this brand?
Which of the following products have you tried? (Select all that apply)
How did you hear about us?
Would you recommend [brand name] to others based on our current features and attributes?
On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this brand to colleagues or friends?
Of all the brands offering similar products, which do you feel is the best brand?
Please specify what makes it the best brand for you in the category.

userpilot-nps-market-research-survey-questions-examples.png

Marketing research questions to collect feedback regarding your product or service

These questions help you understand user perception and identify the necessary changes to be made in the product development cycle. This lets you improve your product and in turn, enhance the customer experience .

For instance, you can use a customer satisfaction score (CSAT) survey to know how satisfied customers are with your in-app self-service support.

Examples of marketing research questions include:

Have you heard of [product name] before?
How would you feel if [product name] was no longer available?
What feature did you expect but not find?
How are you planning to use [product or service]?
How satisfied are you with the product?
How disappointed would you be if you could no longer use [product/feature name]?
Rate our product based on the following aspects:
Have you faced any problems with the product? Specify below.
According to you, In which area is this product/service lacking the most? Specify below.
Please rate the following product features according to their importance to you.
How often do you use [product name]?
How long have you been using [product name]?
When was the last time you used [product name]?
How does the product run after the update?

userpilot-in-app-survey-market-research-survey-questions-examples.png

Questions to ask existing and potential customers to perform competitive analysis

These market research questions enable you to analyze your relative position to competitors and devise strategies to gain a competitive advantage.

Examples include:

Which product/service would you consider as an alternative to ours?
How would you compare our products to our competitors?
Rate our competitor based on the following:
Compared to our competitors, is our product quality better, worse, or about the same?
Have you seen any website/product/app with a similar feature?
Please list the top three things that persuaded you to use us rather than a competitor.
Why did you choose to use our [product] over other options?
Which other options did you consider before choosing [product name]?
According to you, which brand best fits each of the following characteristics?

Market research questionnaire to prioritize product development

To prioritize product development, you must work on new features your target customers will love. For instance, you can send a feature request survey to know how you need to improve your value proposition and match key consumer trends.

Some examples are:

Would you purchase this product if it were available today?
What feature would you like to see in the product?
Would implementing [this feature] increase the usability of the [product name]?
Which feature do you think will help improve the product experience for you?
Please let us know how we can further improve this feature.
What was your first reaction to the product?
Of these four options, what’s the next thing you think we should build?
What feature can we add that would make our product indispensable for you?
What problem would you like to solve with our product?

feature-request-market-research-survey-questions-examples.png

Questions to analyze your product pricing

You can ask the following market research questions to analyze your pricing strategy. Thus, you can set optimal, competitive prices for your subscription plans.

According to you, what should be the ideal price of the [product name]?
According to you, what is the ideal price range for the product?
Would you purchase the product at [price]?
Is our product pricing clear?

pricing-survey-market-research-survey-questions-examples.png

How to create market research surveys in-app with Userpilot

Userpilot is a product growth that includes onboarding, product adoption, and product analytics as its major functionalities. So let’s see how you can create in-app market research surveys with Userpilot and get actionable insights.

Create different in-app surveys code-free

Userpilot lets you create a wide variety of in-app surveys , such as CSAT, NPS, PMF, and feature request surveys. You can even customize these surveys to reflect the style and colors of your brand, all code-free.

With Userpilot, you can add both close-ended and open-ended questions. For example, you can add qualitative follow-up questions to NPS surveys to know the reasons behind a particular score.

The image below shows a product-market fit (PMF) survey. You can add different formats to each survey for customization.

pmf-survey-market-research-survey-questions-examples.png

Trigger surveys at any point in the customer journey

You can send automated surveys by setting triggers at different stages of the customer journey .

This allows you to identify friction and drop-off points and address these areas to improve customer satisfaction. Moreover, you can analyze user perception at multiple stages, e.g., during awareness, conversion, and loyalty campaigns.

Use custom events to group several events together. It lets you trigger the survey after a custom event has been completed.

Collect feedback and analyze responses

Userpilot lets you tag and analyze qualitative responses in their dashboard. It offers in-depth insights into your target customers.

Below, you can see the various NPS response tags and the score for each of them.

nps-response-tagging-market-research-survey-questions-examples.png

Wrapping up

Want to get started with market research? Get a Userpilot demo and see how you can use these market research survey questions examples to analyze data and create effective marketing strategies.

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Customer Discovery Questions to Fully Understand Your Market and Product Potential

Sudarshan Somanathan

Head of Content

March 11, 2024

Say you want to plant a tree. You wouldn’t do it on the first piece of land you come across, would you?

You’d do your research first—find fertile and well-drained soil and prospect a location that ensures optimal sunlight. That’s the only way to ensure your planting efforts bear fruit. 🍎

Similarly, you wouldn’t build a product without researching what customer needs to target. Customer or product discovery exercises are essential if you want your product to bear fruit, i.e., provide value to potential customers and achieve financial and market success.

As a product manager, how you approach your customer discovery interviews can steer you toward the right business decisions. You must ask the right questions to extract information crucial enough for shaping your product.

In this article, we’ll share our go-to customer discovery questions to help create new products or modify existing solutions . You’ll also find tips and tools to help make your discovery process effective and efficient.

What Are Customer Discovery Questions?

Relation between customer and product discovery, common customer discovery methods, 1. questions related to the customer pain points, roles, and everyday tasks, 2. questions related to existing solutions, 3. questions related to the user’s perspective of your product, 4. questions for gaining other valuable insights, when to conduct customer discovery interviews, communication and video conferencing tools, surveys, forms, and questionnaires, social media listening tools , customer relationship management (crm) tools , product and project management tools , clickup crm to stay aligned with customer satisfaction goals, do: prepare and document everything, do: make it a friendly conversation, don’t: be afraid of rejection, don’t: reveal too much during the conversation.

Customer discovery questions are questions you ask customers or clients to discover and understand their needs —particularly those that haven’t been met yet. Each unmet need is referred to as a pain point .

The pain points help product teams verify their assumptions about the market, estimate the profile of early adopters of the product, and focus on when developing something that’s both useful and well-received. 💗

Customer Discovery: Concept and Process

Customer discovery is the process of getting to know your target customers so you can build a product that serves them best, drives engagement, and sells well.

Usually, the process starts with the creation of a user persona depicting a specific demographic group and their relevant functional and psychological needs. Then, you use discovery questions to collect information from actual buyers and refine the persona as you go. In most cases, the data is shared with developer teams working on the product.

The discovery process doesn’t stop with the product launch , though, as customer needs change over time. You have to use analytics tools to collect real-time insights into customer behavior and adapt the product accordingly to retain your customers .

Tip: Use free ClickUp templates to simplify your customer or produce discovery processes. From product strategy to user personal templates , you can find 1,000+ pre-structured documents with built-in data management features to fast-track your workflows.

For example, you can use the ClickUp Customer Contact Form Template to collect and organize responses from market research and surveys in one place.

Customer and product discovery are tightly knit concepts but have distinct aims.

While the point of customer discovery is to understand the unmet needs of your target demographic, product discovery is all about identifying the product that meets those needs . It also zooms in on the how—the methods you should use to develop or modify the product and keep it relevant.

You can gain customer insights in many ways:

Conducting live customer interviews with individuals and focus groups
Distributing feedback forms online to reach a wider audience
Leveraging social listening to monitor online discussions on your product
Via internal discovery : Ask for insights from your sales teams and customer support representatives who interact with customers daily
Through product analytics : Many product management tools include features such as session recordings and heatmaps to help you visualize customer journeys , track usage patterns, and detect problem areas
By analyzing competitors and industry trends : Find out what your main competitors and industry leaders are doing and why. Strive to provide the same (or more) value and devise ways to capitalize on their weaknesses

Expert Customer Discovery Questions to Ask

In the following four sections , we’ll suggest some expert-recommended questions you can ask potential customers (in person or online) to better understand their pain points. You can modify the questions to work for your specific product or demographic.

Ask these open-ended questions to observe how your product can be useful to the customer:

What is your current job and your essential tasks?: The answer to this critical question will guide the conception and development of your product . It reveals the context in which the product will be used most often
What are your major pain points at the moment?: The current struggles of the customer show where existing products fall short. Your product should ideally resolve these specific issues
What are the biggest challenges you encounter when trying to do your job?: Although similar to the previous one, this question can reveal problems that are not apparent right away, helping you create well-rounded solutions

To understand the products you’re competing against, ask the following:

What tools do you currently use to solve problems specific to your job?: With this question, you can identify your biggest competitors. Your goal is to either complement the existing tools or surpass them by providing a more optimal solution
What do you dislike about the solutions you’ve tried?: The answer to this question will pinpoint your competitors’ shortcomings. You’ll know what mistakes to look out for and what opportunistic new features to pay attention to when designing your product

Tip: How do you build a superior product? Use the ClickUp Competitor Tracking Template to keep track of your competitors’ products, features, and pricing.

Once your product is ready for trial runs, use the questions below to gather initial feedback:

How easy is this product to use?: Intuitiveness and accessibility are the first criteria users will judge. If your product isn’t user-friendly, more users will be discouraged from exploring it, regardless of the number or quality of its features
Are there any new features you’d prefer this product to have?: This question reveals any features you may have missed or additional ones you should include
If you could change anything about this product, what would that be?: Ask what features customers or a particular customer segment are looking to tweak, and note down the reason for the inconvenience

Leverage the following to get more detailed feedback on your product:

How likely are you to recommend this product to a coworker or friend?: This question enables you to quantify a user’s satisfaction levels
Did you try any alternative solutions before this product?: Understand what sets your product apart from others and what made the user switch to it. It also reveals an average user’s criteria for evaluating products in that industry
Are there any features that you don’t use?: While your product should be comprehensive, it should also be simple. If a feature doesn’t provide value, you should either revise it or remove it. Be careful, though. Sometimes, the root cause of the problem is not the feature itself but rather its adoption. In that case, just provide more assistance to new product users
Is there anything that could make you stop using the product?: This question is valuable because it pinpoints red flags to look out for. It allows you to detect and address potential problems before they occur

Customer discovery questions should ideally be asked throughout the product development lifecycle . Since the market is dynamic and many unforeseen variables can affect customer preferences, it’s crucial to assess their opinions continuously and initiate product improvement efforts .

In the pre-launch stage , hypothesize about your target customers’ needs—the customer discovery interview questions we discussed before serve to test your hypotheses.

Once you know what to focus on when designing your product, move on to prototyping. Request customer opinion again when you create an early version of the product. This process allows you to understand whether the product solves their problems as well as looks and feels right.

After the launch , the aim of these questions is to provide guidelines for product optimization and customer success . You can:

Fine-tune the features and the user experience
Address current pain points you may have missed before
Tackle usage challenges that came up in the meantime

Proper customer discovery will also facilitate your segmentation process . You’ll be able to understand lucrative user segments to implement a custom pricing strategy or provide more personalized experiences.

If you design and optimize your product with the customers in mind, you’ll ensure continuous product-market fit and customer satisfaction. You’ll also set the stage for effective product marketing and get that word-of-mouth going. 🗣️

Tools for Conducting Customer Discovery

You can make the collection and analysis of customer data more efficient with the right tools, such as:

These tools allow you to get in touch with customers, schedule interviews , and conduct them. Although in-person conversations are preferred for customer interviews, they aren’t always possible, so video conferencing is the next best thing. 📹

If you need to collect large volumes of customer data, you can do so online via survey and questionnaire tools or distribute your questionnaire sheets at industry events.

Social media listening tools allow you to monitor social media channels for mentions of your product or company, gauge public perception, and respond to any praises and concerns quickly.

Bonus: Use ClickUp’s social media templates to streamline your online campaigns. Marketing teams of brands with heavy social media presence will love the ClickUp Social Media Strategy Workflow Template to schedule content and analyze performance metrics.

Social Media Strategy Workflow Template by ClickUp

CRM software serves as a hub where you can store and manage all the customer data you’ve gathered, including:

Contact information
Purchase history
User feedback

Customer discovery is a complex and collective effort. Coordinate all the tasks involved across product and marketing teams using project management software . Such tools help streamline your discovery workflow, keep you on schedule, and help you track progress.

ClickUp: One Tool to Replace Them All

Instead of switching between all these apps and tools, why not use ClickUp ? It’s a free and versatile work solution for project and product managers alike!

ClickUp can assist with product management and customer discovery throughout the product lifecycle—from the initial ideation stage to beyond the launch. 🌸

Use ClickUp Tasks to plan and coordinate work across research and marketing departments. ClickUp also offers several built-in communication tools, such as the Chat view and @mentions , to foster a clear understanding of team workflows.

You can choose between 15+ views to customize your Workspace. For example, use the Board view to plan your discovery efforts across product stages or use the Calendar view to schedule 1-1 customer interviews.

With ClickUp Forms , you can build tailored customer feedback surveys and distribute them across channels in a few clicks. If you don’t want to start from scratch, use one of ClickUp’s numerous questionnaire templates to get started. ClickUp can automatically turn responses into tasks—monitor them in the Table view and keep tabs on in-demand features or common user issues.

ClickUp’s CRM Suite helps you manage customer information, sales pipelines, and orders and maintain stronger client relationships.

For starters, you can organize all your customer data and product strategies with ClickUp Docs . Create and refine customer personas promptly thanks to the platform’s AI assistant — ClickUp Brain . Leverage ready-made prompts to ask the tool to generate:

Ideal user personas
Research studies
User stories
Product discovery questions
Content briefs

You can also brainstorm with the tool and generate product optimization ideas! 💡

Need to visualize user journeys with your team? ClickUp Whiteboards enable you to map out customer journeys on an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop canvas. Use the feature with your team leads to identify bottlenecks and strategize improvements proactively.

You can also set product launch goals and track them on a custom ClickUp Dashboard —use 50+ cards to view all customer and product metrics at a glance.

The best part about ClickUp is that it integrates with 1,000+ tools, including email providers and meeting software, ensuring all your apps are accessible from one place.

Do’s and Don’ts of Customer Discovery

Follow the tips below to make the most of your customer discovery efforts.

Have a clear goal in mind when reaching out to customers to learn as much as possible about them. Craft the question list carefully and stick to it to avoid wasting their time. ⌚

During the conversation, jot down all relevant observations. Organize the knowledge meticulously so you can access it easily later on.

Be amicable when interviewing customers in person. Smile and break the initial tension with some small talk. Although you’re going into it with a specific intention, the conversation cannot feel like an interrogation to the customer. That way, the potential customer will be more willing to open up and offer valuable insights. 🤝

Hearing negative talk about your product idea hurts, but listen intently to the customer’s problems when they complain.

Think of it this way—if your assumptions were off, it’s better to hear the news in the early stages while you still haven’t invested a significant amount of time, money, and effort in the product’s development and marketing campaigns .

Don’t overshare the intent of the interview. For example: Our product managers will use your responses to develop a new app.

Excessive information may make the customer feel burdened and uncomfortable, and they may refuse to share their honest thoughts.

Fast-Track Customer and Product Discovery with ClickUp

Customer discovery is a crucial step in building and optimizing products. When your decision-making is evidence-backed, your product and business are more likely to thrive. 🌟

With tools such as ClickUp, customer discovery can be not only fruitful but also streamlined. Get the free solution today and start unlocking customer insights in no time.

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How to Create a Survey

20 business survey questions to ask your customers

Examples of business survey questions, market research questions, product feedback questions, customer service feedback questions, brand recognition questions.

How can you know if your customers are happy with your products and services and plan to continue purchasing? All you have to do is ask!

Customer surveys are a great way to gather insights that will help you make decisions about the future of your company. The questions you ask will depend on the survey’s purpose. Do you want to research a potential new market or solicit customer feedback? Or maybe you want to measure brand awareness or understand the competitor landscape.

Whatever your goal, keep reading to learn which business survey questions to ask in order to get more meaningful insights.

Goals for business survey questions

“Surveys are an easy and non-intrusive way to get business data that would otherwise be impossible to get,” says Harrison Tanner Baron, CEO and founder of Growth Generators , a digital marketing agency.

When drafting your questions, it’s important to have a clear objective in mind: What does your organization want to achieve by asking these questions? This will help you determine what types of questions to ask, the order in which to ask them, and whom to ask.

Here are some of the most common business survey goals:

Learn more about the target audience. Market research surveys that ask questions related to demographics and customer needs help businesses learn more about their customer base and what they want in terms of products and services.

Find out marketing research survey tips in our guide.

Get insight on a specific product or service. A company that’s releasing a new product or service may launch it for a small audience first and survey their responses to see what can be improved before releasing it into the wider market.
Improve customer service. How an organization treats its customers determines whether they choose to come back or not. Business survey questions that seek to understand a customer’s experience can help organizations improve their service processes.
Understand their competitive position. Questions around brand recognition help the company see how customers perceive it in the wider market. This can impact branding strategies and marketing approaches.

“Feedback from customers is worth its weight in gold,” says Baron. “Big box stores have surveys on the bottom of their receipts, and online companies automate surveys. The data can help drive more sales, but, more importantly, it can be used to improve the overall customer experience.”

Baron notes that some companies may think customer surveys are a bit invasive. “However, most people are happy to participate for a chance to win a gift card or store credit,” he notes.

“The main drawback of customer surveys is that sometimes customers can give feedback that may be hard for businesses to stomach,” says Baron. It’s important to be open to all kinds of responses — both positive and negative — when conducting customer surveys.

Check it out…

Learn the right questions to ask your customers about products, services, and target audiences, and more.

These types of questions help organizations make decisions about the future direction of their company, such as markets to target or products to develop.

What is your most pressing daily challenge?
If you had an ideal solution to this problem, what would it look like?
Are you more likely to fix the problem yourself or hire someone to do it for you?
How likely are you to purchase this product?
What do you value most in a product: affordability, quality, or the time it saves?

Questions like these produce valuable insight into how consumers view a product and where it could use some improvements. They can also help businesses project future sales.

What surprised you about this product?
Does this product live up to your expectations?
How likely are you to recommend this product to a friend?
What do you like least about using this product?
If you could change anything about this product, what would it be?

These questions are important because they aid in customer retention efforts and enable businesses to fine-tune their customer service processes.

How would you rate your experience at our store today?
How likely are you to return to our e-commerce store?
Will you recommend our business to a friend?
Did the customer service representative resolve your issue effectively?
If you could change anything about your experience today, what would it be?

Organizations ask these questions to see where they stand in the industry, how they can improve their image, and how they can become more memorable.

Which company is the leader in this industry?
What is the most memorable marketing campaign you’ve seen in this industry?
Why would you choose a certain business over another in this industry?
Do you view our organization as an expert in this industry?
What is more valuable to you when choosing a business: name recognition or price point?

Business survey questions with Jotform

Ready to create your own business survey ? Baron notes that good business survey questions can help your organization make more money by uncovering what your target audience wants.

Jotform has you covered with thousands of form and survey templates for a wide array of business needs , including tax forms, demographic surveys, job applications, and many more. Each survey template is fully customizable, so you can edit the content, colors, and logos to create an attractive-looking survey that will help you meet your business goals.

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19 Consumer experience survey examples and questions to inspire you

Why is it important to understand the consumer experience, 19 example surveys and questions to ask your consumers, how to analyze your customer experience survey results, when should you send a customer experience survey, consumer insight templates at your fingertips.

A customer experience survey asks customers about their interactions with your brand across various touch points—from initial discovery through purchase and beyond.

And they matter a lot. Because you might think you know what customers are facing when browsing your website or using your product, but when you learn about how that all happens in their true context and circumstances, you might learn some surprising stuff.

Consumers don’t hold back when it comes to sharing their brand experiences. Often, the bad reviews travels faster, sometimes coming from the well-meant advice of others: “Just tweet about it; that’ll get their attention.”

While this method may offer consumers a temporary fix to their beef with companies, it would be a lot better if brands were preventing these issues in the first place—a great way to boost customer loyalty. How? By investing more thought and effort into shaping stellar customer experiences, and proactively collecting customer feedback.

Understanding consumer experience goes beyond just product opinions or customer service interactions. It’s about the entire journey your customers take with your brand.

In this guide, we’ll dissect consumer experience research, touchpoint after touchpoint, showing you how to draw insights from the very people who know it best. We’ll walk you through example questions and give you some best practices to incorporate in your customer experience surveys. Here’s a quick summary:

Analyze trends over time : like people, surveys don’t do well in isolation. Send out customer experience surveys regularly and compare results over time to spot trends and measure the impact of changes you’ve made.
Ask the why and how : it’s not just about what your customers experience, but what they think of it. If they indicate that support was quick, it might not mean that it was kind. Follow up on ratings with open-ended questions to get to the heart of their experience.
Segment your audience : tailor your surveys to different customer groups for more relevant insights. What a long-time customer thinks might be worlds apart from a first-timer’s views.
Use a conversational tone : make your surveys feel like a chat, not a chore. A friendly tone can encourage more responses and richer insights.

Want to know more? Keep reading.

Customer experience surveys can be a revelation for brands stuck wondering why their marketing isn’t resonating or why satisfied customers just aren’t returning. Because sometimes your product or marketing isn’t actually the issue, and simple customer satisfaction surveys (CSATs) aren’t giving you the insights you need.

Broadening your view and diving into the customer experience might reveal a small hiccup in the purchasing process, a gap in customer support, or a disconnect in the messaging. Understanding these details allows brands to make precise adjustments.

Here’s the thing: creating experiences that perfectly match what your customers expect is really tough.

Making them smile when they buy or when they need help isn’t enough. Your responsibility to delight them is for the whole journey—before they’ve even decided to choose you and after they’ve paid.

6 simple ways to test consumer preferences

Check out the top ways to test how and why your target customers make their choices

The risk of not being in tune with your customers

Understanding the consumer experience helps you be intentional in every interaction. It’s the little things, often. But there are big things at play here, too. When you’re not in tune with this experience, things can start to unravel quickly:

Wasted resources : without a clear understanding, you might be pouring effort and money into areas that don’t actually matter to your customers.
Off-target marketing : your messages might as well be arrows shot in the dark. They don’t hit home, they don’t bring in new customers, and they definitely don’t bring in more revenue.
Attracting the wrong crowd : ever thrown a party and the wrong people show up? That’s what it’s like. You end up attracting customers who don’t really gel with what you’re offering. They leave, often loudly, on their way out.
Scattered product development : it’s like trying to cook without knowing what ingredients you have. Your product development can lack direction and focus.

All in all, knowing the ins and outs of the customer experience will allow your brand to create tailored experiences that feel personalized, which will not just boost customer satisfaction scores, but also retain customers, and increase sales.

Examining the customer journey through surveys

You could try to put yourself in the shoes of your customers and walk through every touchpoint. And while that is recommendable for some things, it isn’t the same as getting to know the true customer experience.

For starters: you know your product, service or website better than customers who haven’t interacted with it before.

So you’ll use it differently. You’ll miss the context that they are operating in. Moreover, you’re not necessarily your own target audience, and different segments can have different experiences.

That’s why customer experience surveys are the way to go. You can use them to get insights into every touchpoint, every stage of the journey:

Pre-purchase : what are customers looking for? What hesitations do they have? Surveys can uncover what potential customers are looking for in products like yours, helping you fine-tune your offerings and marketing strategies to meet or even exceed these expectations.
Post-purchase : now they’ve bought in. How do you keep the excitement alive, address any concerns, and encourage them to become brand ambassadors?
Following customer support : are you solving their problems and making them feel valued? Understand the effectiveness of your support team and where improvements can be made to turn negative experiences into positive ones.
Post-cancellation/downgrade : why did they leave? Is there a chance to win them back or learn for the future and boost customer loyalty?

Note: these types of surveys aren’t customer satisfaction surveys. You’re not just gauging whether or not people are happy, you’re zooming in on what they’re experiencing and what that means for the way they perceive your brand.

Before you dive into these customer experience example questions, remember they’re starting points, not a one-size-fits-all checklist for your customer satisfaction survey template. Your brand is unique, and so are your research needs.

Use these customer feedback questions as inspiration to put together a survey that digs into the specifics of your customer experience.

Tailor your questions to explore the unique aspects of your brand’s interaction with its customers.

Mix, match, and modify these prompts to zero in on what really matters for your business and the insights you’re seeking to uncover.

1. What’s something you wish you had known before purchasing this product/service?

This question sheds light on critical information that could have sped up the customer’s decision-making process or boosted satisfaction.

By identifying these gaps, you can refine your communication strategy to better inform future customers.

2. What was missing from your experience that you’ve found elsewhere?

If you understand what competitors offer that you don’t, you can pinpoint specific areas for improvement or innovation.

This customer feedback helps you to understand your competitive landscape better and adjust your value proposition accordingly.

3. What’s the biggest challenge you face when using this product/service?

This question reveals specific obstacles or frustrations customers encounter, which will give you direct targets for product improvement or service enhancement to make your customer’s response offerings more user-friendly.

4. How did the customer service team make you feel during your last interaction?

Customer feedback on service interactions can highlight strengths and areas needing improvement.

Positive responses can be modeled, while negative experiences offer a roadmap for training and making improvements to customer support quality.

5. What’s one thing this brand could do to make your next experience better?

Customer suggestions provide tangible actions you can take to immediately enhance the customer experience. Quick wins!

This customer feedback is great for making quick adjustments that can significantly impact customer satisfaction and loyalty.

6. What aspect of your experience do you think the brand is not aware of but should be?

This question helps gather data on hidden aspects of the customer experience that might have been overlooked, allowing you to address and refine these areas to improve overall satisfaction.

7. Was there a moment during your experience where you felt hesitant or unsure?

Identifying moments of uncertainty helps evaluate how effectively your brand supports and reassures customers throughout their journey, pinpointing opportunities to enhance guidance and trust.

8. Can you recall a detail in your experience that stood out as a positive/negative experience?

Focusing on specific positive or negative experiences provides clarity on what works well and what doesn’t, guiding strategic decisions to replicate success and mitigate issues.

9. Describe a moment where you felt frustrated with your experience. What could the brand have done to prevent or solve this?

Direct insights into customer frustrations and proposed solutions will show you a clear path to preventing future dissatisfaction, improving the overall customer experience.

10. Have you ever decided against purchasing from this brand at the last minute? What stopped you?

Understanding the reasons behind last-minute purchase hesitations can reveal barriers in the purchase process. These insights can directly help you to improve conversion rates.

11. How well do our communication channels (email, social media, website) meet your needs?

Collecting more customer data and feedback on how customers interact with your content and the effectiveness of different communication channels from the customer’s perspective can help optimize these touchpoints for better engagement and information dissemination.

12. If you could change one thing about this product/service, what would it be?

Fishing for direct suggestions for changes allows customers to voice their most desired improvements, guiding your product development priorities.

13. How likely are you to return to this brand for your future needs?

These types of customer satisfaction survey results and questions help you gauge the likelihood of repeat business and the reasons behind it can help identify what keeps loyal customers coming back or what might drive them away.

14. Describe how you felt the first time you used this product/service.

Capturing your customers’ initial emotional responses and impressions provides valuable feedback on the effectiveness of your onboarding experience and initial product/service impact.

15. What does this brand represent to you?

This question lets you collect feedback on customers’ perceptions of your brand values and image. It gives you an indication of how well your brand messaging aligns with customer expectations and values.

16. How does this product/service compare to your ideal version of such a product/service?

Identifying gaps between customer expectations and the reality of your offering can spotlight areas for improvement and innovation.

17. In what way has this product/service impacted your daily routine or life?

Do you know how your customers feel thanks to your business? This question helps you gain insight into the practical and emotional impact of your product/service on customers’ lives and can highlight its value and areas where further enhancements could enrich customer experiences even more.

18. Could you share a suggestion for how this brand might enhance your overall experience?

Encouraging customers to share ideas for holistic improvements can reveal innovative ways to create a more positive experience across all touchpoints.

19. What motivated your last purchase with this brand, and did the product/service meet your expectations?

Linking the motivations behind purchases to satisfaction levels helps assess how well your product/service is meeting customer expectations, informing strategies to maintain or enhance customer satisfaction score.

Segment customers and data: break down your survey results by different customer demographics, purchase history, or any specific segmentation relevant to your business. This helps you identify patterns or needs unique to certain groups, like existing customers and those who have left.
Look for trends over time: if your customer feedback survey is part of an ongoing effort, compare the results with past data. Are there improvements in areas you’ve been working on? Are there new issues have emerged that weren’t apparent before? This is valuable information to identify trends in the market and how customers’ opinions change.
Look beyond customer satisfaction: measuring customer satisfaction isn’t useless, but it should be done in the right context and as part of a larger research question.
Identify common themes: use thematic analysis to sift through open-ended responses. This could reveal unexpected insights about your product or service that quantitative questions might not capture.
Prioritize actions based on frequency and impact: focus on the issues or suggestions mentioned most frequently by your customers, but also consider the potential impact of less common feedback that could significantly enhance the customer experience.
Cross-reference with other data sources: compare survey findings with data from other customer interaction points like social media, customer support logs, or sales data to validate insights and identify broader trends.
Contrast sentiments between segments: look beyond surface-level data to compare sentiment scores between different customer segments. This can highlight if specific groups have substantially different experiences or perceptions that need tailored responses.
Analyze verbatim for emotional tone: use sentiment analysis tools to assess the emotional tone of open-ended responses. This can reveal not just what customers are saying, but how they feel about their experiences, offering clues on emotional drivers or deterrents.
Map feedback to customer journey stages: assign each piece of feedback to a specific stage in the customer journey. This approach helps identify which parts of the journey are delighting customers and which are creating friction.
Benchmark against industry standards: if industry benchmarks are available, compare your survey results against them to see how your customer experience stacks up against competitors and industry leaders.
Identify advocates vs. detractors: using Net Promoter Score (NPS) segments or similar metrics, specifically analyze comments from promoters and detractors separately.
Engage in follow-up conversations: don’t make this a one-time-thing. Reach out for follow-up conversations with respondents who provided particularly insightful feedback. This can uncover the nuances behind their responses and generate qualitative insights that surveys alone might not capture.

It’s not just a question of when, it’s also a question of ‘how often’?

Ideally, you do it regularly, across different touchpoints and survey both paying customers and those who are still shopping around.

Because sending a customer experience survey shouldn’t be a reactive measure; it’s a proactive step to understanding your customers better.

Whether you’ve noticed a spike in complaints or just want to stay ahead, it’s important to time your surveys wisely. Regular surveys can help you keep a close eye on customer sentiment, allowing you to address any issues before they escalate.

Ideally, integrating these surveys into your customer journey at key milestones—like after a purchase or interaction with customer service—ensures you’re always in tune with your customers’ needs and expectations.

Ready to get a clearer picture of your consumers? Attest customer experience survey templates are here to make it easier. Dive into our Brand Perception , Customer Profiling , or JTBD (Jobs to Be Done) templates to kick-start your consumer insights journey.

They’re straightforward, easy to use, and packed with the kind of questions that reveal what your consumers really think and need.

Perfect for fine-tuning your marketing, product development, or overall strategy. Check them out and see how you can start understanding your consumers on a whole new level today.

What are the top consumer experience providers?

Get reliable insights on what your customers experience – check our list of the top consumer experience providers

By conducting customer surveys, you can pinpoint exactly where your service excels or needs improvement. This direct feedback is crucial for training your team and refining your approach, ensuring that every customer call or interaction adds positively to your customer’s experience.

Asking the right customer feedback questions helps you understand the effort your customers put into their interactions with your brand, from navigating your ordering process to getting their issues resolved. This knowledge allows you to streamline processes and improve customer satisfaction.

Measuring how much effort customers need to exert to use your product or service, or resolve issues, is vital. A lower customer effort score (CES) usually correlates with higher customer satisfaction, loyalty, and, ultimately, a decrease in customer churn.

Analyzing survey data gives you a comprehensive view of your customers’ opinions and experiences. This insight helps you make informed decisions to address issues, improve customer experiences, and keep your customers satisfied and loyal.

Understanding your target audience is key to designing effective customer surveys. Tailoring questions to fit the specific needs and preferences of your existing customers or a particular loyal customer segment ensures that the feedback you collect is relevant and actionable.

A representative sample ensures that the survey data accurately reflects the broader customer base’s opinions and experiences. This accuracy is crucial for making informed decisions that positively impact a wide range of customers, from new prospects to long-term loyalists.

Stephanie Rand

Senior Customer Research Manager

11 types of qualitative research marketers navigate every day, 6 qualitative data examples for thorough market researchers, making it personal – using tech to build connections with consumers | diageo, subscribe to our newsletter.

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65 Best Sales Questions to Determine Your Customer's Needs

Published: April 01, 2024

Thoughtful, well-structured, strategic sales questions and needs analysis questions are central to any sales professional's ability to provide value to prospects.

salesperson asking sales questions to determine her customer needs

We‘re in the age of the empowered buyer, and potential customers are as complex as they’ve ever been. They're busy, well-informed, and often reluctant to share information — with a diverse array of wants, needs, interests, and buying preferences.

Whether you're new to sales and looking for a go-to list of sales qualification questions or a manager looking to test new questions with your team, this list of great sales questions to ask customers will help you identify your prospects' core needs.

Table of Contents

Sales Questions to Ask Customers

Strategic questions to ask customers, needs analysis questions about goals, needs analysis questions about weaknesses, needs analysis questions about buying processes, questions to ask customers about your product, questions to ask customers to close the deal.

Here are some of the most critical questions salespeople should ask their prospects.

“Do we need to include any other decision-makers in our conversation?”
“If timeline or budget were not constraints, what would your ideal solution look like?”
“Why is this a priority for you now?”
“What challenges do you think will come up as you try to purchase the product?”
“Are you currently using another solution? If so, why are you switching?”
“Has your team tried to use a similar product? If so, how did it go?”
“How can I make this process as easy as possible?”
“What’s your approximate budget for this project?”
“What other tools do you use in your day-to-day?”
“What challenges have you experienced in the past year related to [product-related goal]?”

Asking the right questions is crucial when speaking with a prospect for the first or second time. As a salesperson, your job is to discover their core needs quickly and succinctly. The questions above will uncover needs — while also helping you figure out whether this customer is the right fit for your product.

After you get your customer’s answers, you can customize your sales presentations and pitches to their specific circumstances.

Next, we‘re going to cover some key strategic questions from real sales leaders. Let’s take a look.

According to Magee Clegg , CEO of Cleartail Marketing , “This question does two things incredibly well — it helps prospects articulate their short-term goals, giving you insights into their immediate needs, and it positions your services as a solution within the context of their strategic planning. It’s a question that naturally leads to a deeper dialogue about how your offerings align with their objectives.”

2. “What does the ideal outcome look like for you with this project or service?”

This question is essentially a bit more of a focused play on the sixth question on this list. Clegg says that this question "allows the prospect to envision the future success that your service can bring them. It turns the conversation into a more positive, forward-thinking one, where the prospect isn‘t just focused on what’s wrong now but on the potential for improvement and growth. “This question has helped me transform sales conversations at Cleartail Marketing into collaborative strategy sessions, where the prospect sees us as a partner in achieving their vision, rather than just another vendor.”

3. “What outcome would make this investment worth it for you?”

This question is another way to phrase the previous one with a bit more of a product-specific, value-oriented edge. Bayu Prihandito , Founder of Life Architekture , suggests you ask it because it helps with “Understanding your prospect's definition of success helps align your offer with their expectations. It clarifies their goals and sets the stage for how your product or service can meet them.”

4. “Why did you consider our services/products just now?”

Prihandito recommends asking this question because it can help you “find out the 'why' behind their interest, understanding the urgency and any immediate motivations for them to look for solutions.”

5. “Can you describe a challenge you're facing that you hope we can address?”

Prihandito says salespeople should ask this question because “[being] able to directly pinpoint specific problems allows you to understand where your offering will fit best into their current situation.”

6. “How does solving this challenge fit into your big picture?”

Prihandito suggests asking this question because “linking your prospect's immediate need to bigger goals gives you an understanding of their values and long-term plans. Then, you can align your solution within a larger context, which will increase its perceived value.”

7. “What barriers do you face in your attempt to scale your business?”

According to Baidhurya Mani , Founder of SellCoursesOnline , “Scaling the business is often the number-one reason business leaders integrate technology into their operations. When you can pinpoint what their barriers to scaling are, then you can also determine what solutions to offer them in this scenario. Whatever challenge is preventing them from growing their business, that is your prospect's premium priority at the moment, and that is the number-one need they need you to meet.”

8. “How does your current solution fall short?”

Casey Jones , Founder of CJ&CO , says asking this question can help you identify key gaps in your prospect‘s operations. According to him, this question helps you "[dig] for dissatisfaction — this is where you’ll find the gap your product or service can fill."

9. “What's the impact of not addressing [your key] challenges?”

Jones also suggests asking this question because it allows you to “[emphasize] urgency. It makes the cost of inaction real, often a powerful motivator to move forward.”

10. “Can you walk me through your decision-making process?”

Jones says that this question “unpicks the power structure, timelines. We understand the 'how'—crucial to tailor the pitch.”

11. “What barriers do you face in your attempt to scale your business?”

12. “which potential deal-breakers would keep us from working together”.

Johannes Larsson , Founder and CEO of JohannesLarsson.com , “This will allow your prospect to voice any concerns or reservations they might have about the product or service. By addressing these upfront, you can demonstrate your commitment to understanding and resolving issues, which builds trust and rapport with the prospect. This question will also help you gather valuable insights into the prospect's priorities and non-negotiables so you can tailor your approach accordingly.”

Free Guide: 101 Sales Qualification Questions

101 Questions to Ask Contacts When Qualifying, Closing, Negotiating, and Upselling.

Budget Questions
Business Impact Questions
Competitor Questions

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Needs Analysis Questions

What is your boss or team hoping to accomplish in the next year?
What do you perceive as your team’s greatest strength? Weakness?
From your perspective, what do you perceive your needs to be? How important are they?
Which resource could you use more of?
What are your buying criteria and success criteria?
What do you like best about your current system? What would you like to see changed?
Would you rather cut costs, save money, or increase productivity?

13. “What are your short-term goals? Long-term goals?”

According to Uka Tomikis , CEO of Messente , asking this question is important because “[understanding] a prospect's goals enables you to align your solution with their objectives and demonstrate how you can contribute to their success. This indicates your interest in their business success rather than just completing a transaction.”

14. “What's been preventing you from reaching these goals?”

Tomikis says that asking this question is crucial because “[identifying] hurdles allows you to directly address how your product or service will overcome these limitations. It also helps to prioritize which demands are most urgent.”

15. “How are you currently addressing these challenges?”

Tomikas recommends asking this question because “knowing a prospect's current solutions lets you differentiate yours by emphasizing new features or benefits that fill gaps in their current strategy.”

16. “What does the ideal solution look like to you?”

Tomikas asserts that asking this question “lets you grasp the prospect's expectations and tailor your pitch accordingly. It highlights their top features or outcomes, allowing you to focus on the most important components of your service.”

17. “What criteria will you use to evaluate solutions?”

Tomikas recommends asking this question because “[understanding] your prospect's evaluation criteria provides insight into what is most important to them, whether it be cost, ease of use, scalability, or support. It enables you to adapt your proposal to fit these criteria.”

18. “Have you ever solved this problem before? What worked and what did not?”

Tomikas recommends you ask this question because “[learning] from previous attempts allows you to understand what not to propose and what might be a better strategy, preventing recurrent failures and building trust by respecting their experience.”

19. “What is your boss or team hoping to accomplish in the next year?”

This is another question that covers a prospect‘s goals — but this one adds an element of specificity that the previous ones don’t, enabling you to really hone in on what the business is hoping to achieve.

Pro-Tip: Be sure to stress that you want to know company leadership‘s or the broader org’s goals here. This question is meant to get prospects thinking beyond themselves. You can ask how your solution will improve their day-to-day later — here, you want them to place your offering in a “bigger picture” context.

20. “What deadlines are you currently up against?”

Add more urgency to the conversation by explicitly asking your customer if they’re up against any deadlines. Once you find out if they have a set date where they must achieve or do something, you can highlight your solution as a tool for getting there more quickly.

Pro-Tip: This question is good for disqualifying prospects. If your prospect is working on a timeline you can't realistically accommodate, you can end the engagement and spare yourself crucial time and resources.

21. "How do your team’s objectives play into your department's strategy?”

This question might seem extraneous, given that we’ve already covered two questions about objectives and goals — but knowing the role of their team in the department’s larger strategy can hint at the needs of the entire department.

For instance, if you’re selling an SEO software solution, you might want to listen for the team’s role in increasing traffic, meaning that the business is intending to grow its organic acquisition. If your software also offers acquisition tools, you can pitch those as well.

A better alternative to “ What are your needs?” , this question will specifically ask for your customer’s perception of their needs, not necessarily their actual needs. After asking a series of needs analysis questions, you’ll likely have a better understanding of your customer’s needs than they do. But it’s important to understand what they perceive their needs to be.

26. “Do you struggle with [common pain point]?”

This is a classic question to uncover your customer’s challenges. It works because it puts a name to the pain point. Your customer might not even know what their pain point is until you mention it outright. Sometimes, they might be used to dealing with the challenge and not even bring it up. By posing this question, you force them to reckon with it.

Pro-Tip: This is a good opportunity to raise pain points that your solution is uniquely positioned to address, but you need to understand your vertical as thoroughly as possible to touch on reasonable, relevant ones. “Common pain points” vary by factors like scale and industry — so don't just throw random examples out for the sake of throwing them out.

27. “Which resource could you use more of?”

Ask this question to not only understand what resources you could offer right then and there — but to see the types of resources your team could create to convert more prospects. You can send this information straight to your marketing department so you can begin to nurture leads with this new resource.

Pro-Tip: Your customer might also respond in general terms: They might need a bigger budget or a bigger team. Use this information to further qualify them or figure out if you could create a better package for them.

Is it by attending a team-wide meeting, and everyone votes on whether to adopt a solution or not? Does it depend on the contract value of the product? If you’re selling a cheaper product, your customer might have a much more speedy process. But if your product is pricier, they might have a different process.

38. “Would you rather cut costs, save money, or increase productivity?”

This is another way to uncover where your customer’s priorities lie. The fun part is that it offers choices in a “Would you rather” format, making it easier to ask and leading to a more conversational or casual answer.

39. “Which product features would lead to a purchasing decision?”

Some product features might not be necessary to your customers, while others might be critical. Whatever your customer mentions here, use that to highlight that exact feature in your product.

40. “If you’ve considered a similar product in the past but didn’t purchase it, why?”

Has your customer come close to making a similar purchase, but pulled back at the last second? This question will give you insight into potential objections you could face as you near a closed deal.

41. “On average, how long does it take for your team to purchase a product?”

Take advantage of this question to find out how long you could potentially be in conversation with this customer.

When you‘re checking in with current clients with the hope of either upselling, cross-selling, or renewing, it’s imperative you ask the right questions.

If you fail to ask tough questions about the good and bad of your product/service, you risk missing warning signs they're unhappy and would consider churning to a competitor.

Don't leave the door open. Close it with these questions:

“On a scale of one to 10, how happy are you with our product?”
“Why did you give us that score?”
“Can you explain the weaknesses or challenges you've found in our product/service so far?”
“What do you love about our product/service?”
“How likely are you to recommend our product/service to a friend or colleague?”
“How has adoption and internal use gone in your team?”
“Do you feel you've received outstanding customer service?”
“Are you ready to renew today?” (Only if the first seven questions have had positive answers)
“What can we do to earn your business for another year?”
“Would you be interested in our new add-on Feature X?”

As you near the end of your conversation with a customer, you want to find out, in no uncertain terms, how you can get their business. Use your customer’s background as a guidepost for how you’ll word this question.

If you get the sense your customer doesn’t like being pushed or is on the fence, try to close in a more circumventive way. Here are some options:

“What will it take for us to do business?”
“How soon can we begin?”
“What is my best shot for winning your account?”
(If they’re a returning customer) “What did we do in the last sale that impressed you most?”
"What’s the best time to touch base before you present the product to stakeholders?”

Ask Better Questions to Analyze Your Customer’s Needs

Great sales questions enable you to tailor your messaging to your prospects' goals and show them your solution is the best choice. By asking the right questions, you can further qualify your prospects, close more deals, and increase recurring revenue at your company.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2014 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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The Most Insightful Market Research Questions You Can Ask

With great customer expectations in today’s ever-growing digital world, market research has become exceedingly important. It should be at the forefront of every business’s strategy. Even if you feel as though you’ve nailed your target market down to a tee, there will always remain work to be done on the market research front.

That’s because market trends sway, as do the opinions and desires of your customer base. That means when you least expect it, even your most loyal customers will turn to your competitors, sometimes for good. But you can still stay in the know about what your customers want and think by running a sturdy market research plan.

As part of any solid market research endeavor, you’ll need an apt set of questions to help answer the most pressing needs and opinions of your customers. You’ll also need sets of questions that pertain to your needs as well; this is especially crucial to understanding your customers’ minds about your product or service.

Let’s explore four sets of insightful market research questions.

Questions Based on Pain Points

These questions are thematically based on the difficulties customers may have undergone, are currently experiencing, or may run into in the future. In regards to the latter, these types of questions are great in that they are wired to prevent the pain points from occurring in the first place.

Here are some examples of market research questions on customer experience (CX) and customer journey points of friction.

What is the most difficult aspect of [action related to your product]?

What bothers you the most about ?

What issues do you typically run into on our website?

How can we better support your needs when shopping for…?

What frustrates you the most about ?

Questions Based on Goals

Goals-based questions help answer what your customers want, in that they inquire specifically about what it is customers are looking for and what they hope to gain from a product or service. These questions do not necessarily have to zero in a particular product/service — although some of them should. Rather, they can focus on improving specific tasks/actions related to your field. This will not only help you understand how your customers feel about your market but will allow you to innovate more and faster.

Here you’ll find some examples of market research questions on customer goals.

What do you look for in a ?

What do you think can do to improve its usefulness?

What can do to help improve your overall user experience?

What aspects would you like to see in new ?

What do you hope to gain when taking on [problem or goal within a market]?

Questions Based on Pricing

Pricing has always been (and will remain to be) a major part of the buying equation. Even customers in the luxury sector care about prices to some extent. No one wants to be ripped off; even businesses aim to save money. For example, in 2020, 69% of companies are expected to decrease ad spending.

Thus, it is ideal to have reasonably priced goods or services. But you won’t know what is considered a reasonable price until you conduct a questionnaire on your target market. Referring to general internet research alone will not suffice for this.

Here are a few examples of market research questions to ask about pricing.

What is a reasonable price range for ?

Are there any conditions in which you’d be willing to buy at a higher range?

What do you think is the ideal price for ?

How would you rate the prices within [industry, niche, or specific market]?

Is [price point] too high, low, or a fair ask for ?

Questions Based On Psychographic Traits

Psychographic questions help reveal the psychological characteristics within your target market, or your entire pool of respondents. This type of approach to market research questions involves the feelings, interests, and attitudes your customer base holds.

It allows brands to understand their customers at a more intimate level, specifically, their views on any topic. You can tailor these to focus on your product/service or the desired act of making purchases.

Here are a few examples of questions based on psychographic traits.

Which of the following is most important to you?

How do you like to spend your free time?

If you had more time, which of the following would you do?

If you had more time, what would you spend more money on?

How do you favor making purchases?

What interests you?

What draws you to one brand over another in the [niche, industry, space, etc.]?

A Reminder on Market Research Questions

All four of the question types covered in this article are critical to tap into the brains of your current and potential customers. What’s more empowering about these kinds of questions is that they can help you expand your target market and appeal to a much wider audience. They can inform both your marketing strategies, your content, and the innovation of your product/service itself.

But you must remember, these in-depth questions do NOT cover demographics. Instead, these questions are for those who already passed the screening question portion of the survey.

Screening questions, which determine the eligibility of a respondent to partake in a survey, answer demographic questions about the responders. While they are incredibly necessary to understand who your respondents are, they do not necessarily allow you to conclude your customers’ behaviors, needs, and attitudes (although a few of them might).

A strong survey should combine both sets of questions for a comprehensive market research assemblage.

If you’re looking for more great resources on using surveys to meet your business and marketing goals, check out the Pollfish Resource Center, or reach out to our 24/7 customer experience team for guidance and support.

Frequently asked questions

What is market research.

Market research is an important aspect of business strategy that focuses on gathering information about the target market.

How are surveys used in market research?

Surveys can be used to gather first-hand information while conducting market research. Surveys are an example of primary research and are tailored to gather information specific to your business.

What is the purpose of goals-based questions in a market research survey?

Goals-based questions help you understand what your customers want from a certain product or service. This type of question will help you understand your customers’ wants and needs better so you can create or improve a product to meet their needs.

What are psychographic questions?

Psychographic questions help a researcher understand consumers’ feelings, values, interests, and lifestyle choices. Understanding the psychographic traits of an audience can help a company market to them more effectively.

What are screening questions?

Screening questions are conducted before a survey is distributed. They help researchers identify the eligibility of individuals to take part in the survey. Typically, screening questions focus on demographics and the relationship to a company’s products or services.

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

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Better Decisions with Data: Asking the Right Question

May 28, 2024 • 6 min read.

In this Nano Tool for Leaders, Stefano Puntoni and Bart De Langhe, authors of "Decision-Driven Analytics," explain how to get the most out of your data.

Business woman pointing at a large screen displaying data and charts

Nano Tools for Leaders® — a collaboration between Wharton Executive Education and Wharton’s Center for Leadership and Change Management — are fast, effective tools that you can learn and start using in less than 15 minutes, with the potential to significantly impact your success and the engagement and productivity of the people you lead.

To get the most from your data (and collect the data you really need), understand what you are asking for.

Most businesses rightly see data as a source for making better decisions. But the conventional data-driven approach often falls short because of common errors made by the decision-makers. Many leaders excessively rely on existing data that may or may not address the issue at hand, or they pass key decisions to data scientists who don’t really understand the business dilemma they are trying to solve. Decision-makers are also prone to leading with a preference, arriving at a solution, and then finding the data to back it up.

Alternatively, decision-driven analytics puts decision-makers at the center, resolving the common mismatch between analytics and actual business decisions. It starts from the decision that needs to be made and works backward toward the data that is needed. But it also requires more from leaders, who must shift the focus from getting answers to asking the right questions. This approach highlights the strategic importance of what we don’t know, underscoring the importance of intellectual humility. In fact, crafting the right questions is an essential and foundational step in the data-analysis process.

Action Steps

1. clarify the decision..

When determining the decision(s) to be made, focus on options within your control and pertinent to your organizational position. Since most decision-makers gravitate toward familiar options, broaden yours by engaging with diverse perspectives. Ask trusted colleagues or gather your team to get further clarification. The choice set should include options that are both feasible and impactful, and that can genuinely enhance desired business outcomes. It should exclude options with prohibitive costs or risks. During this critical first step, data — especially existing data — should not be a consideration. If analytics starts from the data that is available instead of the decision to be made, it increases the chances of asking the wrong type of question. That’s not to say that data mining and exploratory data analysis have no role in business, but decision-driven analytics assume that the first responsibility of business executives is to have a razor-sharp focus on their job and deliver on their key responsibilities. To do that, it works better to start from the decision at hand and work backward towards the data that is needed. Data mining and exploratory data analysis are valuable, but they serve a different goal.

2. Ask a “factual” question.

Ask a “factual” question when you are seeking a prediction. Businesses need to answer this type of question frequently. For example, the smooth running of manufacturing operations rests on predictions about when a machine is likely to start failing. That information can then be used to create a maintenance plan. For retailers, understanding the cost of dealing with returns is similarly important: It would be incredibly valuable to identify which products have a higher propensity to be returned. With this knowledge, companies can strategize proactively either by adjusting the product pricing, considering additional measures to reduce returns, or even deciding against offering such products entirely.

3. Ask a “counterfactual” question.

Ask a “counterfactual” question when you need to compare outcomes with and without a particular intervention. These questions involve hypothetical scenarios and demand causal inference, making them inherently more intricate than factual questions. For example, during the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign, Barack Obama’s team gained a crucial edge against Mitt Romney’s by asking “Who is most susceptible to being persuaded to vote for Obama?” This counterfactual question allowed the team to identify swing voters most inclined to change their voting behavior when visited by a campaign worker, rather than targeting those most likely to vote for Obama or hard-core Romney supporters — both of which would have squandered valuable resources. Their approach revolutionized the way political campaigns were conducted, emphasizing precision and efficiency in mobilizing support and persuading undecided voters.

How An Organization Might Use It

One of Hewlett Packard’s (HP’s) business strategies is the “Instant Ink” subscription that lets customers pay a monthly fee to receive printer ink delivered to their home and cancel the subscription at any time. Imagine that HP wants to use data to proactively address customer attrition, intervening with incentives such as discounts that they hope would stop customers from canceling. But because they cannot offer those incentives to everyone, they need to know whom to target.

If they ask a factual question, “Who is most likely to cancel?”, and then target those customers, they would get an answer that could be useful in many ways — but not helpful in informing the decision about whom to target. It ignores the possibility that incentives might only work for certain customers. The question HP really needs to ask is a counterfactual one: what effect are incentives likely to have on specific customers? Answering it requires collecting and analyzing new data.

The best approach is a randomized experiment. HP would divide a group of customers randomly into two groups, and offer an incentive to one. Then they would monitor the attrition rates for the two groups. If there was a difference, HP could conclude that the incentive could be effective, and then look further at which customers responded. This randomized experiment is a dramatic departure from the “best practice” of focusing only on customers at the highest risk of canceling their subscriptions. Instead, it reveals whether incentives could work to reduce cancellations, and if so, which type of customer to target with those incentives.

Contributors to this Nano Tool

Stefano Puntoni, PhD, Sebastian S. Kresge Professor of Marketing; Professor of Marketing; Co-Director, Wharton Human-Centered Technology Initiative, the Wharton School; Bart De Langhe, PhD, Professor of Marketing, KU Leuven and Vlerick Business School; founder of Behavioral Economics and Data Analytics for Business (BEDAB); co-authors of Decision-Driven Analytics: Leveraging Human Intelligence to Unlock the Power of Data (Wharton School Press, 2024).

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50 questions to ask financial services customers

As a financial services organization, you’d probably love to be a fly on the wall when your customer uses your app or website. But unfortunately, it’s not always a pretty sight. From users sighing out of frustration when pages take too long to load or relying on customer support to resolve an issue, customer experiences won’t always unfold how you intended.

The good news is that usability testing is as close as you can get to a front-row seat to your customer experience. While you can’t always guarantee smooth sailing, asking your target users the right questions at the right time ensures that you can continuously improve your customer experience.

Before fully developing your product, or update, spend time understanding your customers’ needs and frustrations. If you’re in the prototyping stage , collect user feedback as soon as you have a wireframe. And even after a new feature, product, or campaign has launched, keep monitoring feedback to help guide decisions on functionalities you need to add or remove. To get started, here’s a list of fifty questions to help financial services organizations learn more about their customers and improve their banking experience .

Understand your customer’s financial habits and background.

Measure brand impressions

Assess search and navigation

Gather feedback on in-branch experiences

Optimize mobile banking

Improve online banking .

Assess self-service banking
Evaluate the omnichannel customer experience
Find out if your copy is effective

Before you start asking questions specific to usability, ask questions to learn more about your audience—so the test doesn’t influence how they might answer.

Pre-test usability questions contextualize your contributor’s background, preferences, and actions. They can be open or closed-ended questions.

For example, you might want to know your contributor’s experience with mobile apps or what financial services products they’ve tried before. Collecting this information will help you better understand why they take specific actions.

Here are some examples of pre-test questions:

Share as much as you’re comfortable with about your income. For example, what income streams do you have?
Describe how you use your financial service’s digital tools.
How has your relationship with banking changed in the past few years?
How many times have you switched bank providers?
Which devices do you use for banking? If there are multiple, name all of them.
Do you expect your banking habits to change in the next year? How so?

If one of your priorities is learning how experiences differ across groups, consider leveraging this diverse and inclusive perspectives template .

Measure brand impressions

Now that you have a basic understanding of your contributor, you can get into company-specific and product-specific questions.

Do you think your bank understands you? Why or why not?
Are you loyal to your financial service company? Why or why not?
What are three words you’d use to describe your bank?
Would you recommend them to friends or family? Why or why not?
What’s your first impression of this organization?
Would you trust this brand with your financial information? Why or why not?
Have you considered leaving for a competitor? What would compel you to do so?

For more inspiration, take a look at this brand attributes template .

Watch the following video on what contributors had to say when asked if they feel their bank understands them:

How easy is it to find your account balances?
Are you able to successfully navigate this banking app or site? Why or why not?
How often do you use the search bar?
How does mobile navigation compare to desktop navigation for your financial service?
Have you ever used your financial app’s chatbot for the information you couldn’t find? How often?

Learn more about improving your product’s navigation with the tree testing template .

Gather feedback on in-branch experiences

How would you describe your most recent visit to your bank?
What did you like about your recent in-person visit?
What did you dislike about your recent in-person visit?
Is there an experience or service you reserve for in-branch visits?
How have your in-branch visits changed over the years?

Get the feedback you’ve been lacking on in-branch experiences with this retail banking experiences template .

How would you improve your bank’s mobile app?
Rate the consistency of your financial service’s mobile experience versus online.
Do you prefer mobile banking over online banking? Why or why not?
Is there an experience or service you like doing on mobile over other channels? Why or why not?
Think about your experience with non-finance apps. How does your banking app compare?
How valuable is this app to you? Explain your answer.
How frequently do you use your financial service app?

For more help, look no further than this mobile app evaluation template .

Watch the following video to hear about everyday consumers’ experiences with mobile banking apps.

How would you improve your bank’s website?
Rate the consistency of your financial service’s online experience versus mobile.
Do you prefer online banking over mobile banking? Why or why not?
Is there an experience or service you prefer doing on a desktop over other channels?
How helpful is this website to you? Explain your answer
How frequently do you use your financial service’s website?

Get further inspiration with this website evaluation template .

Assess self-service banking

Do you prefer solving issues on your own or contacting a live agent or call center? Why or why not?
In what scenarios do you prefer self-service over customer service?
How helpful do you find your financial service’s self-service options to be?
What would you change about the self-service experience if you had a magic wand?
Engage with the online chat. Ask questions like "Where can I find information about your company?"
Please rate your level of agreement with the following statement: "The response from the online chat agent meets my expectations." Please explain your rating.

Get better insights by leaning on this retail banking template .

Evaluate the omnichannel customer experience

How do you interact with your financial organization on a smartphone, desktop, tablet, and in person?
Is the experience consistent across all devices?
If you need to complete a process that spans multiple devices, can you do it smoothly?
What do you consider your primary channel of choice? Why?

For more, take a look at this customer journey template .

Find out if your copy is effective

Do you understand what this landing page offers?
Is the website or app’s language easy to understand?
How persuasive do you find the buttons on the website or app? Are they easy to find?
Describe the value of this service in your own words.

Finally, fine-tune your study by leveraging this messaging comprehension template .

Human insight provides answers

You won’t know the answers if you don’t ask the right questions. Always go directly to the source—your customers. And remember, usability testing is a continuous process. One test paves the way for many more throughout your product updates, competitive research , and new feature launches. By gathering human insight , you can find out what’s working and what’s not, so you can create incredible financial experiences across all your channels that can weather shifting preferences and industry changes.

Want to learn more?

Innovate and optimize financial services experiences with these user experience articles, guides, and usability testing templates.

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Top 12+ proven tips to be successful on shopify.

If you're running an online store, chances are you've heard of Shopify. It's like this massive mall where you can set up shop on the internet. It's not pricey, super user-friendly, and packed with many extra features and tools.

But these days, more than just having an online store is needed. With so many other sellers out there and customers always wanting something new, you've got to have a strategic plan for standing out and making those sales.

In this blog, we will share 12+ proven tips to succeed on Shopify . These tips will help you sell more stuff, make your customers happy, and keep your business strong.

Shopify Pitfalls: 5+ Key Reasons Why Most Shopify Stores Don't Succeed

Even though Shopify offers many advantages, some merchants still need help to succeed on the platform. If you find yourself in this position, don't worry; we're here to help you overcome setbacks and revitalize your store.

Here are some common slip-ups people make when using Shopify that you can easily avoid to ensure your store thrives and sales soar.

Failing to Understand the Target Audience

If you don't know who your customers are, how can you provide them with the products they want? Many online sellers skip this crucial step, missing out on important insights into what their customers want and need. Before you start your store, it's vital to figure out who your main customers are and what they want.

Lack of Planning

Success doesn't happen by chance. It would help to have a well-thought-out plan and sufficient time to develop your store. Without adequate planning and resources, achieving success will be an uphill battle.

Insufficient Website Traffic

Making sales will be challenging without a steady stream of visitors to your Shopify store. You need to bring in visitors from different places like social media, SEO, and other channels, so potential customers can easily find and buy from your store.

Poor Product Selection

Choosing the wrong products can spell disaster for your eCommerce venture. Concentrate on providing items that fit well with your specialty and are in high demand among customers. Thorough market and consumer research are essential to ensure your products will sell before investing in them.

Ineffective Marketing Strategies

Even the best products need effective marketing to succeed. Without proper marketing strategies, your products may go unnoticed, no matter how great they are. Put in effort and money to advertise your store, drawing in customers and increasing sales.

Apart from these main reasons, many more factors could lead to these failures, such as lack of customer service, no device optimization, high shipping fees, lower product margins, poor store design, etc. So, what are the specific strategies to improve them all? Let’s find out in our next part.

12+ Best Proven Strategies for Shopify Success

Now that we've covered the most common mistakes, let's talk about what you can do to boost your chances of success.

Here are our top 12 tips to help you succeed on Shopify.

Master the Fundamentals
Be Authentic, Not a Copycat
Carve Out Your Niche for Success
Build an Outstanding Shopify Site
Tailor Your Website to Local Needs
Nail Your Marketing Strategy
Utilize the Potential of Digital Ads
Test Some Real Online Selling Tricks
Encourage Customers to Review and Recommend You
Build Trust and Reliability
Offer Exceptional Customer Service

1. Master the Fundamentals

Whether you're selling online or offline, business basics still apply. You should provide items that people desire at a reasonable price while ensuring you earn a fair profit. To achieve this, it's crucial to:

Understand your customers and competitors inside out. Know what your customers need, how much they’re willing to spend, what kind of service they expect, and what other options they have available.
Do market research : Understanding your market is critical. If you’re unsure about any of these areas, conducting primary market research is a must. Talk to potential customers, survey your target audience, and study your competitors. Ask yourself some foundation questions to take the first steps, like: How does the eCommerce market work? What steps should I take to begin a Shopify Store? Make it a checklist, and it will prepare you with both knowledge and resources to win this Shopify.
Brand values: Remember, it’s not just about having a great product; you need to offer it at a price and additional value that attracts customers while making a profit. Pay attention to customer preferences and expectations, and watch your competition to see how you can stand out. This basic but essential groundwork will set you up for long-term success on Shopify.

2. Be Authentic, Not a Copycat

It's natural to look at how others succeed in online selling and learn from them, but simply copying others won't get you far. It is really important for you to stand out and build a loyal customer base with reliability. Find your unique identity and carve out your own niche, especially if you're selling through your own eCommerce website.

Just be true to who you are and tell your story with your audience. Use a brand voice to tell what sets you apart and what your brand is about. The personal touch can connect you with customers deeper and attract the people have the same values.

A great example of this is how Pepsi chose to create its own path rather than copy Coca-Cola. When Coca-Cola’s secret recipe was offered to Pepsi (Source: The Guardian ), they refused to buy it. Instead, Pepsi focused on developing its own unique flavor and brand identity. This decision allowed it to stand out and build its own loyal customer base.

Creating a successful brand means being authentic. Show your personality, highlight what makes you different , and build a connection with your customers. Being genuine will help you shine in a busy market and build trust and loyalty with your customers.

3. Be Unique

Standing out from the crowd is crucial if you want to catch customers' attention. You've got to give them a good reason to pick you over others . Nowadays, markets are packed, so you've got to find a way to shine.

Think about what makes your brand different. What's your special touch? How can you make your offer irresistible? Instead of focusing on price, think about offering better value and products or services others don't have. To be unique, you can choose a direction to go along like:

Offering a distinct product line
Targeting a specific and unique customer segment
Or building a brand image that stands out from your competitors, ect.

Have you ever heard of a red ocean vs blue ocean ? Picture it like this: in a red ocean, it's like being in a crowded swimming pool where everyone's fighting for space, making it challenging to stand out and make a profit. But in a blue ocean, it's like having your private beach, with plenty of room to shine.

Take Nintendo's Wii gaming console , for instance. Unlike other gaming systems aimed at serious gamers, the Wii introduced motion-controlled gameplay, appealing to families and casual players. By offering something unique and targeting a different audience , Nintendo carved out its own space in the market, away from fierce competition. Similarly, by finding your niche and offering something special, you can create your own blue ocean and attract loyal customers.

4. Build Trust and Reliability

In the online world, trust is everything. When customers shop on Shopify, they trust you, often without ever meeting you in person.

Trustful payment options: To earn their trust, offer payment options they know and trust , like PayPal and Visa, so they feel secure with their purchases. Be transparent about any extra fees to avoid surprising them at checkout.
Detailed Product Descriptions: It's also essential to be transparent about your product information . Give customers all the details they need, like what it's made of and how it works. Being honest and straightforward shows customers you value trust and commitment, helping them feel confident about what they buy from you.
Joining authenticated groups or showing award proofs: Being part of authenticated merchant groups or organizations can also boost your credibility. Display their logos proudly on your site to show customers that you're a trustworthy business. Including pictures of yourself and your team adds a personal connection, making your brand feel more relatable to customers.
Utilize positive feedback: Remember to include trust badges and share real stories or reviews from past customers on your Shopify store. This social proof helps reassure potential buyers and shows that others have had positive experiences with your business. By building trust and being reliable, you'll create stronger bonds with your customers and boost your chances of success on Shopify.

5. Carve Out Your Niche for Success

Trying to please everyone can end up pleasing no one. It's better to focus on specific groups of customers and tailor your efforts to them. Focusing on a particular area can help you distinguish yourself and draw more notice. Becoming a big player in a smaller market is a smart move that can pay off for small businesses. Successful companies usually dominate their own slice of the market.

To determine what niche your Shopify store should target, start by identifying a problem and finding a solution . That is also how a successful business normally starts with meeting the needs of a specific group of customers. But your idea doesn't have to be totally new. You can make existing products or services better for consumers. That might mean:

Changing how they look
Adding new features
Finding new ways to use products people already like.

Look at Apple, for example. It all began with Steve Jobs' idea for a computer, and they've kept improving and expanding ever since. They've made iPhones and iPads even more helpful with each new version . For instance, they're now adding keyboards to iPads to make them easier to use, almost like a laptop. And all these innovations have helped Apple become worth over a billion dollars.

6. Nail Your Marketing Strategy

Picture this: You've got top-notch products, killer deals, and customer service that wows. But here's the fact – if nobody knows your Shopify store is out there, those efforts could go to waste. That's where nailing your marketing strategy comes in.

It would help if you had a bit of everything to make it work.

SEO Improvement: Think about SEO your website so it shows up better in Google searches, keep a lively blog, and stay active on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Visual Enhancement: Don't forget about the power of video and email marketing, either—they can be game-changers.
PR : And hey, getting your name out there through newspapers, magazines, and other websites can work wonders, too.

Apart from those, we have some of further suggestions:

List your brand in online directories.
Collaborate with influencers to push your brand to a broader audience.
Use content marketing to boost your site's online visibility.
Implement referral or loyalty programs.
Join an affiliate marketing program.
Encourage word-of-mouth marketing.

The ideal promotion strategy depends on your specific business and your products or services. Successful marketing often involves a combination of these tactics. Try on different methods to find out what works best for you.

7. Utilize the Potential of Digital Ads

Digital Advertising is also an important part that we will deliver it separately to help you understand deeper.

Step 1: It should begin by truly understanding your audience. You can use some advanced tools like Google Analytics and Facebook Insights to understand their behavior and preferences better.
Step 2: Next, select the most suitable platforms for your advertising efforts. Utilize Google Ads for targeted searches, leverage the visual appeal of Facebook and Instagram for captivating imagery, and tap into Pinterest's niche interests for focused outreach.
Step 3: Here is a tip for creating ads that captivate your audience: They should have attractive visuals, clear messaging, and calls to action. Pay-per-click (PPC) is also a good way to ensure your products shine in search results and social media feeds, drawing in more potential customers. Extend your reach with PPC display or banner ads on various websites to capture the attention of potential buyers, especially when they're in a purchasing mindset.
Step 4: Keep track of your ads' performance closely and prepare to adapt your plans based on the data. Additionally, seasonal trends and holidays can be used to offer special promotions to drive traffic and sales further.

8. Build an Outstanding Shopify Site

Now that you've discovered the right path for your own journey, it's time to personalize the design of your Shopify store. But if you truly want your Shopify business to be unique and distinct, you don't want your store to look just like your competitors.

Don't just make it good enough; make it world-class! Invest more time and effort into creating a unique Shopify store design with proper functionality. The appearance and accessibility of your store will set the stage for smooth customer experiences and high conversion rates .

At this stage, you'll also see how your overall store design aligns with your images. Your product photos shouldn't just showcase what you're selling; they should seamlessly blend with your store layout, color scheme, fonts, and overall vibe.

If you're not an expert in technical stuff, consider using EComposer—Top Drag & Drop Shopify Page Builder , designed specifically for you. You won’t need any coding knowledge to build pages on your store.

Especially for new merchants just beginning to enter the online market, the app's vast library of templates helps you get started quickly or create custom pages, from captivating landing pages to appealing homepages to informative blogs.

With EComposer, you won't have to worry about managing numerous overwhelming apps; it provides all-in-one solutions with up to 25 built-in add-ons and over 50 third-party integrations. These are geared towards offering the most advanced features and ensuring a seamless user experience.

If you haven’t had a Shopify account yet, seize the opportunity to benefit from a special offer: only $1 for the first month for all plans to experience Shopify from A-Z.

9. Tailor Your Website to Local Needs

If you're expanding your Shopify store to target customers in non-English-speaking countries, customizing your website to meet their needs is essential.

Adding pages in local languages, with images that resonate locally , can significantly boost sales abroad. When your business scales to meet the demand, consider setting up a separate Shopify website tailored specifically for your target overseas market.

Don't forget to include testimonials and reviews from local customers —it builds trust. To avoid embarrassing mistakes, consider hiring a professional translator. Also, make it clear where you're based, like being a UK seller, to make your products more appealing internationally. Here is a short checklist for you:

Cultural Sensitivity: Image, colors, symbols,...
Local Regulation
Payment Methods
Shipping and Delivery
Customer Support
Currency Conversion
Localization: Product descriptions, promotions, and marketing campaigns
Trust Signals
Feedback and Reviews

At the end of the day, adapting your site to suit local tastes and preferences will help you attract more consumers and increase sales for your Shopify store.

Others also read

How to Build a Website for Beginners: A Comprehensive Guide!

10 Proven Ways To Promote Your Shopify Store For Drive Sales

5+ Easy Steps to Access the Shopify Language Editor

10. Test Some Real Online Selling Strategies

Getting into online selling is like diving into a big pool of possibilities, where you need smart moves to attract and keep customers interested. For example, imagine giving newcomers a sweet 10% off their first buy—it’s hard to resist! You could also mix things by bundling products for a special deal or tempting shoppers with 'buy three, get one free' offers.

Remember to keep an eye on what’s trendy in each season and how the market is shifting . Use the wave of seasonal sales excitement to your advantage, or surprise customers with quick discounts that make them feel like they should buy right now.

In addition, think about adding some extra of your own products/services for those big orders. Giving away a freebie for purchases over a certain amount—who doesn’t love a little something extra?

Also, make shipping counts. Offering free shipping on pricier items might push customers to grab the deal and get more motivation clicking that 'checkout' button. Try, implement and make evaluations to check the effectiveness of each activity to see whether or not it suits you. Here are some additional suggestions:

Get your customers to spread the word for you by offering rewards for referrals.
Collaborate with influencers to bring your products to their followers.
Host online events or webinars to educate and engage with your audience.
Offering personalized recommendations depends on customers' past purchases or browsing history.
Try on a loyalty program to reward repeat customers and urge them to keep coming back.
Partner with complementary businesses for cross-promotional opportunities to expand your reach.

11. Encourage Customers to Review and Recommend You

You want to know what your customers think, right? So, ask them! Encourage them to talk about their shopping experience and what they bought from your store. Show off the good stuff they say by putting their reviews and nice comments on your website.

But hey, not everyone's going to give you a gold star. Sometimes, people might say stuff that's not so nice. That's okay! Just talk to them politely. Thank the ones who are happy, and if someone's not, try to fix it nicely. No need to argue.

And if you make a mistake (we all do), take action, say sorry right away. Fix the problem, learn from it, and do better next time.

Tell you a secret, even if there is a crisis that no one wants still happened, it on the other hand could be an opportunity when you handle it perfectly. One outstanding case study was from Starbucks in April 2018 . There were two African-American men arrested at a Starbucks in Philadelphia, causing widespread backlash and calls for a boycott.

Starbucks responded quickly: CEO Kevin Johnson issued a public apology and the company closed over 8,000 stores for racial bias training . This affected 175,000 employees, showing their serious commitment to change. They also implemented new policies to prevent similar incidents in the future.

By acting swiftly, communicating transparently, and taking concrete actions, Starbucks turned a crisis into an opportunity for positive change and reinforced their commitment to inclusivity.

12. Offer Exceptional Customer Service

To really stand out from the competition, you need to provide customer service that’s both personal and responsive . Go the extra mile in every interaction. Be clear and friendly in your communication, and make sure customers can reach you in multiple ways—whether it’s through email, chat, or phone.

Quickly and professionally address any questions or complaints. Make sure your products are delivered as promised and on time by partnering with reliable delivery services. Aim to exceed customer expectations whenever you can. Give them a fantastic experience every time and show your appreciation for their loyalty with rewards or special offers.

When you get it right, your customers will become your biggest fans, spreading the word about your great service and helping your business grow.

Long-term Vision and Plan for a Shopify Store

While short-term success is good for temporary, to turn your Shopify Store into a next level requires long-term planning and a strategic vision . Here are some strategies to future-proof your store and drive long-term growth:

To take your business to the next level, start with a clear vision and a flexible plan . While big companies can handle economic changes better and might keep going even if they prioritize short-term profits, small startups might need more effort to focus on both profits and long-term strategies.

Stay focused and don’t overpromise. Many small businesses dream big but fail because they promise too much and can't deliver. Establish trust with your customers by staying true to your word. A strong reputation is necessary for your long term success in the future.

Keep a positive attitude and build strong relationships . To run a business also means that you have to face with challenges and learn from mistakes. Build a supportive workplace atmosphere and nurture positive connections with your employees and business partners. A happy and committed workforce is essential.

Consider your impact on society and the environment . Using sustainable practices can improve your brand’s reputation and help in the long run. Also, diversify your products and services, and protect your business legally, like forming an LLC. To be more smart and adaptable, your business can grow and thrive, even when the economy changes.

Key Takeaways

In wrapping up, becoming successful on Shopify takes a mix of planning, creativity, and hard work. By following the tips we've shared, you can take your Shopify store to the next level.

Remember to understand your customers, show your unique side, and treat your shoppers well. Keep learning and adjusting as you go, and don't give up when things get tough. With patience and effort, your Shopify business can grow and succeed in the online world.

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Money blog: Slippery floors and a burst of heat - tricks shops use to get you to spend more

In the final part of our psychology of shopping series, we speak to fair fashion campaigner Venetia La Manna about the tricks fast fashion companies use to get people to spend, spend, spend. Read this and the rest of today's consumer news in the Money blog.

Thursday 6 June 2024 07:33, UK

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Ask a question or make a comment

By Emily Mee , news reporter

We've all been there. You have a bad day and you need a little pick-me-up - so you head straight to your favourite website to buy something new.

That hit of dopamine you get when buying something is what many businesses rely on - and no one seems to understand it better than fast fashion brands.

But not only is this hurting our wallets, it's also harming the planet.

In the final part of our psychology of shopping series, we spoke to fair fashion campaigner Venetia La Manna ( @venetialamanna ) - who advocates for a more sustainable approach to clothing - about the little tricks fast fashion companies use to get people to spend, spend, spend...

Always in a rush - and slippery floors

Many of the techniques fashion companies use involve ensuring people feel rushed to make purchasing decisions.

Ms La Manna says websites and social media pages are set up to make them look "very immediate" so we "always feel like we have to buy something before it's gone" - meaning you're not able to sit with a purchase and think about whether you need it.

Fast fashion companies also keep an eye on trends and push out products as soon as possible to make sure people are "buying very, very quickly without necessarily much thought".

And the sense of urgency is not just limited to online stores.

Ms La Manna says physical clothes shops will make sure their floors are slippery "so you can almost whizz around with more ease".

Often they will also have loud music to encourage "shopping in a frenzy".

They know what you want

Fashion sites use "highly advanced" search engine optimisation to find out what kind of products their customers are searching for and push these items to them, Ms La Manna says.

They also work with popular online influencers and get them to post affiliate links - meaning if you want to look like your favourite influencer or celebrity, you can buy what they're wearing "in just a few clicks".

Ultimately, they are making things "very easy to buy" and often have shopfronts on popular social media sites like Instagram and TikTok.

Plus, there is the issue of affordability.

Many are driving their prices down so low that "it makes you feel like 'hey, why not' when it's cheaper than a sandwich or a coffee", Ms La Manna says.

Heaters at the entrance

Physical shops use other techniques to entice customers to buy.

For example, Ms La Manna says the heat changes when you go into the shop so you're "invited into a warmer environment".

Shops are also set out in a specific way, often placing cheaper items near checkouts and easy outfit formulas near each other.

The dopamine hit

With lots going on in the world, we may be more susceptible to falling into the spending trap than ever.

"The world is really heavy and people are struggling. Buying fast fashion or buying stuff gives us a momentary hit of dopamine, and of course we need that - when we're suffering, when we're feeling low, [shopping] is an easy one to reach for," Ms La Manna says.

Despite practising "slow fashion" - trying to buy less and more consciously - for years, Ms La Manna says she still has moments where she feels that buying something would make her feel better.

But she says it's possible to get much-needed dopamine hits from elsewhere - including by being active in your community, or by taking your time to find something you really, really want (ideally secondhand!).

Why does it matter?

Aside from being bad for your wallet, Ms La Manna says overconsumption is also bad for the planet and for the garment workers making your clothes.

She says many big fashion companies don't pay their garment workers a fair living wage - with many unable to provide food for their families, living in poverty and lacking paid time off.

The overproduction of clothing is also harming communities in the global south who are left to deal with vast piles of unwanted items, she says.

The majority of clothes taken to charity shops or recycling bins don't end up being resold - instead they are shipped off largely to places in the global south, where communities are "left to deal with a problem that's not theirs".

For more information on slow fashion, Ms La Manna suggests checking out The Or Foundation, Remake and the Clean Clothes Campaign.

Asda has gone from selling the cheapest petrol out of the supermarket chains to now costing the most, according to the latest fuel price figures.

RAC says Asda's big rivals, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and Tesco, all sold a litre of unleaded petrol for 2.1p less on average at the end of May.

Diesel was also coming out costlier at Asda, with the supermarket 2.5p per litre more expensive than the rest of its supermarket competition.

Drivers are being urged - by the RAC - to change their refuelling habits to find the best prices.

What makes up the cost of a litre of petrol?

The price you pay for fuel at the pumps is governed by wholesale fuel prices, which are affected by several factors.

These include the global price of crude oil, which itself is governed by supply and demand and oil refinery production and capacity.

Distribution costs, fuel duty (currently 52.95p a litre in the UK), VAT (currently at 20%) and profit margins dictated by fuel retailers all come into account when working out why prices of fuel rise and fall.

Fuel duty rate and VAT largely stay the same, though oil prices and the strength of the pound to the US dollar (refined fuel is sold in dollars per metric tonne) can cause prices to be extremely volatile.

How have UK petrol prices changed in the 21st century

Unleaded fuel in 2000 had an average cost of 80.35p, while the average cost of diesel in the same year was 81.73p.

The lowest average cost for unleaded petrol in the last 24 years came in 2002, where the average was 73.5p. Diesel also had its cheapest average cost in this year at 75.6p.

Unsurprisingly, the most expensive average prices for fuel have fallen in recent years. In 2022, the average cost of unleaded fuel was 165.06p and the average cost of diesel was 178.13p.

P Diddy has sold off his stake in the media company he founded more than a decade ago.

The rapper, whose real name is Sean Combs, released his shares of Revolt with the company saying the have been fully redeemed and retired.

Revolt has not disclosed how much Combs was paid for his stake in the hip-hop news and entertainment company, which he founded in 2013.

It also announced a new ownership structure that will give its employees an equity stake in the company.

The move comes after several lawsuits were filed against Combs , accusing him of sexual assault and rape.

In November, he was sued by R&B singer Cassie, who said he subjected her to a years-long abusive relationship that included beatings and rape.

Combs settled the lawsuit with Cassie, whose full name is Casandra Ventura, a few days after it was filed.

Three in five secondary school teachers and nearly 80% of primary school teachers are spending their own money on supporting students, according to new research.

A report by the National Foundation for Educational Research, based on a survey of 1,282 teachers and senior leaders, found a quarter of teachers had already spent £100 of their own cash on their pupils or school this academic year.

Some 79% of primary school teachers and 62% of secondary school educators reported spending their own money at some point.

And nearly one in five primary and 17% of secondary teachers said they were spending money on meeting pastoral needs such as providing food or clothes.

Jude Hillary, the NFER's co-head of UK policy and practice, said the report "clearly highlights the high level of need among young people".

She said teachers were "going above and beyond to meet pupils' pastoral needs using their personal funds" and the "unrecognised" support was coming at a time when staff themselves are facing their own cost pressures.

Tesco has started re-stocking its packs of a dozen eggs online, after lengthy supply issues forced them to stop selling them.

The supermarket had already re-started selling them in stores, but online shoppers had to buy two packs of six eggs if they wanted 12, costing them very slightly more.

The shortages began in the autumn of 2022 as farmers left the industry or pulled back on production due to rising costs.

An outbreak of bird flu last year also impacted the sector.

Customers of Loveholidays have had their travel plans thrown into chaos after the parent company of two of its partners unexpectedly went bust.

In a post on Facebook, the holiday firm said FTI Group, which owns YouTravel and Meeting Point, had filed for insolvency.

As a result, the accommodation and transfer arrangements of some travellers have been affected.

A "small number" of hotels have already started contacting Loveholiday travellers, asking them to pay for their rooms again.

In the comments of the post, one person said they had been "threatened to be removed by police" for refusing to pay again.

"We are supposed to go home Thursday evening and worried our transfers and flights might be affected because we are refusing to pay again," Scott Love wrote.

"Shambles this and has ruined our holiday for me, my partner and three children."

Several other people commented, asking the provider to tell them if their trip had been impacted.

Loveholidays said it was "working hard" to honour its customers bookings and "minimise disruption" to any holiday.

It also said it was "absolutely committed" to covering costs and was working with affected customers, and the hotels involved, to make sure that happens.

Those who are on holiday and need support have been advised to contact the holiday support team by calling the number on their booking documents.

"If you're travelling with us soon and are wondering if your holiday is affected: Please don't worry. There is nothing you need to do - our team is working hard to honour any impacted bookings with another partner," Loveholidays added.

Sky News has contacted the company for comment.

Chef Tom Brown has announced he is closing his high-end Hackney restaurant Cornerstone due to high costs of the tasting menu format and changing diner preferences.

The seafood-focused restaurant first opened in 2018 and earned a Michelin star in 2021.

In a statement, Brown said Cornerstone had been his "proudest moment" and his "home for the last six years", and added that his focus would now be on his nearby Pearly Queen site.

First Direct is ending its text message banking service after 25 years, according to a report.

An email seen by This Is Money said the service - which texts customers mini bank statements and alerts them to their balance dropping below a certain amount - will be stopped on 10 August.

First Direct told the outlet that customers could get "more detailed and up-to-date information" by logging onto its app or online banking.

Tesco has partnered with Virgin Red to offer Clubcard holders the chance to turn points into experiences.

Those signed up to the supermarket's loyalty scheme will get twice the points value when they turn points earned on their shopping into Virgin Points.

A bonus 5,000 points is available for anyone who signs up to auto-exchange all their Clubcard points to Virgin Points for the first time.

McDonald's has lost the EU trademark for "Big Mac" when it comes to chicken sandwiches after a long-running dispute with an Irish restaurant chain.

The European Court of Justice upheld a complaint from Galway-based Supermac's against the US fast food giant.

The trademark for the words "Big Mac" was initially registered with the EU International Property Office (EUIPO) in respect of meat, fish and chicken sandwiches as well as a range of restaurant services by McDonald's in 1996.

Generally, the rights of a holder to an EU trademark are revoked if it has not been put to genuine use within a continuous period of five years.

Supermac's argued McDonald's had insufficiently used the contested trademark in relation to "chicken sandwiches".

McDonald's and the EUIPO put forward examples of advertisements and display boards relating to "Grand Big Mac Chickens".

However, the court found the evidence was not sufficient to prove McDonald's had used the contested trademark enough in relation to poultry products.

Supermac's complaint was upheld and McDonald's protection of the phrase for such purposes was overturned.

Subway is following in the steps of some of its fast-food rivals with the introduction of self-service kiosks and its own dedicated app.

Customers will be able to place orders via digital screens sent to the kitchen instead of making their way along the chain of ingredients.

The self-service kiosks will be in all UK stores before the end of the year, The Grocer reports.

The sandwich shop chain is also launching a new app which will enable online orders - and offer customers points towards its "Subway Rewards" loyalty scheme, it said.

The points can eventually be converted into "Subway Cash" to spend on menu items.

Dan Holm, digital leader at Subway, said: "As we think about Subway's future, we're doubling down on our global digital commitment to streamline and simplify the guest experience from start to finish."

Rishi Sunak's claim in last night's debate that Labour will raise everyone's taxes by £2,000 comes from a "dossier" published by the Tories last month, which purported to calculate their tax and spending plans.

The headline "finding" was that over the course of the next four years, Labour had roughly £59bn of spending plans but only £20bn of revenue-raising plans.

That leaves a £39bn hole. Divide that by the number of households in the country (18.4m) and you get a figure of just over £2,000.

Now, there are all sorts of objections to the way the Conservatives have carried out this exercise.

For one thing, they deployed a weapon Labour don't have: because they're the party of government, they were able to ask Treasury civil servants to cost some Labour policies.

Today there has been a backlash - including from the Treasury's permanent secretary himself - about the way the Tories have portrayed these sums.

The £2,000 figure isn't really a Treasury calculation or an "independent" one, as Mr Sunak called it last night. It's a Conservative figure - but it was put together in part with figures commissioned from civil servants.

Labour also says many of the policies in that Tory dossier won't cost half as much as the Conservatives claim.

Regardless, while £2,000 sounds like a big number, it's actually a cumulative total from four years. A far more representative figure to take from the dossier is £500 - the annual figure.

And while that's not to be sniffed at (if you believe it - which you probably shouldn't) it's far, far smaller than the tax rises we've all experienced under this Conservative government since 2019.

They amount, all told, to an average of around £3,000 a year per household or, if we grit our teeth and tot it up as the Tories did in their dossier, over £13,000 over the course of the parliament.

Which rather dwarfs that £2,000 figure.

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100+ Market Research Questions to Ask Your Customers

100+ Great Market Research Questions to Ask Your Customers

To Explore New Product Opportunities

To Collect Feedback on Existing Products

To Segment the Target Market

To Conduct a Competition Analysis

To Gauge Brand Awareness

To Map Customers’ Preferences

To Map Customers’ Reservations

To Perform Pricing Analysis

To Collect Feedback on Website Copy

To Assess Website/Product Usability

To Uncover Market Trends and Industry Insights

Market Research Survey Templates

Breakdown of Different Market Research Questions

Multiple Choice

Single Choice

Matrix Match

Ranking Question

Dichotomous

Likert Scale

How to Write Your Marketing Research Questions

Audience Segmentation Questions

Product-Based Market Research Questions

Pricing Market Research Questions

Brand Reputation Market Research Questions

Advertisement & Campaign-Based Questions

7 Question Types to Use in Market Research Surveys

To Know Your Target Market

Case study – How Avis increased its revenue per customer

To Plan the Product Roadmap

Case study – How customer research drives Twilio’s operations

To Reduce Acquisition Costs

To Design Targeted Marketing Campaigns

Case Study – How Canon’s campaigns generated 700% ROI

To Improve Brand Awareness

Quick Tips for Writing Awesome Market Research Survey Questions

Use Mutually Exclusive Response Options

Always Add A “Not Applicable” Or “Rather Not Say” Option

Calculate the Required Sample Size

Consider Adding Incentives

Avoid Double-Barreled Market Research Questions

Importance of Market Research

Case study – How customer research drives Twilio’s operations

Market Research: A Key to Your Business’ Success

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99 Market Research Questions You Should Be Asking

How to choose market research questions

99 market research questions: discover, define, drill down

Generic market research questions

Market research questions for start-ups

Market research questions for a new product

Market research questions for your target audience

Market research questions for your customers

Market research questions for competitor analysis

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How to answer these questions with Similarweb

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