Market surveys are an important part of market research that measure the feelings and preferences of customers in a particular market. With various sizes, designs and purposes, market surveys are one of the main data used by companies and organizations to determine which products and services to offer and how to market them. These steps will teach you the basics of how to create a market survey and provide tips for maximizing your results.
Step
Part 1 of 3: Reaching the Right Market
Step 1. Clarify the purpose of your market survey
Before starting any plan, be sure of your market survey objectives. What do you want to know? Do you want to try to evaluate how well your market will accept the new product? Maybe you want to find out how effectively your marketing is reaching your target buyers. Whatever the goal, make sure you have a clear goal in mind.
For example, imagine that you own a company that sells and repairs computer equipment. Your goal with using a marketing survey is to find out how many students at a local university know your business and how likely they are to buy your product or service for their next computer purchase or repair
Step 2. Define and define your market base, reach and size
Before conducting a survey in a particular market, you must know your target market. Choose geographic and demographic parameters, identify customers by product type, and know the number of people in the market.
- Narrow your market research down to a short list of desired data, such as buying habits or average income.
- For the computer repair business situations mentioned above, this is quite easy. You will be looking for students. However, you can try to focus on students with higher incomes or students who are more tech-savvy, who can afford to buy something from you.
Step 3. Decide what aspects of the market you want to research
It really depends on your marketing goals and there are a lot of options available. If you have a new product, you may want to find out how well known or desirable it is in a particular market. Perhaps you want to know the buying habits of certain of your market, such as when, where, and how much they buy. Just make sure you have a clear idea of what you want to know.
- Also clarify the type of information you want. You can ask qualitative questions about information that cannot be measured directly with numbers, such as whether the customer has any suggestions for improving the product or service. Alternatively, you can ask quantitative questions that provide numerical or measurable input data, such as asking for a rating from 1 to 10 regarding product effectiveness.
- You may also want to be specific about what prompted your previous customers to buy your product. In this case, be sure to ask recent buyers specific questions (within the past month) about their buying experience and how they learned about your product. You can improve what customers think is already successful and fix any issues they're having.
- For an example of computer repair, you could focus on how often your customers return to your service or how often new customers use your service compared to competitors.
Step 4. Find out where and when you can reach customers in your market
You can conduct surveys at the mall or street, by phone, online, or by email. Your results may change depending on the day and year. Choose the method and time that best suits your research.
- When reaching your customers, think about your target audience. The target could be a pre-determined demographic goal or just some of your previous customers.
- Be sure to think about your target, especially when conducting online surveys. Your target market, especially if they are a bit older, may not be able to access online channels.
- For example, a computer repair business may decide to interview students in person at a central location on campus or online via a frequently visited website.
Step 5. Decide what type of survey to use
Surveys can be divided into two different general categories: questionnaires and interviews. The only difference between the two surveys is the person who records the respondent's information. In the questionnaire, the respondents recorded their own answers to the questions given. Meanwhile, in the interview, the interviewer wrote down what the respondent said. In addition, there are other options for how to conduct surveys, both online and in person. Surveys can be conducted individually or in groups.
- Questionnaires can be administered in person, via or online. Interviews can be conducted in person or by telephone.
- Questionnaires are effective for market research and getting answers to closed questions. However, the cost of printing the questionnaire may be high and the questionnaire may limit the capacity of respondents to express their thoughts.
- Interviews allow the interviewer to ask follow-up questions to understand the respondent's thoughts more clearly. However, this method is more time consuming for the interviewer.
- Group questionnaires can be an effective way to get results because respondents can collaborate to provide more informative responses to your questions.
Step 6. Consider an online survey platform
Online survey platforms offer a way to organize your surveys and survey results at an affordable price. Just search these online platforms and compare the ones you find to evaluate which one offers the right tools for your survey. Just make sure that the platform you choose is a reputable survey platform. You should also consider if your target market is well versed in computer technology for online surveys to be effective.
Some of the reputable and well-known platforms are SurveyMonkey, Zoomerang, SurveyGizmo, and PollDaddy
Part 2 of 3: Getting the Best Results
Step 1. Choose the sample size
Your sample size must be statistically valid to provide reliable results. You can subsample – for example, “male”, “18-24 years old”, etc. – to reduce the risk of outcomes that tend to lead to certain types of people.
- Your sample size requirements depend on how accurate you want the results to be. The larger the survey size, the more reliable the results. For example, a survey size of 10 participants has a very large margin of error (about 32 percent). This means that basically your data cannot be trusted. However, a sample size of 500 has a lower error rate of 5 percent.
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If possible, ask your participants to report demographic information on your survey. This information can be general or specific, depending on your preference. Be sure to provide these questions at the start of the survey.
However, be aware that many people avoid surveys that ask for personal information
- For example, as the owner of the computer repair business mentioned above, you might want to interview a statistically significant number of students, perhaps dividing them by major, age, or gender.
Step 2. Prepare a list of questions with answers that will provide the data you need for your market research
Your question should be clear and specific. Try to make each question very clear in the shortest possible words.
- If your goal is to get to know customers' genuine thoughts, focus on creating open-ended questions that customers can respond to with their own thoughts rather than asking for ratings or providing multiple choices.
- However, if you want a numeric result, make sure that your answer reflects it. For example, you could ask participants to rate a product or service from 1 to 10.
Step 3. Create a way to measure the answers you receive
If you are asking for preferences, you may want to ask respondents to rank their feelings numerically or using keywords. If you're asking about money, use a range of values. If your answers are descriptive, determine how to group these responses after the survey is complete so that the responses can be grouped into categories.
For example, you could ask students how often they visit your computer store on grades 1 to 10 or what type of computer accessories they want most, depending on the type of information you need
Step 4. Identify the variables that might affect your results
Usually this variable includes the nature of the people who are likely to answer the survey. To achieve impartial results, you must know how to reduce the influence of these people.
For example, as a computer business owner, you can do this by screening participants before the survey. If you feel that many of your customers are engineering students, only accept survey results from engineering students, even if history and English students may respond more to the survey
Step 5. Have someone view your survey
Don't take a survey unless you've given your survey a practical case, perhaps to a friend or colleague, to ensure that your questions make sense, the answers you receive can be easily measured, and the surveys are easy to complete. In particular, check with your friends or colleagues in practice cases to ensure that:
- Surveys are not too long or complicated.
- The survey does not make unreasonable assumptions about the target market.
- Surveys ask questions in the most direct way.
Part 3 of 3: Carrying out Your Survey
Step 1. Determine the time period and location for your survey
Be sure to choose the combination of time and location that is most likely to produce the largest sample. Alternatively, if your survey is being conducted online, be sure to post it where you feel it will get the most targeted readers or send the survey to the email recipients who are most likely to fill it out.
- For online surveys, what you need to specify is the time period for filling out your survey (how long your respondents have to fill out the survey).
- For example, imagine for your computer business, your target market of engineering students is busy all day with laboratory work. So you should schedule your survey before or after this working time period.
Step 2. If you used a questionnaire, double-check your survey form
Be sure to check your form a few times and ask someone else to do the same. Keep in mind that surveys should be no longer than five minutes and should have very easy questions to answer.
Step 3. Conduct your survey maximizing sample size and accuracy of responses
Keep in mind that you may have to run the survey more than once or in several different places to get comprehensive results. Just make sure that your survey remains the same in each survey at a different time and place. Otherwise, your survey results may vary.
For example, as a computer business owner, you can choose several locations and days to survey students with different schedules
Step 4. Analyze your results
Record and arrange the numerical responses in a table while calculating the average and analyzing the high or low responses. Carefully read and analyze responses to open-ended questions to get an idea of your participants' responses and their thoughts. Organize your information in a report that summarizes your findings, even if the report is for personal use only.
Peruse the responses for good quotes from customers. Any feedback that is impressive, creative, or positive can be reused for future corporate advertising
Tips
- Basically, surveys are not flexible. The survey should be conducted in the same way to all respondents to standardize the results. This means that you cannot adjust the survey's focus throughout the process, even if you determine that an unexpected variable is critical. These are the strengths and weaknesses of the survey and should be considered when compiling your survey.
- It's better to create a clear and specific survey than to try to cover a broad array of topics in one survey. The fewer topics you try to work with, the more detailed and useful the data you will receive.
- Provide accurate results. It is better to give accurate results from a small sample than to add “fake” or “artificial” results just to multiply your sample.
