Market Research Surveys
Use smart online surveys to get the insights you need to grow your business.
Keeping up with fast-paced, ever-changing market trends is key for any successful business. Listening to your customers and reacting to emerging consumer demands will help you stay ahead of your competitors. Online surveys offer you a fast and easy way to conduct targeted market research that will provide you with the information you need to deliver the best customer service.
Important reasons for conducting market research:
- To understand the needs of existing customers
- For recognising prospective new customers
- To identify and enter new markets
- For measuring brand awareness
- To drive improvements to products and pricing
Market research allows you to collect insightful facts about your customers’ needs and motivations. SmartSurvey’s user-friendly, advanced online software provides you with the tools you need to gather information that will help you improve profitability.
Why are market research surveys important?
The number one reason for businesses to conduct market research is to keep up-to-date with what customers want. With SmartSurvey’s advanced software, you can reach your target audience anytime, anywhere. By sending survey invitations via email and SMS, sharing them on social media and embedding them directly into your website, you can gather relevant data and identify opportunities as they happen.
5 examples of market research surveys
- Target market and consumer analysis surveys: How well do you know your target market? Use surveys to get a better understanding of the people who buy your products or use your services.
- Product feedback surveys: Find out what your customers like and dislike, what they’d like more of and what you can improve on. Get valuable feedback straight from the horse’s mouth.
- Concept testing: Do your homework before launching a new product or service. Find out what people think and if the price is right to achieve budgeted sales and meet your business goals.
- Marketing surveys: How effective is your advertising? Consumers are bombarded with ads every waking minute, use online surveys to test your adverts and prioritise your ad spend.
- Market place analysis: Reach out to your target market for insight about what they want. By using online surveys you can equip yourself with the knowledge you need to succeed.
Designing a market research survey is simple. Our online expert guides can help you get started and walk you through every step of the process. You can create a new survey from scratch or, if you need a bit of inspirational help, select one of our ready-made templates and customise it to suit your needs. We are always available to offer support if you need a helping hand.
Collecting and analysing real-time data lets you identify what really matters to your customers so that you can take instant action. You can export your data to Excel, Word, CSV and PDF, do text analysis on open-ended questions and use advanced filtering and cross tabulation to get a clear understanding of the different segments in your market. Finally, when you have collected all your data, you can use helpful visuals, charts and graphs to communicate your findings to the people that matter.
Why it is important to carry out market research to improve your business
Using online surveys to carry out essential market research will provide you with the insight to determine if your products and services are satisfying your customers. By understanding the needs of existing and potential consumers and identifying problem areas, you will be able to remain agile and stay focused on identifying new business opportunities.
6 steps for carrying out market research:
- Identify the objectives: Pinpoint what you want to find out. The more focused the research is on finding out what you want to know, the more useful it will be.
- Create the survey: Select the questions you want to ask and build the survey. Customising and editing your survey is easy and don’t forget to test it on a sample group before sending.
- Collect the data: Send bulk email and SMS survey invitations, send reminders and easily manage contact lists. Track open rates, views, failures and opt-outs.
- Analyse the results: Turn results into custom graphs and charts. Also, easily export the exact survey data you need to CSV (Excel) for further analysis.
- Report your findings: Download reports or give others access by sending them a password-protected link so that they can view the results for themselves.
- Take action: Act on the results – the true value of the survey will be when you implement changes that drive your business forward.
Designing market research surveys
Questionnaire design is an art and something that requires practice. When designing online surveys, remember to keep in mind the objectives and who the target audience is. It is good practice to put the questions in a meaningful order and keep the survey to a reasonable length, don’t ask questions unless the data will be directly used to implement changes.
5 market research survey design tips
- Have a clear objective of what you want to achieve.
- Do not ask questions about non-essential information.
- Focus on two or three topics that will have the greatest impact on business goals.
- Identify areas that require richer feedback and ask more detailed questions.
- Critically review your questionnaire to make sure you receive actionable results.
It’s important to remember that the data collected through market research should aid business decisions, so make sure you remain focused on specific objectives.