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.

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

   a. For example, if you supply sneakers, the action can be a certain physical activity people perform in sneakers. If you sell software, it can be in regards to an issue your software helps address.

2. What bothers you the most about

   ?

3. What issues do you typically run into on our website?

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

5. 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.

1. What do you look for in a

   ?

2. What do you think

   can do to improve its usefulness?

3. What can

   do to help improve your overall user experience?

4. What aspects would you like to see in new

   ?

5. 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.

1. What is a reasonable price range for

   ?

2. Are there any conditions in which you’d be willing to buy

   at a higher range?

3. What do you think is the ideal price for

   ?

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

   a. These can be answered within a gradient of too high/too low answers

5. 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.

1. Which of the following is most important to you?

2. How do you like to spend your free time?

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

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

5. How do you favor making purchases?

6. What interests you?

7. 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.