Planning your outputs
When conducting any market research, creating a good survey will depend on first thinking about the output. What are the answers you’re looking for and what the actionable insights that you hope to get?
Our clients use surveys to collect feedback from consumers who have received a free product sample, provided to them at their place of work. The results of this market research improve their understanding in a number of important areas, for example:
- Consumer perceptions of the product, its positioning and how it stacks up against the competition.
- Demand for NPD, for example to assess which possible new variation of an existing product should be prioritised.
- Effectiveness of other marketing activity in driving penetration.
- How customers of different retailers view the product, to provide evidence of demand to buyers and help achieve new listings and increase penetration.
- Where consumers would expect to find the product in stores, to help with ensure the best placement.
- Consumer demographics to show who is already buying the product and which segments show the greatest potential for increased growth.
Structure your survey to deliver great experiences
Once you’ve identified the output you desire from the survey you’ll be ready to start formulating your questions. At this point think about the user experience. Make the most of the opportunity to engage users and provide positive experiences. Make the survey interactive and visually stimulating. You may want to use pictures or icons in your questions and keep it relevant to each user by asking different questions depending their previous answers.
The example below provides an example of how a survey can be structured to be interactive and personalised. The question pathway is different depending on the answers given, and the question wording is dynamic, incorporating the user’s previous answer.
Top tips:
- Keep your questions simple and easy to understand.
- Ask about one thing at a time. Don’t ask for too much in one question.
- Be specific in your questions. Remove any ambiguity and make sure the questions are clear and easily interpreted.
- Ensure you’re giving users a neutral option if the available answer options aren’t relevant to them. This could be as simple as an ‘other’ option or a ’not applicable’ option.
- Save any intrusive questions for towards the end of the survey. Get people used to answering questions first.
- Offer an incentive to people to encourage responses. You don’t need to invest lots of budget but think of something that would appeal to the types of people you hope to receive feedback from.
Check out some examples of how we’ve helped our brand partners achieve their goals, or learn more about our product sampling options.
It’s always great chat about brand activation and how we can gather real, honest feedback, so drop us a line to hello@gemsatwork.com or give us a call on +44(0) 203 034 1100