marketing strategy research questions

Root out friction in every digital experience, super-charge conversion rates, and optimize digital self-service

Uncover insights from any interaction, deliver AI-powered agent coaching, and reduce cost to serve

Increase revenue and loyalty with real-time insights and recommendations delivered to teams on the ground

Know how your people feel and empower managers to improve employee engagement, productivity, and retention

Take action in the moments that matter most along the employee journey and drive bottom line growth

Whatever they’re are saying, wherever they’re saying it, know exactly what’s going on with your people

Get faster, richer insights with qual and quant tools that make powerful market research available to everyone

Run concept tests, pricing studies, prototyping + more with fast, powerful studies designed by UX research experts

Track your brand performance 24/7 and act quickly to respond to opportunities and challenges in your market

Explore the platform powering Experience Management

• Free Account
• Product Demos
• For Digital
• For Customer Care
• For Human Resources
• For Researchers
• Financial Services
• All Industries

Popular Use Cases

• Customer Experience
• Employee Experience
• Net Promoter Score
• Voice of Customer
• Customer Success Hub
• Product Documentation
• Training & Certification
• XM Institute
• Popular Resources
• Customer Stories
• Artificial Intelligence

Market Research

• Partnerships
• Marketplace

The annual gathering of the experience leaders at the world’s iconic brands building breakthrough business results, live in Salt Lake City.

• English/AU & NZ
• Español/Europa
• Español/América Latina
• Português Brasileiro
• REQUEST DEMO
• Experience Management
• Market Research Questions

Try Qualtrics for free

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.

Ready to learn more about Qualtrics?

🔥 Upgrade to a new style of analyzing VoC with sentiment checks, video clips, custom reports & more!

Product Management

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

Content Writer

Created on:

April 15, 2024

Updated on:

Transform Insights into Impact

Build Products That Drive Revenue and Delight Customers!

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.

Sign up today, and let's uncover burning issues and market gaps together.

Join Product Café Newsletter!

Sip on the freshest insights in Product Management, UX, and AI — straight to your inbox.

By subscribing, I agree to receive communications by Zeda.

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.

IN THIS ARTICLE:

Latest articles

Top Slack Communities for Product Folks

Get to know the top slack communities where your learning will not stop as a Product manager and get involved in meaningful conversations with like-minded people.

Behind the Complaint: Understanding the Root Causes of Common Customer Issues

While customer complaints cannot be avoided, understanding the most common customer complaints and why they happen, including product quality, poor customer service, or long wait times, is essential to take preventive and corrective measures to deal with them in the future.

Product Roadmap vs. Product Backlog: Know the Difference!

Learn the difference between Product Roadmap and Product Backlog, they are both important tools for successful product management.

AI-powered product discovery for customer-focused teams

• (855) 776-7763

All Products

BIGContacts CRM

Survey Maker

ProProfs.com

• Get Started Free

FREE. All Features. FOREVER!

Try our Forever FREE account with all premium features!

100+ Market Research Questions to Ask Your Customers

Expert Writer

Dwayne Charrington shares insights on creating effective surveys, improving navigation, and using A/B testing for smarter decisions. Additionally, he focuses on optimizing mobile experiences and champions privacy-by-design, ensuring users feel satisfied, secure, and valued.

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.

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.

Case Study:

Check out how AWA Digital increased revenue per customer for Avis by understanding the market and promoting add-on products.

Read Full Story Here

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. Understanding different types of summary can help you create more effective and concise roadmaps that clearly communicate your vision and strategy.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

Dwayne Charrington

Dwayne Charrington is an expert writer in customer feedback management, UX design, and user research. He helps businesses understand user intent and enhance the customer experience. Dwayne covers feedback management, lead generation, survey accessibility, and the impact of AI and VR on user interaction. He shares insights on creating effective surveys, improving navigation, and using A/B testing for smarter decisions. Additionally, he focuses on optimizing mobile experiences and champions privacy-by-design, ensuring users feel satisfied, secure, and valued.

Related Posts

Product Testing Surveys: 45+ Questions to Ask for Product Growth

15 Best UX Research Tools & Software for 2024

Mastering Website Feedback Forms: Tips to Drive User Engagement

20+ Website Feedback Tools You Can’t Ignore in 2024

5 Key UX Metrics & 8 KPIs to Measure User Experience

9 Must-Try iOS Survey Apps to Collect In-App Feedback

Small Business Trends

132 market research questions to ask.

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.

Types of Market Research Questions

Market Research Questions

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.

Pricing and Value

Doing research may also require you to gather information internally. For example, meet with Sales to discuss feedback they receive from possible customers.

Product or Service Questions

Online visibility questions, reputation management.

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:

Messaging and Advertising

68 market research questions to ask (and how to ask them)

Example market research questions, market research questions to ask customers, market research questions for product development, market research questions for brand tracking, pricing survey questions for market research, how to write your own market research questions.

No two market research projects are alike, but happily there are some tried-and-tested questions you can use for inspiration to get the consumer insights you’re looking for.

It’s all about asking questions that are most relevant to the goals of your research. Every so often the best questions are actually quite straightforward, like asking consumers where they do their grocery shopping.

If you’re creating a customer profile, you’ll ask different questions than when you’re running creative testing with your target audience, or getting insights on key consumer trends in your market.

The right market research questions are the ones that will lead you to actionable insights, and give you a competitive advantage in your target market.

Let’s kick this off and get straight into some questions, shall we?

Where do we even begin with this?! There are so many types of research and we’ll get into which questions work for each below, but here are some classic example market research questions to get you started.

These particular questions are good for surveys that you might run when you’re running some essential consumer profiling research.

• Which of these products have you purchased in the last 3 months?
• Which of the following types of >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY< do you buy at least once a month?
• Approximately, how much would you say you spend on >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY< per month?
• What is stopping you from buying more of >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY<?
• When was the last time you tried a new >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY<?
• Please rank the following on how important or unimportant they are when deciding which >INSERT PRODUCT CATEGORY< to buy?
• Which of these brands are you aware of?
• Which of these brands have you purchased from in the last 3 months?
• How do you prefer to shop for >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY<?
• Why do you prefer to shop online?
• Why do you prefer to shop in-store?
• Thinking about the following, how often do you use/listen/watch each of these media?
• Where do you go to keep up to date with the news?
• Which social media platforms do you use daily?
• What mobile phone do you currently own?

Surely you want to talk to your current customers to understand why they buy from you and what they think about your products?

Correct! But your consumer research should definitely not end with current customers!

Here’s why you should think about broadening your research to include other groups and different market research methods :

• Current customers: This is a must! Running research to your current customers will help you understand how you can make your product or service better. These are the people who’ve spent their hard-earned cash on your products so they have a unique perspective on what kind of value you offer. In addition, understanding why your existing customer base chose your brand over others can help you create messaging that resonates with people who are still on the fence.
• Previous customers: People who used to buy your products but don’t anymore can give you valuable insight into areas you might need to improve. Perhaps your brand perception has shifted making some customers buy elsewhere, or maybe your competitors offer customers better value for money than you currently do. These are the kinds of areas you can learn about by running research to previous customers.
• Non-customers: You should also ask people who haven’t bought your products why they haven’t. That way you’ll learn what you need to improve to bring new customers in. You should ideally ask the same kinds of questions, so that you can learn about what product features you need to work on but also things like the messaging you should be putting out there to win people over.

Here are some questions that are perfect for competitive market analysis research. Some of these questions might sound similar to some from our previous section on consumer profiling—that’s because there’s often some crossover between these types of research. Consumer profiling often refers to a more general type of research that covers similar ground to market analysis. If you’re wondering how to calculate market size , questions like these would be a great starting point.

• How often do you usually purchase >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY<?
• Why do you buy >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY<?
• What types of >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY< do you buy?
• How often do you buy the following types of >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY<?
• Where do you buy your >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY<?
• Where do you find out about >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY<?
• Which of these brands have your purchased in the last 12 months?
• How would you feel if you could no longer buy >INSERT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY<?
• How important or unimportant do you find the following topics? (e.g. sustainability, diversity and inclusion, ethical supply chain)
• What could be improved about the products you currently use?

By involving consumers in the product development process, you can make sure that your products are designed to meet—and ideally exceed—their needs.

Product market research can be done at several points in the product development process, by asking potential customers in your target market questions about existing products (yours or competitors’), prototypes, or just your own early-stage product ideas.

You can dive into the customer experience, specific product features or simply find out if the product quality matches the value proposition you’re putting out there.

Sometimes you even get a surprising answer to the question: how does our product or service help people?

You might learn from the survey responses that customers are using your product in a different way than you intended, opening you up to new target markets and different product types in the future.

Asking these questions also allows you to get feedback on your designs, so that you can make necessary changes before the product is released. Here’s some inspiration for when you’re conducting product market research.

There are different types of new product development research. A key type is Jobs to be done research. This research digs into the practical reasons people buy products—the jobs they need to get done with a specific product. You use these insights to help you create products that will genuinely help consumers, and that they’ll ultimately want to buy.

• How many times have you carried out [INSERT ACTIVITY] in the last 12 months?
• How much time would you typically spend on this [INSERT ACTIVITY]?
• How important or unimportant is carrying out this [INSERT ACTIVITY]?
• How satisfied or unsatisfied do you feel when carrying out this [INSERT ACTIVITY]?
• What is the best thing about carrying out [INSERT ACTIVITY]?
• How does carrying out [INSERT ACTIVITY] make you feel? Please select all that apply
• What particular problems or challenges do you run into while carrying out [INSERT ACTIVITY]?

When you’re cooking up your brand’s next product, you’ll want to go through a concept testing phase. This is where you ask consumers what they think about your idea and find out whether it’s likely to be a success. Here are some of the questions you could ask in your concept testing research.

• To what extent do you like or dislike this idea/product? [ATTACH IMAGE]
• What do you like about this idea/product?
• What do you dislike about this idea/product?
• Is easy to use
• Sounds tasty
• Is good quality
• Is Innovative
• Is different from others
• Purchase this product
• Replace the product I currently own with this
• What other products this idea/product reminds you of? Please provide as much detail as possible including the product name.
• What feature(s), if any, do you feel are missing from this product?
• How would you improve this idea/product? Be as descriptive as possible!
• What issues do you solve through the use of this product?
• When can you see yourself using this product? Please select all that apply.
• The price for this product is $25.00 per item. How likely or unlikely would you be to buy this product at this price?

Get inspired with NPD survey templates

Our in-house research experts have created New Product Development (NPD) survey templates to give you the perfect starting point for your product research!

Does the perspective of new customers change over time? How do you compare to other brands, and how do you become the preferred brand in your market and increase that market share?

Brand perception and brand awareness are super important metrics to track. These insights can be used to improve customer experience and satisfaction on a higher level than just product: the relationship you have with your customers.

This research can also help you understand how to reach the holy grail of branding: turning loyal customers into brand ambassadors.

You should also remember to ask marketing research questions about your brand to existing and potential customers.

Existing customers might have a different view after having interacted with your team and products, and you can use that to manage the expectations of your target customers down the line. And potential customers can help you understand what’s holding them back from joining your customer base.

Top tip: it’s completely fine (and super beneficial!) to run brand tracking into your competitors’ brands as well as your own. Replicating research for different brands will give you a tailored benchmark for your category and position.

Here are some key questions to ask in your brand tracking research.

• Which of the following, if any, have you purchased in the past 12 months?
• Thinking about >INSERT YOUR CATEGORY<, what brands, if any, are you aware of? Please type in all that you can think of.
• Which of these brands of facial wipes, if any, are you aware of?
• Which of these facial wipe brands, if any, have you ever purchased?
• Which of these facial wipe brands, if any, would you consider purchasing in the next 6 months?
• e.g. Innovative
• Easy to use
• Traditional
• We’d now like to ask you some specific questions about >INSERT YOUR BRAND<.
• When did you last use >INSERT YOUR BRAND<?
• What do you like most about >INSERT YOUR BRAND<?
• What do you like least about >INSERT YOUR BRAND<?
• How likely would you be to recommend >INSERT YOUR BRAND< to a friend, family or colleague?
• Why did you give that score? Include as much detail as possible
• In newspapers/magazines
• On Instagram
• On Facebook
• On the radio
• Through friends/family/colleagues
• When did you last use >INSERT MAIN COMPETITOR BRAND<?
• How likely would you be to recommend >INSERT MAIN COMPETITOR BRAND< to a friend, family or colleague?

Kick off your brand tracking with templates

Track your brand to spot—and act on!—how your brand’s perception and awareness affects how people buy. Our survey templates give you the ideal starting point!

When it comes to pricing your product, there’s no need to wing it—a pricing survey can give you the insights you need to arrive at the perfect price point.

By asking customers questions about their willingness to pay for your product, you can get a realistic sense of what price point will be most attractive to them and, not unimportant, why.

Top tip: good pricing research can be tough to get right. Asking how much people would theoretically be willing to pay for a product is very different from them actually choosing it in a shop, on a shelf next to competitors’ products, and with a whole load of other economic context that you can’t possibly test for. Price testing is useful, but should sometimes be taken with a pinch of salt.

Here are some questions you could use in your pricing research.

• Which of the following product categories have you bought in the last 12 months?
• How often do you currently purchase >INSERT YOUR CATEGORY<?
• At what price would you consider this >INSERT PRODUCT CATEGORY< to be so expensive that you would not consider buying it? (Too expensive)
• At what price would you consider this >INSERT PRODUCT CATEGORY< to be starting to get expensive, so that it is not out of the question, but you have to give some thought to buying it? (e.g. Expensive)
• At what price would you consider this >INSERT PRODUCT CATEGORY< to be a bargain—a great buy for the money? (e.g. cheap)
• At what price would you consider this >INSERT PRODUCT CATEGORY< to be priced so low that you would feel the quality couldn’t be very good? (Too cheap)
• How much do you currently pay for >INSERT PRODUCT CATEGORY<? Please type in below
• Thinking about this product, please rank the following aspects based on how much value they add, where 1 = adds the most value 10 = adds the least value.
• Thinking about the product category as a whole, please rank the following brands in order of value, where 1 is the most expensive and 10 is the least.

Formulating market research questions can be tricky. On the one hand, you want to be specific enough that you can get tangible, useful answers. But on the other hand, you don’t want to ask questions that are so difficult or unclear that respondents will get frustrated and give up halfway through.

Think about what answers you need and what actions you are hoping to take based on those answers.

We’ll help you get started with a list of steps to take when formulating your own market research questions, and putting them together in a survey that makes sense.

1. Define your research goals and link them to actions you can take

Before you can write great market research questions, you need to know what you want to learn from your research.

What are your goals? What do you want to find out? Once you have a clear understanding of your goals, you can start brainstorming questions that will help you achieve them.

2. Know your target market and the language they use

Who are you conducting market research for? It’s important to know your audience before you start writing questions, as this will help you determine the best way to phrase them.

For example, if you’re conducting market research for a new product aimed at teenagers, you’ll want to use different language than if you were conducting research for a new financial planning service aimed at retirees.

3. Keep it simple, and break things into smaller pieces

Don’t make your questions too complicated. Stick to simple, straightforward questions that can be easily understood by your target audience.

The more complex your questions are, the more likely it is that respondents will get confused and provide inaccurate answers.

If you feel a question is too difficult, see if you can break it up into smaller pieces and add follow-up questions on top.

And don’t ever load two questions into one! This falls into Consumer Research 101, but it’s amazing how often it happens. Instead of ‘What’s your favorite chocolate bar, and why?’ ask two questions: ‘What’s your favorite chocolate bar?’ and ‘Why is this your favorite chocolate bar?’

4. Be super specific

Make sure your questions are specific enough to get the information you need. Vague questions will only lead to vague answers.

For example, instead of asking ‘What do you think of this product?’, ask ‘What did you think of the taste of this product?’ or ‘What did you think of the packaging of this product?’.

5. Avoid leading questions

Leading questions are those that suggest a particular answer or course of action. For example, instead of asking ‘Do you like our new product?’, which suggests that the respondent should like the product, try asking ‘What are your thoughts on this product?

This question is neutral and allows the respondent to answer freely without feeling pressured in any particular direction. It’s also brand-neutral: people answering this question will have no idea who’s asking, and their opinion won’t be biased as a result.

6. Make sure your question is clear

It’s important that your question is clear and concise so that respondents understand exactly what they’re being asked. If there is any ambiguity in your question, respondents may interpret it in different ways and provide inaccurate answers.

Always test your questions on a few people before sending them to a larger group to make sure they understand what they’re being asked.

7. Avoid loaded words

Loaded words are those with positive or negative connotations that could influence the way respondents answer the question. For example, instead of asking ‘Do you love this product?’, which has a positive connotation, try asking ‘What are your thoughts on this product?’

This question is neutral and allows the respondent to answer freely without feeling pressured in any particular direction

8. Make sure the question is answerable

Before you include a question in your market research survey, make sure it’s actually answerable. There’s no point in asking a question if there’s no way for respondents to answer it properly. If a question isn’t answerable, either revise the question or remove it from your survey altogether.

9. Use an appropriate question type

When designing your market research survey, be sure to use an appropriate question type for each question you include. Using the wrong question type can lead to inaccurate or unusable results, so it’s important to choose wisely. Some common question types used in market research surveys include multiple choice, rating scale, and open-ended questions.

10. Pay attention to question order

The order of the questions in your survey can also impact the results you get from your research. In general, it’s best to start with more general questions and then move on to more specific ones later on in the survey. This will help ensure that respondents are properly warmed up and able to provide detailed answers by the time they reach the end of the survey.

Make smart decisions with the reliable insights

To make sure you make smart decisions that have real impact on your business, get consumer insights you can rely on. Here’s our rundown of the top market research tools.

Survey questions for market research are designed to collect information about a target market or audience. They can be used to gather data about consumer preferences, opinions, and behavior. Some common types of market research survey questions include demographic questions, behavioral questions and attitudinal questions.

There are many different types of market research questions that companies can use to gather information about consumer preferences and buying habits. They can be divided into different categories, like a competitive analysis, customer satisfaction or market trends, after which you can make them more specific and turn them into survey questions. These are some of the things your research questions can help you answer: – What is the target market for our product? – Who is our competition? – What do consumers think of our product? – How often do consumers purchase our product? – What is the typical customer profile for our product? – What motivates consumers to purchase our product?

When conducting market research, surveys are an invaluable tool for gathering insights about your target audience. But how do you write a market research questionnaire that will get you the information you need? First, determine the purpose of your survey and who your target respondents are. This will help you to write questions that are relevant and targeted. Next, craft clear and concise questions that can be easily understood. Be sure to avoid ambiguity, leading questions and loaded language. Finally, pilot your survey with a small group of people to make sure that it is effective. With these tips in mind, you can write a market research survey that will help you to gather the crucial insights you need.

Elliot Barnard

Customer Research Lead 

Elliot joined Attest in 2019 and has dedicated his career to working with brands carrying out market research. At Attest Elliot takes a leading role in the Customer Research Team, to support customers as they uncover insights and new areas for growth.

Related articles

5 beverage branding ideas (with examples you can learn from), survey vs questionnaire: what’s the difference and which should you use, what does inflation mean for brands, consumer profiling, subscribe to our newsletter.

Fill in your email and we’ll drop fresh insights and events info into your inbox each week.

* I agree to receive communications from Attest. Privacy Policy .

You're now subscribed to our mailing list to receive exciting news, reports, and other updates!

Toll Free : 1 800 371 6224 | US : +1 650 204 3191 | UK : +44 8082 803 175 | AU : +61 1800 247 724 | Philippine Local No : 63-2-83966000

• 24 7 Answering Service
• Virtual Receptionist Service
• Phone Answering Service
• Customer Support Outsourcing
• Outsourced Technical Support
• Omnichannel Contact Center
• Multilingual Call Center Services
• Telemarketing Services
• Lead Generation Services
• Appointment Setting Services
• Cold Calling Services
• Outsource Telesales
• Market Research Services
• Survey Processing Services
• Accounts Receivable Services
• Accounts Payable Services
• Back Office Services
• Call Center Outsourcing Services
• Certificate Intelligent Document Processing
• Community Moderation Services
• Data Management Services
• Debt Collection Services
• Loan Processing Call Center
• Outsource Form Processing Services
• Recruitment Process Outsourcing
• Staff Leasing Services
• Virtual Assistant Services
• Healthcare BPO Support Services
• Legal Outsourcing Services
• BPO Real Estate Services
• Insurance BPO Services
• Retail Outsourcing Services
• eCommerce Outsourcing Service
• Mobile App Customer Support
• HR Outsourcing Services
• 3D Rendering Services
• Travel Outsourcing Services
• Telecom BPO Services
• Education Process Outsourcing
• eServices Call Center
• Sample Recordings
• Message From The CEO
• Management Team

• 24 / 7 Answering Service
• eCommerce Outsourcing Services

Benefits of Sales Team Outsourcing Every Business Must Know

Philippines Telemarketing Lead Generation For B2B Partners

Home | Blog | 79 Market Research Questions For Better Results

79 Market Research Questions For Better Results

By Magellan Solutions

Updated on June 3, 2024

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.

Share this:

Talk to us!

Contact us today for more information.

You can also contact our numbers: Toll Free: 1 800 371 6224 US: +1 650 204 3191 UK: +44 8082 803 175 , AU: +61 1800 247 724

Want to know more?

Explore our services further by filling out the form below, and we'll reach out to you soon!

Give us a call!

1 800 371 6224

United States:  

+1 650 204 3191

United Kingdom:

+44 8082 803 175

+61 1800 247 724

Philippines:

63-2-83966000

Get free custom quote

Unlock Outsourcing Potential

Magellan Solutions

Related Articles

Complex vs Synthetic Media: Understanding Their Differences and Applications

Ramp Up Sales With Outsourced Sales Team

9 Signs Your Telemarketing Is A Failure

Join Magellan and Make a Difference!

Privacy Overview

Get a 60 Minute Assessment

Claim your free 60-minute assessment with our outsourcing expert today and get a quote based on your needs.

29 Market Research Questions to Improve Your Marketing Strategy

• Post author: Daniel
• Reading time: 5 mins read
• Post last modified: June 10, 2022

One of the best ways to learn about your market and customers is by asking questions. When you ask the right market research questions, you can identify opportunities to improve your marketing strategy , operations, and industry.

Page Contents

You can gain insights that help you:

• Attract your target audience
• Stand out from competitors
• Improve your products and services
• Better serve your customers

To ask the best questions, it helps to break down your market research questions into the following categories:

• Market research questions
• Questions to ask your target market
• Questions to ask your customers
• Questions for competitive analysis

Some market research questions will require research to find the answers. For example, you may want to know, “How do our competitors drive traffic?” Other questions you can directly ask your customers. For those questions, you can survey or interview customers to find answers and insights.

Here are some examples of questions you can ask for each type of marketing research .

Market Research Questions

General market research aims to help you learn about your market size and potential to connect with customers.

Great qualitative market research questions include:

• How big is our potential market?
• Will this market grow or shrink in the future?
• What other products and services are similar to ours?
• Who are our top competitors?
• What market share do our competitors own?
• What share is available for us to own/take?

To find answers to these questions, use  sites for market research  that help you find information on geographic locations, industry competitors, and economic conditions.

Market Research Questions to Ask Your Target Market

Questions to ask your target market include demographic market research questions that help you get to know who your customers are.

Here are some examples:

• What is your age?
• What is your gender?
• What is your education level?
• Where do you live?
• What is your profession?
• What is your household income?
• What is your household size?

These questions can go deeper and uncover psychographic segmentation details that help you learn about the interests, attitudes, and needs of your customers.

Examples of these questions include:

• What are your hobbies and interests?
• Where do you spend your free time?
• What are your biggest challenges?
• What are your primary goals?
• What is most important to you?
• Where do you go for information?
• How do you like to make purchases?

To gather these details, you can survey or interview your customers.

Market Research Questions to Ask Customers

Existing customers can provide great insight into your business, products, and services.

Market research questions to ask clients or customers include:

• How likely are you to recommend our brand to a friend?
• How long have you been a customer?
• What problem does [product/service] solve for you?
• How does the [product/service] fit into your daily workflow?
• How well does [product/service] meet your needs?
• What do you wish the [product/service] had that it currently does not?
• What do you like [most/least] about [product/service]?
• What made you choose us over a competitor?
• How would you rate your last experience with us?

You can gather this information through audience analysis, in-person interviews with your customers, or online customer surveys.

Pro Tip:  It’s important to collect information from customers who are advocates of your product/service, but also those who did not have an agreeable experience. Asking infrequent or lost customers for their feedback is an excellent way to surface gaps in your product/service and identify opportunities for improvement.

Market Research Questions for Competitive Analysis

Once you assess your industry and customers, start asking market research questions about your competitors. Some questions to ask include:

• How is our brand doing compared to our competitors?
• How do our competitors effectively attract customers?
• How much website traffic do our competitors receive?
• Which keywords are driving traffic to our competitors?
• What sources are driving traffic to our competitors?
• How many inbound links do our competitors have?
• What type of content is performing well for our competitors?

For tips on how to conduct a thorough  competitive analysis , download our free competitive analysis template.

Get Better Answers to Your Market Research Questions

Asking the right market research questions helps you uncover insights to improve customer satisfaction, business operations, and  marketing strategies . But asking questions is only half the process. You also need to make sure you’re collecting the most accurate and authentic answers.

Use the market research questions in this post to direct your inquiries to your business, customers, and industry.

Source: blog.alexa.com

You Might Also Like

The 10+ Best Sites for Market Research

How to Use a Competitive Matrix to Find Growth Opportunities

Industry Analysis Using Porter’s Five Forces: Guide + Example

Order a complete seo audit:.

• Name/Company: *
• Your email *
• Website url: *
• Select deliverable: * SEO Audit [Small & Medium] SEO Audit [Large]
• Get a 15% discount if you add a SEO strategy or a 20% discount if you also add the CI service .
• Only the SEO audit
• Add SEO Strategy [15% off]
• Add SEO Strategy & CI Analysis [20% off]
• Pay with: * Stripe PayPal
• Total (one time): $0.00
• Comments This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Order a Complete SEO Strategy:

• Get a 15% discount if you add bundle it with an SEO audit .
• Select Deliverable: * SEO Strategy SEO Strategy + Audit [Small & Medium] SEO Strategy + Audit [Large]

“Daniel goes above and beyond your expectations. The communication was excellent; he is friendly and great to work with. Can’t do anything else than give him a top score and my best recommendations!” Read more testimonials .

Order a CI Website Analysis or CI Program:

• Select Deliverable: * Digital Business Competitive Analysis Competitive Analysis + Ongoing CI (1st + 2nd month)
• Email This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

What we include in the Complete SEO Audit

Here is what we include in the complete SEO audit so you can discover how to unleash its true potential and prepare it for Google SGE & AI:

• A manual check of over 100 SEO factors done by a certified SEO specialist [GSC, SGE, AI included];
• A PDF document of 25-30 pages that covers all the findings and importance along with advice on fixing the issues identified;
• 3-4 pages summary of findings that outline the current status of your website SEO and what should be addressed for improvements;
• A 4-page document describing the status of the preparation of your website for Google SGE and AI.
• Technical sheets and documents, crawls, exports, and data that support our audit findings;
• Follow-up call(s) of up to 2 hours (4 hours for the Large plan) on Zoom to discuss and explain all the audit findings and your next steps;
• Four (six for Large plan) weeks of email support from our SEO experts after delivery (up to 4(6) emails answered);
• The option to work with us for fixes on predictable  ongoing SEO plans ;
• Before starting, we need access to your Google Search Console and Google Analytics accounts.
• We will deliver the SEO Audit to you within one month of ordering;

Choose a plan to suit your SEO needs:

• Select SEO Plan: * Ongoing SEO Care Plan Ongoing SEO Performance Plan Ongoing SEO Growth Plan
• Total (monthly): $0.00
• Phone This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

“Daniel goes above and beyond your expectations. The communication was excellent, he is friendly and great to work with. Can’t do anything else than give him a top score and my best recommendations!” Read more testimonials .

By continuing to use this website, you consent to the use of cookies in accordance with our Cookie Policy.

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.

We make collecting, sharing and analyzing data a breeze

Get started for free. Get instant access to Voiceform features that get you amazing data in minutes.

• Book Consultation
• SEO Services
• Google Ads Management
• SEO Services for Startups

85 Market Research Questions to Understand Your Audience

• by Sumant Vasan

Knowing your audience is the secret sauce of any successful business or campaign. But how do you crack the code and really get into the minds of your customers?

To truly understand your target audience, you need to ask the right questions. “85 Insightful Questions to Engage and Understand Your Target Audience” is an ultimate guide that provides you with the right set of questions that not only open doors to genuine insights but also help you create a real connection with your audience.

Whether you’re trying to refine your product, tailor your marketing strategy, or get a clearer picture of who’s on the other side of the screen, these questions are your ticket.

Get ready to dive deep, build trust, and unlock the valuable information within your audience’s answers.

Table of Contents

What are Market Research Questions?

Market research questions are crucial in gathering specific information and insights about a target market or audience. They are designed to analyze market trends and competitors and understand consumer preferences, behaviors, and opinions. You can use Quantitative Research Methods (surveys, polls, etc) or if you have a focus group, you can focus on a more qualitative structure.

Market Research to Collect Valuable Insights

Businesses can use market research questions to improve product creation, marketing, and sales decision-making. It’s important to pick questions that match the goals you have for your market research.

So, let’s get started. Below, you can find the breakdown of relevant categories and suggested questions. Feel free to customize your preference, but the market analysis questions below are a great start.

Consumer Insights:

Understanding your customers’ preferences, pain points, and purchase decisions is crucial. Armed with this knowledge, you can enhance what they like and address what they don’t like.

• What drives your decisions when you buy something?
• What changes or enhancements would you prefer in our products or services?
• Rate your satisfaction level with our customer support.
• Would you suggest our products to your friends or family?
• What aspects of our product or service do you value the most?
• How does our product/service fit into your daily lifestyle or routine?

Startup Questions:

In the world of startups, market research isn’t just helpful, it’s essential to your success. It is the key to validating your business vision, identifying your target audience, and anticipating potential opportunities and challenges. This research-focused feedback is crucial in shaping a product that truly reflects the voice of your audience and meets their needs.

• Which attributes do you prioritize when choosing a [product/service]?
• Are you open to adopting a novel [product/service] that better caters to your needs?
• What would primarily influence you to pick one product over its rivals?
• What is your budget for a [product/service] that fulfills your specific needs?
• Which channels do you prefer for receiving updates about new [products/services]?
• How do you like to purchase [products/services] – online, in a physical store, or via a mobile application?
• In what ways do you think technology could further solve your current challenges in [specific industry/problem area]?

If You’re Launching a New Product

When you are getting ready to introduce a new product to the market, it can feel like you’re putting together a puzzle. Conducting market research helps you bring all the pieces together, highlighting potential interest, clarifying desired features, and outlining the characteristics of your target customer base. This strategic approach is a precaution against releasing a product that may not appeal to your audience.

• How did you become aware of our latest product?
• Based on the details provided, what are your first thoughts about our new product?
• How excited are you to try our latest product?
• Which features or advantages of our new product did you like the most?
• Do you think the price of the new product is reasonable considering its value to you?
• Do you have any concerns about the new product?
• Would you like to participate in the new product’s test run or beta phase?
• If you were to describe our new product in three words, what would they be?

Feedback on Current Product Line:

If you need insight into your current product, make sure you ask the type of questions that really matter. Actionable data is what you’re looking for, not the fluff.

• On a scale from 1 to 5, how would you rate your happiness with our current product?
• What difficulties have you had while using our product?
• Are there any specific things you would like to see improved in our product?
• How does our product stand against competitors in terms of functionality and cost?
• If you could change one thing about our product, what would it be and why?

Psychographics To Help With Segmentation:

Using market research questions to split your market into different groups is like being an orchestra conductor. It allows you to adjust your marketing strategies, tailor your products to exactly what different groups want, and connect with each part of your audience in a way that really clicks. It’s all about ensuring each part of your marketing hits the right note with every group you’re trying to reach.

• What age bracket do you fall into?
• What is your gender identity?
• What’s your current place of residence?
• What level of education have you completed?
• Are you employed, running your own business, studying, or retired?
• What hobbies or pastimes do you enjoy?
• Which methods of communication do you prefer?
• How do you typically make your buying decisions?
• What primarily motivates you to buy a particular product/service?
• What media outlets do you frequently rely on for news and entertainment?
• In what ways do your cultural or local influences affect your purchasing decisions?

Competitor Analysis:

Understanding your competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, and tactics can provide valuable insights into market share and potential ways to differentiate yourself in the industry. Using survey tools to analyze your competition is similar to conducting intelligence gathering, which enables you to gain strategic insights from the viewpoints of customers and industry experts.

• Have you ever used products/services from our rivals?
• How would you assess our competitors’ products/services regarding quality?
• What do you consider to be the strong points of our competitors’ products/services?
• What influences your preference for our products/services over our competitors’?
• Are there any particular advantages or features of our competitors’ offerings that you find appealing?
• How do our products/services stack up against our competitors regarding overall value?
• How probable is it that you would suggest our products/services to others over our competitors’?
• What areas do you feel our competitors miss out on, and how could we capitalize on these gaps?

Brand Recognition and Recall:

Assessing brand awareness helps businesses gauge the success of their marketing initiatives and their brand’s visibility in the marketplace. Market research questions on brand awareness can show how well your brand is recognized and perceived.

• Were you previously familiar with our brand?
• How did you come to know about our brand?
• Which products of ours are you aware of?
• Have you ever used or bought any of our company’s products?
• What do you particularly like about our product?
• On a scale from 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our brand to someone you know?
• Can you recall any specific marketing or advertising campaign from our brand that left a lasting impression on you?

Price Perception and Expectations:

Determining an effective pricing strategy is crucial for attracting customers and maintaining profitability. Market research questions relating to pricing can provide insight into how customers perceive your prices compared to your competitors and what they value when considering price.

• What price range do you find is fair for our product?
• How does our pricing stack up against that of our market competitors?
• What considerations do you consider when judging a product’s price?
• Would you be ready to spend more on extra features or benefits?
• How does the perceived quality of our product/service influence your willingness to pay a specific price?

Evaluating New Concepts:

Performing concept testing before fully developing a product allows businesses to test the waters with new ideas, ensuring they align with customer needs and have a viable market before significant resources are invested.

• After reading the concept description for our new product/service, how interesting is it?
• Which parts of the concept mainly catch your interest or seem appealing?
• Based on the concept description, how likely are you to try or buy this new product/service?
• What would be your main reason for trying this new product/service over others?
• Is there anything lacking in the concept that would make it more appealing or valuable?
• Would you suggest any changes or improvements to the concept to make it more appealing?
• Based on the concept description, how much would you be ready to pay for this new product/service?
• In considering new products/services, how much do you value sustainability and eco-friendliness?

Digital Footprint and Online Interaction:

Everyone is online. No secret there. So it’s clearly important to get insight into how they found you, if they liked the website experience and design if the content matched up to their expectations, etc.

• How did you come across our brand or company online?
• How often do you encounter our brand or company during your internet browsing?
• Have you visited our website, and if so, what was your reason for the visit?
• Do you follow our brand or company on social media platforms, and if so, which ones?
• What is your impression of our brand or company’s social media presence (e.g., active, engaging, informative)?
• Do you find our website and online material (like blogs or articles) user-friendly and informative?
• What are your thoughts about the overall online experience with our website (considering aspects like speed, design, and functionality)?
• How do you think our online presence compares with that of our competitors?
• Are there any specific online platforms or websites where you’d like to see more activity from our brand or company?
• What type of online content from our brand would make you more engaged or likely to interact (e.g., tutorials, customer stories, live Q&As)?

Understanding Company Image and Reputation:

Knowing how they view your brand is one of the most impactful lines of questioning. If they don’t trust you or feel the authenticity, you lose them as customers. Ask them, point blank, what do you think about our positioning. Do we come across as worthy of earning your business? Get real here, it matters.

• How would you describe your overall view of our company?
• In your opinion, what are the strengths of our company?
• Based on your current view, how likely are you to recommend our company to others?
• Are there particular elements of our company’s reputation that stand out?
• What are your thoughts on how our company handles customer feedback and issues?
• Have any specific events or experiences significantly shaped your view of our company?
• Can you share a particular experience, either positive or negative, that has significantly shaped your perception of our company?
• How do you view our company’s commitment to social and environmental responsibilities?

This set of questions is highly flexible, so you can tailor them to fit your market research requirements and your audience’s unique features. With the help of this toolkit, you have all the necessary resources to discover significant insights that can help you advance your business strategies.

How to Make the Most of Your Research Questions

A solid market research process is crucial because it’s the backbone of informed decision-making in your business. It’s like having a roadmap in unknown territory, guiding you to understand your customers, competitors, and the market.

To make the most of it, be clear about what you want to learn, and choose methods and questions that get you those answers. It’s not just about gathering data, but analyzing it to spot trends, understand behaviors, and predict future moves.

Remember, the goal is to convert this knowledge into actionable strategies that boost your business, not just to collect information. So, every step in your market research should be intentional, aiming to provide insights that directly support your business objectives.

Related posts:

Zonka Feedback gets smarter with AI: Build smarter surveys, unlock deeper insights ➝

Trusted Security

• Measure and track experiences across all customer touchpoints
• Track crucial metrics to improve Customer Experience
• Restaurants
• Financial Services
• Customer Experience
• Product Experience
• Website Feedback
• Helpdesk Feedback
• Patient Feedback
• Employee Engagement
• Market Research
• Lead Capture

• Schedule a Demo --> Schedule a Demo
• Try for Free

• Schedule a Demo

Book a Demo with Zonka Feedback

Not you? Click here to reset

Get Started for Free

• Your account is being created in the US Data Server EU Data Server Two
• Latest Posts
• Surveys & Feedback
• News, Events & Updates
• Metrics & Analytics
• Artificial Intelligence
• Digital & Product Experience
• Feedback Management
• Product Feedback

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 Jul 10, 2024.

Written by Kanika

Try zonka feedback today.

Customer Experience and Product Feedback Software.

• Name, Link 1
• Name, Link 2
• Name, Link 3
• Name, Link 4
• Name, Link 5
• Name, Link 6
• Name, Link 7
• Name, Link 8
• Name, Link 9
• Name, Link 10

Get Started with Zonka Feedback

Sign up now for free and start taking customer feedback in minutes!

Related Posts

How, When and Where to Collect Net Promoter Score Surveys?

by Kanika August 06, 2024

Customer Segmentation & NPS: Get Deeper Insights from Your NPS Data

by Kanika July 25, 2024

30 Health Survey Questions for Health Assessment & Patient Feedback

by Nikhil Dawer July 24, 2024

How to Craft the Perfect NPS Email Survey for Your Business? (With Examples)

by Kanika July 24, 2024

NPS Follow-Up Emails for Promoters, Passives & Detractors (With Examples)

by Nikhil Dawer July 22, 2024

16 Best Survey Apps to Collect Feedback in 2024 [Paid + Free]

by Kanika July 15, 2024

15 Best Anonymous Feedback Tools to Collect Unbiased Insights

by Kanika July 12, 2024

Patient Satisfaction Surveys: Building Loyalty and Delivering Better Care

by Nikhil Dawer July 11, 2024

Top NPS Survey Questions & Examples to Unlock Actionable Customer Insights

by Kanika July 09, 2024

Patient Feedback: Improving the Quality of Care and Healthcare Services

by Nikhil Dawer July 05, 2024

Get the latest from Zonka Feedback

Get the best of Feedback and CX News, Tips, and Tricks straight to your inbox.

Get Started Today

Sign up for a 15-day free trial or schedule a demo to know more.

Try for Free Schedule a Demo

Create your Free Account & start taking feedback in minutes!

Quick to setup. Highly engaging. 50% more responses. Transform customer experiences.

14 Days. Full Access. No credit card required.

You're just a few steps away! Please share the following details.

Download your free nps ebook, cx platform.

• Customer Feedback
• Product Feedback Tool
• Survey Software
• Enterprise Feedback Management
• Offline Survey App
• Surveys for Salesforce
• Surveys for Hubspot
• Surveys for Zendesk
• Surveys for Intercom
• NPS Surveys
• Customer Satisfaction Score
• Customer Effort Score
• Website Surveys
• Email Surveys
• SMS Surveys
• Feedback Button
• Mobile Forms
• iPad Surveys
• Android Surveys
• Kiosk Surveys

POPULAR TEMPLATES

• Survey Templates
• Feedback Form Templates
• Healthcare Survey Templates
• Customer Satisfaction Survey Template
• Smiley Survey Template
• 1 to 10 Rating Scale Template
• Restaurant Survey Forms
• Hotel Feedback Form
• Student Satisfaction Survey Template
• Voice of Customer Survey Template
• Website Feedback Form Template
• Blog & Insights
• Product Help
• Product Updates
• Help Center
• API Documentation
• Dev Documentation
• Net Promoter Score
• Customer Satisfaction
• NPS Calculator
• Customer Stories

Powerful Customer Surveys & Product Feedback Platform

• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Use
• Cookies Policy

Copyright © 2024 - Zonka Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Net Promoter, Net Promoter Score, and NPS are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.

• Skip to main content
• Skip to primary sidebar
• Skip to footer
• QuestionPro

• Solutions Industries Gaming Automotive Sports and events Education Government Travel & Hospitality Financial Services Healthcare Cannabis Technology Use Case AskWhy Communities Audience Contactless surveys Mobile LivePolls Member Experience GDPR Positive People Science 360 Feedback Surveys
• Resources Blog eBooks Survey Templates Case Studies Training Help center

Home Market Research

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!

MORE LIKE THIS

Jotform vs Microsoft Forms: Which Should You Choose?

Aug 26, 2024

Stay Conversations: What Is It, How to Use, Questions to Ask

Age Gating: Effective Strategies for Online Content Control

Aug 23, 2024

Work-Life Balance: Why We Need it & How to Improve It

Aug 22, 2024

Other categories

• Academic Research
• Artificial Intelligence
• Assessments
• Brand Awareness
• Case Studies
• Communities
• Consumer Insights
• Customer effort score
• Customer Engagement
• Customer Experience
• Customer Loyalty
• Customer Research
• Customer Satisfaction
• Employee Benefits
• Employee Engagement
• Employee Retention
• Friday Five
• General Data Protection Regulation
• Insights Hub
• Life@QuestionPro
• Market Research
• Mobile diaries
• Mobile Surveys
• New Features
• Online Communities
• Question Types
• Questionnaire
• QuestionPro Products
• Release Notes
• Research Tools and Apps
• Revenue at Risk
• Survey Templates
• Training Tips
• Tuesday CX Thoughts (TCXT)
• Uncategorized
• What’s Coming Up
• Workforce Intelligence

98 Quantitative Research Questions & Examples

Free Website Traffic Checker

Discover your competitors' strengths and leverage them to achieve your own success

As researchers, we know how powerful quantitative research data can be in helping answer strategic questions. Here, I’ve detailed 23 use cases and curated 98 quantitative market research questions with examples – making this a post you should add to your bookmark list , so you can quickly refer back.

I’ve formatted this post to show you 10-15 questions for each use case. At the end of each section, I also share a quicker way to get similar insights using modern market research tools like Similarweb.

What is a quantitative research question?

Quantitative market research questions tell you the what, how, when, and where of a subject. From trendspotting to identifying patterns or establishing averages– using quantitative data is a clear and effective way to start solving business problems.

Types of quantitative research questions

Quantitative market research questions are divided into two main types: descriptive and causal.

• Descriptive research questions seek to quantify a phenomenon by focusing on a certain population or phenomenon to measure certain aspects of it, such as frequency, average, or relationship.
• Causal research questions explore the cause-and-effect relationship between two or more variables.

The ultimate list of questions for quantitative market research

Get clear explanations of the different applications and approaches to quantitative research–with the added bonus of seeing what questions to ask and how they can impact your business.

Examples of quantitative research questions for competitive analysis

A powerful example of quantitative research in play is when it’s used to inform a competitive analysis . A process that’s used to analyze and understand how industry leaders and companies of interest are performing.

Pro Tip: Collect data systematically, and use a competitive analysis framework to record your findings. You can refer back to it when you repeat the process later in the year.

• What is the market share of our major competitors?
• What is the average purchase price of our competitors’ products?
• How often do our competitors release new products?
• What is the total number of customer reviews for our competitors’ products?
• What is the average rating of our competitors’ products?
• What is the average customer satisfaction score for our competitors?
• What is the average return rate of our competitors’ products?
• What is the average shipping time for our competitors’ products?
• What is the average price discount offered by our competitors?
• What is the average lifespan of our competitors’ products?

With this data, you can determine your position in the market and benchmark your performance against rival companies. It can then be used to improve offerings, service standards, pricing, positioning, and operational effectiveness. Notice that all questions can be answered with a numerical response , a key component of all successful examples of quantitative market research questions.

Quantitative research question example: market analysis

‍♀️ Question: What is the market share of our major competitors?

Insight sought: Industry market share of leaders and key competitors.

Challenges with traditional quantitative research methods: Outdated data is a major consideration; data freshness remains critical, yet is often tricky to obtain using traditional research methods. Markets shift fast, so being able to obtain and track market share in real time is a challenge many face.

A new approach: Similarweb enables you to track this key business KPI in real-time using digital data directly from the platform. On any day, you can see what your market share is, along with any players in your market. Plus, you get to see rising stars showing significant growth, who may pose a threat through market disruption or new tactics.

⏰ Time to insight: 30 seconds

✅ How it’s done: Using Similarweb’s Web Industry Analysis, two digital metrics give you the intel needed to decipher the market share in any industry. I’m using the Banking, Credit, and Lending market throughout these examples. I’ve selected the US market, analyzing the performance of the previous 3 months.

• Share of visits 

Here, I can see the top players in my market based on the number of unique visitors to their sites. On top of the raw data that shows me the volume of visitors as a figure, I can quickly see the two players ( Capital One and Chase ) that have grown and by what percentage. On the side, you can see rising players in the industry. Now, while my initial question was to establish the market share of my major competitors, I can see there are a few disruptive players in my market who I’d want to track too; Synchrony.com being one of particular interest, given their substantial growth and traffic numbers.

• Share of search 

Viewing the overall market size based on total search volumes, you can explore industry leaders in more detail. The top websites are the top five players, ranking by traffic share . You can also view the month-over-month change in visits, which shows you who is performing best at any given time . It’s the same five names, with Paypal and Chase leading the pack. However, I see Wells Fargo is better at attracting repeat visitors, while Capital One and Bank of America perform better at drawing in unique visitors.

In answer to my question, what is the market share of my major competitors, I can quickly use Similarweb’s quantitative data to get my answer.

This traffic share visual can be downloaded from the platform. It plots the ten industry leader’s market share and allocates the remaining share to the rest of the market.

I can also download a market quadrant analysis, which takes two key data points, traffic share and unique visitors, and plots the industry leaders. All supporting raw data can be downloaded in .xls format or connected to other business intelligence platforms via the API.

Quantitative research questions for consumer behavior studies

These studies measure and analyze consumer behavior , preferences, and habits . Any type of audience analysis helps companies better understand customer intent, and adjust offerings, messaging, campaigns, SEO, and ultimately offer more relevant products and services within a market.

• What is the average amount consumers spend on a certain product each month?
• What percentage of consumers are likely to purchase a product based on its price?
• How do the demographics of the target audience affect their purchasing behavior?
• What type of incentive is most likely to increase the likelihood of purchase?
• How does the store’s location impact product sales and turnover?
• What are the key drivers of product loyalty among consumers?
• What are the most commonly cited reasons for not buying a product?
• How does the availability of product information impact purchasing decisions?
• What is the average time consumers spend researching a product before buying it?
• How often do consumers use social media when making a purchase decision?

While applying a qualitative approach to such studies is also possible, it’s a great example of quantitative market research in action. For larger corporations, studies that involve a large, relevant sample size of a target market deliver vital consumer insights at scale .

Read More: 83 Qualitative Research Questions & Examples

Quantitative research question and answer: content strategy and analysis

‍♀️ Question: What type of content performed best in the market this past month?

Insight sought: Establish high-performing campaigns and promotions in a market.

Challenges with traditional quantitative research methods: Whether you consider putting together a panel yourself, or paying a company to do it for you, quantitative research at scale is costly and time-consuming. What’s more, you have to ensure that sampling is done right and represents your target audience.

A new approach: Data analysis is the foundation of our entire business. For over 10 years, Similarweb has developed a unique , multi-dimensional approach to understanding the digital world. To see the specific campaigns that resonate most with a target audience, use Similarweb’s Popular Pages feature. Key metrics show which campaigns achieve the best results for any site (including rival firms), campaign take-up, and periodic changes in performance and interest.

✅ How it’s done: I’ve chosen Capital One and Wells Fargo to review. Using the Popular Pages campaign filter, I can view all pages identified by a URL parameter UTM. For clarity, I’ve highlighted specific campaigns showing high-growth and increasing popularity. I can view any site’s trending, new, or best-performing pages using a different filter.

In this example, I have highlighted three campaigns showing healthy growth, covering teen checking accounts, performance savings accounts, and add-cash-in-store. Next, I will perform the same check for another key competitor in my market.

Here, I can see financial health tools campaigns with over 300% month-over-month growth and smarter credit and FICO campaigns showing strong performance. This tells me that campaigns focussing on education and tools are growing in popularity within this market. 

Examples of quantitative research questions for brand tracking

These studies are designed to measure customers’ awareness, perceptions, behaviors, and attitudes toward a brand over time. Different applications include measuring brand awareness , brand equity, customer satisfaction, and purchase or usage intent.

These types of research surveys ask questions about brand knowledge, brand attributes, brand perceptions, and brand loyalty . The data collected can then be used to understand the current state of a brand’s performance, identify improvements, and track the success of marketing initiatives.

• To what extent is Brand Z associated with innovation?
• How do consumers rate the quality of Brand Z’s products and services?
• How has the awareness of Brand Z changed over the past 6 months?
• How does Brand Z compare to its competitors in terms of customer satisfaction?
• To what extent do consumers trust Brand Z?
• How likely are consumers to recommend Brand Z?
• What factors influence consumers’ purchase decisions when considering Brand Z?
• What is the average customer satisfaction score for equity?
• How does equity’s customer service compare to its competitors?
• How do customer perceptions of equity’s brand values compare to its competitors?

Quantitative research question example and answer: brand tracking

‍♀️ Question: How has the awareness of Brand Z changed over the past 6 months?

Insight sought: How has brand awareness changed for my business and competitors over time.

⏰ Time to insight: 2 minutes

✅ How it’s done: Using Similarweb’s search overview, I can quickly identify which brands in my chosen market have the highest brand awareness over any time period or location. I can view these stats as a custom market or examine brands individually.

Here, I’ve chosen a custom view that shows me five companies side-by-side. In the top right-hand corner, under branded traffic, you get a quick snapshot of the share of website visits that were generated by branded keywords. A branded keyword is when a consumer types the brand name + a search term.

Below that, you will see the search traffic and engagement section. Here, I’ve filtered the results to show me branded traffic as a percentage of total traffic. Similarweb shows me how branded search volumes grow or decline monthly. Helping me answer the question of how brand awareness has changed over time.

Quantitative research questions for consumer ad testing

Another example of using quantitative research to impact change and improve results is ad testing. It measures the effectiveness of different advertising campaigns. It’s often known as A/B testing , where different visuals, content, calls-to-action, and design elements are experimented with to see which works best. It can show the impact of different ads on engagement and conversions.

A range of quantitative market research questions can be asked and analyzed to determine the optimal approach.

• How does changing the ad’s headline affect the number of people who click on the ad?
• How does varying the ad’s design affect its click-through rate?
• How does altering the ad’s call-to-action affect the number of conversions?
• How does adjusting the ad’s color scheme influence the number of people who view the ad?
• How does manipulating the ad’s text length affect the average amount of time a user spends on the landing page?
• How does changing the ad’s placement on the page affect the amount of money spent on the ad?
• How does varying the ad’s targeting parameters affect the number of impressions?
• How does altering the ad’s call-to-action language impact the click-through rate?

Quantitative question examples for social media monitoring

Quantitative market research can be applied to measure and analyze the impact of social media on a brand’s awareness, engagement, and reputation . By tracking key metrics such as the number of followers, impressions, and shares, brands can:

• Assess the success of their social media campaigns
• Understand what content resonates with customers
• Spot potential areas for improvement
• How often are people talking about our brand on social media channels?
• How many times has our brand been mentioned in the past month?
• What are the most popular topics related to our brand on social media?
• What is the sentiment associated with our brand across social media channels?
• How do our competitors compare in terms of social media presence?
• What is the average response time for customer inquiries on social media?
• What percentage of followers are actively engaging with our brand?
• What are the most popular hashtags associated with our brand?
• What types of content generate the most engagement on social media?
• How does our brand compare to our competitors in terms of reach and engagement on social media?

Example of quantitative research question and answer: social media monitoring

‍♀️ Question: How does our brand compare to our competitors in terms of reach and engagement on social media?

Insight sought: The social channels that most effectively drive traffic and engagement in my market

✅ How it’s done: Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence shows you a marketing channels overview at both an industry and market level. With it, you can view the most effective social media channels in any industry and drill down to compare social performance across a custom group of competitors or an individual company.

Here, I’ve taken the five closest rivals in my market and clicked to expand social media channel data. Wells Fargo and Bank of America have generated the highest traffic volume from social media, with over 6.6 million referrals this year. Next, I can see the exact percentage of traffic generated by each channel and its relative share of traffic for each competitor. This shows me the most effective channels are YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Reddit – in that order.

In 30-seconds, I’ve discovered the following:

• YouTube is the most popular social network in my market.
• Facebook and LinkedIn are the second and third most popular channels.
• Wells Fargo is my primary target for a more in-depth review, with the highest performance on the top two channels.
• Bank of America is outperforming all key players significantly on LinkedIn.
• American Express has found a high referral opportunity on Reddit that others have been unable to match.

Power-up Your Market Research with Similarweb Today

Examples of quantitative research questions for online polls

This is one of the oldest known uses of quantitative market research. It dates back to the 19th century when they were first used in America to try and predict the outcome of the presidential elections.

Polls are just short versions of surveys but provide a point-in-time perspective across a large group of people. You can add a poll to your website as a widget, to an email, or if you’ve got a budget to spend, you might use a company like YouGov to add questions to one of their online polls and distribute it to an audience en-masse.

• What is your annual income?
• In what age group do you fall?
• On average, how much do you spend on our products per month?
• How likely are you to recommend our products to others?
• How satisfied are you with our customer service?
• How likely are you to purchase our products in the future?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is price when it comes to buying our products?
• How likely are you to use our products in the next six months?
• What other brands of products do you purchase?
• How would you rate our products compared to our competitors?

Quantitative research questions for eye tracking studies

These research studies measure how people look and respond to different websites or ad elements. It’s traditionally an example of quantitative research used by enterprise firms but is becoming more common in the SMB space due to easier access to such technologies.

• How much time do participants spend looking at each visual element of the product or ad?
• How does the order of presentation affect the impact of time spent looking at each visual element?
• How does the size of the visual elements affect the amount of time spent looking at them?
• What is the average time participants spend looking at the product or ad as a whole?
• What is the average number of fixations participants make when looking at the product or ad?
• Are there any visual elements that participants consistently ignore?
• How does the product’s design or advertising affect the average number of fixations?
• How do different types of participants (age, gender, etc.) interact with the product or ad differently?
• Is there a correlation between the amount of time spent looking at the product or ad and the participants’ purchase decision?
• How does the user’s experience with similar products or ads affect the amount of time spent looking at the current product or ad?

Quantitative question examples for customer segmentation

Segmentation is becoming more important as organizations large and small seek to offer more personalized experiences. Effective segmentation helps businesses understand their customer’s needs–which can result in more targeted marketing, increased conversions, higher levels of loyalty, and better brand awareness.

If you’re just starting to segment your market, and want to know the best quantitative research questions to ask to help you do this, here are 20 to choose from.

Examples of quantitative research questions to segment customers

• What is your age range?
• What is your annual household income?
• What is your preferred online shopping method?
• What is your occupation?
• What types of products do you typically purchase?
• Are you a frequent shopper?
• How often do you purchase products online?
• What is your typical budget for online purchases?
• What is your primary motivation for purchasing products online?
• What factors influence your decision to purchase a product online?
• What device do you use most often when shopping online?
• What type of product categories are you most interested in?
• Do you prefer to shop online for convenience or for a better price?
• What type of discounts or promotions do you look for when making online purchases?
• How do you prefer to receive notifications about product promotions or discounts?
• What type of payment methods do you prefer when shopping online?
• What methods do you use to compare different products and prices when shopping online?
• What type of customer service do you expect when shopping online?
• What type of product reviews do you consider when making online purchases?
• How do you prefer to interact with a brand when shopping online?

Examples of quantitative research questions for analyzing customer segments

• What is the average age of customers in each segment?
• How do spending habits vary across customer segments ?
• What is the average length of time customers spend in each segment?
• How does loyalty vary across customer segments?
• What is the average purchase size in each segment?
• What is the average frequency of purchases in each segment?
• What is the average customer lifetime value in each segment?
• How does customer satisfaction vary across customer segments?
• What is the average response rate to campaigns in each segment?
• How does customer engagement vary across customer segments?

These questions are ideal to ask once you’ve already defined your segments. We’ve written a useful post that covers the ins and outs of what market segmentation is and how to do it.

Additional applications of quantitative research questions

I’ve covered ten use cases for quantitative questions in detail. Still, there are other instances where you can put quantitative research to good use.

Product usage studies: Measure how customers use a product or service.

Preference testing: Testing of customer preferences for different products or services.

Sales analysis: Analysis of sales data to identify trends and patterns.

Distribution analysis: Analyzing distribution channels to determine the most efficient and effective way to reach customers.

Focus groups: Groups of consumers brought together to discuss and provide feedback on a particular product, service, or marketing campaign.

Consumer interviews: Conducted with customers to understand their behavior and preferences better.

Mystery shopping: Mystery shoppers are sent to stores to measure customer service levels and product availability.

Conjoint analysis: Analysis of how consumers value different attributes of a product or service.

Regression analysis: Statistical analysis used to identify relationships between different variables.

A/B testing: Testing two or more different versions of a product or service to determine which one performs better.

Brand equity studies: Measure, compare and analyze brand recognition, loyalty, and consumer perception.

Exit surveys: Collect numerical data to analyze employee experience and reasons for leaving, providing insight into how to improve the work environment and retain employees.

Price sensitivity testing: Measuring responses to different pricing models to find the optimal pricing model, and identify areas if and where discounts or incentives might be beneficial.

Quantitative market research survey examples

A recent GreenBook study shows that 89% of people in the market research industry use online surveys frequently–and for good reason. They’re quick and easy to set up, the cost is minimal, and they’re highly scalable too.

Questions are always formatted to provide close-ended answers that can be quantified. If you wish to collect free-text responses, this ventures into the realm of qualitative research . Here are a few examples.

Brand Loyalty Surveys: Companies use online surveys to measure customers’ loyalty to their brand. They include questions about how long an individual has been a customer, their overall satisfaction with the service or product, and the likelihood of them recommending the brand to others.

Customer Satisfaction Surveys: These surveys may include questions about the customer’s experience, their overall satisfaction, and the likelihood they will recommend a product or service to others.

Pricing Studies: This type of research reveals how customers value their products or services. These surveys may include questions about the customer’s willingness to pay for the product, the customer’s perception of the price and value, and their comparison of the price to other similar items.

Product/Service Usage Studies: These surveys measure how customers use their products or services. They can include questions about how often customers use a product, their preferred features, and overall satisfaction.

Here’s an example of a typical survey we’ve used when testing out potential features with groups of clients. After they’ve had the chance to use the feature for a period, we send a short survey, then use the feedback to determine the viability of the feature for future release.

Employee Experience Surveys: Another great example of quantitative data in action, and one we use at Similarweb to measure employee satisfaction. Many online platforms are available to help you conduct them; here, we use Culture AMP . The ability to manipulate the data, spot patterns or trends, then identify the core successes and development areas are astounding.

How to answer quantitative research questions with Similarweb

For the vast majority of applications I’ve covered in this post, there’s a more modern, quicker, and more efficient way to obtain similar insights online. Gone are the days when companies need to use expensive outdated data or pay hefty sums of money to market research firms to conduct broad studies to get the answers they need.

By this point, I hope you’ve seen how quick and easy it is to use Similarweb to do market research the modern way. But I’ve only scratched the surface of its capabilities.

Take two to watch this introductory video and see what else you can uncover.

Added bonus: Similarweb API

If you need to crunch large volumes of data and already use tools like Tableau or PowerBI, you can seamlessly connect Similarweb via the API and pipe in the data. So for faster analysis of big data, you can leverage Similarweb data to use alongside the visualization tools you already know and love.

Similarweb’s suite of market intelligence solutions offers unbiased, accurate, honest insights you can trust. With a world of data at your fingertips, use Similarweb Research Intelligence to uncover facts that help inform your research and strengthen your position.

Take a look at:

• Our Market Research suite
• Our Benchmarking tools
• Our Audience Insights tool
• Our Company Research module
• Our Consumer Journey Tracker
• Our Competitive Analysis Tool

Wrapping up

Today’s markets change at lightning speed. To keep up and succeed, companies need access to insights and intel they can depend on to be timely and on-point. While quantitative market research questions can and should always be asked, it’s important to leverage technology to increase your speed to insight, and thus improve reaction times and response to market shifts.

What is quantitative market research?

Quantitative market research is a form of research that uses numerical data to gain insights into the behavior and preferences of customers. It is used to measure and track the performance of products, services, and campaigns.

How does quantitative market research help businesses?

Quantitative market research can help businesses identify customer trends, measure customer satisfaction, and develop effective marketing strategies. It can also provide valuable insights into customer behavior, preferences, and attitudes.

What types of questions should be included in a quantitative market research survey?

Questions in a quantitative market research survey should be focused, clear, and specific. Questions should be structured to collect quantitative data, such as numbers, percentages, or frequency of responses.

What methods can be used to collect quantitative market research data?

Common methods used to collect quantitative market research data include surveys, interviews, focus groups, polls, and online questionnaires.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using quantitative market research?

The advantages of using quantitative market research include the ability to collect data quickly, the ability to analyze data in a structured way, and the ability to identify trends. Disadvantages include the potential for bias, the cost of collecting data, and the difficulty in interpreting results.

by Liz March

Digital Research Specialist

Liz March has 15 years of experience in content creation. She enjoys the outdoors, F1, and reading, and is pursuing a BSc in Environmental Science.

Related Posts

Importance of Market Research: 9 Reasons Why It’s Crucial for Your Business

Audience Segmentation: Definition, Importance & Types

Geographic Segmentation: Definition, Pros & Cons, Examples, and More

Demographic Segmentation: The Key To Transforming Your Marketing Strategy

Unlocking Consumer Behavior: What Makes Your Customers Tick?

Customer Segmentation: Expert Tips on Understanding Your Audience

Wondering what similarweb can do for your business.

Give it a try or talk to our insights team — don’t worry, it’s free!

Copyright © SurveySparrow Inc. 2024 Privacy Policy Terms of Service SurveySparrow Inc.

100+ Market Research Questions To Ask Your Target Audience

Kate Williams

Last Updated: 22 August 2024

21 min read

Table Of Contents

• 100+ Market Research Questions
• For a New Product
• For New Business
• For Competitive Analysis
• For Existing Customers
• For Customer Service
• For Startups
• For Potential Customers
• For Cosmetics
• For Restaurants
• For B2B Business
• For Food Products

Before we learn about market research questions , how about a coke?

Coca-Cola, from classic coke to their famous diet Coke, is a success. No doubt. But they’ve had their share of failures too.

One of these failures happened because of poor market research. Coca-Cola’s highly ambitious product, C2 , which was half regular and half diet coke, tanked badly, as they didn’t ask the right questions to the right audience during market research.

According to the Coca-Cola market research surveys , Coca-Cola lost upwards of $50 million on C2, and we don’t want something similar happening to one of your products. That’s why we focus on market research questions that’ll get the right responses to scale your business to better heights. 

Here’s a snippet of what we’ll further discuss in this article.

• What are market research questions
• 100+ Market research questions
• How to write market research questions
• Benefits of market research questions
• Tools for conducting market research

What are Market Research Questions?

The main intent of market research is to understand customers and competitors, but ultimately, the market as a whole. This is done by asking the right set of questions. These are what market research questions are. 

There are three main types of survey questions that are used in market research to acquire relevant and precise data. They are as follows. 

• Demographic - These gather all the basic information about the customers.
• Behavioral - These questions explore how customers interact with products/services.
• Psychographic - These shine a light on the interests, attitudes, and lifestyles of the respondents. 

If you are interested in understanding a bit more about what a market research survey might look like, here is something for you. The following is a sample template from SurveySparrow. 

Product Market Research Survey

Preview Template

There are more such (1000+) templates available with SurveySparrow - all for free. You just have to sign up (also, for free). 

100+Market Research Survey Questions to Use

Here we are now – the 100+ most effective market research questions that deliver outstanding results when used in research surveys. We’ve split these questions into eleven categories so you can pick the right ones at the right time.

• New Product Survey Questions
• New Business Survey Questions
• Competition Analysis Survey Questions

Questions For Your Existing Customers

Questions to improve customer service, market research questions for startups, marketing survey questions for customers, marketing research survey questionnaire on cosmetics, restaurant market research survey questions, b2b market research questions, market research questions for food products.

These marketing research questions can be open-ended , multiple-choice, or scale-based questions as per your data requirements.

Did you know  that you can now generate an entire survey from scratch within seconds? Yes, you heard it right!

SurveySparrow now offers an AI feature that allows you to create tailored surveys from scratch and that too within seconds. Just add in your prompt and the tool will do the rest.

Here's a sneak peek into how the feature works. 

Create Market Research Surveys with AI

Market Research Questions for a New Product

A new product launch is where most market research happens. As exciting as it sounds, it can cause a massive failure if the new product ain’t what the target audience wants it to be.

To understand that, here are market research survey questions you can ask.

• How excited are you about our upcoming product? Would you be willing to test it?
• Is the product solving your problem accurately?
• What change do you wish to bring to this product?
• If given the responsibility, how would you go about promoting it?
• How much would the competitors charge for a product like this?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to purchase this product once it’s available?
• What features or benefits of the product stand out the most to you?
• Do you have any concerns or hesitations about the product?
• In comparison to products you currently use or are familiar with, how does our product fare?
• Which marketing channels (e.g., social media, email, TV, etc.) would you most likely notice information about this product?

Market Research Questions for New Business

When you’re about to enter a new business or market opportunity, it always works well, too.

• Research the audience you’ll target
• The competition you’ll face
• The market size of this new opportunity
• The buying behavior of your target group

These are examples of market research questions for new businesses.

• Who are the groups or groups that’ll buy from us?
• How big is the market for this opportunity? Will it sustain or shrink in the long run?
• How can we capitalize on customers’ buying habits/behaviors in this market??
• How are our direct or indirect competitors doing their business in this market?
• What are the problems we’ll solve for our target groups here?
• What differentiates our business or offering from existing competitors in the market?
• Which marketing channels most effectively reach our target audience in this new market?
• Are there any cultural, regional, or demographic factors we should know when entering this market?
• What regulatory or compliance challenges might we face in this specific market?
• How open is the target audience to trying a new product or service in this category?

Competitive Analysis Questions

Let’s face it. Whatever your business is, there are competitors. Some are big, some are small, but competition is there, and when you’re keeping tabs on them by asking the right market research questions from your teams and customers, you stay ahead of the curve!

Here are some good market research questions for competition analysis.

• What do you like the most about our (competitor’s name) product?
• Are you content with their product pricing?
• Where do you think our brand stands compared to (competitor’s name)?
• Do you like the way they market and advertise their products?
• What sets (competitor’s name) apart? Is it their product, service, user experience, content, or anything else?
• Which features or benefits of (competitor’s name) do you wish our product/service offered?
• Have you ever experienced any issues or challenges with (competitor’s name) product/service?
• How do you perceive the customer service or support provided by (competitor’s name)?
• If you could change one thing about (competitor’s name) offering, what would it be?
• How often do you consider switching from (competitor’s name) to another brand or solution? What would motivate that switch?

When you and your teams are working on a new product or service or want to bring changes to the existing ones, it’s always best to know your customer’s opinions about it because you want to deliver what they want and the changes that’ll take their satisfaction levels with your brand to the next level.

Check out these research questions for your customers.

• What changes would improve our product for you?
• Are you facing any consistent issues where you think we can help?
• Do you think our services can improve? If so, we would love to know how.
• Would you buy our products/services at a higher price if we added additional features to them?
• How can we improve our products to enhance your overall experience?
• How would you rate your overall satisfaction with our product/service on a scale from 1-10?
• If you’ve contacted our customer support, how was your experience, and what can we do better?
• Are there other products or services you wish we offered?
• How frequently do you use our product/service, and are there any challenges during its use?
• What’s the one thing you love the most about our product/service and one thing you dislike?

If you thought market research and market research questions were only about new products, new business opportunities, insights from existing customers, and competitor analysis, think again!

Market research has always been about improving according to your customers, target audience, and employee insights. Your customer experience always needs review and timely improvements, and a market research survey backed with the right market research questions would help you big time here.

So, let’s look at some examples of research questions that you can ask about your customer service.

• After raising your query, how much time did our customer service representative take to reply?
• Did our customer service representative directly give you the solution or explain why the issue occurred in the first place?
• How convenient is it for you to reach our customer representative and head?
• Do you wish our customer service team to be available on any other channels apart from the ones they are?
• Do you get consistent customer experience on all channels from our service team?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your overall experience with our customer service team?
• Were our customer service representatives friendly and empathetic to your concerns?
• Did you feel like our team valued your time and was efficient in their assistance?
• Would you say that the solution provided was satisfactory and met your expectations?
• How likely are you to contact our customer service again for future queries or concerns?

Now that you are familiar with market research questions, why not design a survey seamlessly using our ready-to-use templates?

Register below with your email for free access.

14-day free trial • Cancel Anytime • No Credit Card Required • No Strings Attached

The digital world has opened up possibilities for new products and services, thereby giving inceptions to startups. However, in order for any startup to survive in this cutthroat market, it has to provide something unique…something the customers are willing to pay. 

How can you know that? Well, try including the following questions in your market research and understand what your customers’ pain points are

• What is the one pain point that really gets you frustrated?
• Is anyone offering solutions to tackle your challenges?
• If we were to provide you with a solution, what’s the specific feature you want to see?
• What’s your primary source for finding new products/services?
• How likely are you to switch from your current provider to ours if we provide better solutions?
• What are your main concerns when purchasing from a startup?
• What are the factors that influence you to try new products/services?
• How can we improve/optimize our offerings for a greater customer experience?

These questions are more tailored to understand exactly what your potential customers' preferences and expectations are. Understanding this would help you improve your offerings and attract more customers. 

Here are some questions you can ask. 

• What are the factors that influence your purchase decisions?
• How did you first hear about us?
• What motivated you to try out our products/services?
• How satisfied are you with our products/services?
• Do you follow us on any of our social media accounts?
• What additional features do you want to see in our products/services?
• How would you rate your interactions with our customer service representatives?
• What motivated you to switch brands?
• On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to purchase from us again?
• How do you perceive our pricing compared to others? 

This questionnaire delves into the cosmetics industry, exploring why customers choose one product or brand over another. It can also offer insight into consumer behavior and new ideas for products.

• How often do you buy cosmetics products?
• Rank the following cosmetics products to your importance.
• What are the factors that influence you when choosing a brand?
• Is brand reputation important when choosing a product?
• What are your top concerns when it comes to selecting a cosmetics product?
• What packaging factors are important to you?
• How likely are you to try out new cosmetics brands?
• How do you feel about sustainability practices in cosmetics products?
• What kind of promotions attract you?
• Where do you typically purchase cosmetics products from?
• How satisfied are you with the variety of cosmetic products currently available in the market?

As the heading indicates, this set of questions is tailored for restaurants. Restaurant owners can collect customer feedback on their preferences, dining habits, interests, and more. 

Here are some tailored questions for you. 

• How do you dine out at restaurants?
• What are the factors that influence your decision to choose restaurants?
• What type of cuisine do you prefer when dining at a restaurant?
• Does ambiance play a role when choosing a restaurant?
• What prompts you to try out a new restaurant?
• How do you find new restaurants to dine at?
• Which restaurant you visited recently offered the best experience?
• Does parking experience play a role when choosing a restaurant?
• How would you rate the pricing at our restaurant compared to others?
• How likely are you to recommend us to your family and friends?  

Market Survey Questionnaire Sample

These are general questions asked during market research to measure customer satisfaction, loyalty, and expectations. 

Some questions are - 

• How satisfied are you with the current products/services we provide?
• What do you value the most in our offerings?
• What’s your major consideration when choosing a product/service?
• How can we improve your experience with us?
• How would you rate the quality of our customer service?
• What prompted you to choose us over others?
• How much are you willing to spend on this product/service?
• How often do you use our product/service?
• How do you prefer to learn about our new products/services?
• What’s your perception of our brand compared to those of our competitors?
• How likely are you to recommend us to your friends and family?

This questionnaire focuses on understanding business clients rather than general customers. As you can see, these will be very helpful for B2B companies in improving their offerings and attracting more clients. 

• What are the challenges your business currently faces that need to be addressed immediately?
• How satisfied are you with the solutions we provided?
• What are the factors you look into when choosing a vendor?
• On a scale of 1-5, how satisfied are you with the current vendors?
• What’s your preferred channel of communication with vendors?
• What additional products/services would you like to see from us?
• What trends do you see impacting your industry in the coming years?
• How do you measure your success with a particular vendor?

You can use this set of questions if you want insights into consumer preferences, diet habits, attitudes towards food products, and so on. 

Here are the questions you can ask. 

• Are there any dietary habits or restrictions you currently follow?
• How often do you purchase food products?
• What kind of food products do you purchase often?
• What are the factors that influence choosing a food product brand?
• How likely are you to try out new food products?
• How do you feel about the nutritional information provided on the packaging?
• How do you find new food products to try out?

How to Write Market Research Questions

Here are ten tested tips to create a perfect market research survey that gets results. Make full use of it.To create the perfect market research survey:

• Define the problem you’ll solve with it.  Don’t just conduct market research, hoping to get actionable data.
• Select the right target group. You do not want to collect irrelevant data that’s of no use. So, for a particular problem, select the right people.
• Know your sample size . Whether your method is cluster sampling , quotas , systematic sampling, or purposive sampling , figure out the number of survey responses you’ll need for reliable data and keep a safety margin for half-filled or not-responded surveys.
• Select focused questions . Use these twenty-five questions the best you can. You can also check out our go-to guide on how to write better survey questions .
• Use interactive question types – like voice notes, image choice, video backgrounds, and graphical sliders. This will massively increase your response rates.
• Give incentives like free e-books gift cards. This can give respondents the extra encouragement they need to complete the survey.
• Keep it conversational . Market research surveys work when they are treated with the same care and warmth as a conversation. So, build that trust with the tone of your questions.
• Don’t send the survey to all the respondents at once . Send it to a small batch first. Analyze how they answer, make changes if needed, and then go for the full-scale market research.
• Set times for reminders . You don’t want to speed up at the wrong time.
• And last, give enough time for analysis. Specific survey tools can save time with auto-generated survey reports that you can customize.

8 Benefits of Market Research: What Makes it So Important?

While we were explaining market research and market research questions, we mentioned one of its biggest benefits too. The benefit that makes it absolutely important for any business is gunning for long-term and sustained growth.

Guessed it? Well, it’s the benefit of getting rich insights from your target audience. But that’s not the only benefit.

Yes, market research offers a lot more than you can think of. And it’s time we discuss them one by one.

#1. Know Your Business Better

When you get customer and target market feedback about a product or service, you see the difference between your and your customer’s opinions. Observing this difference allows you to bridge that down by aligning the new or existing product based on their wants.

So, when you use the right market research questions in your survey, you get to observe your company through the target audience’s lens, allowing you to better understand the business and its goals.

#2. Get More Business Opportunities

While conducting a market research survey, you often find or realize a new opportunity or avenue where the company can thrive. This realization comes when you analyze the collected survey data and see your target market’s interest in this new opportunity.

#3. Discover New Customer Segments To Target

“The product has come out well. I want to use it, and I think the Genz’s would like it too.”

If the answer to one of your market research questions is something like this, you and your teams know they have a new customer segment to target. That’s a powerful benefit of conducting a well-planned market research survey that contains the right questions.

#4. Massively Reduce The Risk Of Failing

With market research or market research surveys, you don’t just get to know the insights and opinions of your target audience on a certain product, you also come to understand areas where it’s severely lacking and can cause a failure if not duly addressed.

Also, with a few well-crafted market research questions, you get to know the areas where your business is lacking. And if you’re working on those, the chances of your business going under are reduced massively.

#5. Understand Where And How To Market

By using the right market research questions in your surveys, you understand where and how your customers and target group want your teams to market a product.

Give your survey respondents the freedom to express themselves, and you’ll get gold out of your market research. Believe us on that!

#6. Track Your Competition

While conducting market research, you can’t forget about your competitors. As a leader, you need to stay on top of proceedings regarding your competitors and their products. 

Your teams need to have answers to questions like what new they are bringing, what their new campaign is like, what they are focusing on at the moment, and many more.

What better way to do that than to ask these subtly by including the right market research questions? Trust us; you’ll get massive information about your competition with these surveys, allowing you to pivot and do better.

#7. Identify New Trends

Scanning the internet for new trends is an absolutely time-consuming process. You can replace that with market research and market research surveys to stay updated and well-informed on what your customers want. Analyzing new trends can be done successfully with  digital marketing training.  The process of obtaining information becomes effective.

If not anything, it’ll save your teams a lot of time, which they can use for other important tasks.

#8. Predict The Future

To sum up all the benefits we’ve mentioned, you’ll be able to predict the future of your products, services, and even your business after knowing your customer’s insights and opinions on it. That’ll give you the chance and the freedom to bring the right changes at the right time. Ain’t that impressive?

Reliable Tools for Conducting Market Research

You now know the twenty-five top market research questions to include. But how can you add these questions to a market research survey and send it? What are the different tools you could use for it?

If you have these questions, with no further ado, get your answers here.

A Full-Action Survey Software

There is nothing better than using survey software to conduct market research surveys. Period. But why? Well, survey software is the best way to gather reliable information quickly from your customers and employees about your existing or new products. 

These surveys would give clarity about your potential and target customers and buyer persona, and the solid feedback you’ll receive will help you strategize and do better eventually.

If you’re looking to use survey software for your research surveys, look no further than SurveySparrow. This Typeform alternative allows you to create engaging forms and surveys with no hassle. These surveys are conversational, easy to use, and completely secure. 

More importantly, it offers features like likert scale questions , interactive dashboards, customization, embedded surveys, recurring surveys, and so much more. And you can use all these features in the 14-Day free trial itself.

Our friendly suggestion: Don’t miss out on this!

Chatbots for the Website

Chatbots are the future of market research, no doubt on that. As per a study, by 2024, the global market for chatbots is projected to be over $994 million. That’s some number! Thousands of brands are implementing or have implemented chatbots in their everyday business task. 

From doing market research to tracking and answering customer’s queries, chatbots are everywhere.

Do you know what’s the best thing about a chatbot? It’s that it makes a customer’s or employee’s journey more enjoyable, as the conversations are natural and human-like. 

In addition, a chatbot will always ask a follow-up question to your customers just like a human mostly does. And this helps in market research. 

How? By making sure you and your teams are always up to date about what your customers want and what their expectations are from your products, services, and support.

SurveySparrow’s no-code Feedbot is made to gather insightful market data with no programming knowledge. Deloitte Digital , a San Francisco-based marketing and advertising company, de-cluttered its data collection process using SurveySparrow’s Feedlot.  

The company was facing challenges while collecting market data with the paper questionnaire format. However, the chat-like experience and interactive UI of Feedbot helped them gather 804 survey responses out of 1200 surveyed people. That’s a 67% completion rate. Market research conducted most profitably, isn’t it?

360 Degree Feedback Software

You can spend all your dollars on your customers to make them stay, but without your employees’ efforts, it just won’t happen. When we talk about market research, the first thing that comes in our mind is the customers. 

We want to conduct market research to gain knowledge about customer preferences, insights, and opinions. But, what about employee research to find their satisfaction levels?

In recent times, employee satisfaction and experience have both become popular and crucial topics. Because, no matter the industry, people like to do business with other people. And satisfied employees are the most real, and simple people to attract customers and keep them engaged.

That’s why it’s important to use a 360-degree feedback tool like SurveySparrow’s 360-degree feedback solution . With this, you can conduct an employee assessment (research) to increase their satisfaction levels and drive growth. 

Trust us, you need to conduct such assessments, especially in this new normal.

Let’s Begin!

There you have it, then. You now know the benefits of market research, twenty-five different questions to include in the market research survey, tools to conduct these surveys, and, as a bonus, highly effective tips to create the perfect market research survey.

The only thing that’s left now is for you to use these questions and start conducting market research surveys. SurveySparrow and its marketing experience solution can make this process a lot easier, effective, and the least time-consuming for you and your teams. 

So, check it out, and we’re just this click away if you need help. Waiting to hear from you. Au revoir!

Product Marketing Manager at SurveySparrow

Excels in empowering visionary companies through storytelling and strategic go-to-market planning. With extensive experience in product marketing and customer experience management, she is an accomplished author, podcast host, and mentor, sharing her expertise across diverse platforms and audiences.

You Might Also Like

10 Best Idea Management Software to Look Up in 2024

Startup Journey

SurveySparrow Named Leader of Winter 2020 in G2 Crowd Grid!

Brand Experience

30+ Post Webinar Survey Questions: Examples, Template and Checklist

Top 10 Business Intelligence Tools of 2024

Turn every feedback into a growth opportunity.

14-day free trial • Cancel Anytime • No Credit Card Required • Need a Demo?

• (855) 776-7763

Training Maker

All Products

Qualaroo Insights

ProProfs.com

• Get Started Free

FREE. All Features. FOREVER!

Try our Forever FREE account with all premium features!

90+ Market Research Questions to Ask Your Customers

Market Research Specialist

Emma David, a seasoned market research professional, specializes in employee engagement, survey administration, and data management. Her expertise in leveraging data for informed decisions has positively impacted several brands, enhancing their market position.

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.

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.

Related Posts

Conducting Gap Analysis: Steps, Tools and Examples

Product Market Fit: An Ultimate Guide

Market Segmentation: Types and Benefits

10 Best Market Research Survey Software (Free+Paid) for 2024

Focus Group in Market Research: Types, Examples and Best Practices

How to Create Rating Scale Surveys: Benefits, Types & Examples

• Pollfish School
• Market Research
• Survey Guides
• Get started

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.

Privacy Preference Center

Privacy preferences.

• Productivity
• Working from Home
• Social Media
• Content Marketing
• Contact SBB

75+ Market Research Questions for Success

Regarding market research, having the right questions is critical for getting  accurate  and  valuable insights .

These 75 market research questions can help you get started on your next project, giving you an idea of what topics to cover to ensure success.

We’ll review everything you need to know about  customer surveys ,  competitive analysis, product feedback, and more !

What is Market Research?

Market research is the process of gathering and analyzing data to understand customer behavior, market trends, and competitor strategies.

It gives businesses the insights needed to make informed decisions about their products and services.

Market research is important because it  helps companies to understand what their customers want  and  how they can best serve them .

We’ll review the steps to help you start conducting market research and asking the right questions.

Types of Market Research

Several different types of market research questions can be used to gain insights into customer behavior and market trends.

These include the following:

• Single choice
• Multiple choice
• Ranking questions
• Likert scale
• Dichotomous

Single-Choice

These basic questions ask respondents to select one answer from a list of options.

The purpose of a single-choice question is to provide a general overview of customer preferences and needs.

 An example of a single-choice question is:

“What is your favorite type of ice cream?”

Multiple-Choice

These questions ask respondents to select multiple answers from a given list of options.

They can be used to gain more detailed insights into customer preferences than single-choice questions.

An example of a multiple-choice question is the following: 

Which of these activities do you do regularly?

A) Exercise

D) Watch TV

E) Listen to Music

The purpose of a multiple-choice question is to gain a more comprehensive understanding of customer behavior and preferences.

Ranking Questions

Ranking questions ask respondents to rank a list of options in order of preference.

These types of questions can be used to understand how important certain factors are when making decisions.

An example of a ranking question would be the following:

Please rank the following items from most important to least important when selecting a car:

(D) Fuel Efficiency

Likert Scale

A Likert scale is a type of question that asks respondents to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement with a statement.

It can be used to gauge customer sentiment around specific topics and gain insights into how they feel about your products or services.

An example of a Likert scale question is: 

“How likely are you to recommend our product to a friend?”

Dichotomous Questions

Dichotomous questions present respondents with two possible answers and ask them to choose one. They are often used to gain quick insights into customer preferences.

An example of a dichotomous question is the following: 

Do you prefer online or in-store shopping?

B) In-store

Open-ended questions allow respondents to provide more detailed answers than single-choice, multiple-choice, ranking, and dichotomous questions.

They are helpful in gaining qualitative insights into customer behavior and preferences.

An example of an open-ended question is the following: 

“What do you think could be improved about our product?”

By understanding the different types of market research questions, businesses can more effectively gather data to gain insights into customer behavior and make informed decisions. With the proper market research techniques, companies can better understand their customers and identify growth opportunities.

How to Write Questions for Market Research

Writing practical questions for market research is key to getting meaningful and valuable results.

Questions should be clear and concise, avoiding jargon or overly technical language. They should also cover the topics that are most important to the project.

Additionally, it’s important to remember who you’re targeting with your questions. Write them in a way the target audience can easily understand and relate to, which will help ensure they provide accurate responses.

For example, if you are writing questions as a market research agency in the USA, you’ll want to tailor them to the appropriate culture and consumer trends.

Finally, take into account any legal or ethical considerations when writing questions. This is especially important when collecting sensitive personal data or working with vulnerable groups.

We’ll go over how to write the following types of questions: 

Feedback Questions

Existing product questions, market segment quesitons, market discovery questions, brand awareness questions, customer reservation questions, pricing analysis questions.

To write feedback questions, start by asking general questions about customer satisfaction. These can include queries about the level of service they received, the quality of products, and whether they would recommend it to others.

You can also ask more specific questions, such as what features customers like or dislike, how easy it is to use a certain product or service, and what changes they would like to see.

To write great existing product questions, you need to know what customers think about your current offerings.

Ask them how satisfied they are with the features and performance of the products or if there is anything that could be improved.

You can also get their opinion on your product’s design, packaging, price point, and customer support.

These questions are designed to gain an understanding of different segments within the market.

Questions can include asking about the following:

• Income level
• Customers’ age
• Primary interests and activities

This information can help businesses identify potential target markets and tailor their products and services accordingly.

Market discovery questions help businesses explore the market and gain insights into customer behavior.

These questions can include asking customers what they currently use their product or service for, their expectations and needs, and what would make them switch to a different offering.

Brand awareness questions can help businesses understand how well their products are known in the market.

Questions can range from asking customers to rate how familiar they are with the brand to what words or phrases come to mind when they think of it.

Boosting brand awareness is important for businesses to reach new customers, so this information can be invaluable.

Customer reservation questions can help businesses identify potential barriers preventing customers from purchasing their products or services.

Questions like the following can be useful in uncovering potential areas for improvement:

• “What is holding you back from making a purchase?”
• “What would make you more likely to buy?”
• “What feature do you wish was available?”

Finally, pricing analysis questions can help businesses determine how much customers are willing to pay for their products and services.

Questions such as the following can help businesses gain valuable insights:

• “What is your budget?”
• “Would you be willing to pay more for extra features?”
• “What other products have you considered in a similar price range?”

By following these tips, you should be able to write effective questions that will provide valuable insights into the market.

75+ Market Research Questions

In addition to the above questions, here are 75 market research questions you can ask your target audience to help inform your business decisions.

• How did you learn about our product or service?
• What made you decide to purchase our product or service?
• How likely are you to recommend our product or service to a friend or colleague?
• Would you say that the features of our product or service met your expectations?
• Did you find it easy to navigate our website and locate the information needed to make your decision?
• Did you find any areas of improvement in terms of usability when using our website?
• How satisfied are you with the customer support options we provide?
• Did the delivery process for our product meet your expectations in terms of speed, accuracy, and overall experience? 
• If applicable, did the installation process for our product meet your expectations in terms of speed, accuracy, and overall experience? 
• Are there any other products or services we could offer that would improve your overall experience with us?
• What do you think of the quality of our current offerings?
• How would you rate the usability of our products/services?
• How would you rate the performance of our products/services?
• What could we do to make our products/services more appealing to you?
• Are there any features that are missing from our products/services?
• What do you like most about our products/services?
• What could we change to make them better?
• Do you think our prices are competitive?
• Would you recommend our products/services to someone else?

Market Segment Questions

• What age range would you classify yourself in?
• Are you married, single, or in a relationship?
• What city/town do you currently reside in? 
• How many hours a day do you typically spend on the internet?
• What type of device(s) do you use to access the internet (desktop, laptop, mobile phone)? 
• On average, how much money do you spend online each month? 
• What products or services have you purchased online within the last 6 months? 
• How likely are you to purchase goods or services from an unfamiliar website compared to a familiar website? 
• How often do you interact with social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter? 
• Are there any particular features or functions that would make it easier for you to shop online or make purchases? 
• Do you find yourself comparing prices and product features before making a purchase decision? 
• Are there any particular brands that stand out to you when shopping for products or services online? 
• When looking for information about products and services online, what sources do you rely on most (e-commerce websites, review sites, etc.)? 
• What types of discounts are most enticing to customers when making an online purchase (free shipping offers, bonus items with purchase, coupon codes)? 
• Do certain payment methods influence your purchasing decisions? 
• What do you think are the most important features when considering a purchase?
• How would you define your personal style and aesthetic preferences? 
• Are there any new products or services you want to see in the marketplace? 
• Do certain brand values affect your purchasing decisions (e.g., sustainability, ethical practices, etc.)? 
• What do you think are the biggest challenges facing companies in your industry?
• When researching products or services, what content or information would you like to see from brands? 
• Are there any particular technologies that you think could improve customer experiences online? 
• Do current trends in social media affect your views on certain brands and their offerings?
• Are there any new products or services that would benefit your lifestyle? 
• What do you think sets certain brands apart from their competitors?
• Are there any particular marketing strategies that you find appealing when considering a purchase? 
• Which channels do you prefer to use for customer service (live chat, email, phone)?
• What is your familiarity with our brand?
• Do you recognize our brand name when shopping online or in-store?
• Are there any particular elements that stand out to you in the design of our website, logo, products, and services? 
• How do you feel when interacting with our brand (positive, neutral, negative)?
• What do you think our brand stands for?
• What words would you use to describe our brand and its offerings? 
• Do you prefer more traditional or modern marketing techniques/strategies when engaging with our brand? 
• Which social media platforms do you associate most with our brand?
• Are there any particular campaigns that have resonated with you in the past?
• What type of content do you expect to see from our brand? 
• Are there any particular features or services that make our brand stand out from its competitors? 
• Do certain events or promotions influence your views on our brand? 
• Do you believe our brand offers competitive pricing compared to other brands?
• Do you think our brand is transparent with its customers regarding providing information and responding to inquiries? 
• Are there any particular resources that could help customers better understand our brand and offerings? 
• What do you believe our brand should focus on to improve customer experiences?
• Do you think our brand adequately addresses customer feedback or suggestions? 
• Do certain rewards or loyalty programs influence your purchasing decisions when considering our brand?
• Do you feel that our brand keeps up with the latest trends in technology and innovation?

Customer Retention Questions

• What do you believe are the key factors that make customers commit to our brand?
• Do you think our customer service is up to par with competitors in the market?
• How likely are you to recommend our products or services to friends and family? 
• What do you think keeps customers engaged with our brand, both online and in-store? 
• Are there any particular features or services that you think make our brand stand out from its competitors?
• Do certain discounts, promotions, or loyalty programs influence your decision to stay with us?
• What do you think is the biggest challenge when retaining customers for our brand?
• Are there any new products or services that would make you a more loyal customer?
• Are there any particular communications or marketing tactics that could help keep customers engaged with our brand?
• Do certain events or milestones influence your commitment to our brand?
• What do you think is the most effective way to show appreciation for customers?
• Are there any loyalty or rewards programs that have successfully kept customers loyal to our brand?
• Do you think our customer service team is responsive and attentive when addressing customer needs and inquiries?
• Are there any particular features or services that could improve your overall experience with our brand? 
• Do you feel our prices are reasonable compared to other products and services in the market?
• Are there any specific features or services that add value to our offerings?
• What do you think is the best way to differentiate ourselves from competitors regarding pricing?
• Are there any particular discounts or promotions that could influence customers to purchase from us?
• Do you think our pricing strategy is transparent and easy for customers to understand?
• Do certain market events or trends influence customer decisions when choosing our brand over competitors?
• What do you believe are the biggest challenges when it comes to setting prices for our products or services?
• Do you think our price points are competitive enough to draw customer interest?
• Are there any particular features or services that could be offered at a lower cost than competitors?
• Do you think certain rewards or loyalty programs influence customer decisions when comparing brand prices?
• Are there any discounts, promotions, or offers that have successfully driven sales?
• What is the most effective way to communicate pricing information to customers?
• Are there any particular resources or tools that could be used to analyze and adjust our prices as needed?

Market Research Wrap Up

These 75 market research questions provide a great starting point for any business looking to gain valuable insights into customer behavior and market trends.

By using this as a guide, you can ensure that your surveys are comprehensive and effective in helping you make informed decisions about your products and services. Good luck!

Do you have any questions of your own to add? Let us know in the comments below!

Newsletter Signup

Join The Leads Field Guide Newsletter for tips, strategies and (free) resources for growing your leads, and closing more deals.

Related Articles

How branded merchandise & giveaways can power your small business marketing strategy, 6 dental marketing ideas that will help your practice flourish, step-by-step guide to designing a captivating vinyl banner.

What market research questions should you be asking: With examples

• October 19, 2019
• 10 min read
• Market research

Primary market research question examples

Secondary market research question examples, first things first: who is our customer, good market research questions: what is important to ask, 1. who is our ideal customer, 2. what is the biggest challenge for customers, 3. what do customers really want, 4. what sets us apart from the competition, 5. what price is right, write the best market research questions with surveyplanet.

Before launching your next product or business, it’s important to take time to complete some marketing research, which will provide information about what competitors are doing and if your ideas are profitable.

An essential part of market research is refining the target audience, which will help in creating an effective marketing strategy. While there are many different market research components, the most important is asking the right questions.

SurveyPlanet is here to help with examples of good market research questions. Read through our market research 101 guides and discover the best market research questions to ask your target market.

Primary market research

Before diving into specifics, it’s important to grasp the main concepts of market research. There are two basic categories: primary research and secondary research.

Primary research is gathering firsthand information about a market, customers, and competition. It is generally completed with focus groups, interviews, and online surveys that provide information about specific challenges customers face. Such research also helps gather details about the brand awareness of a company. Conducting primary research is a way to establish buyer personas and segment the market.

Here are some examples of primary market research questions that will gather valuable insights about a target market:

Demographics and background

• What is your age range?
• What is your gender?
• What is your educational background?
• What is your household income level?
• What is your occupation?

Product or service perception

• What is your familiarity with our product/service?
• What do you perceive as the primary benefits of our product/service?
• How would you rate the quality of our product/service?
• How likely are you to recommend our product/service to others?

Consumer behavior

• How frequently do you purchase similar products/services?
• What factors influence your purchasing decisions?
• Where do you typically do research or seek information before making a purchase?
• What channels do you use for purchasing products/services?

Brand awareness and perception

• Are you familiar with our brand?
• How would you describe our brand personality?
• What do you associate our brand with?
• How likely are you to consider our brand over competitors?

Pricing and value perception

• How do you perceive the value-for-price equation of our product/service?
• What price range would you consider reasonable for our product/service?
• Would you be willing to pay a premium for additional features or benefits?

Customer satisfaction and feedback

• How satisfied are you with our product/service?
• What improvements or changes would you like to see in our product/service?
• How likely are you to repurchase our product/service in the future?
• Would you recommend our product/service to others? Why or why not?

Market trends and competitor analysis

• Are there any emerging trends or innovations in the market that you find appealing?
• How familiar are you with our competitors?
• What do you perceive as the strengths and weaknesses of our competitors’ offerings?
• What factors would make you switch from our product/service to a competitor?

Remember to tailor questions to your specific industry, target audience, and research objectives. The answers to these questions will provide valuable insights about the market, customer preferences, and areas for improvement, enabling informed decision-making and refined marketing strategies.

Secondary market research

The main purpose of secondary market research is to analyze data that is already published and draw conclusions from it. This involves analyzing public records, industry content, market statistics, and sales data. Secondary research is especially helpful for analyzing competitors. Most secondary research is done using a combination of public, commercial, or internal sources.

Public sources include government statistics such as data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau. Commercial sources usually come in the form of a market report compiled by research agencies. Finally, internal sources include customer retention rates, average revenue, and data from both old and new accounts. Together, all this data may help determine what buyers want right now and help develop market research questions to ask clients.

Here are some examples of secondary market research questions that can help guide the search for existing information and data.

Market size and growth

• What is the current market size for [industry or product category]?
• What is the projected growth rate for the [industry or product category] in the next few years?
• Are there any specific regions or demographics driving the market growth?

Target market segmentation

• How is the target market segmented within the [industry or product category]?
• What are the key characteristics or demographics of each market segment?
• Are there any emerging or untapped market segments within the industry?

Competitive landscape

• Who are the major competitors in the [industry or product category]?
• What is their market share and positioning?
• What are their strengths and weaknesses compared to each other?

Consumer behavior and preferences

• What are the current consumer trends and preferences within the [industry or product category]?
• What factors influence consumer purchasing decisions?
• Are there any notable shifts in consumer behavior in recent years?

Industry regulations and compliance

• What are the regulatory requirements and compliance standards for the [industry or product category]?
• Are there any upcoming regulatory changes or potential impacts on the industry?
• How do these regulations affect product development and marketing strategies?

Pricing and revenue models

• What are the typical pricing structures and models within the [industry or product category]?
• Are there any pricing trends or changes affecting the industry?
• What are the revenue models commonly used by businesses in the industry?

Technological innovations and disruptions

• What are the emerging technologies or innovations relevant to the [industry or product category]?
• Are there any disruptive technologies that could impact the industry?
• How are businesses adopting or integrating technology within the industry?

Consumer feedback and reviews

• What are consumers saying about products or services within the [industry or product category]?
• Are there any common issues or concerns raised by consumers?
• What are the key factors influencing consumer satisfaction or dissatisfaction?

Marketing and advertising strategies

• What are the prevailing marketing and advertising strategies used in the [industry or product category]?
• Are there any successful or noteworthy campaigns that have garnered attention?
• How are businesses utilizing digital platforms and social media for marketing purposes?

Industry publications and reports

• What industry publications or reports provide insights into the [industry or product category]?
• Are there any reputable market research firms or organizations that publish relevant data?
• What recent studies or reports offer valuable information about the industry?

Remember to search for reliable and up-to-date sources of information like industry reports, market research publications, government data, and reputable news outlets. Secondary market research can provide a foundation of knowledge about the industry, market trends, and consumer behavior, allowing you to make informed decisions and develop effective strategies.

Once you have collected primary market research, it’s time to sit down and define buyer personas and focus groups. Ask who the ideal customer is. What is their age? Where do they live? What do they do for a living? Defining buyer personas helps form a better understanding of your audience.

Key characteristics of a buyer persona include:

• Job Title(s)
• Family Size

Companies may have more than one buyer persona; that’s completely fine. The reason to create buyer personas is to know exactly who your potential audience is. Buyer personas will help optimize campaigns and content to spark their interests.

Conducting a market research survey

Market research surveys are an efficient way to gain data based on insights from real customers. Companies can send surveys to existing and/or potential customers. Surveys give valuable insight into opinions about products, the company, and its customers. Companies use market research questions to make changes to products and improve or enhance features. Surveys may also answer whether the business idea is a good one. Find below some examples of market research questions to ask in a survey.

Explore and use our market research survey templates to get the data you need to make the right decisions.

Market research questions are extremely important for everyone—from small businesses to corporations.

Market research can help better understand customers and, maybe even more importantly, nourish relationships with them by making them feel influential and special. In this way, the goal is not just satisfied customers, but loyal ones too. Examining people’s needs can improve business decisions and help with product development.

Market research questions can also ask clients and associates their thoughts about your cooperation so far.

Online surveys are one of the simplest research methods—they are flexible, dependable, and cost-effective. Read here our tips for creating an engaging survey. But what are good market research questions to ask a target market?

We prepared a few examples of market research questions—with detailed explanations.

Market research surveys should include questions about customers, including gender, age, income level, job title, location, and education level. This is an especially important step for start-up companies new to the market that have yet to nail down their target audience. It’s one thing to create buyer personas; it’s another to verify they are correct based on actual customers.

Don’t hesitate to ask for details in order to learn more about the ideal customer. A pet shop needs to know what kinds of animals customers own. How many? In what type of home do they live? The more information you can learn about customers, the better.

Market research involves learning about customers’ pain points, which will help create better solutions. For example, if an online textbook store sent out a survey to students and asked about pain points, they might find that “textbook prices are too high.” The company could take this information and compare prices to a competitor’s. If their prices are too high, they can lower them or offer discounts to combat this challenge.

Ask customers about their top five to seven problems regarding a service or product. If there are enough similar responses, business owners may need to improve or create a new product to counteract these frustrations.

It doesn’t hurt to ask customers exactly what they want. Asking open-ended market research questions like this will provide answers that you might not have realized were needed. If people show reluctance to answer this question, give them the option to rate certain products or services. This will at least provide guidance about which ones they like or dislike.

For example, a shoe store might send a survey with an email asking about this season’s sandals. Customers have the option to rate the sandal and answer specific questions about it. The company can use this information to learn more about what their customers like and what to provide in the future.

Learning the difference between quantitative and qualitative research can help you choose market research methods and questions.

Ask this question to find out what customers really think about you. Choose open-ended questions and encourage respondents to describe everything in detail. One way to do this is by asking specific questions related to what you offer that competitors don’t.

For example, a bakery might offer gluten-free and vegan options, but they’re unsure if their customers care. The bakery could ask in the survey, “How important is it to you to have gluten-free or vegan options at a bakery?” The responses are rated on a scale from not important to very important. The answers will tell you if what sets you apart matters to the customer.

The survey should also include sections that allow a customer to agree or disagree with statements. For example, “I can count on Phil’s Auto Shop to offer competitive pricing.” Such questions provide insight into the emotional benefits customers perceive from your business.

New businesses benefit from including pricing questions since it can be difficult to pinpoint the right price to charge, especially if you don’t have a true competitor. Pricing products or services fairly can generate the right balance of revenue and customer satisfaction. Pricing products too high can result in a lack of customers. Pricing them too low can result in a profit loss. So how to price just right? Figure out a comfortable profit margin and then ask customers their opinions on prices. Realize that there will always be businesses that charge more or less. Pricing fairly is a matter of creating brand loyalty and excellent customer experience.

While conducting a market research survey, ask customers if they find the prices too low, fair, or too high. Display different products and services with prices and have customers rate them. For example, a marketing agency might wonder if their website design price is appealing. In their survey, they can include an example of a website design, what it includes, and their current price. Customers will have the option to decide if it’s fair or not. To gain more insight, they might also include their other services in the survey.

With these suggestions, you might now be wondering how to use them. SurveyPlanet is a great place to start. We offer a free plan that allows for the creation of unlimited surveys that can be sent to customers. And if you don’t want to write market research material, we have over 90 pre-written surveys and plenty of examples to choose from. All you have to do is press send.

For companies that would prefer to customize their surveys, we offer a Pro plan that allows the creation of custom themes, branch questions , export results, and so much more. Whether you need something basic or more extensive, both our free and paid versions can help get the job done. Start conducting market research by signing up for SurveyPlanet today.

12 must-ask questions for market research

Last updated

3 April 2024

Reviewed by

Cathy Heath

Once you’ve identified your target market of consumers, it’s essential to conduct market research to determine their needs, how to fulfill them, and any problems that stand in the way of a successful sale of your product or service.  

Market research can focus on new markets, products or services, or existing products and services that have been upgraded or changed. The research data will help you to make better decisions, connect with your audience's needs, and jump on new opportunities.    

Market analysis template

Save time, highlight crucial insights, and drive strategic decision-making

• Who do you ask market research questions to?

To get pertinent data for your market research, you need to ask questions to your target audience. If you’re unsure who that might be, start by answering that research question first. 

It’s always more difficult if you’re a new company without a solid customer base . Consider reaching out to staff as well as suppliers and retailers of your product or service and asking them who they think your target audience might be. 

Questions you can ask include:

Who is our current customer base, and do we want to keep them or expand to a different group?

What does our employee, customer, supplier, or retailer like or dislike about our product or service?

What are their pain points , and what do they want to see to make it better?

Define the demographic, e.g., where they live, how much money they make, ethnicity, and other pertinent information.

How big is our market? Are there additional potential customers there?

Do our customers purchase from our competitors? Why?

When or why do you use our product or service?

How much would you pay, and how often would you pay?

What would the perfect new product or service look like?

Would you recommend our product or service?

Are there any upcoming features that competitors are promoting that appeal to you?

What are the customer trends regarding our product or service?

How does our target audience purchase? Do they buy online, from a brick and mortar, over the phone, etc.?

Does our target audience have a buying pattern, e.g., seasonal holidays, the start of the school year etc.?

Are our product or service price points viewed as good value by consumers?

• Types of market research questions

Carefully designed market research questions can impact the data that you collect. Once you’ve determined the goal of your market research, you can design the type of question that offers the highest quality and reliability in the answers you receive. 

Some questions may help with segmenting your audience. Others may ask about the customer's feelings about your product or service. 

To determine which format is the best for you, take a look at the types and designs of market research questions.

Multiple-choice

Most people are familiar with multiple-choice questions. These questions are great for comparing preferences and opinions and comparing them to other respondents. In this type, the user selects from several choices presented to them and can choose multiple answers.   

For example:

How have you purchased Product XYZ in the past? (Check all that apply)

Social media

Retail store

Wholesale outlet

Single-choice

Single-choice market research questions offer multiple options for the respondent to choose from, but they can only choose one. This helps researchers to segregate users or determine the priority for product updates. They’re sometimes placed at the beginning of a survey to disqualify respondents who don’t meet the criteria.  

An example of a single-choice market research question is:

Do you own a smartphone?

Don't know

Matrix match

Many market researchers design matrix match questions to shorten the survey so that it’s less-onerous for a respondent to complete. Questions are arranged in rows and answers are put into grids. The main thing to remember with matrix match questions is that each question should have the same response anchor.

An example of a matrix match question is:

How would you rate the importance of each of the following when purchasing Product XYZ?

Each selection would be on the same scale from 1 (least important) to 10 (most important) on a grid, and the respondent would choose one answer on each line.

Ranking question

Ranking questions are just like they sound. The respondent ranks their preferences on a scale from most to least important or by preference.

Using the same example from the matrix match, an example of a ranking question might be:

Arrange in order of importance, with 1 being the least important and 5 being the most important.

While a matrix match identifies how important each factor is, a ranking question compares the importance of several factors against each other.

Dichotomous

A dichotomous question only has a yes or no answer. Once again, you can use these questions to categorize or disqualify users.  

An example of a dichotomous question is:

Are you over the age of 18?

Likert scale.

Likert scale market research questions measure the extent of agreement to a statement. A question contains a statement, and the respondent answers by the amount they agree or disagree with it. 

You can gain a better understanding from Likert scales than from a simple yes or no answer, as they help you determine the level and strength of sentiment your customer feels.

An example of a Likert scale market research question is:

How likely would you be to purchase Product XYZ again?

Definitely will purchase again

Probably will purchase again

May or may not purchase again

Probably will not purchase again

Definitely will not purchase again

Open-ended questions ask respondents to answer a question without any predetermined choices. This allows them to write freely without restrictions, allowing them to voice their opinion or offer suggestions. 

Researchers may find it involves more time to analyze, code, and report the responses. They’re often used after another question to delve deeper into why the respondent chose the response they did.  

You said you would probably not purchase Product XYZ again. Why do you say that?

• Market research question examples

Of course, the market research questions will differ, determined by the kind of information that you’re trying to acquire. There are four circumstances that you can design your questions for:

Market research questions to ask customers

Market research questions for product development, market research questions for brand tracking.

For each type of question, there will always be some overlap. But if you want to know how a customer feels about a new product or service design , it’s different from finding out what they feel about your pricing strategy .

These questions center around how your customer feels about your brand and their customer experience . They can show areas that require improvement, how to build on strengths, and provide you with an insight into how your customer feels.  

A few examples are:

Would you recommend us to your friends or family?

What do we do better than our competitors?

How can we improve the customer experience ?

Would you purchase from us again?

These market research surveys can help in the development of your product, point out some opportunities, and offer feedback if changes or improvements are needed. They allow you to understand the customer's perception of your product and their reaction to it.  

What do you like or dislike about Product XYZ?

What would make our product or service even better?

How is Product XYZ better than its competition?

Do you find our product or service easy to use?

Because your products, services, and experiences impact your brand's image, it’s important to see how the customer perceives the brand and discover if improvements need to be made.  

Examples of market research brand tracking questions are:

How did you hear about us ?

What do you think of when you think of our brand? 

Are you familiar with our other brand's other products and services?

Have you checked out our new app?

• How to write your own market research questions

Writing your market research questions may seem like a daunting task. But there are some tips that can help you and your team craft the questions you need to get the data you want. 

Make your questions easy for the customer to understand and answer, and in a way that makes it easy to collect and analyze data after.  Surveys that are too complex or lengthy often don’t get completed or tend to be rushed, skewing the quality of the data.  

Keep these tips in mind when writing your market research questions:

1. Use mutually exclusive response options

By mutually exclusive response options, we recommend that your groupings or options don’t overlap. This sometimes happens when asking for demographic information like age or income. 

As an example, imagine that you’re asking about income: 

Please state your gross annual household income

$20,000–$40,000

$40,000–$75,000

$75,000–$100,000

In the above example, results can be skewed if the respondent makes $40,000 per year. Does it fall into category two: $20,000-$40,000, or category 3: $40,000-$75,000? Since the goal of the market research is to collect the most accurate information possible, it would be better clarified and give a better representation if the categories didn’t overlap.

2. Always add a "not applicable" or "rather not say" option

Some customers may not feel comfortable giving out personal information such as age, income, gender, social activities, and more. Be cautious to include all represented categories and add either a "not applicable" or "rather not say" option. 

If someone is uncomfortable with giving out personal information, they’ll often abandon the survey altogether to escape answering the question. You then won’t be able to capture a complete market research survey that may contain important and relevant data.

3. Calculate the required sample size

The sample size is always critical in research. If the number of responses is too low, you may collect biased data that doesn’t represent your customer base well. If the sample size is too large, it may be too difficult to analyze the data, wasting time and money. 

Though researchers use many methods to determine sample size, an easy way is to follow these four steps:

Step 1: Find out the size of the population 

Step 2: Determine the margin of error

Step 3: Set confidence level 

Step 4: Use a formula to find the sample size

4. Consider adding incentives

People respond better when incentives are attached. There have been studies done that show that surveys offering incentives get a higher completed response rate than those without. Consider coupons, free shipping on the next order, or a discount code if the survey is completed. 

Along with cost, there’s another drawback when adding incentives. Sometimes respondents will hurry through a survey to get the incentive and the data may not be accurate.

5. Avoid double-barreled market research questions

It’s easy to think that combining two questions into one can save time and shorten the survey. That’s usually not the case. Combining two questions or statements into one, or a double-barreled question , can make it more difficult for the respondent to answer.  

An example might be: 

How would you rate Product XYZ on flavor and nutrition?

What makes it tricky is that maybe your respondent loves the flavor but really wants an organic product. It would be hard to rate both flavor and nutrition in the same question. By breaking this into two questions, you can gather the correct data.

Should you be using a customer insights hub?

Do you want to discover previous research faster?

Do you share your research findings with others?

Do you analyze research data?

Start for free today, add your research, and get to key insights faster

Editor’s picks

Last updated: 3 April 2024

Last updated: 30 April 2024

Last updated: 13 May 2024

Last updated: 22 July 2023

Last updated: 26 July 2024

Last updated: 22 August 2024

Last updated: 10 August 2024

Latest articles

Related topics, .css-je19u9{-webkit-align-items:flex-end;-webkit-box-align:flex-end;-ms-flex-align:flex-end;align-items:flex-end;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;-webkit-box-flex-wrap:wrap;-webkit-flex-wrap:wrap;-ms-flex-wrap:wrap;flex-wrap:wrap;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;row-gap:0;text-align:center;max-width:671px;}@media (max-width: 1079px){.css-je19u9{max-width:400px;}.css-je19u9>span{white-space:pre;}}@media (max-width: 799px){.css-je19u9{max-width:400px;}.css-je19u9>span{white-space:pre;}} decide what to .css-1kiodld{max-height:56px;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}@media (max-width: 1079px){.css-1kiodld{display:none;}} build next, decide what to build next, log in or sign up.

Get started for free

Digital got you dazed?

Type it below and we’ll show you what we’ve written about it!

What others are looking

Marketing Research Questions and How to Craft Them Effectively

Caleb Gasilao

Author & Editor

Copywriting Team Lead

Published on: Sep 14, 2023 Updated on: May 16, 2024

Invest 5 Minutes a Week to Grow Your Brand.

Get reliable marketing ideas and tactics that drive digital differently from top minds in the digital space.

Crafting impactful marketing research questions is a crucial skill in building effective customer personas for all realms of expert digital marketing .

From content marketing services to search engine optimization (SEO) to and even web or mobile development, formulating well-crafted survey queries can help you understand customers better - thus allowing you to create more powerful digital strategies and executions in the long run.

Asking the right questions can return answers that yield valuable insights - but how might one craft these data-driven marketing research questions and examples for things like social media marketing or user experience (UX) design? What are some best tips and practices that you can follow to design comprehensive inquiries for a digital execution?

Discover important techniques to identify and craft these queries with this comprehensive guide today. From pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to digital analytics and more, utilize these analytical tips to improve your customer experience strategies and executions for better digital wins this year.

The importance of good marketing research questions

To be able to craft an effective set of research queries for your digital marketing services and buyer persona needs, you have to understand the importance and relevance of such inquiries first.

A good marketing research question can help you gather consumer insights in an incredibly focused and strategic way. Inquiries that are open-ended, deep, and comprehensive allow you to easily uncover authentic customer sentiments, thus providing you better insight into your audience’s motivations towards your brand.

Well-crafted queries shape the quality of your digital strategies. With open-ended questions aided by analytical tools, you can collect critical insights such as customer needs, pain points, desires, and contexts.

These insights inform business strategies, shape the foundation of data-driven decisions, and help drive wins for things like your content marketing , PPC advertising, and other customer experience executions in the long run.

Best practices to design examples of marketing research questions

Now that you understand the importance of such a research tool to your promotional needs, it’s time for you to discover the best techniques in designing these queries for your customer experience strategy . You can break these practices down into three tips:

• Start with a clear objective. By defining and clarifying your objective, you’ll be able to guide your question formulation and succeeding investigative design accordingly. This will help you link the objective to your business goals, thus resulting in more focused and relevant research insights.
• Don’t be afraid to probe. Make sure to include follow-up prompts in your market research , in order to delve deeper into your customers’ responses. This will aid you in extracting nuanced insights for a more comprehensive customer persona.
• Balance quantitative and qualitative approaches. Explore both open-ended and close-ended queries that are also qualitative and quantitative; this will yield a better mix of both numerical data and qualitative insights.

By employing these best practices, you can garner more valuable and diverse data that aligns with your brand’s goals and ensures a more comprehensive understanding of your customers’ personas or behaviors. So make sure to enact these digital marketing skills to improve your strategy for data collection and exploration design.

Marketing research survey questions for pain points and desires

The next thing you need to do to further refine your research surveys is to craft them according to user pain points and desires. Here are some reasons why you need to address these specific user needs in the question creation process:

• To resolve customer challenges. By designing inquiries that uncover pain points and elicit genuine user frustrations, you’ll be able to identify concerns that you can inevitably resolve for customers through your brand and its products or services.
• To discover customers’ ideal outcomes. By formulating such queries that reveal a user’s aspirations, motivations, and desires, you can design customer experiences that create ideal outcomes and endear audiences to your business.
• To know where you stand in your industry. Are you able to address user needs, or are you currently lacking in certain service areas? By asking for ways you can address pain points and desires, you’ll know where you stand compared to competitors in your brand’s industry today.

Delve into your customers’ pain points and desires in order to reveal insights that help drive ideal content creation for audiences . This will enhance your buyer persona, thus allowing for more opportunities for user engagement and customer satisfaction for your brand in the long run.

How to identify marketing research questions

Want to enrich your marketing research design even further? Then you need to identify and craft inquiries that seek to understand your audience’s demographics and psychographics. Here’s a quick breakdown of the two for your query-making needs:

• Demographic information. This refers to information that focuses on a person’s age, gender, location, and other similar data points. By identifying this information among your audiences, you can tailor your conversion marketing strategies to even more unique customer personas.
• Psychographic information. This refers to information that covers a person’s interests, values, and lifestyle, like their hobbies, political leanings, or buying habits. With psychographics, you’ll have a deeper understanding of  a user’s desires and motivations for a better digital experience strategy .

By identifying and crafting queries based on demographics and psychographics, you’ll get to collect responses that enrich your understanding of user characteristics or preferences. This inevitably contributes to a more comprehensive customer persona, thus enabling you to tailor-make communication strategies that resonate with specific audience segments.

Good questions to ask in an in-depth research marketing interview

Now that you’re equipped with guidelines on formulating queries for your in-depth market exploration, you might be interested in specific prompts that you can ask throughout your well-crafted data collection process.

These inquiries mainly work for primary market study tools, such as surveys, focus groups, or in-depth interviews. If you wish to collect supplementary information from secondary sources like journals, websites, or competitor materials, then you should conduct social listening and social monitoring for these data points instead.

But for more context-specific inquiries and real-life insights, you’ll need to practice:

• Immersing in a customer’s shoes. Create questions that prompt customers to share their own life experiences. This will allow you to understand their interactions with key touchpoints, like your brand’s own products and services, with more personal and emotional resonance .
• Unearthing pain points through contextual inquiry. You can do this by designing interactive content that specifically asks about customer challenges in real-world scenarios. These may include requests for comments and feedback in areas where your business needs to improve its products and services.

Examples of specific market research questions that you can explore, based on your identified business objective, include:

• How old are you? Where do you live? What gender do you identify as? These are a number of good examples of close-ended, quantitative, demographic queries that should be part of any analysis design.
• What have you heard about X brand? This is a simple example of an open-ended, qualitative, and psychographic survey question that uncovers your target market’s knowledge of your brand.
• How much do you usually spend on X brand products? What is the maximum amount you’d pay for X? This is a comprehensive set of close-ended, quantitative inquiries that allow you to probe deeper and follow up with more queries for your target market.
• From a scale of one to ten (1-10), how likely are you to recommend X product and why? This is both a quantitative and qualitative query that allows for an open-ended response, in order for you to identify your user’s desires or pain points with your brand’s product or service.

These are just a few simple examples of contextual inquiries that you can use on your target market. As simple as these are, however, these types of market surveys can add a dynamic dimension to your buyer persona by prompting audiences to reveal their real-life customer experiences too.

With these kinds of questions included throughout your data collection process, you’ll ultimately be able to formulate an accurate buyer persona, pinpoint areas of improvement for your brand, and enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty in the long run.

Key takeaways

Craft queries that create buyer persona wins for your brand’s own digital strategies and executions today. Bring these final takeaways with you as you embark on this crucial research journey for your business this year:

• Start with an end goal in mind. By establishing a clear objective from the very start, you can provide more direction to your study and map out your succeeding survey journey accordingly.
• Step into your customers’ shoes. Discover the pain points, desires, demographics, and psychographics of your target market so that you can truly discover what makes your audiences tick.
• Improve your strategy constantly. The more questions you ask your audience segments, the more solutions you’ll learn to improve your strategy. Optimize an ever-evolving strategy and execution process when you ask for help from the experts at Propelrr today.

If you have any other comments, send us a message via our Facebook , X , and LinkedIn accounts. Let’s chat.

Subscribe to the Propelrr newsletter as well, if you find this article and our other content helpful to your needs.

We use cookies to enhance your browsing experience, serve personalized content and ads, and analyze our traffic. We also share the collected information about you to our Analytics, Advertising and Social Media partners. By clicking “I Agree”, you consent to our use of cookies. Find out more here.

• Market Research

How to write effective market research questions

• October 31, 2022

Every business owner wants to get into the head of their audience, as it makes a business successful. That is why primary data is valuable, and every blog you read suggests asking the right market research questions. 

The right questions will give you a way into the psyche of your customers, driving your business in the right direction, but how do you create the perfect market research questionnaire? 

In this article, we will share some interesting tips and examples of market research questions that would help you speed up your market research process.

Types of market research questions.

Market research is a tricky game for someone who is just beginning. There are many moving pieces and cogs to handle, which can sometimes get overwhelming. 

 While it is crucial for decision-making and should be prioritized, many people make the mistake of rushing the process. They forget that if they do not create a contextual market research questionnaire, it can make the insights inconclusive or confusing. 

A market research survey should have questions based on your market research goal. This will help you get qualitative insights from your audience. Here are the types of questions you can ask your audience: 

Multiple choice questions 

You must have tackled MCQ quizzes in your high school or college. When doing market research, these questions are useful when you need to cast a wide net and understand the different opinions (or options) a respondent has. For example, the types of credit cards they hold and use frequently. 

Single choice questions

Single-choice (or radio button) questions give users only one choice to select from a given list. These questions are suitable when you want to:

• Segment your customers.
• Discover critical pain points.
• Qualify your respondents for the following survey segments.

You can also use these questions for product development or customer satisfaction surveys. For example, asking users which features they hate or like to see in future updates. 

Matrix grid questions 

A matrix question grid is usually seen in customer satisfaction surveys but can be used in market research questionnaires to shorten the surveys. 

Here’s an example of a matrix question: 

Ranking questions

Ranking questions ask the respondents to prioritize their opinions or choices in order of preference; for example, what is the most important criterion for you while booking a room in a hotel?

• Location 
• Amenities 
• Customer Ratings

Customers can rank their preferences by moving the options up and down. These questions help understand a respondent’s preferences and choices, which can be crucial for marketing campaign planning, copywriting, and creative decision-making. 

Open-ended questions

Open-ended questions are straightaway questions that ask respondents to write out their answers directly. These are free text responses that one can share to explain the reasons for their last response or freely share opinions. 

Such answers do not have a definitive structure and can be hard to analyze at scale. Many modern market research tools use sentiment analysis features to categorize open-ended responses. 

For example, GapScout can help you unearth trends and the general sentiments from online customer reviews. 

Market research questions for segmenting your audience.

Segmentation divides your target audience into categories to personalize marketing campaigns, improve the value proposition, or delight users with contextual information or offers.

Market research with segmentation as an objective should have questions that give you granular-level insights about your audience, their preferences, and their character traits.

Ideally, segmentation questions should aim to gather insights about demographics, psychographics, or behavioral characteristics. 

Before writing market research questions for segmenting audiences, you should find answers to questions like:  

• What locations are the most popular among customers? 
• What are our existing customers’ interests, preferences, fears, and aspirations? 
• Do we have existing data on the demographics of our ideal target audience? 
• Have we segmented our customers before? If yes, how is the current situation different from before? 
• Are we expecting to prove any hypothesis regarding customer expectations, pain points, or aspirations? 
• How do our customers find out about us? 

Once you write out the answers to the above questions, you will have ample ideas on how to structure your market research survey. If you are still clueless, here are a few questions to help you get inspired. 

Segmentation market research question examples: 

• Are you open to trying new experiences, or love sticking to your regular brands? 
• What is your hobby? What do you enjoy in your leisure time? 
• What kind of food do you like? 
• Where do you research before going for a big-ticket purchase? 
• How much money do you usually spend on x (product)?
• What is your primary source of information? 
• Are you married? If yes, how many children do you have? 
• Where do you shop for your monthly groceries? 

Market research questions for product development.

A lot of data goes into developing a new product. So, conducting market research for product development is essential, as it gives you enough information about what your customer wants to see in a new product. It also helps you understand the perception of your product over competitors and will also help you prioritize your product roadmap. 

When planning to conduct market research for product development, ask yourself: 

• What products are currently available in the market? 
• Are the users dissatisfied with existing offerings? 
• How does your product compare to other products available in the market? 
• What are the pain points no one is solving for customers? 
• Do you have the resources to build a customer-centric roadmap and deliver a unique product? 
• What value proposition can you offer? 
• How to gather customer feedback from the existing users (of competitors)? 

You can use GapScout to conduct market research from existing product reviews of competitors to get deep insights into what users want. These insights will help you identify the opportunity gaps in the market that you can confirm by asking on-point questions in your market research questionnaire. 

Product development market research question examples:

• Which features are most valuable to you when you use xxx (product)? 
• What challenges do you face with XXXX ( your industry, for example, organic skincare brands)?
• What do you wish XXXX (product/service) had that it currently does not?
• What tools do you use at your job or in your daily life? 
• What brand/company do you turn to when you have xxxx problem (your pain point)?
• How often do you use a product/service during the day/week/month?

Market research questions for pricing strategy. 

An on-point pricing strategy is one of the most critical elements for the success of your business because this will drive revenues. Pricing market research to understand consumers’ interest in paying for something will ensure long-term success. 

Accurate pricing market research can help you stay profitable, attract more users, and keep growing through various business cycles. Before starting market research, ask yourself: 

• Have your existing customers ever complained about your price? 
• How do the competitors charge for their products, and what features do they offer? 
• How is the perception of your current pricing plans in the eyes of customers compared to competitors? 
• Do your products offer value for money for customers? 
• How will restructuring the price affect the revenue or profit margins?
• Is there any room for cross-selling or upselling among the existing customer group? 
• Can we offer a free tier, plan or demo to attract more customers? 

The answers to the above questions will give your market research a clear direction about what to ask. For example, suppose you know your customers charge less than you and your customers feel cheated because of this. In that case, you can create a direct question about how disappointed they are and then take corrective actions to delight future users. 

Pricing market research question examples:

• Would you purchase the product at xxx price? 
• What do you think about the cost of xxx (category or product) in the market? Is it costly, cheap, or justifies its worth? 
• What sort of customer service would you expect in return
•  if you have to pay for a service or product every month? 
• Are you confused about the pricing of xxx (competing product)? 

Market research questions for branding & marketing

Whether you are branding for a small business , startup, or enterprise, you will need detailed inputs and information about your target audience. Market research for branding and advertising helps you analyze the effectiveness of your current campaigns and provides inputs for future marketing strategies. 

A standard market research questionnaire would help you generate ideas, gather inspiration, and optimize your overall marketing/branding strategy. Here’s what you should keep in mind when you are planning market research for branding or marketing: 

• What are our best-performing advertising and marketing channels currently? 
• Do we have a brand recall or desired visibility? 
• Do we achieve the desired ROI? If not, what is stopping us from attaining efficiency or effectiveness? 
• Do our customers associate the brand with the value proposition we offer? 
• Are our positioning and communication precise enough for customers to understand how we address their fear and apprehensions? 
• Are our competitors performing better in terms of marketing? If yes, what channels are they most active on? 
• Are we running A/B tests or conducting conversion optimization for our existing marketing efforts? 

Branding & marketing research question examples:

• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word ‘xxx’ (your brand name)? 
• Where did you first hear about XXXX (your brand name)? 
• If XXXX (name of your brand) was a person, how would you describe them? 
• Will you pick xxx (the product) from an online store or an offline retailer? 
• Look at the video clip. What do you think right after you finish seeing the video? (for perception analysis of a new video campaign) 
• When you see it online, will you click on Banner A or Banner B? (linked with banner options) 

Best practices for writing market research questions.

• Create multiple-choice questions with mutually exclusive options: Do not create overlapping options for MCQs. For example, if you are asking about the age, make sure to have exclusive options such as 10-17, 18-24, 25-34 and so on. This will make sure your data is not skewed. 
• Calculate the required sample size beforehand: You should know how many respondents you need to gather conclusive findings. The best way is to use an online sample size calculator that helps you account for the margin of error and confidence level of respondents. This way, you will have desired data without wastage of resources. 
• Keep questions straightforward: Every question should be written with the intention of gathering one clear insight. There should not be more than one question about the same issue. This will make your life easier and improve the quality of the data you gather. At the same time, do not add double-barreled questions to the survey that confuse a respondent. 

Save time with GapScout. 

Conducting a compelling and conclusive market research survey is time-consuming and costly — something not every entrepreneur can afford, especially at the early stages. Even with the most accurate questions to gather insights, human errors can lead to inconclusive results. 

A better way to conduct market research for your business is to use online customer reviews to gather insights. GapScout helps you scan real customer reviews in your industry and provide deep insights on customer pain points, expectations, need gaps, and opportunities in the market. 

Use GapScout to save time gathering insights and start optimizing your business plan and operations within hours. 

Also Read: 

• Market Research vs Marketing Research
• Market research process
• Market research for startups  

Ready to Automate Your Market Research? Get exclusive access to GapScout prior to release!

Share this:

The best in market research.

Market research tips & tools sent to your inbox.

By clicking Subscribe, you agree to our Terms and Conditions.

Popular Articles

Problem-solution fit vs. product-market fit

5 benefits of opinion mining

Top 5 marketing websites for startups

Email us: [email protected] Made with ♥ in sunny California

• Legal Policies

Sign up for early access here!

ⓒ 2023 GapScout. All rights reserved.

Get Early Access!

Sign up to get early beta access to GapScout before it becomes publicly available!

We use cookies to give you the best possible experience on our website.

More From Forbes

Four steps to creating better marketing research questions.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

For marketers, research is a foundation for sound decision making. Data that's gathered from research can provide direction for new product development, AI, big data and marketing strategies. Good research is designed to answer a single research question. But in order to get there, marketers must first determine the right question to ask.

A research question addresses an unknown that research will attempt to answer. It's the reason for your research, and it keeps you focused on discovering actionable answers. Taking the time to define the research question ensures that marketers seek out answers to the right questions and, ultimately, create recommendations that drive results.

Think of it this way. Compare a doctor who rushes into prescribing medication to one who takes their time diagnosing the symptoms. Which do you prefer? Aimless research may gather interesting trivia and facts but taking the time to find the right research question will help marketers collect meaningful answers.

Based on the steps our own research team has adopted when working with clients, here are some ways to find a succinct marketing research question:

Identify the problem.

A researcher’s primary goal during this step is to understand the need for the research. Despite the benefits of a client telling you firsthand what they believe the problem is, their answers may not lead you to the right question. A client may give you 12 problems instead of one, or they may list symptoms of a problem rather than the root issue that needs to be addressed.

In order to combat these obstacles, researchers need to ask probing questions that dig beneath the surface. For example, a client may suggest that low social media engagement is the problem they’d like the research report to solve. A good researcher could challenge them by asking questions such as: "If we find the reason you’re experiencing a low level of social media engagement, how would you use that to improve your business?" The client’s response may uncover insights that bring you closer to the real need for the research.

Define the research problem.

The right research question is one that seeks out actionable answers to real problems. Researchers in this step define variables that could lead to the problem declared in the step above. It's important for researchers to continue to work with their clients on restating the research question until they find the one that would truly satisfy substantive needs.

An example of a problem might be low sales. This could be attributed to weak sales team morale, poor packaging, shortcomings with a PR strategy, or low-quality products. These are all different variables that beg different solutions. Once identified, researchers should dig deeper into these variables to assess their significance to the client, and the client’s willingness and ability to address them. Digging deeper means asking the client a series of questions that explore each path, such as: "What percentage of your sales team hit their assigned targets?" or "Have you experimented with different packaging and measured how that impacts sales?"

Typically, researchers and clients interact frequently to define the research problem. As in most team projects, the result of the collaboration doesn't necessarily deliver the right answer the first time. Groupthink, burnout and other factors can sometimes influence the quality of the defined problem. This is why researchers must dig deeper by challenging the question.

Challenge the question.

When reviewing the research question, think SMART. Test your research question by asking if it is s pecific enough to solve the identified problem. Check if the question is m easurable  -- can you measure the impact of the solutions proposed? Test whether or not the research question is a ttainable given the availability and accessibility to the information required to examine it. Check for the r elevance  -- is your question solving the problem that keeps your client up at night? Lastly, be realistic with the project’s deadlines. Can the solution to this research question be accomplished within the t ime allocated for this project?

Realign with the client.

A hypothesis is an excellent way to offer more clarity about the validity of the question. It also presents a well-packaged forecasted solution to the research question. This is where you inform your client on what problems would be explored, and propose the hypothesis as a possible result. If your client has a different vision, you should change your research question. During this time, researchers should check their questions by asking: "If we were to find that X causes Y, how would that impact future decision making?"

Take your time coming up with the right research question. The steps listed above are not limited to the sequence presented. Researchers frequently find themselves turning back to the drawing board after checking the question with the client. This is normal. To maintain momentum and motivation, remind your team that the right research question lays a strong foundation for valuable research. It outlines the research design, the sampling plan and the design of the questionnaires. A poorly written question, on the other hand, leads to results of little value.

• Editorial Standards
• Reprints & Permissions

40 Questions for a Smarter Marketing Strategy

Are you getting a good return on your investment in marketing? Could it be better?

One way to find out is to conduct a top-to-bottom review of your entire marketing plan to determine what’s working and what isn’t.

What specific factors should you assess in a marketing audit?

Here are 40 questions* I recommend for evaluating the effectiveness of your marketing and developing a smarter marketing strategy.

1. Does your brand clearly communicate what you are about and convey the highest value you deliver?

2. Does your brand effectively differentiate you from every other supplier in your marketplace?

3. Is your brand promise well understood and consistently executed at all levels of your organization?

4. Is your brand identity being properly used in all media?

5. Do you know your most profitable customers and are you targeting prospects that look just like your best customers?

6. Do you understand the factors buyers consider when selecting your product or service and are you focusing your marketing campaigns on those factors?

7. Have your customers changed the way they find, buy, or use your product or service and have you adjusted your marketing plan accordingly?

8. Are you actively upselling and cross-selling products and services to your current customers?

9. Do you have three to five key marketing messages that you’re consistently delivering in all media?

10.  Do your marketing messages resonate with your target audience? Are you talking about the things your customers and prospects care about?

11.   Do these messages match the experience customers have when they interact with your staff?

12.   Are you tailoring messages to specific market segments when you have the opportunity to do so?

Marketing Channels

13.   Are traditional marketing channels – such as advertising, direct marketing, and public relations – still delivering enough value to warrant the investment they require?

14.   Is it time to shift some – or more – of your marketing to new channels such as social media and mobile marketing?

15.   Are you maximizing the value of the proprietary channels you control, such as newsletters, invoices, product packaging and inserts, vehicles, and buildings?

Marketing Tactics

16.   Do you know which marketing tactics are generating the best results – leads, conversions, or sales – at the lowest cost?

17.   Can you cut the cost of any of your tactics by changing formats?

18.   Are you integrating social media into traditional marketing tactics like direct mail and advertising?

19.   Can you create a mobile app to promote your product or connect with your audience?

Creative Approaches

20.   Is your creative attention-getting? Does it stand out in a crowded marketplace?

21.   Does your creative engage the prospect immediately in your sales message and enhance the delivery of the message?

22.   Is the call to action loud and clear? Does the prospect know exactly what to do next after reviewing your marketing materials?

23.   What will people remember most after seeing your marketing: your clever creative approach or your product?

24.   Is your offer resonating with prospects? Are more and more people saying yes?

25.   Does your offer showcase your product?

26.   Does your offer deliver real value to the prospect?

27.   Are you tailoring offers to specific market segments or types of buyers?

Collateral and Sales Tools

28.   Are your sales brochures, displays, and sales demonstration tools accurate, complete, and up to date?

29.   Are your sales tools integrated with your brand and your marketing campaigns?

30.   Do you need new tools to educate prospects about your industry or product?

31.   Are you capturing customer and prospect data to build a robust marketing database?

32.   Are you compiling email addresses for an ongoing sales dialogue?

33.   Are you tracking and recording response and transactional data to create full profiles of your customers and their behavior so you can target future promotions?

34.   Is your customer and prospect addressing data accurate and complete and ready for the new USPS standards for mail deliverability?

35.   Is your website built around the needs and interests of your visitors?

36.   Is your site easy to navigate, with most information available in three clicks or less?

37.   Are you delivering high-value content that establishes your credibility?

38.   Are you inviting visitors to engage with you via blogs, podcasts, RSS feeds, and social media?

39.   Is your site fully optimized for search engines?

40.   Are you regularly adding new content and inbound links to increase your SEO rankings?

After You’ve Answered the Questions

Once you’ve completed your marketing audit, you should have a better understanding of how your marketing is working and what you need to do to achieve your objectives. Use this knowledge to craft a smart marketing strategy that delivers a higher return on your investment.

Here’s more advice on how to conduct an effective marketing audit.

** NOTE TO READERS: IMPORTANT POST UPDATE**

Due to the popularity of this post, we have recently published a  comprehensive new guide  that updates and expands the marketing strategy questionnaire to 50 questions and explains all the steps of a marketing strategy audit.

Request your free copy today and you’ll learn:

• Why it’s important to audit your marketing strategy, even when sales are up;
• The right times to consider conducting a marketing audit;
• How to approach an audit objectively;
• 50 questions smart marketers should ask today to gauge the effectiveness of their marketing.
• How to apply your findings to your marketing plan going forward;
• Plus tips for success based on our experience as marketing strategists and consultants.

Get your free guide without obligation .

The 7 Most Important Things to Do with a Sales Lead

How great direct mail helps a retailer win back customers, related posts, how to rethink your marketing plan in a crisis.

If an event like...

After the Pandemic: 7 Lessons for Smart Marketing Planning

The pandemic forced marketers...

How to Audit Your Marketing Strategy: Get Our New Guide

ne of the best...

Pingback: 10 Bad Marketing Habits to Break in the New Year | Gianfagna Strategic Marketing

Privacy overview.

Generative AI in innovation and marketing processes: A roadmap of research opportunities

• Original Empirical Research
• Open access
• Published: 26 August 2024

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Paola Cillo 1 , 2 &
• Gaia Rubera 2 , 3  

Nowadays, we are witnessing the exponential growth of Generative AI (GenAI), a group of AI models designed to produce new content. This technology is poised to revolutionize marketing research and practice. Since the marketing literature about GenAI is still in its infancy, we offer a technical overview of how GenAI models are trained and how they produce content. Following this, we construct a roadmap for future research on GenAI in marketing, divided into two main domains. The first domain focuses on how firms can harness the potential of GenAI throughout the innovation process. We begin by discussing how GenAI changes consumer behavior and propose research questions at the consumer level. We then connect these emerging consumer insights with corresponding firm marketing strategies, presenting research questions at the firm level. The second set of research questions examines the likely consequences of using GenAI to analyze: (1) the relationship between market-based assets and firm value, and (2) consumer skills, preferences, and role in marketing processes.

Explore related subjects

• Artificial Intelligence

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

Generative AI (henceforth, GenAI) represents the latest evolution in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and is a group of AI models designed to generate new content, spanning text, images, and videos (Huang & Rust, 2023 ). According to a recent McKinsey report, marketing is projected to be the most affected firm function by GenAI, which is forecast to enhance marketing productivity by up to 15% of the total marketing expenditure, amounting to approximately $463 billion annually. Footnote 1 While AI has changed marketing activities in several ways, ranging from product personalization (Chung et al., 2016 ) to service experience (Noble & Mende, 2023 ), one of the most distinctive features of GenAI is its capability to create novel content (Eapen et al., 2023 ). Unsurprisingly, numerous firms have already started using GenAI to perform key innovative marketing activities. For instance, Coca Cola used GenAI to co-create new beverages, such as its Coca-Cola Sugar Y3000. Similarly, companies like Unilever, Nestlé, and Mondelez have been using GenAI to create advertising. Footnote 2 Despite the disruptive potential of GenAI in marketing, the marketing literature that explores the impact of GenAI for consumers and firms is still nascent (Huang & Rust, 2023 ; Li et al., 2024 ; Reisenbichler et al., 2022 ), thus prompting this effort to propose a roadmap that describes both GenAI’s current status as well as its potential to impact consumer and firm behavior in innovation and marketing processes.

We start with a brief overview of the technical specificities of GenAI, as well as its capabilities and current limitations. Then, we propose research opportunities across two main domains. First, we focus on GenAI’s potential to alter both internal marketing activities that mainly deal with innovation, as well those interface activities for which firms try to leverage consumers’ creativity. With our research questions, we aim to investigate how GenAI can impact the entire innovation process, distinguishing among four phases: developing , testing , communicating , and engaging with the firm’s innovative output (Knight, 1967 ; Mumford & Simonton, 1997 ; Rubera et al., 2016 ). We validate these research questions via in-depth interviews with managers from different industries, spanning from high-end fashion and fast-moving consumer goods to insurance and utilities. These interviews reveal that, beyond their interest in understanding how to harness the innovative potential of GenAI, managers are concerned with the effects of repeatedly using GenAI on marketing capabilities and consumer behavior. Thus, we develop a second set of research questions to investigate the consequences of repeated GenAI use by firms and consumers. For firms, we develop questions related to the effects of employing GenAI on how marketing contributes to create firm value. Similarly, for consumers, we offer research questions related to the potential impact of GenAI on consumer skills, preferences, and role in the marketing processes.

This paper makes two main contributions to the marketing literature. First, several papers have offered a research map for the applications of AI in marketing (Davenport et al., 2020 ; Huang & Rust, 2021 ; Puntoni et al., 2021 ). These papers mainly investigate either mechanical or thinking AI (Huang & Rust, 2021 ). However, GenAI is a different type of AI that is poised to transform marketing in a completely different way. Recently, Huang and Rust ( 2023 ) have analyzed how GenAI can be used to move the customer along the customer care journey. They consider GenAI as the most advanced, so far, form of feeling AI. Complementing their perspective, we analyze the impact of GenAI on a different yet fundamental activity for firms (i.e., innovation). Second, previous papers outlining research questions about the effect of AI on marketing have focused on either the consequences on firms’ activity (Davenport et al., 2020 ; Huang & Rust, 2021 , 2023 ) or consumer response (Puntoni et al., 2021 ). This article aims to bridge these two perspectives by developing research questions both at the consumer and firm level. At the consumer level, we focus on how GenAI can impact consumers’ creative behavior. Since firms try to leverage consumer input throughout the innovation process, we maintain that analyzing the potential impact of GenAI on consumers’ creative behavior is a prerequisite for investigating the impact of GenAI on the firm innovation process (Hamilton, 2016 ). In this way, we hope that this roadmap can help marketing scholars pursue research across various areas of specialization.

GenAI: A technical overview

In technical terms, we can define GenAI as deep neural networks, pre-trained on large amounts of data to create a foundation model, which is then fine-tuned to produce new content by following human instructions (Bommasani et al., 2021 ). In this section, we provide a technical overview of how GenAI models are trained and how they produce content. Given these technical specificities, we then explain why the output of GenAI can be helpful for firms, as it is both novel and appropriate–and, hence, creative (Amabile, 2018 ; Scopelliti et al., 2014 ).

Training on extensive, unannotated datasets: Self-supervised learning

GenAI is the outcome of a renewed focus on self-supervised machine learning rather than the supervised learning approach that characterized much previous AI developments (Bommasani et al., 2021 ). In a supervised learning approach, during the training, machines learn by comparing model output against a given correct answer. These correct answers are provided in forms of “labels” or “annotations,” which require human involvement in labor-intensive tasks. The significant cost of annotation severely restricts the volume of data available for model training, limiting the ability to generalize effectively to novel settings (Bommasani et al., 2021 ).

In contrast, self-supervised learning models are trained with no need for annotated datasets. Instead, training occurs by removing parts of the data and asking the model to “predict” the missed parts. For instance, with textual data, we can input a sentence like “This is a <…> article” and train a model to predict the omitted word, given its surrounding text. At the end of the training, the model should have learned that the words “review” or “scientific” are more likely to be omitted compared to, say, “umbrella.” Similarly, with images, we can mask some patches and train a model to predict the content in the masked patches based on the remaining image information.

Self-supervised training yields two direct consequences that define GenAI’s ability to generate new, plausible content. First, since the original data contains the correct part to predict (i.e., the missing part), the training process can scale to very large datasets, which would be challenging to annotate by hand. These large datasets come in many forms, such as text, images, audio recordings, and videos. Second, by being forced to predict parts of the inputs, self-supervised learning models develop a deeper understanding of the context. This enhanced understanding, coupled with training on significantly larger datasets, makes it easier to generalize to novel settings than was the case with past, supervised AI models.

Producing new content: Inherently random and conditional on the prompt

The adoption of a self-supervised learning approach, coupled with advancements in computing power (e.g., GPU) and a novel model architecture known as Transformer (Vaswani et al., 2017 ) that allows faster training, led to the emergence of foundation models . A foundation model is a large, pre-trained model used as a base for developing more specialized and task-specific models (Bommasani et al., 2021 ). Foundation models underpin generative capabilities. Specifically, they create new content (e.g., text, image, video, data) by using patterns learned during training to predict the next item in a sequence. For instance, OpenAI and Microsoft have deployed GPT-3 in a variety of downstream tasks, such as Bing, Duolingo, GitHub Co-pilot, and ChatGPT. To understand how foundation models produce new content, let us take the example of Large Language Models (LLMs), a subset of foundation models that have gained significant prominence as they are trained to facilitate user interaction through natural language. A language model (LM) is a statistical representation of a language, which computes the probability of a given sequence (a word, phrase, or sentence) occurring in this language. Similar to LMs, LLMs are trained in a self-supervised logic to predict a masked word within a sequence of words. Because they are trained on large amounts of data as well as frequently trained on different languages, they are called Large LMs. If we consider words and punctuation signs as tokens, we can depict an LLM as a conditional probability distribution p ( x n |x 1 , … , x n  − 1 ) over tokens, in which each x i is drawn from a fixed vocabulary. An LLM generates text by iteratively sampling from the learned distribution to select the next token. At each generative iteration, the model estimates a probability distribution, indicating the likelihood that any token in the vocabulary would be the next observed x i if the model were reading a pre-existing text. To initiate text generation, an LLM requires “conditioning,” meaning it must be supplied with initial input tokens x 1 , … , x n  − 1 . Such input is called prompt . The prompt conditions the probability of selecting one token over another. For instance, if we input the prompt “This is a review…,” the token “article” would have a higher probability of selection than the token “bus.” Using a distribution function, the model randomly selects among a list of probable candidates (e.g., “article,” “paper”). The new x i is then added to the text, initiating the repetition of the entire process (Argyle et al., 2023 ). The generation of novel images, music, videos, or data follow a similar approach.

Thus, GenAI outputs novel content that is conditional on the prompt that it receives. Given how foundation models choose the next word, note, or image feature, such content however is random and different at each iteration, making it possible to produce several, unique responses from the same prompt. This inherent randomness explains why it is hard to detect content generated by GenAI (Else, 2023 ).

In sum, training foundation models is a highly resource-intensive process that demands substantial computational power and can take months to complete. For instance, it is estimated that the cost of training GPT-4 is over $100 million (Korinek, 2023 ). However, while training GenAI is financially viable for only a handful of companies, use costs are very low. Thus, firms no longer compete on developing proprietary machine learning and AI algorithms, but rather on their ability to fully harness the capabilities of existing foundation models.

The potential of GenAI for marketing and innovation

Having reviewed how GenAI models are trained and how they produce new content, we next describe the capabilities and current limitations of these models. Huang and Rust ( 2023 ) conceptualize GenAI as feeling AI, namely a type of AI that can communicate and interact with humans based on an emotional understanding derived from analyzing emotion data. They argue that these models differ from previous AI models, which were better suited for mechanical AI (i.e., performing repetitive tasks) and thinking AI (i.e., supporting analytical decisions) (Huang & Rust, 2021 ). We embrace their view of GenAI as a novel type of AI; to complement this view, we focus on GenAI’s capability to create new content. Since we are interested in how firms can leverage GenAI in their innovation and marketing processes, we examine whether GenAI’s output can be both novel and appropriate, two key elements that influence consumer evaluations of new products, marketing programs, and advertisements (Rubera et al., 2010 ).

The associate theory of creativity maintains that novelty stems from the ability to connect weakly related concepts to form novel ideas (Dahl & Moreau, 2002 ; Toubia & Netzer, 2017 ). Since foundation models have been trained on extensive datasets, these models can retrieve concepts from a vast array of diverse domains. Leveraging this capability, scientists started exploring how LLMs can be used to discover new hypotheses to test (Hutson, 2023 ). The inherent randomness in the way foundation models produce content is a prerequisite for identifying this output as novel. Indeed, throughout history, significant innovations have emerged as serendipitous discoveries, ranging from medical breakthroughs (Meyers, 2007 ) to new consumer products like Post-its or shatter-proof glass.

However, randomly connecting concepts from different domains is not sufficient per se for generating something that consumers appreciate; rather, this content must also be appropriate (Rubera et al., 2010 ). Since foundation models have been trained on extensive datasets, it is very likely that they have memorized in the training phase what humans consider to be appropriate. Girotra et al. ( 2023 ) conducted a comparative study, pitting a pool of ideas generated by MBA students against those generated by ChatGPT-4 in two distinct conditions. In the baseline condition, ChatGPT-4 received an identical prompt to that of the MBA students (i.e., generate ten ideas targeting college students in the U.S.). In the “prompted with good examples” condition, the authors supplemented the prompt with a set of highly rated ideas. They find that ideas generated by ChatGPT-4, regardless of the condition, exhibit higher average scores on purchase intentions compared to ideas generated by MBA students. Interestingly, they report no significant difference between the two GPT conditions (i.e., baseline versus prompted with highly rated ideas). A possible explanation for this finding is that GPT had already seen those highly rated ideas (or, at least, similarly appropriate ideas) during the training. Thus, providing further examples of good ideas in the prompt is redundant, as GPT has already memorized what humans consider to be appropriate.

In sum, the stochastic nature of foundation models enables them to generate novel content. The extensiveness of the data they have been trained on allows this novelty to also be appropriate.

Current limitations of GenAI

Although GenAI is able to create new content, it sometimes produces content that, while semantically or syntactically plausible, is factually incorrect or nonsensical (i.e., hallucinations) (Huang & Rust, 2023 ). For instance, on February 6, 2023, Google announced its ChatGPT competitor named Bard with an image of Bard answering the question “What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9 year old about?” As several astronomers pointed out, one of the three replies that Bard provided was factually wrong. As a consequence, Google stocks lost $100 billion. Similarly, just two weeks before OpenAI launched ChatGPT, Meta released Galactica, which the company positioned as a “large language model for science.” The open source LLM survived for only three days before Meta withdrew it in response to criticism for releasing a model that produced scientific-sounding text but that was nonetheless factually wrong. Capitalizing on Galactica’s failure when it launched ChatGPT, OpenAI explicitly acknowledged that it could make mistakes. The Bard and Galactica cases clearly indicate the limitations of initial GenAI. It works better when it is tasked with generating novel content for which there are no right or wrong answers (e.g., artistic content, novel product ideas).

To help marketers apply GenAI effectively, we provide in Table  1 a summary of studies that investigate GenAI’s emergent capabilities that are most closely related to innovation. These capabilities include idea generation, divergent thinking, analogical thinking, and inductive reasoning, which are all traditionally considered prerequisites for creativity (Dahl & Moreau, 2002 ; Vartanian et al., 2003 ). Additionally, our interviews reveal that an increasing number of managers rely on GenAI, or wish to, for decision-making support. Therefore, we also focus on capabilities related to reasoning, such as causal reasoning, logical reasoning on new cases, and making causal inferences.

Since different foundation models are trained on different data and have different architectures, and also since the same released model can be updated over time, we report the model used and time of the test. Table  1 indicates that current models have limited reasoning capabilities with respect to making causal inferences. Computer scientists attribute hallucinations and these limitations to the absence of physical data in most GenAI models, which constrains their understanding of the world (Webb et al., 2023 ; Zečević et al., 2023 ). Indeed, most studies conducted so far have focused on LLMs trained exclusively on text-based inputs, which lack embodiment, sensory stimuli, or grounded experience that are crucial for human decision-making (McClelland et al., 2020 ). However, the emergence of multimodal models like GPT-4 V(ision) (i.e., capable of processing text, image, sound, and other sensory data) may pave the way for GenAI to develop a more integrated understanding of the world (McClelland et al., 2020 ; Webb et al., 2023 ). Thus, we note that GenAI is rapidly evolving and that these limitations could potentially be addressed in the future.

Research opportunities

Given our focus on GenAI’s capability to create new content, we propose research opportunities related to how firms can harness the innovative potential of GenAI throughout the firm innovation process. Consistent with past views of the innovation process (Knight, 1967 ; Mumford & Simonton, 1997 ; Rubera et al., 2016 ), we depict this process as a circular one that encompasses four main stages–developing, testing, communicating, and engaging–during which firms interact with customers to gain different types of input, ranging from creativity to customer knowledge.

We validated these research questions via in-depth interviews with managers from different industries, spanning from high-end fashion and fast-moving consumer goods to insurance and utilities. They point out that firms’ repeated use of GenAI will fundamentally alter marketing capabilities, for instance by making some of them obsolete or less valuable. Also, they expect that consumers’ skills and preferences will likely change as an effect of widespread GenAI use. Thus, they fear that firms will necessarily face a very different customer in the near future. The inputs from practitioners motivated us to complement our framework with research questions about the consequences of GenAI use, both for a firm’s market-based assets, marketing capabilities, and resources, as well as for consumer skills, preferences, and role in the marketing processes. We present our roadmap in Fig.  1 .

GenAI in innovation and marketing processes

Harnessing the innovative potential of GenAI

Our framework views the innovation process as a circular process that encompasses several interactions with customers throughout the four stages. In the developing phase, firms frequently involve consumers in co-creation activities through open innovation platforms and crowdsourcing initiatives (Bayus, 2013 ; Cillo et al., 2021 ; Luo & Toubia, 2015 ; Rubera et al., 2016 ; Stephen et al., 2016 ). These initiatives aim to augment internal creativity with customer ideas. In the testing stage, firms conduct market research to gain customers’ perspective in order to select the one with the best chances of meeting market needs, given the various inputs generated in the previous phase (Kahn et al., 2006 ). In the communicating stage, firms interact with customers to persuade them to change their behavior and adopt the firm’s offering (Castaño et al., 2008 ). After consumers buy the firm’s novel offering, firms continue interacting with customers to keep them engaged beyond economic transactions (Blut et al., 2023 ; Pansari & Kumar, 2017 ). This engagement enables firms to access key consumer resources (e.g., knowledge stores, creativity) (Harmeling et al., 2017 ) that offer further creative input to the innovation process, thus constituting a continuous cycle, as illustrated in Fig.  1 .

For each phase, we start by discussing the potential impact of GenAI on consumer behavior and propose consumer-level research questions. The only exception is the testing stage in which, as we will discuss, GenAI can help firms partially replace customer inputs when conducting market research. These customer insights help us investigate how firms can harness the innovative potential of GenAI. In so doing, we bridge these emerging customer insights with corresponding firm marketing strategies, presenting research questions at the firm level (Hamilton, 2016 ). We summarize our proposed research questions in Table  2 .

In the past decade, firms have devoted much effort in involving consumers in the idea development phase through open innovation platforms and crowdsourcing initiatives (Bayus, 2013 ; Luo & Toubia, 2015 ; Stephen et al., 2016 ). Through these initiatives, firms outsource to consumers either part of or the entire creative process, which comprises two cognitive, iterative processes: generative and exploratory (Moreau & Dahl, 2005 ). In the generative stage, preliminary mental representations of a solution are created. In the exploratory stage, these representations are evaluated. If the exploration is not successful, a new generative stage occurs until a satisfactory idea is achieved.

While past studies investigated how AI can enhance idea screening (Bell et al., 2023 ), GenAI can clearly support participants in the idea-generation phase. Specifically, GenAI can potentially decouple the two cognitive processes that underpin creativity: it can create differing solutions (i.e., generation), while consumers then can be solely responsible for modifying the proposed solutions (i.e., exploration). In this case, we envision an iterative process in which consumers engage in a conversation with GenAI to refine the created solutions until a satisfactory idea emerges. Future research is needed to investigate the consequences of this decoupling at both the consumer and firm level.

At the consumer level, the literature indicates that people’s ideas are influenced by those around them who are working on the same task (Mason & Watts, 2012 ; Stephen et al., 2016 ). Exposure to others’ ideas might lead consumers to engage in either cognitive fixation (Bayus, 2013 ) or cognitive stimulation (Luo & Toubia, 2015 ). Thus, we can expect consumers to either conform to a GenAI suggestion or further diversify in their efforts to reaffirm their diversity from machines. We theoretically expect that both conforming and diversifying consumers achieve higher levels of creativity when supported by GenAI, but through two different mechanisms.

Conforming consumers outsource the generative stage to GenAI. Since GenAI is trained on very diverse data, it can provide conforming consumers with more diverse, initial representations of a solution from which these consumers can select in the exploratory stage. Since they can select from a wider pool of ideas, doing so should translate to a final solution that is more creative than if consumers had no access to GenAI input (Dahl & Moreau, 2002 ). In contrast, diversifying consumers engage further in the generative stage in order to find more initial representations that differ from GenAI input. This extra cognitive effort would encourage diversifying consumers to explore more distant alternatives, thereby increasing the creativity of the final solution (Luo & Toubia, 2015 ). However, future research is needed to empirically investigate the mechanisms that increase the creativity of the final, GenAI-augmented solution for different types of consumers:

Through what cognitive mechanisms does GenAI influence the creativity of an individual consumer? Do different consumers follow different cognitive mechanisms?

Luo and Toubia ( 2015 ) show that domain knowledge determines whether consumers fixate with others’ ideas or not. Lysyakov and Viswanathan ( 2023 ) find that prior success determines whether designers conform or diversify in response to the introduction of an AI system for logo designs in a crowdsourcing design platform. Thus, future research should investigate the elements (individual or contextual) that encourage consumers to either conform or diversify to solutions proposed by GenAI:

What individual traits and contextual factors influence a consumer’s decision to either conform to or diverge from GenAI solutions?

At the firm level, the path that consumers pursue (i.e., AI conformity or diversification) has direct consequences on the collective creativity of the pool of co-produced ideas from which a firm can select, which is a key output of co-ideation initiatives. Since consumers who conform select solutions from the same (or similar) GenAI-generated content, it is likely that these conforming consumers end up generating similar content, as they are anchored to the same set of GenAI-generated ideas. Indeed, studies on ideation platforms have shown that when customers draw inspiration from similar sets of ideas, they tend to develop less innovative ideas (Stephen et al., 2016 ). If this is the case, then co- ideation initiatives bear ideas that are not creative enough to warrant further internal development, a common problem for these initiatives (Stephen et al., 2016 ). To curb this drawback, scholars suggest that firms limit the quantity of others’ ideas that participants can access (Luo & Toubia, 2015 ; Stephen et al., 2016 ). Such a feature is clearly not possible for GenAI, as consumers access it on their own device. Further, the fact that consumers conform to solutions proposed by GenAI defies the purpose of co-ideation initiatives: employees within the firm can access these ideas directly without tapping into consumers’ creative resources. Huang and Rust ( 2023 ) propose an intriguing approach, which they call response engineering , in which GenAI probes consumers’ preferences iteratively through multiple rounds of question-asking. Firms could employ a similar response engineering approach in which GenAI asks questions (rather than provides answers) that would nudge consumers to deviate from the original idea in order to help them develop, at each iteration, more creative ideas. That said, this is a workaround solution at the moment because GenAI is not designed to ask questions (Huang & Rust, 2023 ). Thus, future research should investigate:

How can firms design co-ideation platforms to reduce the AI-conformity effect?

The generation phase is typically considered a variation phase, during which firms are concerned with simply generating as much creative input as possible (Girotra et al., 2010 ). In the next stage, a selection process starts, which is aimed at selecting the idea with the highest chance of gaining market acceptance once it is introduced in the market (Girotra et al., 2010 ). To do so, firms conduct market research (Kahn et al., 2006 ). The latest research on GenAI suggests that this technology can offer firms several ways to conduct market research.

Marketing research has shown how AI can lead to biased outcomes in service (Ukanwa & Rust, 2020 ) or ad delivery (Lambrecht & Tucker, 2019 ). Such bias derives from “algorithmic bias,” in which machine learning models tend to replicate the gender, race, and economic biases of the data upon which they have been trained (Davenport et al., 2020 ; Plangger et al., 2022 ). However, LLMs have been trained on a vast set of diverse data, which means that they potentially could have memorized several biases, not just one. If true, then researchers can take advantage of this variety of biases to replicate different marketing sub-populations of consumers (i.e., different consumer segments). Investigating this possibility, Argyle et al. ( 2023 ) show that LLMs are characterized by what they call algorithmic fidelity : namely, “by conditioning a model on simulated ’individuals’ with targeted identity and personality profiles,” it is possible to gain insights “into different patterns of attitudes and ideas present across many groups (e.g., women, men, White people, people of color, millennials, baby boomers) and also the combination and intersection of these groups (e.g., Black immigrants, female Republicans, White males) (p. 338).” Leveraging algorithmic fidelity, Argyle et al. ( 2023 ) show that, by providing a prompt that describes the sociocultural characteristics of a specific demographic group, it is possible to generate response distributions that strongly correlate with that group’s survey response distributions. Similarly, Horton ( 2023 ) demonstrates that various LLMs from OpenAI respond to economic scenarios in ways that are consistent with intuition and experience.

Algorithmic fidelity paves the way for marketers to potentially conduct market research with fewer requirements to involve human subjects. Indeed, an emerging body of studies has begun investigating how LLMs can substitute for market research. Brand et al. ( 2023 ) show that when prompted as if it were a randomly selected customer, GPT generates responses that exhibit sloped demand curves, lower sensitivity to changes in price as income increases, and state dependency (i.e., inertia in their product choice), all three of which are well-known features of real customers. Given these characteristics, the authors show that GPT generates estimates that are similar to those generated by human-based conjoint studies; they thus conclude that GenAI can represent a viable alternative for learning about consumer preferences in a fast, low-cost, and iterative way. Similarly, Li et al. ( 2024 ) show that GPTNeo and GPT4 can successfully match perceptual maps obtained from human surveys. The authors also show that these two GenAI applications can replicate survey differences along demographic variables and across time. Finally, Ringel ( 2023 ) investigates whether ChatGPT-4 can act as a surrogate for human expertise in classifying tweets that discuss marketing mix variables. He finds strong agreement between labels provided by ChatGPT4 and those provided by experts across all four metrics of the marketing mix, while labels provided by Amazon mTurk workers exhibit substantially lower agreement with expert labels. He concludes that “generative AI is a viable alternative to scarce and costly domain experts for labeling text.”

Collectively, this emerging research suggests that GenAI can substitute, at least in some cases, for human subjects and experts in marketing research. It is, thus, important to investigate what other marketing variables or constructs marketers can obtain through GenAI that will reduce the need to refer to surveys, focus groups, or expert opinions. Thus, we propose the following research question:

What market research can be conducted with GenAI rather than human participants or experts?

As research about GenAI’s capability to replace human subjects emerges, it is important to keep in mind that this capability depends on the training data of the foundation model deployed to “conduct” market research. Indeed, Horton ( 2023 ) infer from OpenAI’s GPT replies that these LLMs must have been trained on a corpus more comparable to revealed preferences than to stated ones. Also, Li et al. ( 2024 ) report that LLMs work better for higher involvement products and for some brands than others. We speculate that this finding is due to the fact that GPT4 has more product reviews for these products in its training sample. However, future research is needed to determine which product categories/brands GenAI is better suited to replace human subjects /experts:

What are the boundary conditions of GenAI’s capability to replace human subjects/experts in market research?

Finally, Hartmann et al. ( 2023 ) show that images generated by different LLMs display significantly different performance in terms of click-through rates. The classic approach in marketing has been to compare different models in order to select the best one. We propose a different approach that is based instead on assembling predictions of different LLMs. Indeed, each LLM has been trained using different datasets, architectures, and hyperparameters, implying that each LLM has heterogeneous expertise in different tasks and domains, as well as idiosyncratic strengths and biases. Thus, assembling different LLMs can potentially harness the diverse strengths of each model, while exploiting the complementarities between them. Although the computer science community has started investigating different ways to assemble LLMs (Jiang et al., 2023 ; Lu et al., 2023 ), the ensemble method used always depends on the task at hand (Yang et al., 2023 ). Hence, it is important that marketers develop their own ensemble method that accounts for domain-specific goals. Thus, we propose the following research question:

How can we assemble different LLMs to better replicate human/expert responses?

This argument suggests that the true potential of GenAI is represented by the combination of different LLMs, not an individual model. As such, we warn scholars intending to compare human performance with that of GenAI that a fair comparison should always require assembling different foundation models.

Communicating

Gartner predicts that GenAI will produce 30% of brands’ marketing messages by 2025, Footnote 3 thanks to GenAI’s ease of use, multimodality (i.e., capability to integrate various types of data like text and images), and scalability. We pinpoint two crucial areas deserving further investigation: (1) the extent to which firms can rely on GenAI to convincingly persuade consumers, and (2) the consequences of disclosing GenAI use for a firm’s brand equity.

Persuading consumers

A key marketing activity involves crafting persuasive marketing content. GenAI potentially excels in this task due to its ability to swiftly generate new content at minimal marginal cost. Meta, for instance, has announced its intention to use GenAI for automatically creating ads. Footnote 4 So far, there is limited research that explores consumer responses to GenAI-generated content. Bai et al. ( 2023 ) and Kreps et al. ( 2022 ) in political science, and Zhang and Gosline ( 2023 ) in decision making represent notable exceptions. Interestingly, these studies report differing findings. While Bai et al. ( 2023 ) and Kreps et al. ( 2022 ) report no difference between GenAI and human-generated text, Zhang et al. ( 2022 ) find that ChatGPT-4 creates messages associated with higher satisfaction and willingness to pay than those produced by humans, even experts.

These initial studies aside, we argue that further research is necessary to examine the connection between GenAI’s objective parameters and human subjective perceptions of its output. For instance, users can control the behavior of LLMs in three main ways. First, we have discussed earlier the relevance of prompts . Second, users can adjust the level of randomness (or creativity) in the output generated by modifying the temperature parameter. A temperature of 0 makes the model deterministic, always selecting the most likely token. As the temperature increases, the model becomes more random, leading to more diverse and creative output. Third, users can employ top_p sampling to restrict the model’s selection to a subset of tokens (the nucleus), rather than considering all possible tokens. For instance, setting a top_p value to 0.2 means that the model will only select from those tokens that represent the top 20% of the probability mass for the next token. Given these technical nuances of GenAI, we identify avenues for future research, both at the consumer and firm level.

At the consumer level, the limited research on persuasiveness of GenAI-created messages has primarily focused on prompt strategies (Karinshak et al., 2023 ), with limited attention given to the role of temperature and top_p sampling. Hence, future research should explore whether variations in the objective parameters of LLMs are associated with variations in subjective evaluations of message per- suasiveness. Learning more about this aspect could be crucial for crafting messages that are consistent with recipients’ psychological characteristics. Thus, we propose the following research question.

Does variation in objective LLM parameters translate into different subjective perceptions of persuasiveness?

Second, initial studies have started to explore differences in GenAI-generated content compared to that generated by humans. Bai et al. ( 2023 ) find that humans perceive messages crafted by GenAI to be more factual and logical but also less angry and likely to rely on vivid story-telling. Karinshak et al. ( 2023 ) report that GPT3-crafted pro-vaccination messages are perceived as more colloquial, authentic, and positive. While these studies uncover some differences between GenAI- and human-generated content, they do not explain how objective parameters influence human subjective perception. Our preliminary analysis seems to show that increasing the temperature causes ChatGPT-3 to generate more verbose output, even when the model is constrained to produce a maximum number of tokens. In the context of idea generation, verbose ideas have been observed to receive better evaluations (Kornish & Jones, 2021 ). This verbosity effect potentially extends to evaluations of message persuasiveness. As such, we call for future research to investigate the theoretical mechanisms linking objective LLM parameters to subjective perceptions. Additionally, gaining a deeper understanding of why these parameters influence persuasiveness in different ways could provide insights with respect to consumer heterogeneity. Thus, we propose the following two research questions:

What are the theoretical mechanisms through which objective LLM parameters influence subjective perceptions?

What theoretical constructs cause heterogeneity in consumer responses to variations of objective LLM parameters?

At the firm level, understanding the psychological mechanisms that link objective LLM parameters to persuasiveness, can help firms tailor messages to increase their customer base’s purchase intention by defining message parameters ex-ante. Furthermore, since the marketing field has transitioned from transactional to relationship marketing (Morgan & Hunt, 1994 ) and further still to customer-engagement marketing (Blut et al., 2023 ; Harmeling et al., 2017 ; Pansari & Kumar, 2017 ), marketers today have a plethora of goals to pursue, all of which extend well beyond mere purchase. It is hence important to account for such heterogeneity of marketing performance metrics when assessing GenAI’s capacity to craft persuasive messages.

To date, the computer science community has devoted much effort to developing prompt strategies aimed at improving LLMs’ performance in analytical tasks. We present a summary of the most relevant strategies in Table  3 . Marketing research is needed to investigate and propose innovative prompt strategies that can not only augment LLMs’ efficacy in analytical tasks but also do likewise in various relevant marketing endeavors, such as empathy (Huang & Rust, 2021 ), recovering from negative events like product recalls (Raithel et al., 2023 ), or convincing consumers to adopt socially-relevant behavior (Winterich et al., 2023 ). Thus, we propose the following research questions:

How can firms vary LLM parameters to create more persuasive messages?

Which LLM parameter is most conducive to different marketing goals?

Consumers appear to struggle in distinguishing GenAI-generated content from human- generated content (Jakesch et al., 2023 ). However, several governments (e.g., the U.S. and its AI Disclosure Act) and social platforms (e.g., TikTok, YouTube) are increasingly enforcing clear disclosure of AI-generated content. Therefore, research is warranted to explore the implications of such disclosure requirements for both consumers and firms.

At the consumer level, a growing body of marketing studies has focused on consumer responses to AI, such as robots (Mende et al., 2019 ), chatbots (Luo et al., 2019 ), or applications in medicine (Longoni et al., 2019 ). This research has unveiled the phenomenon of algorithm aversion , wherein humans tend to distrust and reject algorithms, even when they outperform humans (Dietvorst et al., 2015 ). These studies have identified factors such as uniqueness neglect (Longoni et al., 2019 ), perceived lower empathy (Luo et al., 2019 ), and cost-cutting motives (Castelo et al., 2023 ) as drivers of consumers’ reluctance to adopt AI applications. This research has also identified contextual conditions that seem to mitigate algorithm aversion: consumers are more inclined to trust algorithms for tasks perceived as objective (Castelo et al., 2019 ; Longoni et al., 2019 ) and in contexts with low identity relevance, such as numerical estimation or forecasting tasks (Logg et al., 2019 ). Conversely, aversion is exacerbated when AI performs tasks that consumers deem central to their identity, thus invoking self-enhancing and self-protective biases (Morewedge, 2022 ; Leung et al., 2018 ).

Given this context, consumer responses to a firm’s disclosure of GenAI use appear ambiguous. On the one hand, GenAI demonstrates superior capabilities in generating empathy and unique content that is specifically tailored to consumer needs, compared to other types of AI (Huang & Rust, 2023 ). Therefore, algorithm aversion should theoretically be lower for GenAI than for other AI applications. On the other hand, creating novel content is a subjective task and creativity is widely regarded as a quintessential human capability (Koivisto & Grassini, 2023 ). Thus, prior studies suggest a negative response towards GenAI use (Castelo et al., 2019 ; Morewedge, 2022 ). In light of such conflicting predictions emerging from the literature, further research is needed to investigate consumer responses to a firm’s use of GenAI and how the disclosure of GenAI-generated content differs from that generated by other types of AI.

Additionally, anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that disclosing GenAI use triggers new considerations for consumers, beyond those typically described in the algorithm aversion literature. For instance, when Levi’s announced its decision to use GenAI to create models of more diverse body types and skin tones, the company faced strong criticism from consumers who feared that this decision would ‘deprive people of opportunities’ Footnote 5 . Thus, future research should investigate whether novel theoretical mechanisms drive consumer responses to the disclosure of GenAI-generated content, beyond those that influence consumer responses to the disclosure of other types of AI. Hence, we propose the following research questions:

Do consumers respond differently to the disclosure of GenAI compared to the disclosure of other types of AI? What novel theoretical mechanisms explain consumer responses to a firm’s disclosure of GenAI-generated content?

At the firm level, there is a need for research to explore how firms can effectively balance the benefits of GenAI use with potential negative consumer reactions to such use, particularly in light of increasing enforcement of disclosure by governments or social platforms. As the literature that explores how firms can mitigate algorithm aversion tends to analyze either consumer characteristics (Longoni et al., 2019 ; Luo et al., 2019 ) or task characteristics (Castelo et al., 2019 ; Morewedge, 2022 ), we advocate for future research on the role that brand associations (i.e., beliefs that consumers associate with a brand) play in mitigating or amplifying the effect of GenAI disclosure on brand equity. For instance, in terms of brand innovativeness (Brown & Dacin, 1997 ), two reactions are equally plausible theoretically. On the one hand, disclosing GenAI use might help amplify consumer perceptions of a firm’s innovativeness. On the other hand, consumers might perceive inconsistency between a firm’s self-described innovative image and that firm’s use of GenAI to enhance internal creativity. Such a contrasting effect might amplify the negative effect of disclosing GenAI use for innovative firms (Brown & Dacin, 1997 ). Brand innovativeness serves as just one example, and future research is needed to investigate the moderating effect of this disclosure and other brand associations, including brand authenticity (Moulard et al., 2021 ) or corporate social responsibility. Thus, we propose the following research question:

Which brand associations amplify the negative effect of GenAI disclosure on brand equity? Which associations mitigate this effect?

Further, research has investigated ways to mitigate negative reactions to a firm’s use of AI, such as postponing disclosure time (Luo et al., 2019 ), framing AI as assisting rather than replacing humans (Longoni et al., 2019 ), reframing tasks as relatively objective (Castelo et al., 2019 ), and emphasizing the salience of utilitarian attributes (Longoni & Cian, 2022 ). We call for future research to investigate how firms can align their disclosure messages with their brand associations. For instance, underdog brands (Paharia et al., 2011 ) could frame the use of GenAI as a strategy for leveling the playing field, while innovative brands could frame their GenAI use as a demonstration of the firm’s commitment to cutting-edge technology adoption. Hence, we propose the following research question:

How can firms align disclosure messages to their firms’ brand associations in order to mitigate the potential negative effect of disclosing GenAI use?

After consumers buy a firm’s offering, it is important to maintain their engagement beyond mere transactions (Pansari & Kumar, 2017 ). Customer engagement marketing represents “the firm’s deliberate effort to motivate, empower, and measure a customer’s voluntary contribution to its marketing functions, beyond a core, economic transaction” (Harmeling et al., 2017 , p.312). Among various initiatives aimed at enhancing customer engagement (CE), a recent meta-analysis reveals that task-based initiatives are particularly effective (Blut et al., 2023 ). These initiatives “deliberately exist to push customers’ resource contributions” (Blut et al., 2023 , p.497). Moreover, Harmeling et al. ( 2017 ) identify four key resources that consumers can voluntarily contribute to the firm’s marketing function, including creativity .

We argue that GenAI and its use have implications for both consumers and firms. At the consumer level, an individual’s ability to participate in task-based customer engagement (CE) initiatives is often limited by her own creativity and skills. GenAI can alleviate this constraint as consumers can employ different tools such as Midjourney or Stable Diffusion Footnote 6 to augment their limited creativity. For instance,

Coca-Cola partnered with OpenAI to launch the Real Magic platform, which enables users to generate original images cards using GPT-4, DALL·E, and historical pictures from Coca-Cola’s archives. Winners of the competition had their work featured on Coca-Cola’s digital billboards in prominent locations like New York’s Times Square and London’s Piccadilly Circus. By leveraging GenAI, even users with minimal graphic design skills could participate in Coca-Cola’s initiative. However, the marketing literature suggests that customer engagement stems from the mental effort customers exert to create something novel, which fosters a sense of psychological ownership (Blut et al., 2023 ). In the absence of this sense of ownership, GenAI may potentially have a negative effect on customer engagement. Therefore, future research is essential to investigate the net effect of employing GenAI-based tools on customer engagement. Specifically, research should investigate the optimal level of GenAI use from the consumer’s perspective, so firms may enhance creativity while preserving a sense of ownership among consumers, ultimately promoting sustained customer engagement. Accordingly, we propose the following research question:

What are the consequences of employing GenAI-based tools for consumers working on customer engagement initiatives?

At the firm level, GenAI opens up brand new opportunities for firms to engage consumers by reducing the cognitive resources consumers need to participate fully in task-based CE initiatives. Firms adopt CE initiatives to access various customer resources beyond creativity, including customer network assets, persuasion capital, and knowledge stores (Harmeling et al., 2017 ). With GenAI eliminating the constraint for consumers to allocate creative resources, firms can engage even those consumers with lower levels of creativity. Thus, the potential risk of individual consumers experiencing lower psychological ownership in GenAI-driven CE initiatives may be counterbalanced by the chance for firms to reach a broader audience and access more relevant resources. Hence, there is a need for research on how firms can devise innovative CE initiatives leveraging GenAI. Specifically, future research could explore how firms can navigate the trade-off between the potential risk of generating lower individual CE and the advantages of accessing a broader consumer base. Hence, we propose the following research questions:

What novel, task-based customer engagement strategies can firms pursue using GenAI?

How can firms manage the trade-off between wider reach and lower psychological ownership in GenAI, task-based CE initiatives?

Impact of GenAI for firms and consumers

Our previous discussion highlights both the opportunities and threats for firms that use GenAI in their innovation process. We expect that as more and more firms and consumers use GenAI, their capabilities will undergo significant changes. Our conversations with top executives across various industries reveal that this is a major concern. Some of the concerns expressed include: “The number one question that everyone is asking is: What can we (marketing) contribute to firm value in the future?” or “How can we convince the boardroom that there is still need for a marketing department? They have always viewed marketing as a cost and now they have the opportunity to reduce that cost. What value can we provide?”. These concerns reflect a broader apprehension among executives regarding the evolving role of marketing in an era increasingly influenced by GenAI.

To address these concerns, we propose research questions that explore the effects of employing GenAI on: (1) the relationship between market-based assets and firm value; and (2) consumer skills, preferences, and role in the marketing processes. We summarize our research questions in Table  4 .

The post-GenAI firm: How can marketing contribute to firm value?

Our previous discussion suggests that GenAI has the potential to fundamentally transform the value of key marketing capabilities, spanning from new product development to market information management to communication (Vorhies & Morgan, 2005 ). Hence, GenAI could redefine the essence of marketing’s contribution to a firm’s sustainable competitive advantage.

Firms create value for shareholders by leveraging market-based assets (Srivastava et al., 1998 ). These key assets, whether capabilities or resources, stem from interactions with customers (Srivastava et al., 1998 ; Slotegraaf et al., 2003 ). Our previous discussion highlights how this technology reshapes interactions between firm and customers throughout the innovation process. Similarly, Huang and Rust ( 2023 ) show that GenAI changes firm-customer interactions along the customer care journey. Thus, it is reasonable to anticipate that the repeated use of GenAI by firms in their innovation and caring processes will fundamentally reshape the market-based assets available to them. For instance, we discussed earlier the potential effect of disclosing GenAI use on a key relational asset such as brand equity. As another example, the reduced reliance on consumers to conduct market research might impede the accumulation of customer knowledge, which serves as a key intellectual market-based asset. Thus, future research is needed to investigate the following question:

How does the use of GenAI alter the development and evolution of relational and intellectual market-based assets?

Second, for a market-based asset to confer a sustainable competitive advantage, it must be convertible, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable (Srivastava et al., 1998 ). Theoretically, we envision two possible effects of GenAI on market-based assets. On the one hand, the ability to generate numerous messages or new product ideas at minimal cost within minutes greatly diminishes the value of key marketing capabilities (e.g., communication, new product development), making them more susceptible to imitation and less rare. On the other hand, a unique aspect of GenAI is that its output depends on the input that users provide, suggesting a complementary relationship with key market-based assets. For instance, GenAI creates new content based on its world knowledge at the time of training. As of January 2024, the latest knowledge available to some ChatGPT models dates back September 2023. This limitation could severely hinder GenAI’s ability to produce valuable output in supporting new product development, given the frequent shifts in consumer preferences. Firms can curb the risk of creating something misaligned with current customer needs by ensuring they have up-to-date market knowledge to feed GenAI. From this perspective, GenAI necessitates complementary market-based assets to realize its full potential.

Initial empirical evidence in the literature is mixed. On the one hand, research supports a complementary view, as both Reisenbichler et al. ( 2022 ) and Reisenbichler et al. ( 2023 ) show that GenAI alone is insufficient; instead, adopting a “human-in-the-loop” approach is necessary. On the other hand, Girotra et al. ( 2023 ) find that ChatGPT-4 does not require humans to generate more and better ideas than MBA students. Thus, we conclude that the “jury is still out,” underscoring the need for future research to investigate the boundary conditions of the relationship between GenAI, marketing capabilities, and firm value.

Marketing theory suggests that whether firms will use GenAI to substitute or complement marketing depends on the competitive advantage strategy that a firm pursues, as this strategy directly influences the role of marketing in the organization (McAlister et al., 2023 ). For firms that pursue a cost-leadership strategy, marketing is typically viewed as a staff function with no authority on marketing decisions; it is likely that such firms will view GenAI as an opportunity to reduce marketing costs. Even if GenAI were only capable of producing synthetic content comparable to human-generated content, its ability to create such content at nearly zero marginal cost is noteworthy. For instance, Reisenbichler et al. ( 2022 ) demonstrate that LLMs can achieve 91% cost saving in generating text-based SEO content. In these organizations, we anticipate that marketing will limit itself to the use of off-the-shelf GenAI solutions. For firms that adopt a differentiation strategy, marketing can take on either a staff function role with control over brand image and communications only, or a line function role that is responsible for delivering business results (McAlister et al., 2023 ). In the latter case, we expect marketing to play a more prominent role in the firm’s GenAI use. For instance, marketing might be directly involved in fine-tuning GenAI foundational models. In sum, future research is needed to investigate the following questions:

How does the use of GenAI in marketing activities vary across different marketing organizations?

The post-GenAI consumer: What role?

Given the described changes in consumer and firm behavior, we conclude our roadmap of future research by offering an initial portrayal of the post-GenAI consumer and by presenting research questions regarding the role of this emerging customer in future marketing processes.

The marketing field has recognized that new technologies often alter consumer behavior (Giebelhausen et al., 2014 ; Hoffman & Novak, 2018 ). Taking this idea a step further, neuroscientists and cognitive scientists warn that delegating human cognitive abilities to technologies could lead to permanent changes in our brain structure and fundamentally alter the cognitive abilities that govern human behavior (Fajnerová et al., 2018 ). For instance, relying on GPS for navigation reduces hippocampus functioning and related orientation skills (McKinlay, 2016 ), the invention of the printing press made mnemonic capabilities and the use of rhetoric for memorization obsolete (Eisenstein, 1979 ), and the use of smartphones is linked to shorter attention spans (Wilmer et al., 2017 ). Accordingly, we argue that research at the intersection of marketing, neuroscience, and cognition should investigate how GenAI will affect the cognitive capabilities of consumers, especially with respect to creativity.

Creativity is an integral part of consumers’ daily life (Moreau & Dahl, 2005 ). Contrary to the idea of the creative genius, the cognitive literature suggests that every individual has the potential for creativity. More frequent involvement in creative cognitive processes enhances the likelihood of generating creative ideas (Ward, 2001 ). GenAI applications have been available to the general public for approximately 19 months, so it is premature to observe any significant changes. However, we anticipate that as more individuals integrate GenAI applications into their daily routines, humans may become less involved in the cognitive processes responsible for creativity. Similar to the impact of GPS on orientation skills (Fajnerová et al., 2018 ), an over-reliance on GenAI for generating novel content could potentially diminish consumers’ appreciation for creativity. Research is hence necessary to investigate what customers with lower levels of creativity will value. For instance, will they still value innovation as much as current consumers do? In sum, we propose the following research question:

How will GenAI change consumer preferences?

Finally, it is worth noting that the marketing literature has evolved in its conceptualization of the customer’s role: from being seen as the target of a firm’s offering, to being viewed as the object of orientation (Narver & Slater, 1990 ), and eventually to being recognized as a co-creator and co-producer (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004 ). As we discussed in the co-ideation section, consumers’ role as co-creators may become less relevant, especially if both consumers and employees rely on the same GenAI input for their creative output. This shift, combined with the changes in consumer’s cognitive abilities and preferences previously discussed, presents an opportunity for future research about the new role that the post-GenAI consumer may assume in the marketing processes:

What is the new role of the post-GenAI consumer in marketing processes?

This paper analyzes the latest type of artificial intelligence, GenAI, and focuses on its capacity to create novel content. We propose a roadmap of future research in two main areas. First, we propose research that explores (a) how GenAI could alter consumer creative behavior, and (b) how firms consequently must re-adapt their strategies to fully harness the innovative potential of GenAI throughout the innovation process. Second, we propose research that analyzes the consequences of using GenAI for how marketing can contribute to firm value, as well as consequences with respect to consumer preferences, skills, and role in the marketing processes. We have chosen to focus our research roadmap on innovation, which represents one of the novel elements of GenAI compared to mechanical and thinking AI (Huang & Rust, 2021 ). We conclude this paper by sketching three further areas of potential interest for marketing research on GenAI: privacy, disinformation, and contribution of marketing to GenAI research.

Previously, we discussed the technical feasibility of fine-tuning existing foundational models with a firm’s proprietary data, thus enabling firms to grasp the unique characteristics of a brand’s image and customer base. However, sharing proprietary data for fine-tuning raises privacy concerns (Huang & Rust, 2023 ). While the marketing literature has primarily focused on consumer concerns regarding data privacy (Martin & Murphy, 2017 ; Martin et al., 2017 ; Thomaz et al., 2020 ), we highlight a major concern for firms: sharing proprietary knowledge poses the risk of diminishing the scarcity of a firm’s market-based assets, potentially compromising its ability to sustain a competitive advantage. Thus, we call for future research that takes the firm perspective in order to investigate: (1) how firms can balance the advantage of supplementing their proprietary data to fully harness GenAI potential with the need to protect the sources of their competitive advantage, and (2) which firms can benefit the most from fine-tuning as well as which firms should instead exercise caution in doing so.

Second, the ability of GenAI to rapidly produce variations of the same content en masse and at negligible cost opens the floodgates to disinformation and diffusion of conspiracy theories. Traditionally, these topics have been considered a public policy issue, as political topics were the main target of these campaigns. The limited marketing research on this topic has mostly focused on providing psychological theories to explain the diffusion of conspiracy theories (Diaz Ruiz & Nilsson, 2023 ) or strategies to safeguard against it (Johar, 2022 ). However, anecdotal evidence suggests the rise of coordinated disinformation campaigns, orchestrated by ideologically motivated actors, to intentionally damage brands that take certain political stances or to favor national brands at the expense of multinationals. This has been observed, for instance, in media campaigns against Western Covid vaccines, Footnote 7 Starbucks, Footnote 8 and H&M (Sohn, 2021 ). GenAI will likely increase the frequency and scope of similar types of attacks against brands, making it a relevant topic for marketers as well. Against this background, we call for future research to: (1) quantify the impact of these orchestrated disinformation campaigns on brand equity, sales, and stock performance, and (2) investigate what mitigation strategies brands can adopt to nullify disinformation campaigns.

Finally, this manuscript offers a roadmap to conduct research about the likely contributions of GenAI to marketing. The opposite paradigm–which we call “Marketing for GenAI”–sounds equally promising. GenAI often operates like a black-box and even its creators have limited understanding of its cognitive nature. Fully harnessing the potential of GenAI requires a deeper understanding of the cognitive mechanisms through which it creates new content; this deeper understanding will help users better understand when GenAI is most likely to hallucinate, so they may develop strategies to reduce hallucination instances. Marketing has a rich tradition of decision making studies that investigate human cognitive biases (Dowling et al., 2020 ). Such knowledge can be fruitfully applied to gain rich insights on GenAI cognition (Binz and Schulz, 2023 ). Further, harnessing the full potential of GenAI requires proper prompting (Huang & Rust, 2023 ). Research indicates that LLMs are susceptible to technical biases, such as majority label bias (i.e., the model produces content that frequently appears in the prompt), recency bias (i.e., the model produces context appearing near the end of the prompt), and availability bias (i.e., the model prefers answers that are frequent in its pre-training data) (Zhao et al., 2021 ). Given the marketing field’s history of developing strategies to mitigate human biases in surveys (Hulland et al., 2018 ), we call for research to explore how these strategies could be adapted to calibrate prompts and enhance the quality of GenAI output.

Data availability

This piece is theoretical and does not include data.

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/ .

how-generative-ai-can-boost-consumer-marketing.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/18/23837273/generative-ai-advertising-oreos-cadbury-watermarking .

https://www.gartner.com/en/topics/generative-ai .

https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/05/meta-wants-to-use-generative-ai-to-create-ads/?guccounter=1 .

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/levis-ai-models-diversity-backlash-b2310280.html

Midjourney and Stable Diffusion are text-to-image tools that allow users to create images of new objects from text prompts.

https://shorturl.at/xH169 .

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/trolls-spread-hateful-fake-starbucks-coupon-n867501 .

Amabile, T. M. (2018). Creativity in context: Update to the social psychology of creativity . Routledge.

Argyle, L. P., Busby, E. C., Fulda, N., Gubler, J. R., Rytting, C., & Wingate, D. (2023). Out of one, many: Using language models to simulate human samples. Political Analysis , 31 (3), 337–351.

Article   Google Scholar  

Bai, H., Voelkel, J., Eichstaedt, J., & Willer, R. (2023). Artificial intelligence can persuade humans on political issues https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-3238396/v1.ResearchGate

Bayus, B. L. (2013). Crowdsourcing new product ideas over time: An analysis of the dell ideastorm community. Management Science , 59 (1), 226–244.

Bell, J. J., Pescher, C., Tellis, G. J., & Füller, J. (2023). Can AI help in ideation? A theory-based model for idea screening in crowdsourcing contests. Marketing Science .

Binz, M. (2023). E. Schulz (Ed.), Using cognitive psychology to understand GPT-3. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120 (6) e2218523120.

Blut, M., Kulikovskaja, V., Hubert, M., Brock, C., & Grewal, D. (2023). Effectiveness of engage- ment initiatives across engagement platforms: A meta-analysis. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , pages 1–25.

Bommasani, R., Hudson, D. A., Adeli, E., Altman, R., Arora, S., von Arx, S., Bernstein, M. S., Bohg, J., Bosselut, A., Brunskill, E. (2021). On the opportunities and risks of foundation models. arXiv preprint arXiv:2108.07258 .

Brand, J., Israeli, A., & Ngwe, D. (2023). Using GPT for market research. Available at SSRN 4395751 .

Brown, T. J., & Dacin, P. A. (1997). The company and the product: Corporate associations and consumer product responses. Journal of Marketing , 61 (1), 68–84.

Castaño, R., Sujan, M., Kacker, M., & Sujan, H. (2008). Managing consumer uncertainty in the adoption of new products: Temporal distance and mental simulation. Journal of Marketing Research , 45 (3), 320–336.

Castelo, N., Bos, M. W., & Lehmann, D. R. (2019). Task-dependent algorithm aversion. Journal of Marketing Research , 56 (5), 809–825.

Castelo, N., Boegershausen, J., Hildebrand, C., & Henkel, A. P. (2023). Understanding and improving consumer reactions to service bots. Journal of Consumer Research , 50 (4), 848–863.

Chung, T. S., Wedel, M., & Rust, R. T. (2016). Adaptive personalization using social networks. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 44 , 66–87.

Cillo, P., Priem, R. L., Verona, G., & Zanella, P. (2021). Consumer-CEO interaction as catalyst for business model innovation in established firms. Journal of Business Research , 131 , 241–253.

Dahl, D. W., & Moreau, P. (2002). The influence and value of analogical thinking during new product ideation. Journal of Marketing Research , 39 (1), 47–60.

Davenport, T., Guha, A., Grewal, D., & Bressgott, T. (2020). How artificial intelligence will change the future of marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 48 , 24–42.

Diaz Ruiz, C., & Nilsson, T. (2023). Disinformation and echo chambers: How disinformation circulates on social media through identity-driven controversies. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing , 42 (1), 18–35.

Dietvorst, B. J., Simmons, J. P., & Massey, C. (2015). Algorithm aversion: People erroneously avoid algorithms after seeing them err. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General , 144 (1), 114.

Dowling, K., Guhl, D., Klapper, D., Spann, M., Stich, L., & Yegoryan, N. (2020). Behavioral biases in marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 48 , 449–477.

Eapen, T. T., Finkenstadt, D., Folk, J., & Venkataswamy, L. (2023). How generative AI can augment human creativity. Harvard Business Review , 101 (4), 76–85.

Google Scholar  

Eisenstein, E. L. (1979). Printing Press Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural transformations in Early-Modern Europe . Cambridge University Press.

Else, H. (2023). By Chatgpt Fool Scientists . Nature, 613 , 423.

Fajnerová, I., Greguš, D., Hlinka, J., Nekovářová, T., Škoch, A., Zítka, T., Romportl, J., Žáčková, E., & Horáček, J. (2018). Could prolonged usage of gps navigation implemented in augmented reality smart glasses affect hippocampal functional connectivity? BioMed Research International , 2018.

Giebelhausen, M., Robinson, S. G., Sirianni, N. J., & Brady, M. K. (2014). Touch versus tech: When technology functions as a barrier or a benefit to service encounters. Journal of Marketing , 78 (4), 113–124.

Girotra, K., Terwiesch, C., & Ulrich, K. T. (2010). Idea generation and the quality of the best idea. Management Science , 56 (4), 591–605.

Girotra, K., Meincke, L., Terwiesch, C., & Ulrich, K. T. (2023). Ideas are dimes a dozen: Large language models for idea generation in innovation. Available at SSRN 4526071 .

Hamilton, R. (2016). Consumer-based strategy: Using multiple methods to generate consumer insights that inform strategy. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 44 , 281–285.

Han, S. J., Ransom, K. J., Perfors, A., & Kemp, C. (2024). Inductive reasoning in humans and large language models. Cognitive Systems Research , 83 , 101155.

Harmeling, C. M., Moffett, J. W., Arnold, M. J., & Carlson, B. D. (2017). Toward a theory of customer engagement marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 45 , 312–335.

Hartmann, J., Exner, Y., & Domdey, S. (2023). The power of generative marketing: Can generative AI reach human-level visual marketing content? Available at SSRN .

Hoffman, D. L., & Novak, T. P. (2018). Consumer and object experience in the internet of things: An assemblage theory approach. Journal of Consumer Research , 44 (6), 1178–1204.

Horton, J. J. (2023). Large language models as simulated economic agents: What can we learn from homo silicus? Technical report, National Bureau of Economic Research.

Huang, M. H., & Rust, R. T. (2021). A strategic framework for artificial intelligence in marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 49 , 30–50.

Huang, M. H., & Rust, R. T. (2023). The caring machine: Feeling Ai for customer care. Journal of Marketing .

Hulland, J., Baumgartner, H., & Smith, K. M. (2018). Marketing survey research best practices: Evidence and recommendations from a review of jams articles. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 46 , 92–108.

Hutson, M. (2023). Hypotheses devised by AI could find’blind spots’ in research. Nature .

Jakesch, M., Hancock, J. T., & Naaman, M. (2023). Human heuristics for ai-generated language are flawed. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 120 (11):e2208839120.

Jiang, D., Ren, X., & Lin, B. Y. (2023). LLM-blender: Ensembling large language models with pairwise ranking and generative fusion. arXiv preprint arXiv:2306.02561 .

Johar, G. V. (2022). Untangling the web of misinformation and false beliefs. Journal of Consumer Psychology , 32 (2), 374–383.

Kahn, K. B., Barczak, G., & Moss, R. (2006). Perspective: Establishing an NPD best practices framework. Journal of Product Innovation Management , 23 (2), 106–116.

Karinshak, E., Liu, S. X., Park, J. S., & Hancock, J. T. (2023). Working with AI to persuade: Examining a large language model’s ability to generate pro-vaccination messages. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction , 7 (CSCW1):1–29.

Knight, K. E. (1967). A descriptive model of the intra-firm innovation process. The Journal of Business , 40 (4), 478–496.

Koivisto, M., & Grassini, S. (2023). Best humans still outperform artificial intelligence in a creative divergent thinking task. Scientific Reports , 13 (1), 13601.

Kojima, T., Gu, S. S., Reid, M., Matsuo, Y., & Iwasawa, Y. (2022). Large language models are zero-shot reasoners. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems , 35 , 22199–22213.

Korinek, A. (2023). Generative ai for economic research: Use cases and implications for economists. Journal of Economic Literature , 61 (4), 1281–1317.

Kornish, L. J., & Jones, S. M. (2021). Raw ideas in the fuzzy front end: Verbosity increases perceived creativity. Marketing Science , 40 (6), 1106–1122.

Kreps, S., McCain, R. M., & Brundage, M. (2022). All the news that’s fit to fabricate: Ai-generated text as a tool of media misinformation. Journal of Experimental Political Science , 9 (1), 104–117.

Lambrecht, A., & Tucker, C. (2019). Algorithmic bias? An empirical study of apparent gender-based discrimination in the display of STEM career ads. Management Science , 65 (7), 2966–2981.

Leung, E., Paolacci, G., & Puntoni, S. (2018). Man versus machine: Resisting automation in identity- based consumer behavior. Journal of Marketing Research , 55 (6), 818–831.

Li, P., Castelo, N., Katona, Z., & Sarvary, M. (2024). Frontiers: Determining the validity of large language models for automated perceptual analysis. Marketing Science .

Logg, J. M., Minson, J. A., & Moore, D. A. (2019). Algorithm appreciation: People prefer algorithmic to human judgment. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes , 151 , 90–103.

Longoni, C., & Cian, L. (2022). Artificial intelligence in utilitarian vs. hedonic contexts: The word-of- machine effect. Journal of Marketing , 86 (1), 91–108.

Longoni, C., Bonezzi, A., & Morewedge, C. K. (2019). Resistance to medical artificial intelligence. Journal of Consumer Research , 46 (4), 629–650.

Lu, K., Yuan, H., Lin, R., Lin, J., Yuan, Z., Zhou, C., & Zhou, J. (2023). Routing to the expert: Efficient reward-guided ensemble of large language models. arXiv preprint arXiv:2311.08692 .

Luo, L., & Toubia, O. (2015). Improving online idea generation platforms and customizing the task structure on the basis of consumers’ domain-specific knowledge. Journal of Marketing , 79 (5), 100–114.

Luo, X., Tong, S., Fang, Z., & Qu, Z. (2019). Frontiers: Machines vs. humans: The impact of artificial intelligence chatbot disclosure on customer purchases. Marketing Science , 38 (6), 937–947.

Lysyakov, M., & Viswanathan, S. (2023). Threatened by Ai: Analyzing users’ responses to the intro- duction of AI in a crowd-sourcing platform. Information Systems Research , 34 (3), 1191–1210.

Martin, K. D., & Murphy, P. E. (2017). The role of data privacy in marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 45 , 135–155.

Martin, K. D., Borah, A., & Palmatier, R. W. (2017). Data privacy: Effects on customer and firm performance. Journal of Marketing , 81 (1), 36–58.

Mason, W., & Watts, D. J. (2012). Collaborative learning in networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 109 (3), 764–769.

McAlister, L., Germann, F., Chisam, N., Hayes, P., Lynch, A., & Stewart, B. (2023). A taxonomy of marketing organizations. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 51 (3), 617–635.

McClelland, J. L., Hill, F., Rudolph, M., Baldridge, J., & Schütze, H. (2020). Placing language in an integrated understanding system: Next steps toward human-level performance in neural language models. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 117 (42):25966–25974.

McKinlay, R. (2016). Technology: Use or lose our navigation skills. Nature , 531 (7596), 573–575.

Mende, M., Scott, M. L., van Doorn, J., Grewal, D., & Shanks, I. (2019). Service robots rising: How humanoid robots influence service experiences and elicit compensatory consumer responses. Journal of Marketing Research , 56 (4), 535–556.

Meyers, M. A. (2007). Happy accidents: Serendipity in modern medical breakthroughs . Arcade Publishing.

Moreau, C. P., & Dahl, D. W. (2005). Designing the solution: The impact of constraints on consumers’ creativity. Journal of Consumer Research , 32 (1), 13–22.

Morewedge, C. K. (2022). Preference for human, not algorithm aversion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences , 26 (10), 824–826.

Morgan, R. M., & Hunt, S. D. (1994). The commitment-trust theory of relationship marketing. Journal of Marketing , 58 (3), 20–38.

Moulard, J. G., Raggio, R. D., & Folse, J. A. G. (2021). Disentangling the meanings of brand au- thenticity: The entity-referent correspondence framework of authenticity. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 49 , 96–118.

Mumford, M. D., & Simonton, D. K. (1997). Creativity in the workplace: People, problems, and structures. The Journal of Creative Behavior , 31 (1), 1–6.

Narver, J. C., & Slater, S. F. (1990). The effect of a market orientation on business profitability. Journal of Marketing , 55 (4), 20–35.

Noble, S. M., & Mende, M. (2023). The future of artificial intelligence and robotics in the retail and service sector: Sketching the field of consumer-robot-experiences. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 51 (4), 747–756.

Paharia, N., Keinan, A., Avery, J., & Schor, J. B. (2011). The underdog effect: The marketing of disadvantage and determination through brand biography. Journal of Consumer Research , 37 (5), 775–790.

Pansari, A., & Kumar, V. (2017). Customer engagement: The construct, antecedents, and consequences. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 45 , 294–311.

Plangger, K., Grewal, D., de Ruyter, K., & Tucker, C. (2022). The future of digital technologies in marketing: A conceptual framework and an overview. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 50 (6), 1125–1134.

Prahalad, C. K., & Ramaswamy, V. (2004). Co-creation experiences: The next practice in value creation. Journal of Interactive Marketing , 18 (3), 5–14.

Puntoni, S., Reczek, R. W., Giesler, M., & Botti, S. (2021). Consumers and artificial intelligence: An experiential perspective. Journal of Marketing , 85 (1), 131–151.

Raithel, S., Hock, S. J., & Mafael, A. (2023). Product recall effectiveness and consumers’ participation in corrective actions. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , pages 1–20.

Reisenbichler, M., Reutterer, T., Schweidel, D. A., & Dan, D. (2022). Frontiers: Supporting content marketing with natural language generation. Marketing Science , 41 (3), 441–452.

Reisenbichler, M., Reutterer, T., & Schweidel, D. A. (2023). Applying large language models to sponsored search advertising. Technical report, MSI Working Paper Series.

Ringel, D. (2023). Creating synthetic experts with generative artificial intelligence. Available at SSRN 4542949 .

Rubera, G., Ordanini, A., & Mazursky, D. (2010). Toward a contingency view of new product creativity: Assessing the interactive effects of consumers. Marketing Letters , 21 , 191–206.

Rubera, G., Chandrasekaran, D., & Ordanini, A. (2016). Open innovation, product portfolio innovativeness and firm performance: The dual role of new product development capabilities. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 44 , 166–184.

Scopelliti, I., Cillo, P., Busacca, B., & Mazursky, D. (2014). How do financial constraints affect creativity? Journal of Product Innovation Management , 31 (5), 880–893.

Sewon, M., Xinxi, L., Holtzman, A., Artetxe, M., Lewis, M., Hannaneh, H., & Zettlemoyer, L. (2022). Rethinking the role of demonstrations: What makes in-context learning work? arXiv preprint arXiv:2202.12837 .

Slotegraaf, R. J., Moorman, C., & Inman, J. J. (2003). The role of firm resources in returns to market deployment. Journal of Marketing Research , 40 (3), 295–309.

Sohn, A. (2021). The future of disinformation operations and the coming war on brands . Network Contagion Research Institute, Rutgers University.

Srivastava, R. K., Shervani, T. A., & Fahey, L. (1998). Market-based assets and shareholder value: A framework for analysis. Journal of Marketing , 62 (1), 2–18.

Stephen, A. T., Zubcsek, P. P., & Goldenberg, J. (2016). Lower connectivity is better: The effects of network structure on redundancy of ideas and customer innovativeness in interdependent ideation tasks. Journal of Marketing Research , 53 (2), 263–279.

Stevenson, C. E., ter Veen, M., Choenni, R., van der Maas, H. L., & Shutova, E. (2023). Do large language models solve verbal analogies like children do? arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.20384 .

Thomaz, F., Salge, C., Karahanna, E., & Hulland, J. (2020). Learning from the dark web: Leveraging conversational agents in the era of hyper-privacy to enhance marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 48 , 43–63.

Toubia, O., & Netzer, O. (2017). Idea generation, creativity, and prototypicality. Marketing Science , 36 (1), 1–20.

Ukanwa, K., & Rust, R. T. (2020). Algorithmic discrimination in service . SSRN.

Vartanian, O., Martindale, C., & Kwiatkowski, J. (2003). Creativity and inductive reasoning: The relationship between divergent thinking and performance on Wason’s 2–4—6 task. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A , 56 (4), 1–15.

Vaswani, A., Shazeer, N., Parmar, N., Uszkoreit, J., Jones, L., Gomez, A. N., Kaiser, Ł., & Polosukhin, I. (2017). Attention is all you need. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems , 30.

Vorhies, D. W., & Morgan, N. A. (2005). Benchmarking marketing capabilities for sustainable compet- itive advantage. Journal of Marketing , 69 (1), 80–94.

Ward, T. B. (2001). Creative cognition, conceptual combination, and the creative writing of stephen r. donaldson. American Psychologist , 56 (4), 350.

Webb, T., Holyoak, K. J., & Lu, H. (2023). Emergent analogical reasoning in large language models. Nature Human Behaviour , 7 (9), 1526–1541.

Wei, J., Wang, X., Schuurmans, D., Bosma, M., Xia, F., Chi, E., Le, Q. V., Zhou, D., et al. (2022). Chain- of-thought prompting elicits reasoning in large language models. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems , 35 , 24824–24837.

Wilmer, H. H., Sherman, L. E., & Chein, J. M. (2017). Smartphones and cognition: A review of research exploring the links between mobile technology habits and cognitive functioning. Frontiers in Psychology , 8 , 605.

Winterich, K. P., Reczek, R. W., & Makov, T. (2023). How lack of knowledge on emissions and psychological biases deter consumers from taking effective action to mitigate climate change. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , pages 1–20.

Yang, H., Li, M., Xiao, Y., Zhou, H., Zhang, R., & Fang, Q. (2023). One llm is not enough: Harnessing the power of ensemble learning for medical question answering. medRxiv , pages 2023–12.

Zečević, M., Willig, M., Dhami, D. S., & Kersting, K. (2023). Causal parrots: Large language models may talk causality but are not causal. arXiv preprint arXiv:2308.13067 .

Zhang, Y., & Gosline, R. (2023). Human favoritism, not AI aversion: People’s perceptions (and bias) toward generative ai, human experts, and human–GAI collaboration in persuasive content generation. Judgment and Decision Making , 18 , e41.

Zhang, H., Li, L. H., Meng, T., Chang, K. W., & Broeck, G. V. (2022). d. On the paradox of learning to reason from data. arXiv preprint arXiv:2205.11502 .

Zhao, Z., Wallace, E., Feng, S., Klein, D., & Singh, S. (2021). Calibrate before use: Improving few-shot performance of language models. In International Conference on Machine Learning , pages 12697–12706. PMLR.

Download references

Open access funding provided by Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi within the CRUI-CARE Agreement.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Management & Technology, Bocconi University, Via Roentgen 1, Milano, 20121, Italy

Paola Cillo

DIR - Claudio Dematte’ Research Division, SDA Bocconi School of Management, Via Sarfatti 10, Milano, 20136, Italy

Paola Cillo & Gaia Rubera

Department of Marketing, Bocconi University, Via Roentgen 1, Milano, 20121, Italy

Gaia Rubera

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Paola Cillo .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

John Hulland served as Editor for this article.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cillo, P., Rubera, G. Generative AI in innovation and marketing processes: A roadmap of research opportunities. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-024-01044-7

Download citation

Accepted : 22 July 2024

Published : 26 August 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-024-01044-7

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Generative artificial intelligence
• Marketing strategy
• Marketing capabilities
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research