I received a question about what types of questions you should ask if you’re doing consumer research. The answer is that it depends on what you want to know.

The very first step is to clarify what exactly you want to know. Are you trying to understand:

• How much brand awareness does your product or service have? (ie how many people have heard of and know what your product or service does?)
• Will your product or service will meet the needs of a particular group of prospects?
• Why do current customers buy your product or service?
• How satisfied are current customers are with your product or service?

If you are looking to introduce a new product or service into your marketplace, the first step is almost always looking into secondary research such as industry reports and trade magazines. There are two broad categories for research:

• Primary research - Research you collect yourself though surveys, interviews, focus groups, and monitoring of prospect actions.
• Secondary research - Survey results and data you collect from other studies published in your industry.

Odds are, wherever there’s a profitable market, there will be consultancies, research groups, and trade organizations collecting information about that market. This is usually the place to start because someone has already done much of the research for you. Secondary research can shed new light on your ideas and bring to light new ideas that you might not have thought of.

Inc.com had a great article a few years back that emphasized the importance of research when starting a company or launching a new product or service:

• Who, if anyone, has a real need for the thing I propose to sell, and how many of those potential customers are there?
• How much, if anything, are they spending to address that need today?
• Does my product meet that need in a manner that either saves or makes them substantial amounts of money?

After you’ve collected as much as you can about your industry, your next step will be getting opinions from other people. Talk to as many people as you can. If you have a product that can be demoed, let people play around with it and then ask them what they thought of it, if they’d use it in their jobs, what they would consider paying, what additional features they’d like, etc. The questions must be highly specialized to your product and be directly relevant to what you want to know in order for the research to be effective.

For professional services, the focus may be somewhat different. In an article published by FindLaw on Making The Most Of Client Surveys, author Charles Maddock discusses what types of key issues are best evaluated by surveys. He mentions:

• How satisfied are clients with the firm–and with other firms?
• What factors trigger referrals to the firm? Who makes the decision?
• How important are conflict of interest issues, geographic considerations, specialized practice area expertise, familiarity with local jurisdiction and customs, record of success and prominence in the field, rates and billing procedures, personal chemistry and/or reputation of individual attorney, historical relationships and lowest-cost provider in terms of client selection, retention and growth?
• What role does a law firm’s marketing effort play in the client’s selection of an outside firm? Or do clients only switch when they perceive a change in the firm’s overall quality?
• What is the “image” of the firm?
• How important is quality in the hiring and retention of a law firm?
• Are there practice areas that are likely to grow due to increased need for the firm services? Are there areas that are likely to shrink?

Again, the questions you ask will depend on your specific objective and how you are collecting the information. For example, if you are conducting personal interviews, you’ll look for more open ended questions and suggestions, while if you are conducting a survey, many of your questions will involve ratings on a scale (of 1-5 or 1-10).

There are no one-size-fits-all questionnaires out there that will work in all scenarios because if you are seriously collecting research, what you want to know will be highly specific to your objectives for conducting the research.

Update 3/10: Here’s a great link to QuickMBA.com’s Steps to Developing a Questionnaire.

• Attracting and Keeping Consumer Attention
• Consumers Still Hate Intrusive Advertisements
• Understanding Consumer 2.0 (FOOA 2007)
• Marketing - More than Just Advertising and Selling
• Search Engine Market Share

Categories: Marketing Research