Follow-Up Surveys
Episode #10 of the course How to conduct a market research survey by Nick Freiling
Welcome to the last lesson of the course!
You’ve completed your market research survey and presented your findings to investors. Now what? If you did your survey right, it’s likely your findings created more questions than they answered (that’s a good thing!). That said, consider ways you could run another survey to dig deeper into some of the more interesting things you learned.
For example, say women with young children were the most likely to show interest in your product. A follow-up survey would be of just these types of people, to uncover why exactly they are interested and how you might market your product to grab their attention. They’re going to be your biggest customers, so you want to learn all you can.
Or maybe you learned that your product isn’t viable—that willingness to pay is lower than your production costs. A follow-up might home in on just what is keeping willingness to pay so low, and may focus only on respondents who reported high interest but low willingness to pay.
Below is a list of ideas for common follow-up surveys. This isn’t exhaustive, but it should give you more than enough to think about for your next few market research surveys.
1. Consumer type deep dives. Did a certain type of consumer show more interest in your product than the others? Consider surveying only those types of people, to dig deeper into just what drives their interest.
2. Product feature zoom-in. If you tested any product features in your survey, consider homing in on ones that were either the most popular or the least popular. Learn what exactly consumers like about your product and whether it’s worth your time to include features that didn’t spark much excitement.
3. Price elasticity study. In this kind of study, you present four or five different price points to different groups of your respondents. In doing so, you can see how demand for your product falls as price goes up—an invaluable finding for investors, who want to know the expected ROI of their investment in you.
4. Regional targeting study. If you suspect your product may be more popular in some geographical regions than in others, here’s where you test that idea. Gather responses from a particular region that interests you, then compare their responses to the larger, less-defined region. In doing so, you can learn if a particular region is a better place to launch your product.
5. Focus group. This involves getting twelve to 15 people in a room all at the same time and asking them questions about your product. This isn’t an online survey, of course, but it’s the natural next step after online surveys are complete. It’s the place to test particular looks-and-feels, once your product is just weeks away from going to market.
The bottom line here is that your journey into the world of market research has only just begun! In fact, market research surveys only become more important as your business grows—as your customer base grows and small changes to a product’s price or features have a bigger impact on your sales.
That’s all for this course. Thanks for reading!
Nick
P.S. Follow me on Twitter to get regular updates about tips on market research surveys.
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