How to Create a Market Research Survey- Step-by-Step Guide

by
Chris
Feb 17, 2025

Create a Market Research Survey

Market research surveys are a key to understanding your target audience. They provide useful insights into the market landscape, customer behavior, and preferences to make informed decisions.  

However, crafting an effective survey can feel overwhelming. Where to begin?

How can we ensure our approach is efficient? And most importantly, how can we transform feedback into actionable data? 

The answer lies in understanding the concept of market research and following a proven research process for success. 

This blog is your ultimate guide to understanding market research surveys, their impact on transforming business dynamics, the various types available, and a step-by-step process for creating a market research survey. We’ll also explore how AI is revolutionizing how businesses conduct and analyze market research.

Let’s get started!

What is a market research survey?

A market research survey is a method of getting feedback from your target customers directly to understand them better and gain market insights. These surveys provide a clear comprehension of customer inclinations, behaviors, and needs, guiding strategies for growth and improvement. They can be as specific as getting feedback on features of your product or as general as asking people about their day-to-day needs. 

Why do you need market research surveys for business?

Everyone running a business knows how important it is to get to know your customers 

What do they want out of the product? What price attracts them the most? Is there a specific feature they are looking for? What are the reasons they are choosing us over competitors? 

These are all important questions to consider before launching your product. 

Let’s assume you want to start a business for energy drinks. You need to know who your target audience is. Are you targeting athletes, bar-goers, and grocery shoppers, or are you planning to open a dedicated energy drink outlet? 

Each decision you are going to make requires a deep understanding of your customers.

That’s where a market research survey plays its role. 

Market research surveys provide insights into your brand's value, customer needs, and satisfaction. It includes gathering market data, analyzing results, and uncovering market trends that tell businesses how to proceed. By collecting and analyzing data, companies can make informed choices about positioning their products, refining their strategies, and attracting more customers. 

The Synergy Between Market ResearchTypes and Market Research Surveys 

Market Research Type Purpose Survey Applications Benefits
Exploratory Research It investigates market trends and opportunities without predefined results. Open-ended feedback surveys Clarifies the scope and nature of a problem.

Build a solid knowledge base for future assessments.
Descriptive Research It is structured research that describes a subject’s demographics, behavior, or phenomena. Online Customer satisfaction surveys

Usage and attitude (U&A) surveys
It can employ both qualitative and quantitative methods.

Offer detailed customer information.
Causal Research Causal research identifies the cause-and-effect relationship between variables. Price sensitivity surveys

Marketing campaign impact surveys
Determines the impact of changes in companies.

Validates strategic decisions.
Quantitative Research Quantitative research analyzes numerical data for measurable insights. Multiple-choice surveys

Likert scale surveys

NPS (Net Promoter Score) surveys
Describe and predict market trends.

Control variables of interest.
Qualitative Research Explore in-depth customer motivations, emotions, and attitudes. Open-text surveys

AI conversational surveys
Provide more profound insights into real-world problems.
Competitive Research It gathers information about competitors' strengths, weaknesses, and market positions. Competitor comparison surveys

Brand perception surveys

It mitigates risks and maintains a Competitive advantage.

A Complete Guide On How To Create A Market Research Survey?

A well-designed survey provides valuable consumer insights and supports data-driven decision-making. Following are the steps to creating a good survey:

Set Clear Objectives

The first step to creating a market research survey is to set some goals or objectives. 

They are important because they help you ask the right questions from the right audience and boost your growth. However, before setting goals, deciding what information to collect is important. 

Here is a quick checklist of  some key elements to clarify: 

What is the purpose of your survey? 

What are you hoping to achieve?

Who your target audience is? 

How the survey result will influence your decisions? 

What constraints should you consider? 

Read - Market Research Survey Questions to Drive Business Success

Without clarifying information and setting goals, you risk creating irrelevant surveys and wasting effort and resources.  

But here’s the good news! TheySaid’s AI-powered platform eliminates the guesswork in defining your goals. Here's how:

  • Instead of starting from scratch, TheySaid uses your company data to identify your business objectives.
  • TheySaid's AI creates intelligent, focused questions based on your objectives to provide helpful information.

Choose the right survey platform

Selecting the proper online market research tool can simplify the whole research process and enable you to understand your customers, increase your response rate, gauge market size, and provide actionable insights.

Consider the following factors while choosing the right survey platform:

Ease of Use

Seek out platforms with easy-to-use navigation and intuitive UI.

Personalization Choices

Can you customize your research survey using this survey tool? Your surveys will be more interesting and aligned with your objectives if you have customizable branding, question types, and templates.

Advanced Features 

Modern platforms, like Theysaid, offer AI-driven features :

  • AI-driven survey creation and analysis
  • Real-time feedback collection
  • Automated insights and trend detection.

Scalability and Cost

Consider budget-friendly pricing options and evaluate the platform's ability to develop with your business as survey demands increase. 

The search for the perfect survey platform ends with TheySaid, built to simplify and elevate your research:

  • Create professional surveys in seconds.
  • Make surveys more engaging with AI-driven conversations.
  • Distribute via email, QR codes, Slack, or in-app prompts.
  • Turn raw data into actionable results with automated AI analysis.

Write survey questions that deliver insights

The clarity of your questions immediately influences the quality of the facts you gather. Ambiguous questions can lead to confusion and unreliable replies. To avoid this, write clear, simple, and concise questions. Furthermore, avoid jargon, leading questions, or complicated language that could prejudice the responses. The following are some types of questions that can be used in the survey: 

  • Closed-ended questions (e.g., multiple-choice) help collect quantitative data and are easier to examine.
  • Open-ended questions allow respondents to discover more specific and qualitative insights.
  • Scaled-response questions (e.g., Likert scales) enable you to gauge attitudes, opinions, or satisfaction on a scale, offering a way to capture intensity and sentiments.

How TheySaid Simplifies Question Writing

No more struggling with survey questions!

  • AI-Generated Questions: Enter your goals, and TheySaid does the rest.
  • Smart Suggestions: Get recommendations for the best question formats.
  • Easy Edits: AI helps refine questions for clarity and impact.

Test your survey

Before distributing your survey, conduct a pilot test with a small yet representative group from your intended audience. This testing phase helps uncover any issues regarding question clarity, the length of the survey, or the general flow. 

Moreover, input from the test group about how the questions are comprehended and their experience taking the survey. Based on this feedback, adjustments can be made to improve question-wording, simplify instructions, or decrease the survey length to maintain respondent engagement and reduce dropout rates.

Distribute Your Survey

Distribute your survey so that it reaches your selected audience quickly. Various survey distribution methods can increase the reach of your questionnaire.  

If your survey is related to a product or service, you can share it via your website by embedding a link to the questionnaire.  Other effective distribution methods include:

  • Email
  • SMS
  • Survey Platforms
  • QR Codes
  • Slack

Choose the method that best suits your audience for maximum reach and engagement.

With TheySaid, reaching your audience is simple:

  • Send surveys directly to their inboxes through email.
  • Pop them upright inside your app for instant engagement.
  • Use QR codes to make it easy to access in physical spaces.
  • Share on Slack to connect with teams or clients effortlessly.

10 tips for creating market research surveys

Following are the top 10 survey designing tips: 

  1. Define the purpose of your survey clearly.  
  2. Keep the market research survey concise and relevant to your audience. 
  3. Avoid jargon or overly complex phrases.  
  4. Use advanced resources and AI tools like Theysaid to help you create your survey. 
  5. Set timelines on how many times and when you will send your survey. 
  6. Consider adding incentives and rewards like gift cards and discounts.  
  7. Avoid leading and biased questions that can lead to inaccurate responses.  
  8. Ask only what’s necessary so as not to overwhelm your respondents.  
  9. Combine multiple-choice, rating scales, and open-ended questions. 
  10.  Use AI  insights to make data-driven decisions. 

The power of AI in the survey

Creating surveys with AI has become faster and more efficient. AI-powered survey tools like Theysaid allow users to create surveys in seconds tailored to their target audience, eliminating the complexities of traditional survey methods. 

  • One of the best features is conversational AI, which provides detailed survey insights by exploring the why behind the feedback. 
  • AI-moderated interviews enable conducting interviews at scale while capturing deep, qualitative data. 
  • TheySaid also provides automated survey analysis, summarizing trends and identifying actionable items effortlessly. This allows companies to adapt strategies promptly and efficiently, staying ahead of shifting markets and client demands. 

Create a market research survey with Theysaid

Market research surveys are a valuable tool for gathering data to improve your business. Creating market surveys has never been easier with Theysaid, the world’s first conversational AI survey platform. 

All you have to do is enter your business website, and our AI will scan your business details and create customized questions for your target audience in seconds. 

It allows you to easily embed surveys in your current customer flow through website, app, email campaigns, or even QR codes. 

Evo, our chatbot, gets additional customer feedback to understand the reasoning behind their responses, making the whole survey process engaging. 

Sign up for free today and see how TheySaid can transform your market research!

FAQs

What is the difference between market and marketing research?

Market research targets collecting data about consumer behaviors and market trends from a market, while marketing research is concerned with investigating the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing activities. 

What are the common mistakes to avoid when creating a market research survey?

Some common mistakes to avoid while creating a market research survey are: 

  • Using leading and double-barreled questions
  • Lengthy survey 
  • Neglecting clear objectives 
  • Ambiguous questions 
  • Asking the wrong audience 
  • Forcing respondents to answer 
  • Choosing the wrong distribution method 
  • Using the wrong market research techniques 

Can AI help with survey analysis?

Yes, AI tools like TheySaid can quickly analyze responses, identify trends, and provide actionable insights.

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