Marketing research: how to draw up a questionnaire

At the beginning of entrepreneurial activity, there may not be funds to pay for the services of a professional marketer. Neglecting market research is unacceptable. This can lead to a waste of available funds. A simple questionnaire for marketing research can be done independently.

Instruction manual

1

Make a list of questions that need to be answered in the course of marketing research. Sometimes entrepreneurs themselves do not know what they need from the market. The questions formulated in writing will help to better understand the objectives of the study.

2

Highlight the most important question from the list. The questionnaire will be dedicated to him. If other questions are also urgently needed, get other questionnaires for them. Otherwise, you risk confusing yourself and confusing people who will answer the questionnaire. Follow the rule "One marketing research = finding the answer to one question."

3

Write different wordings of the main question. You know that there are audiences, visuals and kinesthetics. These are people who perceive and interpret the same information in different ways. That is, they do not equally understand the question asked. If necessary, find out more about these types of people. Formulate the same question in different ways to “fit” it into the perception of any person who will answer the questionnaire. Please note - now we are talking about only one question on the questionnaire that you found in the 2nd step.

4

“Dilute” your wording with questions about other events or things. People are usually afraid to give a “wrong” answer to a question. They can lie by answering questionnaire questions to seem smart. Therefore, you must make sure that they do not guess what you want to know. To do this, different formulations of your main question must be placed in different parts of the questionnaire, between other questions that are not relevant and do not interest you at all. This little trick will allow you to get a true picture from the market being researched.

5

Test the received form. Choose 100 people, let them answer the questionnaire. Analyze their answers. The purpose of the analysis is to find out which wording of the questions people do not understand.

6

Make the necessary adjustments to the text. Formulate obscure questions differently.

note

Not all readers of the questionnaire will understand what you want to achieve from them. Sometimes clarifications to difficult issues are required. If appropriate, give examples of answers. But make sure that you don’t push the person into the “right” or answers you need. Otherwise, the results of the study will be distorted.

Useful advice

If the questionnaire for marketing research will be distributed to people in print, increase the font of the text. Make sure that people with low vision do not have to peer into the small text.