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Market surveys are an important part of market research that measure the feelings and preferences of customers in a given market. Varying greatly in size, design, and purpose, market surveys are one of the main pieces of data that companies and organizations use in determining what products and services to offer and how to market them. These steps will teach you the basics of how to make a market survey and offer tips for optimizing your results.



  1. 1
    Determine and define the nature, extent, and size of your market.
    • Before conducting a survey in a given market, you need to know what market you're targeting. Choose geographic and demographic parameters, identify customers by types of product, and get an idea of how many people there are in the market.
    • Narrow your market research to a short list of desired data: buying habits, for example, or average income.
  2. 2
    Determine what aspects of the market you want to investigate.
  3. 3
    Find out where and when you can reach customers in your market.
    • You might conduct a survey at the mall or on the street, via telephone, online, or through the mail. Your results may change based on the time of day and year. Choose a method and time that best suits your research.
  4. 4
    Choose a sample size.
    • Your sample size should be as large as possible to maximize the accuracy of your results. You may want to create sub-samples—e.g., "males," "18-24 year-olds," etc.—to decrease the risk of biasing your results towards certain types of people.
  5. 5
    Prepare a list of questions with answers that will provide the data you need for your market research.
    • Your questions should be pointed and specific. Craft questions with answers you can predict. Do not ask the same thing in two different ways. Try to use as few words as possible.
  6. 6
    Devise a way to quantify the answers you receive.
    • If you are asking about preferences, you may want to ask respondents to rank their feelings numerically or using keywords. If you are asking about money, use ranges of values. If your answers will be descriptive, decide how to group these responses after the survey is complete so that they can be grouped in categories.
  7. 7
    Identify variables that might affect your results (usually characteristics of people who are more likely to answer surveys) and figure out how to reduce their influence.
  8. 8
    Set a time period and location for your survey that is likely to result in the largest sample size.
  9. 9
    Prepare your survey forms.
  10. 10
    Conduct your survey, maximizing sample size and accuracy of responses.


  • It's always better to make pointed, specific surveys than to try to cover a broad array of topics in one survey. The fewer topics you try to cover, the more detailed and useful the data you receive will be.
  • Provide accurate results. It is much better to provide accurate results from a small sample, than add "fake" results, just to increase your sample.


  • Don't conduct a survey unless you've already given your forms to practice cases to ensure that your questions make sense, the answers you receive are easily quantifiable, and the survey is easy to complete.

Things You'll Need

  • Goals for market research
  • Information on the size and nature of the market
  • Design the type of the Market Survey (online, on the road etc)

Article Info

Categories: Business | Research and Review

In other languages:

Español: hacer un estudio de mercado, Português: Fazer um Estudo de Mercado, Italiano: Fare un'Indagine di Mercato, Deutsch: Eine Marktbefragung durchführen, Русский: провести маркетинговое исследование

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