How to do a survey on concept testing?

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Concept Testing is a research method in market research that involves asking customers their opinion on concepts or ideas for the company’s product and services.

A Concept Testing Survey, just like any other survey, allows a company to evaluate product concepts, ad campaigns, marketing messages, etc. You can develop a survey questionnaire to examine whether your customers will agree to the ideas or not before the launch.

Other than surveys you can also arrange for Focus groups or Interviews for the purpose of Concept Testing. You can follow the list below to understand the key elements that can help you gather answers for your concept testing survey.

Factors to consider before designing concept testing surveys

Concept testing in market research doesn’t replace the ideation stage of a development cycle. It simply helps you explore the concept, its benefits, and features and captures the requirements of the target audience.

This survey enables you to listen to the audience’s views and understand how viable the concept is for the target market. Let’s look into key factors that you should understand before you begin designing a survey for concept testing.

1. The right way to test the concept:

Identify your target customers and involve them in evaluating the concepts. Leverage online survey tools to design surveys with descriptions, graphics, or images of the basic idea for the service or product.

2. Types of concept testing:

There could be a variety of reasons to conduct concept testing surveys. It’s best to identify the goal of the test and design your survey accordingly.

→ New product concept:

Understand customer needs to prioritize product development.
Determine features that align with the needs.

→ Product update:

Determine “need to have” features and benefits that make the upgraded product a successful launch.

→ Product usability:

Assess the user experience to understand how it can be improved.
Evaluate the ease of use, ability to adapt, usage patterns, feature implementations, etc.

→ Pricing:

Focus on determining price, cross-product tie-ins, cost-mitigations and more to understand price perception in relation to value.

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Concept testing survey structure

Customers won’t appreciate it if they have to spend a lot of their time reading and understanding the questions. Make sure your concept testing survey is short and easy to understand. The answer options should also be simple and unambiguous.

These elements can be used to structure your concept-testing survey to gain relevant answers. You can follow a guide to gather credible results to help make decisions regarding the purpose of the survey.

Define the purpose of the survey

Before you design your survey, you and the team must define the goal of the survey. What you wish to achieve, the meaning, and what you won’t be able to learn from the survey should all be cleared up.

With a clear goal, you can develop appropriate questions that can bring you the answers that you need for making decisions.

Include questions that are relevant to the survey. Discuss with the team about the kind of questions that should be included in the questionnaire. There may be some questions that you may want to include. However, if the questions do not provide any information that supports the goal, it is better to remove them.

Introduce the concept you want to test

The customer should be made aware of what the survey is about. Provide a clear and simple context describing the Concept. This will help the customers by providing helpful answers.

To introduce the concept, you can use written descriptions, images, videos, or infographics, depending on the format you use for the concept testing survey. Make sure you introduce it in brief with no use of technical jargon. It is also best to avoid explaining how great your product is. This may lead to a biased response.

Use screening questions to filter out respondents

You have to make sure you are surveying the right audience for the Concept Testing survey. Screening questions can ensure that the respondents fit your target customers. You can also identify how the different demographic segments feel about the concept and to which segment it appeals the most.

Using screening questions, you gather better data on different segments. You can figure out the consumer behavior of each segment and which factor of the concept interests them. By identifying the various features of the product that attract each segment, you can plan a successful product launch.

Questions about the likes/dislikes and preferences

The like or dislike questions help narrow down the audience who fit your target market. Asking such questions can help you see the concept from the customer’s point of view.

You can use a Likert scale to ask questions on what they like or dislike. The scale may range from “I like it to “I don’t like it.” You can follow it up with an open-ended question to ask the reason behind their answer. This can help identify the features that attract the respondents and motivate them to buy.

The customer’s response can help the company optimize the product based on the reasoning provided by the audience. It helps figure out what customers view as the USP of the product and you can use it for advantage.

Asses against competitors

You may also include questions that assess your concept against the competitors to understand how your concept will perform in the market. Ask your customers questions about the same product category in the market and their consumption patterns/ behavior. This way, you can learn what you will need to do to ensure the success of the concept when launched.

When creating the questions, make sure you don’t use leading questions. Such questions will give respondents the impression of what kind of answers you want from them. This will lead to biased responses, and you won’t be able to gather accurate results.

Identify the purchase probability

Finding a product or service attractive and buying it are two different concepts. While questions of like or dislike will tell you the interest customers may have in the product/ service, you also need to ask how likely they are to purchase.

Questions about the likelihood of purchase can help you narrow down your target audience. It will give you a list of audiences who are willing to buy from your brand the concept that you are surveying them for. You can target these audiences for further surveys to understand the reason for their willingness to purchase.

For Products, you can ask questions like where or how they would like to purchase the product.
For Services, you can ask the respondents how they would prefer to be contacted to purchase the service.

Price analysis questions

When you have a lot of participants accepting the concept and willing to buy, you can use a price analysis question in your concept testing survey. You can ask them what they think of the price decided by the company. You can also ask them if there is a price range that they think would fit the product when it hits the market.

It will give you insight into how appropriate the price and product are according to the customers.

Question them on their willingness to buy

If the customers are theoretically willing to buy the product, you can ask them.

When they may use the product
How often they may use it
Where would they use the product

Responses to these questions will give you insight into how different customers perceive and understand the usage of a product. You will learn about other situations where your products may be used, which you and your team may not have thought of or considered before as a possibility.

Consequently, it gives you data to validate the concept before the launch. These new insights also provide you with different ideas to promote your product.

Thank respondents for participation

Lastly, you cannot end the survey without showing appreciation to the respondents. You should thank the respondents for spending a few minutes to help your company out with the survey. You can also ask them if they would be willing to participate in more surveys in the future. You can offer them incentives to influence them to take the survey. However, don’t forget to thank them and show appreciation.

A Concept Testing Survey can help you identify not only the weaknesses in the ideas but also the unique features that make them better than the rest.

Concept testing survey questions

How likely are you to buy this product when launched in the market? 1(least likely) to 10(most likely)
What was your initial thought about the product?
On a scale of 1 to 7, how useful would you say the Product is? (1 least to 7 most useful)
Which feature did you like the most in Product-Concept 1?
What factors did you like the most in Product-Concept 2?
How often do you purchase (Competitor’s product)?
Which Product are you most likely to purchase from the list?
What do you think about the determined price of the product?
Given the chance, how would you price the product?
Where would you like to buy the product?
How do you think you would use the product?