5 Key Questions to Ask Your Audience When Conducting Market Research Ask your customers these five important questions to conduct effective market research and get a better understanding of your audience.
By Nicola Moors Edited by Chelsea Brown
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
How many offers have you launched that didn't get a single buyer? I'd wager that this scenario has played out in most (if not all) businesses. While there are many reasons this can happen, the most common reason I see as a launch strategist and copywriter is a lack of research.
The thing is, you can't afford to skip market research. Research is crucial to understand your audience (and create marketing that attracts them), validate your ideas and create other offers.
In fact, the best way to write copy that sells is to possess a deep knowledge of your audience. Every time I write copy for my clients, I conduct extensive research into their offer, audience and brand. At the minimum, I recommend knowing their motivations for buying from you, the transformation they want, what objections they have and who else they buy from.
My favorite way to get intel directly from your audience is to conduct surveys. They can be automated easily and baked into ongoing emails like onboarding or welcome sequences.
To grab the best information, I recommend adding surveys at each stage of your customer journey and surveying both people who have bought from you and those who are yet to become customers.
And here are my top five research questions you should ask your audience:
Related: The Key to Elevating Your Market Research Strategy1. What was going on in your life that made you sign up for [your offer]?
Use this question on a thank-you page for a lead magnet or in a post-launch for customers who bought a product or service.
This question is designed to uncover the problems in your audience's life in their own words. Often, people will describe the motivation behind the action, which gives you information on the decision behind their purchase.
When asking this question in a post-launch survey, I add a follow-up such as, "How was this problem showing up in your daily life?" to capture specific scenarios that I can re-use in the sales copy. These specific scenarios make the audience feel seen.
One example of this was with a client who taught creatives how to license their artwork. On the face of it, you might presume their key motivation was to make money.
After conducting surveys and customer interviews, I discovered that most of her audience was coming from a 9-5 background, and their key motivation to buy this course was to ditch the corporate lifestyle and embrace their creativity.
By highlighting this information in the sales emails, I wrote messaging that appealed to the audience. Eventually, the launch more than doubled its original sales goal.
2. How else have you solved this problem?
This question highlights other solutions (which may be competitors for your offers) your audience has sought, tried or even bought.
The number one aim of marketing is to position your solution as better than other solutions out there. To do this, we must first understand the other solutions your potential customers use instead.
Your job now is to position your offer as faster, easier or better than that.
3. How would you describe [your offer] to a friend or peer?
I'm always curious about how customers would describe my (or my clients') offers to their friends.
Why? Because it highlights parts of the offer they deem most important — and the results may be surprising.
Successful marketing mirrors the language of its audience, so if there's a pattern to the answers, you can re-use those points in the offer's positioning statement.
Related: 4 Essential Questions Your Market Research Should Always Answer
4. What helped you to overcome any hesitations you had about signing up?
This question will reveal anything else that almost prevented your audience from buying your offer and how they overcame that.
The two most obvious and widely considered objections are time and money. You may find they're having an internal dialogue around their abilities or commitment.
So, you can tackle these thoughts directly in your copy with a positive reframe before your ideal customer has time to make them into an objection.
5. How has [your offer] changed your life or business, if at all?
The final part of the equation is to uncover the result or transformation your offer gives your audience.
Every product we buy will change our lives in some way:
Pair of sneakers — the comfort we've been seeking
Cushion — make our home aesthetically pleasing
Magazine — gain new information, entertain ourselves or fit into a social identity
Remember, we want to get this transformation in the words of our audience to mirror their language.
These are my top five questions to ask audiences to capture each part of their customer journey. If you leverage the answers in your surveys, you'll write copy that resonates more with potential buyers.
