Product Market Fit Survey Questions
Product market fit, or PMF, is essential to design and develop ready-to-use products. Ascertaining market fitness ensures demand for the product, and potential customers are willing to pay for it.
Ensuring market fit results in customers recognizing the value of your product, and they eventually help you sell your product.
To build a product that customers will love, knowing their preferences and requirements is essential. As you map your target market, keep scope for building customer personas, listing out their expectations. Feedback tells what is working and what features or functions are in demand, guiding product developers and managers to include what is required.
Going forward, we will know more about product market fit survey questions and how to build a report from the responses.
Importance of Understanding Your Audience
Knowing your audience means understanding what content, products, design, features, etc. they care about. Once you know what customers need, building the right products is easier.
Let’s take a scenario of two companies building a fitness application that helps users access diet plans and exercises to lose weight.
- FatFit: FatFit dives deep into customer preferences through pre-launch product-market fit questions surveys and user interviews to discover their target audience preferences. The FatFit team went deep into customer’s eating habits, workout routines, preferable timings, etc.
Once launched, their application got instant and huge success because they delivered the product their target audience aspired to use.
- FlexBody: FlexBody planned to launch the same product but by assuming generic routines and heavy diets without knowing their target audience’s diet preferences. As a result, their product failed to impress the users, citing incompatibility reasons and unwanted meal suggestions.
So when both applications came into the market, FatFit naturally gained more attention and adoption because they had a strong product-market fit.
To gain this understanding of the audience, you need to ask the right questions, which brings us to the next section about PMF survey questions and its categories.
Product Market Fit Questions Categories
The concept behind evaluating product market fit is to determine whether your product satisfies the customer or market demand.
As you attempt to align the market needs with your creation, one of the tools used is the product market fit survey. The questions in the surveys are framed to extract answers from the customers.
Through the survey, you can;
- Learn about your existing users and potential customers and understand their preferences and requirements. Using these preferences as food for thought, building and designing features will be easier.
- Using the right questions, you can measure the response rate of surveyed customers, knowing whether they are “Satisfied” or “Very disappointed” with the product or service.
- Conducting surveys is one of the best practices for creating user personas, which helps with effective product development and building marketing strategies.
Categories of Questions in the Product Market Fit Survey
To gauge the customer sentiment and their aspirations from using a product, the questions you ask will play a significant role. You can categorize these questions into different categories; here are the most common ones;
- Problem Validation
These questions uncover and validate specific problems your product aims to address or solve for the end users. Using these types of questions can help with the following;
- It authenticates your motive of solving a real customer problem and not just resolving a fictional one.
- With the right set of questions, these questions help gauge the severity and scope of the problem.
- It can also allow you to prioritize the product features in the order the end-users prefer.
- The queries you ask from the customer base assist in identifying potential user segments or target audiences significantly affected by the pain points.
- Value Proposition
Value proposition questions assess how the product or feature solves the validated problem and how it improves the user experience.
- These questions test the user’s clarity about the value proposition.
- It helps understand whether your product is able to differentiate itself from the competitors.
- It brings valuable insights to refine the product positioning and messaging.
- User Experience and Adoption
These questions gauge the user’s understanding of your product and identify factors that can influence the decision to adopt and use the product.
- Asking these questions can help determine usability issues and friction points inhibiting user engagement.
- Identifies product features with the potential to drive higher engagement while highlighting the areas for improvement.
- Qualitative Insights
The product managers use qualitative questions to understand the user’s perspective and sentiment.
- Tries to interpret the user's thoughts, emotions, and motivations, which they might not express explicitly.
- It brings valuable information which can be used for product development and improvement in the future.
Product Market Fit Questions to Ask in the Survey
In the words of Eric Ries, if you have to ask whether you have a product or market fit, you likely don’t have it. This means that asking the end-user whether they would like to use your product or service directly isn’t the right approach.
It also implies that when a product truly resonates with the target audience, its success is not dependent on asking questions. Instead, the product’s demand, usage, and feedback drive a much higher adoption rate when more people actively engage with your product.
Pre-Launch Questions
- Share the biggest obstacle you are facing while managing your finances.
It's an open-ended question and asks users to specify one or more areas where they encounter obstacles and share the most pressing challenges. The answers will guide you toward the most impact areas for building potential solutions.
Also, it will become easier to prioritize product development and features that can address the pain points.
Check the frequency of similar obstacles users share to focus on features addressing specific challenges.
- Will you be ready to pay for a solution that can solve the pain point?
Asking the respondent this question ascertains the capability and willingness to pay for a specific solution or a feature within the application. It's a simple question but provides a future direction for product development and marketing.
An affirmative answer to this question means you can set the right price for the product or solution, but if the answer is negative, you can find new monetization strategies.
As an open ended question, ask the reason from those who say “No” to identify potential objections and price sensitivity.
- Are you satisfied with the current solution you are using for the problem?
Another close-ended question that provides crucial information about your development plans. If the users are satisfied with the existing solution, then it’s not advisable to create another solution for the same purpose.
It gauges user sentiment towards your product, identifying competitive edge and pinpointing areas of improvement.
Use the Likert Scale (1 to 5) to measure user satisfaction.
- What difference would you like to see in the solution other than the one you are using now?
An important part of every product market fit survey template, this question helps uncover desired features and potential gaps in the product. An open-ended question, asking it, can find hidden aspirations.
Especially concerning new users who cannot pinpoint exact new features but can share their unmet needs through differences. As the users specify differences, it points towards functionalities they value most.
Check all the responses for a common theme to prioritize functionalities and features.
Post-Launch Questions
- How would you feel if you could no longer use the product?
It gauges end user’s reliance on the product along with their emotional connection with the same. It's a detailed question and will help you measure the product’s impact.
Use a Likert Scale with responses ranging from “Very Disappointed to Not Disappointed”
- Have you recommended this product to your friends and family?
Positive responses to the question is an expression of customer loyalty benefiting the startup with word-of-mouth marketing. Positive responses to the question means you have an enthusiastic customer base, opening up potential for beta testing opportunities and getting testimonials.
Use the Net Promoter Score (NPS) metric to identify the product impact. As an open ended question, you can ask the users the reasons for recommending or not recommending.
- How often do you use this product?
Check the respondent's answers to know the usage frequency and use this information to improve your product, especially if the frequency is less than optimal.
Moreover, as users share their experiences, you can extract information on which features they are using the most or uncover friction points to identify features that lack relevance or need improvement.
You can use a frequency scale to quantify daily, weekly, and monthly usage patterns. Ask for reasons for low to high usage frequency to identify potential barriers and value proposition, respectively.
- Would you like to get updates about the product? If yes, please share your email.
Users showing interest in future updates signal continued engagement and the potential to bring recurring revenue. Negative answers can help predict customer churn and implement retention strategies.
Building a community of interested individuals who agree to stay actively engaged with your product is easier. Moreover, you can also assess a user's preference for establishing communication.
The answers provide a potential conversion rate by demonstrating the percentage of users who opt-in for updates.
- What is the primary benefit you have received from the product?
When you send the product market fit survey to uncover the most impactful benefit users receive from the solution. As a result, it helps cement your value proposition.
Understanding the primary benefit users receive from the product will help you plan future developments and align it with their requirements.
- How can we improve our product to better serve your needs?
Ending our list of potential questions with a powerful one, which unlocks a treasure trove of insights and customer feedback, this question helps with product improvement and future planning.
The users will share their preferences directly, allowing you to prioritize the development plan. Closing the feedback look with Qwary’s in-product survey function allows you to address their concerns and increase user satisfaction.
You can run a qualitative analysis to identify common themes and suggestions for product improvement planning.
When measuring the responses, don’t limit yourself to one method or analytical tool. Almost all the potential survey questions can overlap and be assessed with different methods. Among the most popular methods are;
- Likert Scale
- Regression analysis
- Sean Ellis Test
- Quantitative analysis
- Qualitative analysis
While these are the most common methods, you use specific methods to analyze the survey results.
How to Build a Report with the Answers and Find Actionable Insights?
Once the product-market fit survey is complete, focus on extracting information from the same and turning it into actionable strategies. Here’s how to do it;
- Trend Analysis and User Segmentation
Check the data for recurring themes and patterns, finding details on their concerns, desires, and suggestions. Identify the broader needs of all the user segments and allocate a priority level to each segment based on their capability to generate revenue and promote your product.
To categorize the responses in each segment, divide the responses by key demographics and usage patterns. A thorough analysis of the segments can help discover variations in priorities across different segments and user groups. Hence, you can tailor a specific plan for each segment.
- Customer Concerns and Requests
Use the survey results data to find issues that significantly impact the users and deliver the highest potential value. For a startup founder, it's easier to become overly enthusiastic and fulfill every customer concern, but it's important to prioritize.
Make sentiment analysis an integral part of your survey, and pay attention to the feedback expressed with strong emotions. Using passionate responses makes it easier to highlight crucial areas for improvement and untapped opportunities.
- Customer Feedback and Product Improvement
When implemented correctly, you can use the survey results to guide feature development, fix bugs, and refine the user interface while addressing every important customer need.
Given that you can gain a good understanding of the user segments, it will be easier to tailor marketing plans and outreach efforts. You can build personalized marketing campaigns and get the most out of your market budget.
Personalization in features and functions increases the scope for growth and product adoption.
- Measure Product Impact and Improve Journey
Survey results are also instrumental in monitoring previously implemented changes with metrics like user engagement, feature usage, and satisfaction scores. Continuing this engagement cycle creates a feedback loop, allowing you to iterate and keep on refining the product based on the results.
Ensuring product market fit is an ongoing process. Take a proactive approach to extract insights and turn them into actionable strategies. It's easier to optimize the product by aligning the features, design, and functionalities with the customer’s preferences.
Additional Ways to Measure Product-Market Fit
While conducting product surveys through a platform like Qwary is the primary approach product developers and managers take, here are a few other ways;
- User Interviews: In-depth conversations with users can guide you towards what constitutes customer satisfaction. You can ask customers questions to understand their needs, motivations, pain points, and reactions to a product or service. Interviews let you go beyond data and identify user sentiments.
- A/B Testing: A/B testing compares different versions of features, designs, and functions to identify which element resonates with the target audience. Through careful analysis, product managers can assess market demand and identify what drives user engagement and conversion.
- Data Tracking: With a feature like session record, which is available on Qwary, analyze user interactions and actions with reference to your product. This will reveal hidden patterns, frustrations, and usage trends. Through this, it will be easier to make changes in the design and features, leading to better engagement.
- Focus Groups: Discussions within targeted user groups make it easier to gather feedback on specific product elements. Focus group discussions are more effective for understanding product sentiment and potential customer behavior before launch.
- Public Forums: Be a part of relevant online communities and forums through platforms like Quora, Reddit, etc. Scanning user interactions uncovers broader customer sentiment and potential concerns, guiding your development strategy and journey.
Conduct Successful Product Market Fit Survey With Qwary
Ensuring product market fit is important for product adoption assessing customer needs, sentiment, and potential market. Simply put, it helps determine whether there is a market demand for what you are selling and whether people are willing to pay, advertise, and promote your product further.
The questions you include help determine the market fit of your product and, hence, play an integral role in the process. With Qwary, you can use a survey template and customize it to modify the questions according to your goals.
Get in touch with us to request a demo and observe how Qwary can potentially transform your product development process.
FAQs
- What is product market fit?
Product market fit represents an objective companies want to achieve to determine whether their product can satisfy the customers needs. To establish product market fit, first identify a need in the market and build a product to fulfill that need.
- How to find product market fit?
Start by defining your target audience followed by establishing your ideal value proposition. Once you have a product plan, build the most viable product (MVP) version first, test the MVP and launch in the market to determine product market fit.
- In what stage does one find their product/market fit?
A rapid increase in sales does not necessarily mean that you have found product market fit. Instead, it is determined when the growth is sustainable.
- How to measure product market fit?
There are multiple ways to measure PMF, but surveys, net promoter score, customer lifetime value, and proof of concept are the most prominent ones. With Qwary, you can conduct and automate surveys while finding the ready-to-use tools for NPS determination.
- What is the first step in forming a product/market fit hypothesis?
The first step is identifying your target audience. This means identifying gaps in the market, knowing your target demographics, and understanding the customer's needs. With this understanding, you can develop a customer success strategy to meet their demands.
