I purposely create products where I’m a customer. There are plenty of benefits in doing this, two important ones being that I’m committed to my product, and I know what the customer (me) wants. I’d like to talk about that second point a little more today.

Knowing what the customer wants is incredibly important for design of the product, the marketing material for the product, product differentiation, sales points, packaging, keyword search terms, and even knowing where to sell your product. That’s why it is so important that you would be a customer of the product, so you can get in your potential customer’s head to know what he wants.

However, there are limitations when trying to get in someone else’s mind. People may buy things for different reasons; some may focus on cost, some on utility, some on emotion. To capture the largest market share for your product, you have to go after all these customers, not only the ones who think like you. The best way to understand why ALL of your customers is to ask them “why they buy” with a product survey.

I’ve used surveys to better convey what makes my products different from other products on the market. I’ve used surveys to improve my packaging. I’ve used surveys to make it easier to find my products online. I’ve even used surveys to find out where I should place my products.
So if you want your customers to be able to find your product and feel compelled to buy your product, then get to know your past customers with a survey.

There are numerous online tools you can use to send out a survey, including Zoomerang, SurveyMonkey, GoDaddy’s survey tool, and plenty of others. It doesn’t matter what tool you use, just as long as you use one! Here are a few questions you can start asking your customers:

1. Why they bought your prouduct? i.e. Price, Convenience, Gift, etc.
2. How they found your product.
3. Ideas they have for improve your product.
4. Where they would expect to buy your product.
5. Demographic information such as gender, age, occupation.
6. Psychographic information such as magazines they read, programs they watch, and radio they listen to.

Those are just a few questions to get your started. Trust me, although you’re already ahead of the game because [hopefully] you’re a customer of your product, you’ll still be amazed at the information you receive from your customer surveys. I know I was.

- Bryan Daigle