Guide to creating a product market fit survey and questions

Product market fit matters. Not just during the product development process and leading up to the launch, but also in the months and even years that follow. After all, most products don’t fit consumers for a lifetime, whether it’s a pair of jeans, a house, or even a software solution. Achieving product market fit is an ongoing journey, not a one-time event.

And that means a lot for the way you research it as well. Conducting thorough research into new product development (NPD) and gathering consumer insights can significantly boost your chances of hitting that sweet spot.

In this article, we’ll delve into what product market fit really means—because it’s much more than just ‘meeting demand.’ We’ll explore how to create and utilize product market fit surveys to gauge whether your product aligns with your target audience’s needs and preferences, ensuring your product remains relevant and loved over time. Let’s learn all about how to effectively survey your audience to ensure your product hits the mark.

What is product market fit?

Product market fit is more than just identifying a demand for your product. When you research product market fit, you gather all the information to make sure your product seamlessly fits into your customers’ lives, making them wonder how they ever lived without it. That research starts with the consumer, not with the product.

Achieving product market fit means your product not only meets the needs of your target customers – it excites and delights them. It’s the sweet spot where you can create a profitable product that solves real, pressing problems for a big enough audience.

It seems obvious why this matters so much: it’s crucial for sales. If nobody wants your product, you’re doomed to fail. But just because there’s some demand, doesn’t mean there’s a product market fit.

When you achieve product market fit, several things happen. First, your customers stay longer and use your product more frequently, becoming loyal advocates who are more likely to recommend your product to others. You tap into the greatest marketing resource of them all: organic word-of-mouth promotion. This can significantly drive your company’s growth and reduce your marketing costs.

The next big benefit: understanding the depth of the demand allows you to truly fine-tune your value proposition. You’ll be able to communicate much more effectively about how your product solves specific problems and meets the unique needs of your customers, in the right language. This clarity in messaging will attract more of your ideal customers and makes marketing easier, with less guesswork.

A confirmed product market fit also helps when making critical business decisions beyond sales and marketing. It helps you determine how to allocate resources effectively, to know you’re investing in the right areas to support growth. For example, if customer feedback indicates that a particular feature is driving satisfaction, you might prioritize your development team’s efforts to enhance that feature.

Similarly, insights from achieving product market fit can guide how you assemble your teams, whether it’s hiring more support staff to handle increased demand or bringing in specialized talent to refine key aspects of your product.

Long story short: product market fit is the foundation for sustainable growth. You can have groundbreaking innovations or be the first one to tap into the latest trend, but if there’s no product market fit over time, your strategy is not built to last.

Why are product market fit surveys essential?

Product market fit surveys are like your product’s health check-up. That’s right: you do it regularly, not just before launch, but more on that later.

Think about this: there are very few products you used decades or even just years ago that haven’t evolved. The reason they evolved is not just because technological advancements enabled them to. It’s because the moment we start using a product that meets a need, new needs will inevitable pop up.

That combination of circumstances means you should constantly be checking in on the product market fit of their products, even after launch.

A product market fit survey at regular intervals helps you understand if your product (still) truly meets your target market’s needs, and allows you to spot changes in sentiment and influential trends early on. These surveys collect specific customer feedback, offering valuable insights into how well your product performs and where it can improve, and how to adapt your positioning strategy accordingly.

Achieving product market fit isn’t just about making customers happy; it’s about increasing customer lifetime value. When your product fits perfectly into your customers’ lives, they stick around, spend more, and become loyal advocates. And when your products grow with your customers, this loyalty boosts your revenue and helps you grow sustainably.

How to find the perfect product-market fit

Let’s get practical. Finding the perfect product-market fit isn’t a guessing game. You’ll walk through a methodical process that involves understanding your audience and refining your product accordingly.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you measure product market fit effectively:

1. Define your target audience and create consumer profiles

You’ll have a lot of burning questions, but the biggest one to answer is: who should you be asking them to? Start by really getting to know who you’re talking to in your target market. Get the general demographics right, such as age, gender, or location, but also dig deeper into psychographics and behaviors. What are their interests, values, and lifestyles? How do they spend their time and money?

Creating detailed consumer profiles, or personas, will help you understand your potential customers’ needs, preferences, and pain points. This segmentation allows you to tailor your product to fit them like a glove.

For instance, if you’re launching a fitness app, don’t just survey “people who exercise.” Instead, segment your audience into groups like “busy professionals who work out at home,” “young parents who need quick routines,” and “fitness enthusiasts who love tracking their progress.” Being this specific in your defining your target market means you can research much more specific needs and provide relevant features for each group.

2. Send an initial product market fit (PMF) survey

Kick things off with an initial product market fit survey to gather valuable feedback. Doing this regularly means you get a constant stream of up-to-date customer feedback that enables you to stay on top of how your product is performing and what tweaks might be needed. Use open-ended questions to uncover insights you might not have considered. For example:

• How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?
• What is the primary benefit you receive from our product?
• What features do you find most useful or unnecessary?

This ongoing feedback loop is crucial for keeping your product relevant and loved. The initial PMF survey sets the foundation, but continuous engagement ensures your product evolves with your users’ needs. We’ll give you more examples of questions to include in a bit!

3. Identify consumer pain points and compare them to your product’s value proposition

Take a close look at the feedback from your survey to spot common pain points. Try to find the issues that frustrate your customers or tasks they find difficult, even when you need to read between the lines. Compare these pain points to what your product promises to deliver.

Does your product solve these problems effectively? If not, it’s time to adjust your offering. The goal is to ensure your product’s value proposition directly addresses the key issues identified by your users.

4. Create a minimum viable product (MVP)

If you send out a product market fit survey before launch, develop a minimum viable product to test your concept with a smaller, targeted audience.

An MVP lets you validate your product idea and gather feedback before going all-in. This approach minimizes wasted resources by focusing on core features that solve the primary pain points identified in your research. It’s also easier to do this with an MVP rather than just explaining the concept.

5. Test consumer sentiment at every step of the way

Keep your finger on the pulse by testing consumer sentiment throughout the product development process. Use surveys, focus groups, and other feedback methods to gather insights at each stage and give your team a constant feedback loop. With this, your product development is guided by real-world data and helps you address any issues promptly.

For example, after launching your MVP, conduct follow-up qualitative surveys after you’ve implemented initial feedback to understand how well it meets user expectations and where it falls short. An iterative approach to testing your product’s market fit with help you make data-driven decisions and refine your product continuously.

6. Double down on what resonates with consumers and improve what doesn’t

Listen closely to what your customers love about your product and what they don’t. Enhance the features that get rave reviews and rethink the ones that don’t hit the mark. This will also help you make better use of the resources you have.

7. Use Dan Olsen’s product-market fit pyramid

If you embark on the product market fit journey, you’ll inevitably bump into Dan Olsen’s product-market fit pyramid. It’s a fantastic framework for achieving your desired product market fit. It breaks down the process into five layers: target customer, underserved needs, value proposition, feature set, and user experience (UX). Address each layer systematically to ensure your product aligns with market needs.

Start with understanding your target customer and their underserved needs. Develop a value proposition that addresses these needs effectively. Build a feature set that delivers on this value proposition, and ensure the user experience is seamless and engaging. This structured approach helps you systematically achieve product market fit and ensures your product is well-received by your target audience.

Discover our comprehensive product research template to gather valuable insights and drive your product’s success.

How to measure product market fit with PMF surveys

Now, to the fun part! The quickest and most structured way to gather customer data for your research is through a product market fit survey. Here’s how you approach this process the right way.

Ask the right PMF questions

To measure product market fit effectively, you need to ask the right questions. Here are 10-20 essential questions to include in your product market fit survey:

1. How essential is this product in your daily routine?

This question measures how integral your product is to the user’s daily life, indicating its importance and indispensability.

2. What unique value does this product offer that you can’t find elsewhere?

Understanding the unique value helps identify what sets your product apart from competitors, ensuring it meets a specific need in the market.

3. How does this product impact your productivity or efficiency?

This assesses the tangible benefits your product provides, such as saving time or improving productivity, which are critical for long-term adoption.

4. Which features are most critical to your satisfaction with this product?

Identifying critical features helps prioritize development efforts to enhance what matters most to users.

5. Have you ever recommended this product to others? Why or why not?

This provides insights into the product’s perceived value and the reasons behind word-of-mouth referrals or the lack thereof.

6. What were your initial expectations of this product, and how well did it meet them?

Understanding initial expectations versus actual experience helps identify areas for improvement and manage future user expectations.

7. What tasks or problems does this product help you accomplish more efficiently?

This reveals the practical applications of your product and its effectiveness in solving user problems.

8. Are there any aspects of this product that you find confusing or difficult to use?

Identifying usability issues helps improve the user experience and remove barriers to adoption.

9. How has your experience with this product evolved over time?

Understanding how user experience changes over time can highlight strengths and areas needing continuous improvement.

10. What would make this product indispensable for you?

This uncovers features or improvements that could make your product a must-have for users.

11. In what ways does this product integrate into your existing workflows or systems?

This assesses compatibility with users’ existing tools and systems, ensuring seamless integration and higher adoption rates.

12. What barriers, if any, prevent you from using this product more frequently?

Identifying barriers to usage helps address issues that may be limiting user engagement and satisfaction.

13. How do you perceive the value of this product relative to its cost?

This question gauges whether users believe they are getting good value for money, which is crucial for pricing strategy.

14. How has this product changed the way you approach your work or daily activities?

Understanding the impact on behavior provides insights into the product’s effectiveness and influence on user habits.

15. What other products or services do you use alongside this, and how do they complement each other?

This helps identify potential partnerships or integrations that could enhance the user experience.

16. What improvements would significantly enhance your satisfaction with this product?

Direct feedback on desired improvements guides product development efforts to better meet user needs.

17. How does this product compare to the ideal solution for your needs?

This helps understand gaps between your product and the perfect solution, guiding future enhancements.

18. What specific results or outcomes have you achieved using this product?

Quantifying results or outcomes demonstrates the product’s effectiveness and tangible benefits to users.

19. What future trends or changes do you anticipate that could affect your use of this product?

Anticipating future changes helps you stay ahead of market trends and adapt your product accordingly.

20. How do you feel about the support and resources available for using this product?

Assessing support resources helps ensure users have the help they need to fully utilize your product, enhancing satisfaction and retention.

Need more? Check out these quantitative market research questions.

Measure and track the right metrics

Tracking the right metrics is key to measuring product market fit. Here are some metrics you should focus on:

• Net Promoter Score (NPS): Measures customer loyalty by asking how likely customers are to recommend your product.
• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): Assesses how satisfied customers are with your product.
• Customer Effort Score (CES): Evaluates how easy it is for customers to use your product.
• Retention Rate: Tracks the percentage of customers who continue using your product over time.
• Churn Rate: Measures the percentage of customers who stop using your product.
• Feature Adoption Rate: Indicates how frequently specific features are used.
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV): Estimates the total revenue a customer generates over their lifetime.
• Usage Frequency: Tracks how often customers use your product.
• Feedback and Review Sentiment: Analyzes the tone and content of customer feedback and reviews.

To calculate product market fit, use this formula:

Product Market Fit (PMF) = (Number of customers who would be very disappointed if they could no longer use your product) / (Total number of survey responses) x 100

Include the formula for calculating PMF, with an infographic showing this if possible.

When should product market fit surveys be sent out?

Timing is crucial when sending out product market fit surveys to maximize their effectiveness and the insights they provide. Below are some of the optimal moments to conduct these surveys. Remember: don’t just do it once and never again. The market evolves, so a product market fit will change.

1. Pre-launch: Before you officially launch your product, gather feedback on your MVP. This early feedback helps you make necessary adjustments, ensuring your product meets user expectations right from the start. Pre-launch surveys are absolutely essential for identifying potential issues and gauging initial interest and demand, and getting your pitch to investors and stakeholders right.

2. Post-launch: Once your product hits the market, it’s time to assess initial reactions. Conduct surveys shortly after launch to capture first impressions, identify any immediate areas for improvement, and understand the initial user experience. This helps you make quick adjustments and enhancements based on real user feedback.

3. After major updates: When you roll out significant updates or introduce new features, it’s essential to measure their impact. Conducting surveys after major updates helps you understand how these changes affect customer satisfaction and usability. This check-in is crucial to check that your updates are actually enhancing the product and meeting user needs effectively.

4. Regular intervals: To continually evaluate product market fit and stay aligned with evolving customer needs, conduct surveys at regular intervals. Quarterly or bi-annual surveys allow you to track changes in customer sentiment, identify new trends, and ensure your product remains relevant.

5. During market expansion: If you’re expanding into new markets or targeting new customer segments, conduct surveys to understand these new audiences. This helps tailor your product to meet the unique needs of different markets and makes the smoother expansion process a lot smoother.

6. In response to market shifts: When significant changes occur in the market—such as new regulations or technology, competitor moves, or shifts in consumer behavior—conduct surveys to assess their impact on your product’s fit. Staying responsive to market dynamics helps you maintain a competitive edge.

Using brand management software like Attest makes it easy to be proactive about your product marketi fit metrics, and gives you continuous access to the data that matters most to you.

How Attest can help you achieve product market fit

Attest offers a fully-featured, easy to use suite of tools designed to help you achieve product market fit. With Attest, you can conduct detailed market research, gather valuable insights, and tailor your product to meet the needs of your target audience.

Our market research platform enables businesses to make data-driven decisions, ensuring your product resonates with customers and drives sustainable growth. You’ll even get access to a dedicated research expert who guides you along the way. Eager to meet them? Let’s get in touch.