Market Research Survey Questions: 60 B2B Examples, by Decision
60 questions for B2B market research surveys, grouped by the decision they inform, with question types, sample sizes and a copy-ready ICP survey.
Most lists of market research survey questions are written for consumer brands. Age, marital status, household income, "how often do you buy snacks?" Useless when your buyer is a VP of IT at a 2,000-person company.
This is the B2B version: 60 market research questions grouped by the decision they help you make, with the question type and what each answer actually tells you. Plus the rules for asking them so you get the truth, not polite fiction.
A market research survey is a structured set of questions you ask a defined group of buyers to learn about their problems, how they buy, which vendors they know and how they see you, so you can make a specific business decision with evidence instead of opinions. In B2B, who you ask matters more than how many questions you write. Ten great questions sent to the wrong people produce confident, wrong answers.
Most B2B teams barely do this. In our study of 100 B2B SaaS marketing leaders, 53% said they research people who aren't customers yet once a year or less, and only 9% said their last big marketing decision was mainly based on research with target buyers (Wynter, How B2B Marketing Leaders Make Decisions).
Before you write a single question, finish this sentence: "Depending on what we learn, we will ___." Rewrite the homepage. Pick between two segments. Change how sales pitches. If you can't fill in the blank, don't run the survey.
The decision tells you which questions to use and how many people you need:
| Decision you're making | Survey to run | Question sets below | Respondents |
|---|---|---|---|
| Which segment to focus on | ICP survey, run on two or three candidate segments | Screening, problems, buying process | 100 per segment |
| What to say on the website | Problem and language survey, then a message test | Problems, messaging | 30 to 50, then 15 to 30 |
| How to beat a competitor | Competitive perception survey | Competitors, brand | 100 |
| Whether your brand is growing | Brand perception survey | Brand, competitors | 100+ per wave |
| How to package and position price | Budget and value survey | Budget and value | 100 |
Replace the [brackets] with your category, brand and competitors. Ask open questions before closed ones, so people answer in their own words before they see your options.
Put these first and screen out anyone who doesn't fit. Every answer after this point is only as good as these.
| # | Question | Type | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | What is your current job title? | Open | Whether they're really the role you need |
| 2 | Which best describes your role level? | Single choice | Seniority, for filtering and comparing |
| 3 | How many employees does your company have? | Single choice | Company size band |
| 4 | Which industry is your company in? | Single choice | Segment |
| 5 | What is your role in buying [category] at your company? | Single choice: decide, recommend, use, not involved | Screens out people with no say |
| 6 | Which [category] tools or providers does your company use today? | Multiple choice plus "none" | Current market and competitors |
| 7 | Do you manage or influence a budget for [category]? | Single choice | Budget access |
| 8 | In which country are you based? | Single choice | Region |
The most valuable section. Ask about what's real today, not what they might want someday.
| # | Question | Type | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | What are the three biggest challenges in your role right now? | Open | Whether your problem shows up unprompted |
| 10 | Of these challenges, which one is most urgent to solve this year? | Single choice | Priority, not just presence |
| 11 | What happens if [problem] isn't solved in the next 12 months? | Open | The cost of doing nothing |
| 12 | How are you dealing with [problem] today? | Open | Your real competition, often a spreadsheet or nothing |
| 13 | What have you tried that didn't work, and why? | Open | Failed alternatives and skepticism you'll face |
| 14 | How much time does your team spend on [task] in a typical week? | Single choice | Size of the pain in hours |
| 15 | Who else in your company is affected by [problem]? | Multiple choice | Internal allies and the buying group |
| 16 | How satisfied are you with how [problem] is handled today? | 1 to 5 scale | Room for a new solution |
| 17 | If you could fix one thing about [current approach], what would it be? | Open | Feature and message priorities in their words |
| 18 | How do you measure success for [goal]? | Open | The outcome language to use in copy |
Ask about the last time they bought, not how they'd buy in theory. Past behavior beats predictions.
| # | Question | Type | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19 | Think about the last time your company bought a [category] solution. What made you start looking? | Open | Buying triggers |
| 20 | Who was involved in that decision, and what did each person care about? | Open | Buying group and their priorities |
| 21 | Where did you look for options? | Multiple choice: peers, communities, AI assistants, review sites, search, analysts, vendor websites | Channels that build the shortlist |
| 22 | How many vendors did you seriously consider? | Single choice | Shortlist size |
| 23 | What got a vendor onto your shortlist? | Open | Entry criteria |
| 24 | What made you rule a vendor out? | Open | Deal breakers |
| 25 | What almost stopped the purchase? | Open | Objections to handle early |
| 26 | Who had final sign-off on the budget? | Single choice | Economic buyer |
| 27 | What did you have to show internally to get approval? | Open | The business case your buyers need |
| 28 | How long did it take from first search to signed contract? | Single choice | Sales cycle |
Always ask unaided before aided. Once people see a list of brand names, you can't measure what they remember on their own.
| # | Question | Type | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|
| 29 | When you think of [category], which providers come to mind? | Open | Unaided awareness |
| 30 | Which of these providers have you heard of? | Multiple choice, randomized | Aided awareness |
| 31 | Which of these providers have you used or evaluated? | Multiple choice | Real familiarity |
| 32 | Why did you choose your current provider? | Open | Winning reasons in the market |
| 33 | What would make you switch from your current provider? | Open | Switching triggers |
| 34 | If your current provider disappeared tomorrow, what would you use instead? | Open | Your true alternatives |
| 35 | Which provider, if any, do you associate with [key benefit]? | Single choice | Who owns your intended position |
| 36 | What does [competitor] do better than anyone else? | Open | Their strength in buyers' words |
For a structured way to turn this into battlecards, use our competitive analysis template.
Show the respondent your homepage, ad or value proposition, then ask. This is where a message test usually does a better job than a survey, because it collects line-by-line reactions.
| # | Question | Type | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|
| 37 | In one sentence, what does this company do? | Open | Clarity |
| 38 | How relevant is this to your work? | 1 to 5 scale, then "why?" | Relevance |
| 39 | What, if anything, is unclear or confusing? | Open | What to rewrite |
| 40 | What, if anything, makes you doubt this? | Open | Missing proof |
| 41 | How different is this from other providers you know? | 1 to 5 scale, then "why?" | Differentiation |
| 42 | Which of these benefits matters most to you? | Single choice, randomized | Message hierarchy |
| 43 | What would you need to see to believe this claim? | Open | Proof to add |
| 44 | Which of these two versions would make you more likely to find out more? Why? | Single choice plus open | Preference between options |
Run these on a fixed schedule to track change. Our brand perception survey template has the full version.
| # | Question | Type | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|
| 45 | How familiar are you with [brand]? | Scale: never heard of it to know it well | Familiarity |
| 46 | What, if anything, do you associate with [brand]? | Open | Brand meaning in their words |
| 47 | How would you describe [brand] to a colleague? | Open | Word of mouth version of your positioning |
| 48 | How much do you trust [brand] to deliver what it promises? | 1 to 5 scale | Credibility |
| 49 | Which providers would you seriously consider next time you need [category]? | Multiple choice | Consideration |
| 50 | Of those, which would be your first choice? | Single choice plus "no preference" | Preference |
| 51 | What, if anything, would stop you from considering [brand]? | Open | Barriers |
| 52 | Which of these words best describe [brand]? | Multiple choice, randomized | Personality and positioning fit |
These tell you how buyers think about spend and value. They don't tell you the right price: what people say they'd pay and what they actually pay are different things. For price-setting, use dedicated pricing research.
| # | Question | Type | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|
| 53 | How is spending on [category] usually budgeted at your company? | Single choice: annual budget, project budget, ad hoc | Buying cycle and timing |
| 54 | Roughly how much does your company spend on [category] per year? | Single choice ranges | Market size and price anchors |
| 55 | Which pricing model do you prefer for tools like this? | Single choice: per seat, usage, flat fee | Packaging |
| 56 | What would make a [category] solution worth paying more for? | Open | Value drivers |
| 57 | What's the biggest risk of buying the wrong [category] solution? | Open | Risk to reduce in the pitch |
| 58 | How do you justify spend on [category] to finance? | Open | ROI language |
| 59 | Would you prefer a free trial, a pilot or a demo before buying? | Single choice | Sales motion |
| 60 | Is there anything else about [problem] we should have asked? | Open | What you didn't think to ask |
For more on the traps, see our guides to response bias, ranking questions and qualitative research questions.
| Survey goal | Questions | Respondents | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Learn the language and themes | 5 to 8, mostly open | 30 to 50 | Open-ended answers repeat quickly |
| Report percentages | 10 to 15 | 100+ | Margin of error is about 10 points either way at 100 |
| Compare two segments | 10 to 15 | 100+ each | Smaller groups make real differences look like noise |
| Track change over time | Same questions every wave | 100+ per wave | Only big shifts are visible at 100 |
Most B2B decisions don't need more than 100 people. Here's the math.
Here's a 12-question ICP survey you can copy. It takes about eight minutes.
Run it on two or three candidate segments and compare which one ranks your problem highest, has the clearest trigger and the most reachable budget owner. That's the core of validating an ideal customer profile.
Your customer list is the easy option and the wrong one for most of these questions. Customers already said yes. They can tell you why you won, not why the rest of the market never shortlisted you.
Send market research surveys to people who match your ICP, most of whom have never heard of you. That means a verified B2B panel, because unverified panels are full of fake "directors" (here's how to tell if a panel is legit).
On Wynter, you can run any of these questions as a target customer survey with verified B2B professionals filtered by job title, seniority, company size and industry, with answers in 12 to 48 hours. Wynter is built for B2B tech audiences. If you're surveying consumers, use a consumer panel.
What are good market research survey questions? Good market research questions ask about one thing, use the buyer's language, focus on past behavior and allow "don't know." In B2B, the most useful ones cover buyers' biggest challenges, what triggered their last purchase, who was involved, which vendors they know and what would make them switch.
What are the main types of market research questions? Screening and firmographic questions, problem and priority questions, buying process questions, competitor and awareness questions, messaging questions, brand perception questions and budget and value questions. Each set informs a different decision.
How many questions should a market research survey have? Ten to fifteen for most B2B surveys, or about ten minutes. For learning themes and language, five to eight mostly open questions is enough. Longer surveys get lower-quality answers, especially from senior respondents.
How many people should I survey? About 30 to 50 people to learn themes and language from open answers, and 100 or more if you'll report percentages. A sample of 100 has a margin of error of about 10 points either way. Compare segments with 100 or more in each.
What's the difference between market research questions and customer survey questions? Customer surveys go to people who already bought from you and focus on satisfaction, onboarding and expansion. Market research surveys go to your target market, mostly non-customers, and focus on problems, buying process, competitors and perception.
Should I use open-ended or closed questions? Both. Ask open questions first to hear buyers' own words, then closed questions to measure how common an answer is. Open answers are where you find your best messaging.
B2B market research · B2B customer research · Ideal customer profile · Brand perception survey · Qualitative research questions · B2B research panels
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