A structured set of questions distributed to a target audience to gather quantitative or qualitative data about opinions, preferences, or behaviors, typically at a larger scale than a focus group.
Why it matters
Surveys allow a business to gather statistically meaningful data at scale — testing a hypothesis across hundreds or thousands of respondents rather than relying on the small, qualitative sample size of a focus group or a handful of customer interviews.
In a sentence
"The survey confirmed at scale what the focus group had suggested — a large majority of respondents found the pricing terminology genuinely confusing, not just the small group we'd initially talked to."
Related terms
- Often confused with: Focus group (see above).