Concept testing: methods and examples

When you have a big idea that you want to get right, it can save you a lot of time and money to concept test it before you bring it to the world. Concept testing allows you to refine a product concept, ad campaign, new logo, or even a landing page by getting feedback directly from your target market. It can be as simple and quick or iterative and sophisticated as you need.

A concept testing survey helps teams evaluate product development, an ad campaign, or even a message or claim, by getting feedback from customer segments who make up the target market. Whether you want to test a single concept, or compare different concepts with an A/B test, taking the time to test before you execute can help you avoid mistakes, tailor products for potential customers, and arm you with data to sell your ideas throughout your company.

Using a concept testing survey makes it easy to get accurate feedback from respondents. You can use an online panel to select a demographic that would be your ideal customer segment. Then create a questionnaire that reveals what you want to learn about your idea.

Many of today’s sophisticated survey solutions are based on expert methodology that allows you to upload visuals or stimuli of your product idea. Your concept might be imagery for a new package, video, or logo. Using visuals, you can compare two concepts side by side, and get immediate feedback from potential customers on their preferences. This type of concept testing survey makes it easy for respondents to evaluate your ideas quickly, and weigh in with accurate opinions.

Here are some ideas to help beginners and pros get started with concept testing to collect data and insights on ideas before launch. And when you’re ready to delve deeper, make sure to also read our comprehensive guide to concept testing.

Unfortunately, the consequences of pursuing a bad idea are often significant.

A bad idea leads your business to a negative reputation, which heavily influences your organization’s ability to grow or remain stable. For example, hiring becomes 10% more expensive when a company has a bad reputation, while the cost of retaining workers grows by more than 20%. And when your bad idea impacts a customer’s experience? 95% will share it with others, deterring prospects from purchasing your products or services.

Companies of all shapes and sizes are vulnerable to making mistakes if they don’t test their ideas first. Below are specific examples and a study showing that when a bad idea moves forward, it can be costly.

Expensive advertising: Companies that publish annoying online ads pay $.153 more per ad displayed. Given the number of times an ad gets shown can quickly become expensive.

Ineffective package and logo designs: Package design can make or break product sales. Cigarette maker Marlboro, for example, was mandated by the Australian Government to stop using its logo and typeface on its packaging. This contributed to the most significant decline in Australia’s purchase and consumption of cigarettes in 20 years

Logo designs can cost brands millions of dollars. This makes the prospect of failure all the scarier. As a modern-day example, BP (a Britain-based oil and gas company) spent 136 million pounds on a new logo that’s been widely controversial.

Do you ever have ideas that you’re confident will work but can’t get buy-in from your team? Proving that an idea is popular with consumers can convince your team to pursue it. After all, if consumers in your target market like it, who’s to say it won’t work?

A/B concept test with glasses

Concept testing seems essential for marketers and product managers. But how do they feel about it? To find out, we went ahead and surveyed them directly, finding:

Despite their importance on testing, less than half of those we polled actually conduct concept tests. Creating your test may be a significant opportunity to get a leg up on the competition.

You can also widen your competitive advantage by improving your ability to write surveys. For help writing survey questions, check out our post on eliminating order bias. And before you look at your survey responses, learn about Top 2 Box scores.

There are four standard methods for concept testing. They are based on the number of ideas you want to evaluate.

This method is also called comparative testing and is used to determine how multiple concepts measure against each other. Survey respondents are usually asked to rate each concept against specific criteria. Another way to perform comparison testing is to use ranking questions or to ask precise questions to determine which concept features are preferred.

In monadic testing, you break your target audience into smaller groups. Each group tests one product feature and provides feedback. There is no comparison between concepts, simply an evaluation of features. Questions such as, “Does this concept provide value for the money?” are common in this type of testing.

Again, the target audience is broken into groups. Each group evaluates the concepts in a random, rotating sequence. Everyone in the target audience should get the chance to examine all of the presented concepts and provide feedback. Each group responds to the same set of questions at the end of the rotation.

A combination of sequential monadic and comparison testing, proto-monadic testing asks participants to examine concepts, compare features, and choose the best fit at the end of the rotation.

When you’re ready to test your concepts, there are four steps to follow:

Consider how much time you have, whether you are testing more than one feature, and which methodology will yield the best results.

Consider the motive of the test and the information you want to gain from your customers. This will be your objective. Keep that in mind when designing your survey questions to gather the necessary data.

Carefully consider what components will make your questions clear to respondents and yield the desired data.

Likert scales provide an odd number of answer choices with a scale that might range from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” These questions are easy to answer and the data they yield is easy to collect and analyze.

Images are necessary if you ask participants to provide feedback on a visual idea. For example, logo texting must include images rather than just text descriptions. Provide the photos of the different logos and ask participants which one they like best or to rank them.

Demographic questions are necessary for any concept testing to ensure that participants are part of your target audience. You want to know if your idea will be successful with your ideal customers.

A high-level review of your collected data to identify the concept favored by your target market. Using your SurveyMonkey dashboard, you can dive deeper into each concept and find out what features tested well and failed—and why.

How can you apply concept testing methods? We’re glad you asked! All sorts of business challenges can be solved with the right testing. Here are a few examples:

Need to understand how customers might respond to your new logo? Or, trying to figure out if your new logo communicates a benefit (like trust, innovation, or fun)? Online surveys are a great way to test different creative concepts and designs—to ultimately develop a logo that best visually communicates your brand.

To help you brainstorm your survey questions, check out our survey-methodologist approved Logo Testing Survey Template.

Don't want to create your own logo testing survey? Learn more about how SurveyMonkey's Logo Design Analysis makes it simple to get fast, impactful feedback about your logo designs.