Concept testing: the what and the why

What is Concept Testing?

Concept testing is the process of getting your target audience to evaluate or give feedback on an idea before it is released to the public. This method can be applied to a variety of areas, including adverts, physical products, websites, landing pages, and more. By gathering consumer insights early on, businesses can refine their concepts to better meet market demands.

Why Use Concept Testing?

Here are some of the main reasons why businesses should use concept testing:

Evaluate Ideas Early: Concept testing allows you to evaluate ideas early in the development process and make necessary tweaks before launching to a broader audience.

Company Buy-in: It helps your team gain company buy-in for new ideas by providing empirical data that justifies decisions.

Cost Savings: Concept testing can be a significant money saver. Research shows it is 100 times more expensive to fix an error after development than during the testing phase.

For these reasons and more, companies leverage concept testing to ensure their ideas are viable in the real world before investing significant resources. In this article, we’ll take a deeper dive into concept testing and its various facets, including how to conduct it effectively.

Benefits of Concept Testing

Brands that use concept testing often cite the following benefits:

Consumer Insights: Provides valuable insights into consumer preferences and perceptions, aiding in the development of products that align with market needs.
Demand Identification: Helps identify potential demand for a new product or service, reducing the risk of launching unsuccessful products.
Risk Reduction: Significantly reduces the risk of product or campaign failure by validating concepts before large-scale investment.
Concept Validation: Validates the viability and relevance of a concept, ensuring it resonates with the target audience.
Refinement: Facilitates the refinement and optimization of product features, messaging, and positioning based on consumer feedback.
Early Issue Detection: Identifies potential issues or barriers to adoption early in the process, allowing for timely adjustments.
Data-Driven Decisions: Enhances decision-making through data-driven insights, leading to more strategic and informed choices.
Target Audience Segmentation: Helps identify target audience segments and their specific preferences, allowing for more personalized marketing efforts.
Competitive Advantage: Provides a competitive edge by understanding customer needs and wants better than competitors.
Successful Launches: Increases the likelihood of successful product launches and marketing campaigns by aligning them with consumer expectations.
Resource Efficiency: Saves time and resources by avoiding costly mistakes and failures through early validation.
Customer Trust: Builds customer trust and loyalty by delivering products that meet their expectations.
Iterative Improvement: Supports iterative development and continuous improvement based on ongoing feedback.
Effective Marketing: Enhances marketing strategies by aligning them with consumer preferences and expectations.
Communication Foundation: Provides a solid foundation for developing effective communication and promotional materials.

How Does Concept Testing Work?

Concept testing can take various forms depending on what you want to test. Generally, the process involves asking current or target customers to engage with your concept and provide feedback, either in person (e.g., in a focus group) or online (e.g., in an online community or survey).

One of the most popular and effective ways of testing concepts is through an online survey. In this section, we’ll focus on our top tips for conducting successful concept testing via online surveys.

How to Approach Concept Testing Through an Online Survey

Set a Clear Goal at the Outset: Before beginning, it’s crucial to set a clear goal for your test. This helps provide structure and direction to the survey. Ask yourself and your team questions like:

Why are you conducting this test?
What actions will you take based on the results?
How does this test fit into your overall strategy?

The answers to these questions will help you select your testing population, choose the right metrics, and conduct a more effective survey.

Pick the Right Metrics to Track: The metrics you choose can significantly impact the usefulness of your survey. Examples of important metrics include:

Purchase Intent: How likely would participants be to purchase the product?
Innovativeness: How innovative do consumers find the concept?

These metrics will form the basis of your questions and shape your survey. Questions should focus on likes and dislikes, overall appeal, uniqueness, and innovativeness.

Give Your Survey a Clear Structure: Ensure your survey has a coherent structure, with similar questions grouped together. This helps prevent confusion and frustration among participants. Including an introduction section that outlines what respondents should expect and provides clear instructions can also be beneficial.

Concept Testing Survey Methods

There are two main types of concept testing survey designs: monadic and sequential.

Single-Concept (Monadic) Design: Participants analyze one concept, learn its features, and provide feedback. This method provides in-depth responses but can be time-consuming and expensive.
Multi-Concept (Sequential) Design: Participants analyze multiple concepts in succession, providing feedback for each. This method saves time and money but may lead to lower-quality responses due to participant fatigue. To mitigate this, randomize the order of concept presentation to avoid bias.

How Long Should a Concept Testing Survey Be?

Opinions vary on the ideal survey length, but generally, it should not exceed 20-25 minutes to avoid “survey fatigue.” We recommend keeping it under 30 questions, focusing on quality rather than quantity.

Ask Screener and Demographic Questions

Screener Questions: Used at the beginning to filter out unqualified participants. For example, if testing an online payment service, a screener question might be, “How often do you shop online?”

Demographic Questions: Placed at the end to gather information about respondents, such as age or profession. This ensures the survey is representative and allows for response analysis based on demographic factors.

Send the Survey Out

Once the survey is ready, select a sample that represents your target population and distribute the survey.

Analysis and Action

The final and most crucial step is to analyze the survey results and take action based on the findings. Use metrics like Likert scores to compare responses across concepts or attributes. Ensure any conclusions are statistically significant before making decisions.

Share the results with stakeholders clearly and in detail to support product launches, gain buy-in, or fuel further R&D.

Concept testing provides hard data to support concept validation, helping businesses make informed decisions and create products that delight customers and drive growth.

To find out how Kadence can help you harness the power of concept testing — and take a more data-driven approach to your organization in general — reach out to request a proposal.

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