The balance of power in relationships between brands and consumers has completely shifted. Long product development cycles and powerful mass-market advertising used to give brands all the power. Now, just about any product or feature can become a commodity, giving consumers the power to choose an abundance of options.

To meet (and exceed) consumer demands, you need deeper insights into their desires. And while you have access to more customer data than ever before, getting into the heads of consumers still proves challenging.

There are many tools and strategies you can use to gain valuable consumer insights that drive product development. Surveys, in particular, can be a valuable tool to give you the consumer insights necessary to understand and fill the needs gap between you and your customers.

At first glance, using surveys for consumer research may seem easy—you put a few questions together, collect answers, and suddenly you have the insights you needed. But in reality, there’s an art to using survey tools like SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics, Blue Enterprise Surveys, Typeform, and Checkbox.

With the right strategy, you can make the most of surveys to get inside the heads of your customers for more successful product development.