Website design By BotEap.comIn the last decade, business-to-business, or B2B, research has gone from being a sales generator to an essential marketing tool. While the fundamentals of B2B studies are similar to those of consumer research, the field environment and execution process can be quite different. Optimizing B2B marketing research requires removing obstacles that are sometimes not faced with consumer research.
Website design By BotEap.comHere are ten steps researchers can take to make B2B projects work better.
Website design By BotEap.com1. Qualitative first. Conducting qualitative research before quantitative research enhances the overall research project in several ways. First, it ensures that you are asking about factors of critical interest to the customer, not those that are supposed to be of interest to the business. Second, make sure to use language that is familiar and comfortable to the respondent. If the company calls the product “BioGenesis 2000”. and the client calls him “that little thing in the folder”, he wants to make sure that he uses language in his questionnaire that everyone can understand. Finally, you can learn something (eg, typical hours worked, ease with computers, preferred language) that will help you select the correct research methodology.
Website design By BotEap.com2. Go to the field with a strong sample. A common challenge in B2B research is a smaller or inadequate population sample. It is the researcher’s responsibility to ensure that the project is completed with a clean and accurate sample. To save time and cost, the client and the research firm should work together to ensure the appropriate respondents are included in the sample and to eliminate duplicates, invalid phone numbers, cell phone numbers, do-not-call numbers, and/or numbers. Not valid. email addresses before starting the survey. It is also important that the names of contacts and companies are accurate.
Website design By BotEap.com3. For smaller samples, run segmentation and design quota pools. It is typical to estimate your completion rate by the number of samples you have based on a 10% response rate. For example, to get 200 complete records, you must have at least 2,000 valid and qualified sample records to start with. To accommodate smaller sample populations, segmentation and quota groups may play a necessary role, requiring a high level of research sophistication. When it comes to setting odds groups, it’s best to keep your margin of error below +/-10% with a 95% confidence level. For example, with a sample of 1,000 customers, you might set your quota to 300 full customers, resulting in a +/-4.7% margin of error.
Website design By BotEap.com4. Plan a longer schedule. Compared to B2C, or customer satisfaction research, B2B research tends to be a slower process due to the higher cost of research and the complexity of doing business. Allow for a longer planning phase and a flexible data collection schedule. Keep in mind that respondents are less likely to respond around major holidays. Other factors in field scheduling that should not be ignored are work style and the seasonality of certain business professions. For example, it is not reasonable to survey school teachers during the summer or request detailed interviews of accountants during tax season. Likewise, you won’t find manufacturing plant maintenance engineers sitting at their desks most of the day.
Website design By BotEap.comMost phone B2B surveys are conducted during business hours, when respondents are less available. One solution to minimize phone survey rejections is to call during less productive business hours, such as Monday mornings or Friday afternoons.
Website design By BotEap.com5. Keep the survey short and simple. Long surveys can be a drag, especially when respondents are pressed for time and already thinking of ways to get it off the phone. Get to the point! To increase engagement and get the best result, follow these guidelines:
Website design By BotEap.comhas. Keep the survey under 10 minutes,
b. Shorten the introduction and conclusion,
against Eliminate questions that are not related to the purpose of the study,
d. Keep the number of open questions to an average of two or three.
Website design By BotEap.com6. Offer attractive incentives to increase response. In B2B research, not only does it take longer to find qualified respondents, it’s also more difficult to secure participation. Most of the time, extremely busy business professionals have no time and little interest in expressing their opinion for free. Proposing an incentive will increase the response rate, especially for surveys with a long questionnaire. Of course, the research firm must consider costs and respondents when selecting the incentive. For example, it’s unreasonable to offer a 2009 Hummer SUV as a top prize to a studio aimed at environmentally conscious executives. Cash incentives are always preferred by the majority of respondents, although we have had good results with sweepstakes to win a desirable prize. There are many positive aspects to offering incentives; however, investigators should be aware that some companies do not allow their employees to accept fees. Offering a charitable donation to the charity of the respondent’s choice is a good solution for these situations.
Website design By BotEap.com7. Inform the respondent of the survey before contacting them. With today’s dramatic information overload and telemarketing harassment, it’s good practice to notify your target audience about the study before sending it out. Inform the respondent when and where to expect the study. Notification can be made by phone, letter, or email, depending on the nature of the business. If the study is not blinded, a letter from a senior executive to the sponsor of the survey can lend credibility.
Website design By BotEap.com8. First impressions are crucial. When launching a B2B phone survey, keep in mind that most purchasing decision makers receive survey phone calls every day. Unless the introduction makes a strong and valid case for why they should spend the next 10-15 minutes of their time on you, they will most likely decline the application. Here are some guidelines for the interviewer to help persuade participation:
Website design By BotEap.comhas. Keep the introduction short
b. Avoid robotic shades, establish rapport
against Indicate the purpose of the call.
d. Tell the respondent how long the survey will take
me. Offer the incentive
F. Let the respondent know that “this is not a sales call”
gram. Identify the customer, if the survey is not blind
H. Remind the respondent that their opinion is valued
Website design By BotEap.com9. Enter the World Wide Web. When surveying business people, web surveys provide a huge increase in flexibility compared to telephone surveys. Busy respondents can complete the study at their convenience. Across all the studies conducted at Polaris Marketing Research, we found that respondents are also more honest in their answers when it comes to online surveys. Respondents feel that their opinion is more anonymous and therefore they can express it freely, which they would not do with an interviewer in a telephone survey.
Website design By BotEap.com10. Don’t overpoll. Especially when you’re surveying a company’s customers, respect the time and attention they put into market research and don’t go back to the well too often. Doing surveys too often will lower the perceived importance of each survey contact and make B2B respondents even less likely to respond, increasing the cost and time required to complete each interview.
Website design By BotEap.comThe world of business-to-business research is unique and the challenges are not insurmountable. Respecting the differences between B2C and B2B marketing research and following these guidelines will help you correctly design and successfully execute business-to-business research.
