Conquering the Complexities of Research in Business Markets
Barb Murphy, president of Strategic Spark, discussed conquering seven objections and complexities of business-market research. Before starting her own firm, Barb had roles within a research supplier, ad agency and then client side. Business markets aren't just B2B; for traditional B2C, business markets include research into the businesses that distribute products to resellers or that resell to consumers.
Researchers need to bring clarity to murky situations. Constituencies to research include end users, distribution channels, strategic partners, employees, competitors, industry analysts, media representations and government entities. Supplemented by secondary research, a "dimensional perspective" brings all these viewpoints together to develop scenarios.
You need to balance the views of the channel as customer and the end user as customer. When researching a business market, who do you interview? The decisionmaker, the evaluators/recommenders, indirect decision influencers, purchasers? Individually or in combination? For instant, for call center software, you need to interview the call center manager, the IT manager, the CFO and the CEO. Barb transformed what was planned as a survey of 200 call-center managers into a series of dyads and triads. A good qualifying question that casts a wide net within an organization: "Are you involved in evaluating the ‘product' your company purchases?"
Despite all its complexity, B2B marketing spend often represents only 20-25% of B2C's spend. Key reasons:
Researchers need to bring clarity to murky situations. Constituencies to research include end users, distribution channels, strategic partners, employees, competitors, industry analysts, media representations and government entities. Supplemented by secondary research, a "dimensional perspective" brings all these viewpoints together to develop scenarios.
You need to balance the views of the channel as customer and the end user as customer. When researching a business market, who do you interview? The decisionmaker, the evaluators/recommenders, indirect decision influencers, purchasers? Individually or in combination? For instant, for call center software, you need to interview the call center manager, the IT manager, the CFO and the CEO. Barb transformed what was planned as a survey of 200 call-center managers into a series of dyads and triads. A good qualifying question that casts a wide net within an organization: "Are you involved in evaluating the ‘product' your company purchases?"
Despite all its complexity, B2B marketing spend often represents only 20-25% of B2C's spend. Key reasons:
- Fewer customers to target
- Relationship focused B2B culture places lower value on marketing
- Complex to target and message all the roles that influence market decisions
- We already know that. "Our sales force and service reps talk to customers every day; we know them." To conquer this objection, harness the power of internal experience and insight. Research these employees to learn what they know.
- They just won't get it. "Our products are too technical, too complicated, too complex. It's our job to come up with new ideas. Our customers just aren't smart enough." To conquer this objection, institute collaborative insight planning sessions that brins everyone together and have them help identify the types of information they need to make a decision.
- It's too complex. "No survey is going to help us understand our business customers-too many entities influence the decision." To conquer this objection, engage experts, influencers and lead users to find out how they might respond to the subject being researched. For instance, for truck emission technologies needed to cope with new regulation, experts and customers did in fact have a handle on a complex subject.
- It's too small. "We only have 3,000 business customers vs. 3 million consumers. It's a waste of money to have formal research with such a small group; let's just do a focus group!" To conquer this objection, right-size the approach and provide phased study options that integrate qualitative and quantitative research.
- You'll never find them. "Even if we wanted to reach them, we don't know how. We have customer contact information, but we don't know how to find and reach the potential users within our customers." To conquer this objection, if you can find a sample solution, you help crack the "lead generation code". If they can't find out who to research, they are probably having difficulty finding out who to sell to! Take a research role and help solve a much bigger problem.
- They'll never tell us that! "You just don't know how small and competitive our industry is. Why would experts, customers and competitors share this information?" This is the hardest objection to conquer. To do so, start early, generate and distribute sound bites throughout the study. "Research isn't just about the beginning and end of a project," said Barb; you can provide guidance throughout the project.
- It's way too expensive. "We just can't afford it. It seems so much more expensive than our B2C research." To conquer this objection, you need to educate your clients about the drivers of B2B research cost: less sample to draw from, the time required to network to find the right contacts, declining cooperation rates (often driven by company policy), complexity of research that require detailed industry knowledge, need for higher incentives (contributions to charities works well), expense of hybrid research methodologies, all with comparatively fewer research firms specializing in B2B research.
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