Meeting the Unique Challenges of B2B Marketing Research

B2B marketers seeking to understand their customers and commercial opportunities face a unique set of challenges. Decision-maker populations are sometimes small and difficult-to-reach, and conventional research techniques don’t necessarily apply. Effective use of market analytics requires the flexibility to pivot between Big and Small data, as well as the tools to integrate it all. Our experience across hundreds of B2B markets allows us to develop agile and customized solutions for diverse business markets and problems across a range of industries.

Solutions for Diverse Industries and Markets

Solving Business Problems That Drive Enterprise Success

Our market assessments help clients tackle some of their most important and challenging business decisions with confidence and foresight.

  • How to prioritize investments and optimize offerings through market sizing/wallet models that use advanced analytics to estimate market opportunity accurately from relatively small samples.
  • How to optimize channel-specific pricing and feature configuration using Farsight® Forecasting models to predict uptake volume and revenue over specified time periods, including multi-brand and competitor readouts.
  • How to identify best prospects (e.g., businesses in prioritized segments, customers with large wallets, etc.) using customized targeting models that leverage decades of experience with databases like Dun & Bradstreet to maximize model accuracy and actionability.
  • How to select target roles in making key investment decisions using network models that map relationships between influencers and decision-makers in complex, multi-stakeholder purchase decisions, which commonly involve multiple stakeholders. 

Reaching All the Relevant Stakeholders in a Complex Market Ecosystem 

In addition to end-customers, B2B market research must address a complex ecosystem of channel partners, dealerships and franchises, as well as external “market shapers.” Reaching and properly reflecting these market actors is crucial to developing an insightful and coherent perspective on the market.

  • B2B end-customers – We have decades of experience helping our clients hear and understand the “voice-of-the-customer” across the spectrum of account sizes, channel infrastructures, and targeting tools.
  • Channel partners – Understanding channel partner requirements for product, delivery, service, and communications is the basis for a mutually beneficial relationship that guides effective market strategy and ensures ongoing brand commitment. We conduct sensitive “voice-of-the-partner” research with a diverse audience ranging from major home-improvements retailers and construction companies to IT value-added retailers and software developers.
  • Franchises and dealerships – Independent franchises and dealerships are not just critical distribution channels; they also commonly serve as the “face of the brand” for B2B end- customers. Our expertise in identifying franchisee/dealership needs provides critical input for relationship management, change management, marketing communications and other forms of service and support from the brand.
  • Market shapers – Our clients’ businesses are often influenced by designers and architects, policy-makers, regulatory agencies, industry leaders, futurists and others external to the organization and its partners. Through secondary and primary research, we help our clients understand and develop effective strategies for responding to – and influencing – the external players that shape their industries

Enhancing Market Monitoring through More Effective Sampling and Outreach 

To facilitate access to key customer groups, we develop and maintain proprietary panels of decision-makers, stakeholders, and influencers in select industries. These panels not only streamline outreach, they facilitate the ability to trend data reliably over time, and create ongoing conversations that support product and service development.