How can market research help my B2B marketing strategy?

Market research is fundamental to any B2B marketing strategy. Therefore the question should not really be “how can market research help my B2B marketing strategy?”. The question should be “how can I have a B2B marketing strategy without market research?”. In short, you can’t.

The starting point for any marketing strategy is to know your market and know how your offering can meet their needs. This requires knowledge of you are selling to: what drives them to take action, what factors in their decision making. You need to knowing who is already out there operating in the marketplace. How your business compares. In short – the Who, What, Why, Where, When and How.

Without market research there is no strategy. Only guesswork. A strategy relies on concrete information upon which to make a decision about who to target and how to target them.

So how does market research address this? Firstly, it listens to your customers. Who are they? What are their business drivers? What issues affect their industry? What legislation/regulations are they governed by? What are their purchasing cycles?

It looks at existing customers – what are you doing well? Where could you improve your service? It looks at potential customers – where have they experienced excellent value? Who delivered it? What would it take to make them switch suppliers?

It looks at your brand – what is your recall? What do people know about your company, or think they know? What is your market position?

It observes your competition: what do they do well? What do they do badly? How does their offering compare to yours? What opportunities are out there?

Are there any markets that you are not talking to – who you SHOULD be targeting? Are their potentially new streams of business of which you are unaware?

Good market research can make or break a B2B marketing strategy. A good market research company will look at your objectives and help you to identify what you need to know and how you will uncover that knowledge. Through telephone calls, online surveys, customer satisfaction questionnaires, focus groups, you can effectively create the basis for your company’s entire strategic direction.

Read about how Prospect Research helps companies understand their target market better, and increase their sales.