What are B2B market insights?

B2B market insights can seem like a complex business term. However, it is just the process of discovering insights from your customers by surveying them. This is not to say that the entire customer set is observed, but just a tiny sample. This sample can include employees, B2B customers, suppliers, or business relationships. What's more, is that these business relationships can be past or current. For instance, market insights could focus on past or present employees in an organisation. To learn more about how this market research is evolving in 2022, take a look at our blog post on B2B market research. 

Sometimes, B2B market insights can be extended to include competitor analysis, market risk analysis, and an overview of the economic environment. Essentially, B2B market insights can encompass anything that affects the business’s revenue model. Let’s take a look at a use case of B2B market insights. Consider the following scenario: a procurement company has come up with a new supply chain strategy. In order to test the strategy in their market, they would need B2B market insights. They would need to gather the opinions of industry leaders in the supply chain to see whether their strategy holds weight. Moreover, due to the large scale of the project, the company would also need to efficiently conduct the research. A wide variety of tools exist on the market to uncover B2B market insights. Check out this article on Readwrite.com to know the 5 best tools for B2B market research.

In the next section, let’s look at how businesses uncover B2B market insights.

4 stages of B2B market insights 

Although there’s no definite way for how companies discover B2B market insights, we have simplified the process in four steps given below. Keep in mind that each business can take a different approach to conducting B2B market research.

1. Decide on a goal as the first step to discovering B2B market insights

Most businesses already know the topic on which they need to conduct market research. However, it’s a good idea to note down exactly what your business is looking for. Additionally, having a goal will help your business measure the results of the research project. Sometimes, a business is just looking to sport trends or patterns in their industry. Due to the general nature of the questions, focus groups or customer interviews are a good option for this research. On the other hand, if the topic is specific in nature, a quantitative approach may be best. 

2. Gather participants for B2B market research

Arguably, gathering participants is the most difficult part of the research process. The participants must not only be sufficient for the project but also relevant to the task. There are several ways to source participants for B2B market insights. Some of the approaches are listed below:

1. Use your website to source B2B participants: If your website has organic traffic, pops can be a good way to gather participants. Additionally, you can also advertise your research project and share it on your social media pages. 
2. Leverage your clientele base: You can also ask your existing client base if they would participate in your research projects. Clients are already B2B customers, so it’s a good way of leveraging them for B2B market insights. 
3. Buying a list of participants: This approach may not work in most cases, but if you are a beginner in B2B market research, it can be a good way to start. 
4. Partnering with a data collection panel: A data collection panel can be an effective tool to gather research participants. These panels partner with your business to aid you with your research project. Many times, surveys are also used in B2B market research. Panel providers help source relevant respondents for these survey projects. For more information on how a B2B panel provider works, have a look at our recent blog post.

3. Formulate questions to ask and collect B2B market insights

The next stage in the research is developing the kinds of questions you’d like to ask. The type of questions differs according to the nature of the research project. Questions also depend on what you’d like to get out of the research project. We’ve developed a guide on B2B survey questions here. 

4. Analyse data that you gathered on your B2B project

Lastly, it’s imperative that you derive meaningful insights from your data. Collecting and asking surveying questions is just one step of the process. More importantly, the data should make sense for your business. Using the data, you should be able to develop strategies for the future. 

How to make sense of B2B market insights

The real value lies in using B2B market insights to take action for your business. The research can provide insights into your customers, competition, supplier relationships, and much more. Turning these insights into actionable plans is where you can grow your business. A couple of ways to do so are explained below:

1. Use B2B market insights to expand your product or service offerings

B2B market insights can be used to gather feedback on what customers feel about your products. In addition to this, your customers can also tell you what they would like to see in the future. You can then devise product expansion targets for the future.

2. Understand your market with B2B market insights

Market insights can help you develop customer personas to know who responds to your marketing efforts. You can also create customer segments to better aim your marketing strategies. On the other hand, you can also analyse your competitive landscape with B2B market insights. 

3. Enhance brand image and perception using B2B market insights 

Brand perception is nothing but the level of awareness that customers have of your brand. Similarly, brand image is the image of your brand in the minds of customers. Understanding what these terms mean for your business is useful to develop marketing strategies. 

4. Fine-tune business processes using market insights

You can use market research to have in-depth knowledge of your business processes. For instance, getting to know who the decision-makers are in buyer-supplier relationships can help you target them better.  

Where to find help on B2B market insights? 

Conducting market research and understanding how to use the data can be a tricky task. Let’s summarise the process in four easy steps:

First, know the topic of your research project. Knowing what you want to get out of the research is a useful way to measure the success of the project. 

Second, gather relevant participants for the research project. Several strategies exist to find participants including data collection panels, using existing clients or buying lists.

Third, formulate the questions that you want to ask to get B2B market insights. Keep in mind your project goals while formulating your questions.

Fourth, analyse the data that you get to create actionable insights for the future. 

Another important consideration is to decide the timing of your research project. For instance, if you are considering a new market entry, you may plan it for Q1 or Q4. Through a timeline, you can link your research results to a specific time period. Thereafter, you can use the results of the research to create personas and improve marketing strategies or business processes. If you’d still like more information on B2B market insights contact sales@grape-data.com to see how we can help you.