Secondary Research in B2B Marketing

I constantly write about the importance of researching your target audience in B2B marketing but, as a social and behavioral scientist, I understand how difficult that can actually be. The research process is influenced and shaped by the researcher, so understanding the process is integral to garnering accurate – and thus, valuable – findings. Because of this, I’d like to dedicate my next few posts to the research process in general, as well as certain guidelines you can use in your own B2B research. I’ll begin with this particular blog post, which will cover the importance of the first step in B2B research: secondary research.    

Before conducting primary research with your target audience, do as much secondary research on them as you can. Who are they? What do they like or not like? What might they need? And finally, how does that tie into your product or service? You might find many of these answers by reading trade publications or visiting blogs and websites your audience frequents. And don’t forget to ask other people about them – perhaps places they shop or businesses they use. These sources are already familiar with your target audience and, thus, may have further insight.  

Researching your target audience before you interact with it can give you a better understanding of relevant issues you can then use to guide the interview or focus group. But this part is tricky; secondary research gives you a starting point, but that is all it is – a starting point. If you assume you fully know your target audience after conducting secondary research, you’re less likely to look for ways your product or service might be useful to them (other than the ways you’ve already considered).  

The point of primary research is to discover how your target audience makes sense of its world – and to figure out how your product or service fits into that world. But if you go in there starting from zero, you’ll waste a lot of your own – and your interviewees’ – time. So do your secondary research first, and use that information to develop topics and questions that can guide the interview process. And if the conversation strays, let it. Your secondary research will help you better understand them enough to get them talking; and once they start talking, just listen (and document it!), because that’s when you really start to learn.    

Vann Morris is the Director of Buying Behavior Studies with the Atlanta B2B advertising agency, MLT Creative. She is a Social and Behavioral Scientist who is currently working on her PhD in Communications, and uses her strong theoretical background in order to show how scientific theory should be used to develop strategy and effective B2B marketing campaigns.  

 

 

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