B2B Marketing Research: Developing Your Research Proposal
I have thus far written about the importance of secondary research in the B2B marketing research process, as well as choosing the setting where you will research. Now, it is time to develop your research proposal, which is essentially writing down everything you’ve learned in order develop your actual research plan and design.
What is it? Your research proposal serves two purposes: 1) It will guide you and keep you on track throughout your the research process; note that it is not a set of questions to guide the interview – it is a document that guides the research process. It puts into writing everything you have been thinking about and learning up to this point; it takes intangible ideas and makes them a tangible document that can be held and discussed. However, it is not static and can easily change based upon what you learn from your target audience. 2) It is your proposal to your C-suite about why you think this is needed – and how you plan to answer that need.
What does it include? Your research proposal should contain at least the following, though it may change based upon the extent of your project. Also, you will be presenting this document to your client to explain what you plan to do – so always use a branded document, correct grammar, spell check, etc.
Title: Always choose a title that relays the topic and the content. You may also choose to include your methodology (i.e. focus groups, one-on-one interviews, etc.)
Abstract: Take a paragraph to succinctly describe what you will be doing. Who are you studying? What is your methodology? And most importantly – what is the purpose of your research?
Rationale: Why should this be studied now? Include this because when your stakeholders see it, they may want to know why this is needed. Including this in your proposal guides how that conversation starts (which can obviously influence how it ends).
Research Question(s): The whole point of research is to find out about your target audience, so keep these open-ended so you don’t guide the interviews in one certain direction. They should be broad questions based upon the secondary research you’ve done as well as any additional information you may have gathered up to this point.
Methodology: How will you do your research? You have already touched on this very briefly in your abstract, but now it’s time to be more detailed. For example, where will you conduct the research? When? Why did you choose this particular method?
Analysis: How will you analyze the information once you have gathered everything?
Schedule: And finally, always include your timeline is for completing the research as well as the analysis.
Anything else? Remember that though this document will be useful for you in guiding your research, it is still a proposal; so always be ready to answer any questions that may arise from why you chose that methodology to why the research is needed in the first place. And for more useful tips on research itself, check out my source for this blog, Qualitative Communication Research Methods by Thomas Lindlof and Bryan Taylor.
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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