Three Keys to Building an Impactful Primary Market Research Campaign

By Peggy Tierney Galvin, Chief Strategy Officer

When planned and executed correctly, a market research campaign based on primary industry research can have a tremendous impact on brand reputation, sales enablement and media coverage. In fact, according to recent internal research, over a quarter of B2B tech vendors invested in market research last quarter. 

Let’s take a look at the measurable business benefits a market research campaign can provide for marketing and sales teams, as well as how your organization can go about planning a successful campaign.  

Benefits of Market Research 

There are many reasons to do market research. First, it provides the marketing team with supporting data and third-party validation for making the case for your company’s solutions. Market research also demonstrates how well your company understands the industry and the challenges your customers and prospects are facing. Finally, it can be used to create additional content and assets that can be used as discrete touches to drive prospects through the buyer’s journey. Taken together, these benefits support your organization’s overall ability to generate high–quality leads and win new customers. 

Getting Started  

For market research to be successful, your organization must examine the particular business needs, market challenges or industry shifts that your target customers are facing in a way that connects with your solution’s value propositions. If the problem itself is entrenched or longstanding, however, those customers are likely addressing the challenge with alternative tools or methods. For example, a small company might manage passwords and login details in a spreadsheet instead of using a more sophisticated – and secure – authentication management tool.  

Your research should show how the problem is increasing in size and severity to the extent that traditional means of managing the issue are no longer effective. You ultimately want to be able to show that whatever currently available methods companies are using to address that problem are insufficient – because the goal is to underscore why your solution is better.  

Three Keys for Success 

1. Decide what approach you want to take: Do you want to engage with a technology analyst group to conduct the research on your behalf? Do you want to survey your customers for their experiences? Think about how you will be using the research and who your purchase influencers are, then choose the option that will have the most impact. 
2. Envision the headline: Start with the headlines you’d ideally want to result from the research news announcement and work backwards from there to develop the survey questions that will elicit the results you want to see. 
3. Segment audiences: Make sure you include questions aimed at your sales audiences’ demographics, so you can segment your results to target their care-abouts. For example, by including questions about geographic location, vertical market or job role, you can partition your results into findings that directly impact those groups, letting you send specific and relevant insights to publications that target those markets. 

Versatile Research to Support Your Goals 

Market research is a versatile and useful tool for technology marketers. It demonstrates a vendor’s awareness of market trends and customer problems. Market research can be used to support many marketing, PR and sales initiatives throughout the calendar year.  

But not all market research is created equal – planning and executing the right campaign involves careful consideration into your topic, your target audiences and the headline you’d ultimately like to see.  

Interested in putting together a high-impact market research campaign? Find out how we can help today.