Understanding your consumers play a vital role in businesses. Do you wonder why big companies are successful? It is because they know their target market through market research.
Before we dive in deeper, let us first have an idea of what SaaS business and market research is.
What is a SAAS Business?
Software as a Service(SAAS), is a relatively new business; some are hearing about it for the first time.
What do SAAS businesses do?
In simple ways, SAAS businesses deliver applications as a service via the internet. They manage databases and Software that allows the applications to be delivered.
It is a subscription. Payment is needed for access to these applications. The price depends on the data to be stored and the number of customers expected.
What are the kinds of SAAS Businesses?
- Project Management – this type of Software helps track the progress of a project.
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) – this can help in taking care of customer information and tracking sales.
- Enterprise Resource Planning – this is usually used by big enterprises.
What is market research?
Market research is a way to get to know your target market. It is a way for you to get an idea of the opinions of your target market regarding your product or service.
It is done through interviews or surveys with your consumers. Through these methods, they can get feedback vital to any business.
The feedback received can be used to improve a product or service further. It also builds relationships with the customer, ensuring that their feedback is considered and heard.
Factors to consider in a market research
There are factors to consider whenever we do market research, and these are:
- Research method – you need to consider whether you will get your data primarily or secondarily.
- Primary means that you get your data directly from your customers through interviews or surveys. For secondary, you depend on already completed research.
- The goal – remember what prompted you to conduct the research in the first place.
- Remembering your goal will help you understand what processes you need to do later.
- Check your Competitors – market research focuses on more than just the consumers and your business.
considering your competitors could also help in market research, Checking their research, seeking what inconsistencies took place, and using that information to avoid it in the future.
Using the information you found through research on your target market can become your advantage.
Market Research and its Importance
Consumer research in marketing is important. It is because it can help the organization make the best decision for its consumers.
Market research, in addition, will also allow you to know more about the industry you are currently in.
Market research can give you a lot of data, including information about your competition and the latest trends in your industry. Having this information in hand can help you to your advantage.
The Internet world is gigantic and organizations can come face to face with a lot of data as well as hurdles in conducting marketing research, for this reason, the organization needs help to handle collecting and researching in their industry. An additional hand would be a great way to minimize the effort needed.
It is why companies seek the help of professionals working in market research facilities. The data coming from these market research companies would help in the b2b marketing strategies of the team.
This information alone can help SAAS business:
- Make solid business decisions.
- Secure funds from prospective investors.
- Determine new business opportunities.
- Avoid business failures.
The company and the market research facility work hand in hand to meet their organizational goals.
What is B2B Market Research?
B2B Market research allows you to have an idea of your market. As a research, it also has surveys whose respondents range from past, present, and prospective customers. It will let you know your respondent’s concerns, opinions, and suggestions.
The Steps in Conducting a B2B Market Research
Conducting market research will allow you to plan a strategy for your target market.
Consumer research can help you better understand your target market and serve them better.
Below are some processes that can help you conduct b2b marketing research.
#1 Define your problem
Research is only complete with a problem to solve. Are you looking for specific answers? Or something more generic? Whatever it is, there is a type of research for what you’re looking for.
You can choose from specific or exploratory. Exploratory is quite broad. It utilizes qualitative data, so interviews with respondents are the best way.
This interview can help you engage with your customers and assess your market. Responses from this interview help make each customer experience more personalized which is a plus factor for potential customers.
On the other hand, specificity comes in handy when you want specific answers to a specific problem. A specific problem would be the satisfaction of customers with a product.
Aside from interviews which can gauge the responses of your target market. Other problems can be defined and can be solved by market research, and those are
- Where to Distribute Your Products – market research can help your team determine where your product should be sold. It also would guide the team on getting your product to a good location and helps you determine how inventory will be held.
- Determine your price – consumer research can help you identify if the price you’re going for would be affordable for your target market.
- Competitors – You can also investigate your competitors through market research. This subset of market research allows you to understand the products and services offered by your competitors. That way, you can find what makes your product unique and use it to your advantage.
#2 Gather Your Participants
Demographics play a role in market research. Your demographic profile will you the interests and character of your consumers. You can make and adjust plans according to your demographic profile.
An example would be if your demographic profile ranges from 18-25 years old, you could focus on researching what piques the interest of these age groups and how you can incorporate it into your marketing strategy.
For data to be tested and gathered, participants must be collected. The data will be coming from them. Of course, your participants will consist of your target market.
The following can help gather participants for your SaaS market research:
- Utilizing your website respondents – Feedback can come from people who visit your website. The pro is that you can attract new customers and make those who visit you return.
- Take advantage of social media – through this method; you can reach people outside your geographical boundaries. It will give you an idea of what interests people you cannot see personally.
- Take advantage of third-party channels and partners- Ask your partners if their network is available for consumer research. They can be a great source because they can look at things differently from your stock market.
Another thing to note is that the participants must vary. Screening your participants is also a nice procedure. The participants can be your present customers if you want to test a current product.
Prospective customers can also be participants so that you can understand how they perceive your product.
#3 Collect Your Data
Before we move on to data collection, let us know the data types. Data can be categorized into three:
- First-party data – this data comes directly from your users.
- Second party – this type of data can come from data shared by other organizations about their consumers.
- Third-party data – this kind of data comes from organizations that do not share a relationship with your company or your consumers.
Once you know what kind of data you are looking for, you can use the following methods to gather your data.
- Surveys – this type of data collection aims to get feedback from customers. This method is inexpensive, but you can partner with market research facilities to get the survey if you want a specific group.
- Interviews and focus groups – this method allows you to talk face-to-face with your subjects. Reactions and real-time feedback from the subjects can be valuable input in your market research.
- Social media monitoring – In our generation, people spend most of their time on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The engagement of your followers can tell you many things which are beneficial to you. You can track data about your market’s interests and motivations.
The data you gathered from the method that you have chosen can help you in many ways. It can help you solve issues at hand as it is accurate. From the gathered data, you can also plan your timeline, budget, and b2b marketing strategies you can implement for your target market.
#4 Analyze and Report
Data is meant to be analyzed after it is gathered. Data analysis for market research must be done with caution, as this will determine the outcome of your research.
There are three steps in how you can analyze your data.
- Clean – Only some of the data you collected will be useful to your research. Make sure that you delete any duplicate records for errors in formatting. Doing this can make your process go into a smoother phase.
- Analyze – there are various techniques you can use to analyze your data. Statistical analysis, regressions, and more can help with your analysis. During this stage, you can find patterns, trends, and correlations that can answer your question.
- Interpret- this is the stage where you develop the course of action based on your findings.
After going through the previous steps, it is time for our final step. The final step is to report the findings you have. It is to let the stakeholders know what could be done to better promote to your target market. This final step shows the importance of market analysis as it will now be used for decision-making.
In a nutshell
B2B market research is vital in SAAS. It allows you to get to know your consumers from a deeper perspective. It allows you to gauge their opinions and thoughts toward a product.
Market research should be noticed as it offers much potential and data. It is important to have data on which to base your business decisions.
Data as a backup for a decision assures you. An assurance that the decision you will make will be the best and more accurate as it has been thoroughly studied and researched.
Market research may be hard, but if you understand it, you can use it to your advantage. Good luck on your market research journey!
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Daniel is a digital marketing expert with hands-on experience in digital marketing since 2007. Being an expert in link-building services, he has helped many clients, building teams and coaching others to foster great innovation.
