Introduction

Understanding your customers can make the biggest difference between success and failure. B2B market research is one way to uncover the path to success for a business, be it in any city. Ohio is full of promising business opportunities, and as an Ohio B2B market researcher, it can be tough to find them. Uncovering the B2B buying journey can be a complex process because it doesn't look like a typical B2C journey. Hubspot's recent article goes into the three stages of a B2B buyer's purchase journey; awareness, consideration, and decision stage. With the help of B2B market research, it becomes easy to map these three stages. But before you can do that, you need to know the basics. Here are six things that any professional should know about conducting Ohio B2B market research:

B2B Market Research works best when it's a collaboration between the client and their market research agency

Ohio B2B market research is a collaborative process. It's important to work with your market research agency to create the best results. They'll help you define the problem and set research objectives, design the research methodology and plan and execute the study. As both a researcher and an experienced business owner, working together can lead to better insights that inform better decisions, which in turn help companies grow in their industries.

1. Ohio B2B markets are broad and diverse, with enormous potential

It's often said that "the world is your oyster," and Ohio is no exception. It's a great place to start a business, with a large population and an endless supply of potential customers. The state hosts many different types of businesses within its borders, including manufacturing companies, financial institutions, healthcare providers, and more.

The B2B marketing industry in Ohio has also shown growth over the last few years, and in particular, a trend that's emerging is leveraging online B2B market research to reach a smaller base of B2B customers. In fact, online surveys are now of the most cost-effective ways of conducting B2B market research. Although surveys can be a quick and easy way to gather a whole lot of data in one place, it's a smart idea to evaluate the purpose of your B2B market research before going into a survey. Here are some questions to ask yourself before conducting an online survey:

1. What are some of the key questions that you are trying to answer?
2. What is the monetary or economic value of these answers to your business? Is it too small or fairly large? If it's low, then why do you even need to conduct a survey? (There might be more suitable methods of market research available) 
3. What are you trying to achieve with your survey project? Are you trying to validate or prove a hypothesis? 

Typically, online surveys are a viable option for market research, if you want to define your market, identify your competitive strength, or validate interest in a particular product. Learn more about the advantages and disadvantages of online surveys in this paper by Researchgate. 

2. You should plan ahead, but not too far ahead to conduct Ohio B2B market research

While market research may seem like a daunting task, you can get the most out of it if you keep it simple. The first thing you need to do is decide what kind of information you want about your target audience. After that, figure out who in your company would benefit from this information and how they will use it. Next, determine how much time is available for conducting the research and decide what stage of planning would be ideal for gathering this particular type of data. 

3. Be careful what you ask of your respondents

While designing a questionnaire for Ohio B2B market research, keep the following points in mind:

• Ask only what you need to know.
• Pose only those questions from which you can get useful information.
• Ask only questions that are relevant to your business and research topic.

4. There's no such thing as a bad question, just a badly asked question

• Don't ask leading questions. A leading question is one that contains an assumption or suggests a certain answer. In the case of market research, this can skew results because it will only encourage respondents to provide information that supports their pre-existing beliefs about the subject. For example, say that you're looking for feedback on how satisfied customers are with their experience at your company's call centre. If you ask the question, "How satisfied are you with our customer service?", it's probably not going to yield much useful data. This is because most people won't want to admit that they aren't happy with something.
• Don't ask questions that are too vague or too specific. If your survey is too open-ended, for example by asking "What do you think about X?", then there will be no way for anyone to take it to determine whether or not their opinion matches yours. On the other hand, if there are too many specific questions like "Do you agree or disagree with statement A?", then respondents might get confused and give invalid answers while trying to figure out what exactly they are being asked.
• Don't ask questions that could make anyone uncomfortable in answering them: This includes anything that relates to any person's personal life (i.e., family composition). In addition,  avoid asking detailed questions about the person's career or choices. These types of things can lead down paths where individuals may feel uncomfortable sharing information. Asking these kinds of questions is especially not useful when these answers don't relate directly back to any kind of business context.

5. Sometimes the answer is right in front of you

While the entire research process may seem daunting to you, it's important to note that there are a number of resources you can use and people who can help.

• Network with other B2B marketers in your industry. Search for marketing groups or Facebook groups online and reach out to them.
• Ask questions! This might seem obvious, but sometimes the answer is right in front of you. Don't be afraid to ask for help when conducting market research; it's better than getting nothing done at all.
• If something doesn't work, try taking a different approach to B2B market research. It's not always easy to figure out what will work best for your business needs, but sometimes taking risks pays off big time when conducting Ohio B2B market research.

Ohio is full of promising B2B market research opportunities

If you're looking for a great place to start a market research project in Ohio, don't hesitate to get in touch with us. The state is full of small businesses and B2B companies that are flourishing thanks to a large number of opportunities available there. There are plenty of markets for your product or service, and with so many people in need of what you have to offer, there's no reason not to take advantage of this opportunity.

If you already have an established business and want some ideas on how best to expand it, B2B market research could also be exactly what you're looking for. With its diverse population and culture as well as an abundance of natural resources (including coal), this state has been home to many successful businesses over the years. Just check out some major companies like Procter & Gamble or Kroger who started out right here! So if there's anything we can tell aspiring entrepreneurs: don't wait around--go ahead and make your dreams come true!

Conclusion

We hope that this blog post has encouraged you to get researching and start exploring the amazing potential that Ohio has to offer. We know there's a lot more we could say on this topic, which is why our recent article on Ohio B2B market research will give you a depth of resources on the topic.  Learn more in Conducting an Ohio B2B survey: How to go about it. If you have any questions as to how to use data-driven insights to conduct Ohio B2B market research, please don't hesitate to contact us at sales@grape-data.com. We'd be happy to help you.