The COVID-19 epidemic impacted not only how we worked, but also how we interacted with one another. With few in-person events or meetings and the majority of individuals working from home, everyone had to reconsider how they communicated with their target audience.
High-quality, engaging content suddenly becomes an important need for most organizations. This aroused a considerable strategy of online market research.
According to Spiceworks Ziff Davis and Google findings, buyers are cautiously optimistic about the coming year, despite the fact that the pandemic has definitely influenced both the volume and type of technological expenditures firms are planning for 2022.
What Can B2B Market Research Do for Your Company?
Customer insight: Communicating with customers to learn about their needs and pain points may help you decide whether to keep working on your product and lead your development team toward certain features and capabilities.
Acquisition cost: Knowing the cost of acquiring a new user allows you to create an exact budget and define campaign goals to ensure that each user remains relevant in the long run.
Customer LTV: In terms of the long run, lifetime value is an important factor to consider depending on the length of your company ties. Loyal customers may help you save money on marketing, and your B2B market research will tell you what to expect.
Trends: Market research can assist you in identifying existing and forthcoming trends in order to stay ahead of the competition. For instance, if your B2B company approaches sales teams, bear in mind that 70% of salespeople currently engage in digital sales approximately 50% of the time.
New opportunities: Aside from trends, keep a lookout for choices that have almost passed you by. To optimize the potential, add trends, investigate new areas, and do research.
Adapting to changes: Everything is susceptible to change, and B2B market research assists you in preparing for and adjusting to these changes. You risk creating something that would have been a hit a few years ago if you don’t have a direct connection with your target audience.
The revenue and spending forecast remain strong, but not as optimistic as in prior years.
Despite the coronavirus’s human and economic toll, 59 percent of business purchasers expect their company’s income to stay stable or improve next year.
The implication for B2B marketers is that demand may be slightly lower in the next year, but there is still substantial opportunity for those that fully understand and fulfill customer demands.
Over the last five years, there has been a gradual increase in interest in digital transformation. COVID-19, on the other hand, has functioned as a “catalyst” for change, with 76 percent of firms evaluating long-term IT and business process improvements, according to one of the B2B market research companies – Ziff Davis.
Many firms will make flexible work arrangements permanent, where employees spend some days in the office and others working remotely. This is causing an increase in expenditures in software for data and network security, communications, and employee self-service portals.
However, transformative does not always imply large, disruptive new systems and initiatives. “According to the report, “new technology adoption plans will fall considerably in 2022, with many firms wrestling with refining current processes rather than attempting to venture on experimental initiatives that may not provide a quick return on investment.”
Consider investing in proven technologies that can provide incremental improvements in service delivery and process automation rather than AI and VR.
In keeping with previous years, many B2B organizations aim to devote close to 30% of their overall IT budgets to software in 2021. They will spend more on cloud services and managed services while spending less on hardware.
Organizations will invest significantly more in productivity software, industry-specific applications, security apps, communication software, and market research tools within their software budgets than in previous years.
According to Google’s newest study on the emotional condition and buying patterns of B2B buyers, over two-thirds (65%) say they are likely to switch suppliers within the next 30 days, up from less than 60% at the start of the summer.
They are also taking out their wallets. In the most recent study, 66 percent of purchasers indicate their budgets have grown by 10% to 50% in the short future, up 10 points from June.
For the past two decades, consumer e-commerce sales have been increasing and progressively destroying brick-and-mortar companies. However, the pandemic has accelerated that rise, with e-commerce sales in the United States and Canada increasing by 129% year on year.
Unsurprisingly, those at-home customers demand a similar purchase experience in their work lives.
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