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Are B2B Panels A Death Sentence For Market Research Giants Like Nielsen And Gartner?
Custom B2B expert panels recently emerged as an alternative data source to traditional enterprise market research. Unlike off-the-shelf market reports from companies such as Nielsen, Gartner or Markets & Markets, B2B panels and B2B surveys take a custom approach to data and expertise by targeting respondents and honing in on custom qualitative and quantitative insights. This new approach to enterprise market research is particularly useful for B2B leaders and executives who want specific insights on their product, competitors, the market, and emerging technologies. In the vast majority of cases, the data that is relevant to executives is so specific that it cannot be covered in depth in off the shelf reports.
Typically, when enterprise founders and executives want insights into the voice of the customer, the competitive landscape, to perform due diligence, or to gather data on a particular market, they turn to one-size-fits-all comprehensive downloadable reports from market research firms like Markets & Markets, Gartner, or Nielsen. These off-the-shelf reports give in-depth data on numerous industries, but because they are pre-packaged and broad, they can be insufficient to answer precise questions or needs. In fact, a NewtonX client in the SaaS space recently stated that when he would buy a traditional market report, typically only 10-15% of it would be relevant to his company and the precise questions he needed answered.
Most B2B executives need market research that is tailored to their products, industry, and competitors. Sometimes, these needs align well with traditional market research reports. But more often than not, these reports only contain small slices of the overall information that the executive is seeking, or worse, none at all. This means that purchasing a report is always somewhat of a gamble: all executives have to go by is a table of contents, and there’s no way to request further information after reading the report.
– Often little-to-no information on sub products, sub customer segments, sub-geographies etc.
– No ability to double-click on the data; if something doesn’t make sense or you want elaboration you cannot dive deeper into the information.
B2B Surveys address each of these problems, and still provide the same depth and scale of research that traditional market research reports do.
B2B panels are comprised of experts in the industry that executives need insights into. The people who make up the panel are chosen because of their experience, title, tenure, previous companies worked at, and industry expertise. Because each panel is formed on an ad hoc basis, the panel members and the data and insights sourced from the panel are always relevant to the client’s needs.
– Ability to deep dive into numbers and insights — executives can source data and opinions directly from the person who provided them, and ask for follow up consultations.
Accessing decision makers, C-levels, business owners, academics, and senior analysts en masse was, until recently, very difficult. Now, however, products like NewtonX enable clients to access full panels of experts tailored to the clients’ precise request. Executives can learn about competitor products, gauge customer sentiment, conduct due diligence, and gain insights into extremely niche knowledge about technology and services — from the people who know the most about each of these topics for the industry at hand. Now, instead of using 10% of an off-the-shelf report, business leaders can get customized information and data that precisely addresses 100% of their needs.
To learn more about leveraging a B2B panel for enterprise market research with NewtonX, visit NewtonX.com.