Consumer Market Research and B2B Market Research - - What's the difference?

There are many important distinctions between consumer market research and B2B market research studies.  In general, a business-to-business market research survey conducted online is more difficult and expensive to complete then is a consumer research survey.   This article describes some of the main reasons for these differences.

Consumer research surveys often target a balanced sampling of a survey population (such as the U.S. population in a nationwide survey or a designated market area for a geographic selection) or select demographics such as household income, age, education level, or gender.  Low incidence consumer studies can frequently reach respondents based on profiles that are not pre-identified in the vendor's database through the distribution of large numbers of email invitations.   In comparison, B2B market research often targets respondents based on job title / job function, size of employer, input on purchases, and other selective items.  For example, a business-to-business market research survey might target small business owners with 25 to 100 employees who are final decision makers on purchases of accounting software.

As a general rule, survey panelists who are business professionals or small business owners require a much higher incentive for participation in an online survey than general consumers.  A simple rule to follow - - the higher the respondent's income level and/or job title, the larger the award needed to entice survey participation.  This discrepancy in award amounts is magnified as the length of the survey increases beyond 10 minutes.  For example, a 20-minute online survey might require a $5.00 award for participation by a stay-at-home parent but a $15.00 award or higher might be needed for a senior executive at a large company.

Also entering into the cost equation (and level of difficulty) is the limited number of survey panelists and market research panels with pre-identified business information about their sign-ups.   Put differently, almost all market research panels have extensive profiles of consumer sign-ups, but very few have business profiles of these same individuals and/or have a limited number of consumer panelists who are also high-level business professionals.  

Another concern is that business profiles can frequently change whereas many consumer profiles remain constant or rarely change.  For example, demographics such as gender, date of birth, and ethnicity are static profiles.  And such profiles as geographic location, number of children, education, home ownership, and marital status change infrequently.  In the case of business profiles, type of occupation can remain fairly constant, but such items as job title, decision-making authority, size of employer, and number of persons who report to a business professional can change quite frequently.   The impact of frequently changing profiles is a lower incidence rate (and higher cost) for a market research project.

For example, many B2B market research projects require a mix of different employer sizes or the targeting of specific employer size - - often defined by company revenues or the number of employees, or both.   Not only do employees frequently change jobs, but also the size of employers can change significantly in the current economic environment.  An analogy would be a consumer market research project that targets high net worth participants.  In the past, net worth profiles have been quite reliable and rarely change.  However, in today's economic climate, many individuals have experienced significant declines in net worth.

In summary, B2B market research studies are generally far more difficult and expensive to conduct when compared to consumer research studies.  The reasons for this are the need for higher incentives to entice participation by business professionals, the lack of available sample for business-to-business market research, and the frequently changing profiles of business professionals as compared to participants in consumer market research panels.