B2B market research when six roles decide and you only hear from one.

The questions are similar and the conditions are very different. In B2C you can reach thousands of buyers quickly, and each one decides for themselves. In B2B there are fewer buyers, they’re harder to reach, the purchase is larger and several people share the decision. That pushes B2B research towards longer interviews, smaller and more carefully built samples, and more attention to who holds which role.

One by one. We start from a definition of exactly who we need, by role, company size and sector, and recruit through specialist B2B recruiters, professional networks and referrals. Every participant is screened on their real responsibilities before the interview, and the incentive is set at a level a senior person takes seriously. Where it helps, your own customers are part of the sample, approached in the way you agree with us.

Fewer than in consumer work, and it depends on how varied your buyers are. For interviews, 15 to 30 across the roles and segments that matter is a common range. A survey is judged against the size of the real market: if 500 companies could buy, 100 well-screened responses is a fifth of all your possible customers. We explain the reasoning in the proposal, so you can defend the number internally.

No, and we’d rather say so up front. We don’t investigate a named company or map who’s who inside it. We study your market: people who hold these roles, such as finance directors, IT leads and procurement managers, across many companies in your sector. You learn how each role tends to think, what it needs to see and where decisions usually stall. What participants tell us is reported without naming them or their employer.

Yes, when there are enough of them to study as a group. That goes for consumers, for the users of a digital product and for business customers. We agree with you how they’re approached, and what they tell us is reported for the group, without naming who said what. With only a handful of accounts there isn’t a market to research, and a conversation between your team and each customer will tell you more.

Look at three things. First, who does the interviews: a senior researcher can hold a conversation with a finance director, and a junior with a script usually can’t. Second, how they recruit and screen, because in B2B a few fake respondents can ruin a small sample. Third, whether you get a recommendation or a pile of transcripts. Ask each B2B market research agency on your list to show you one finished report.

It depends on how many markets, roles and lenses the question needs, and on how hard the people are to reach, which is the main cost in B2B. Most of our projects are six-figure investments. You get a fixed price and a timeline before any work starts.