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Tag Archive for: market research blog

Don’t Stop Believin’ in Message Testing

August 9, 2022/in B2B Market Research Blog, B2B Marketing Blog, Blog Posts, Message Testing Research /by Tricia Lindsey
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Arguably the most famous song from the 1980s was introduced in 1981 by the band Journey. To this day “Don’t Stop Believin’” is a hit song for people of all ages that’s heard at sporting events, weddings, and other social events. Now, you might be asking yourself, “How has this song stood the test of time?”

Greatest hits are rarely born overnight. For example, the initial inspiration for the core lyric in the song “Don’t Stop Believin,” occurred five years before Journey sat down to record the track. After inspiration, comes the hard work of developing lyrics and music that work in harmony. 

Musicians, songwriters, and producers write and rewrite a song, refining the lyrics, melody, and title until they create an irresistible song. Oftentimes, there are multiple collaborators working behind the scenes testing musical ideas. Even “Don’t Stop Believin’” has three songwriters and two producers to its credit. 

The same creative and intellectual rigor can be applied when developing great B2B messaging. Just as a great song benefits from multiple collaborators testing ideas, great messaging benefits from external perspectives – specifically, those of your potential buyers.

To develop B2B messaging that resonates, marketers first need to test it. Without message testing, your messaging may fall flat with your audience, alienating buyers, or worse, driving them to your competitors. However, conducting message testing allows you to understand where your messaging falls short, where it resonates, and what you can do to craft messaging that rocks your audiences’ socks off.

What Makes A Greatest Hit?

Just as a hit song consists of a catchy title and lyrics, a memorable melody, and a great hook, great B2B messaging can be broken down into the same key elements:

  • Instant attention-grabbers
  • Clear persona targeting
  • Banished buzzwords
  • Clear calls to action (CTA)

Instant Attention-Grabbers

According to Pew Research Center’s 2021 Digital Experience Benchmark report, the B2B industry spends an average of 1.37 minutes on a company webpage. As a marketer, that’s all the time you have to grab your audiences’ attention.

Your message needs to instantly capture a potential buyer’s attention to want to learn more. Once you’ve commanded a buyer’s interest, more descriptive and informative messaging can follow.

You Can’t Write to Everyone, You Have to Write to Someone

If you’re still trying to write a universal message that resonates with all your audiences, think again. Sharp messaging should be built to target each of the personas’ interests and concerns. 

The context: We worked with a company who wanted to understand how people responded to the word “risk.” We found that respondents generally don’t like the word “risk” because it implies you might lose something. 

For example, if you’re talking to a line-of-business person in financial services, they wouldn’t want to hear the word risk. Instead, they’d prefer a phrase like “improving security.” Conversely, a chief security officer may want to hear how you plan to mitigate risk.

The takeaway: When you understand how your audiences will perceive different phrases, it allows you to write stronger content. Rather than writing generalized blanket statements, you need to tailor your messages to the right persona.

Say Bye-Bye to Buzzwords

Certain terms gain instant popularity in B2B messaging, but can fizzle out just as fast. These buzzwords suffer from frequent overuse, resulting in loss of meaning. Unfortunately, many B2B marketers still continue to use them.

The context: We once worked with a client who was interested in message testing across their website. Our experiential analysis revealed that consumers and IT roles did not respond well to the flashy marketing buzzwords they repeatedly used. Some of the language was so overused that it lost its meaning to our client’s tech audience.

The takeaway: IT buyers want to hear specifically what your solution does and why it is unique. They will lose confidence in your solution if it includes the same generic buzzwords they’ve used to describe other solutions.

Focused CTAs

Does your messaging encourage your audience to take the next step? Effective CTAs not only bring in potential new leads, they also clearly indicate what your audience should do next.

Some examples of focused CTAs include:

  • Download our ebook
  • Subscribe to our weekly newsletter
  • Download this whitepaper
  • Sign up for free

These examples have a few things in common. First, they evoke curiosity and entice the audience to want whatever it is you’re offering. Second, they require the audience to take an actionable step. Words like “download” or “subscribe” tell your audience to take action, so there’s no confusion.

Great Message Testing Leads to Great Messaging

Although successful business messaging can sometimes come from a flash of creative inspiration, most of the time great messaging is achieved through the process of testing and refining ideas. 

Here are a few examples of how B2B message testing research has helped out clients.

Test Messaging That Sticks With Your Audience

Generic, buzzwordy messaging feels easy, but B2B buyers are looking for impactful messaging. To reach your buyers, test specific messages with each of your target personas. 

The context: We worked with a client who wanted to improve the benefits of one of its offerings. So, they came to us to conduct message testing to understand their target audience and how their messaging was perceived.

Our research revealed that IT directors, system admins and developers each wanted different things from our client’s content. System admins and developers despised the use of marketing fluff and preferred language that was directly related to technology. 

However, IT directors were more interested in seeing the ROI impact and placed a strong emphasis on security. When it came time to place value on the benefits of our client’s offering, each persona felt differently because they didn’t feel like it met their exact needs.

When it came time to place a value on the benefits of our client’s offering, every persona responded poorly because they couldn’t see how the solution met their exact needs. The messaging wasn’t specific enough.

The takeaway: We recommended that this client adjust their messaging to educate and increase awareness of their offerings. Message testing helped our client understand that different audiences value the relevancy of a message. 

Rather than trying to put all your eggs in one basket, we suggested that our client develop specific messaging targeted at each persona. Why? Because it not only shows that you understand your audience, but also demonstrates that you’re aware of the environment they’re working in and what matters most to them.

No One Wants to Hear “Free Bird”

Long paragraphs and stale language bore your readers. Understand what your target audience wants and strategically deliver that message. 

The context: We worked with a company to conduct message testing based on previous knowledge of their target audience. However, the messaging they used included run-on sentences and complicated phrases. They completely missed the mark on delivering effective messaging because they assumed that their target audience wanted more detailed, thorough information. 

Message testing revealed that the needs and interests of their audience had shifted. Their audience preferred short, direct messages not lengthy paragraphs of detailed text. This research gave our client the opportunity to reevaluate their messaging to keep their target audience engaged.

The takeaway: A lengthier message isn’t always an effective way to reach your audience. Messaging testing helps reveal these misconceptions, allowing you to sharpen your messaging.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T the Research

Sometimes you need to set aside persona opinions to produce great messaging. 

The context: We recently worked with a company to conduct message testing on a few phrases for a product offering. After conducting focus groups, it was apparent that respondents preferred a particular phrase over the other options presented.

During the final readout, one of the stakeholders explained that they did not agree with the choice of words the respondents preferred. In fact, the stakeholder went on to say that they would not change their messaging, even though the data suggested otherwise.

The takeaway: While our job is not to tell you what to do, we try to give you the information to make savvy business decisions. It’s important to keep an open mind when hearing the results of a message testing project. 

Feel the Beat

Great messaging should help your clients and prospects feel the beat. A beat that speaks to their interests, their jobs to be done, and their organization’s goals. 

Yet, great beats take time to find and create. And they must be tested, with real world audiences. Finally, the danger in skipping this testing step is that you might find out you are standing out in all the wrong ways in the marketplace with your messaging.

If you want your messaging to be the next greatest hit with your buyers, give us a call. We can help you find the beat and create messaging that resonates.


This blog post is brought to you by Cascade Insights, a firm that provides market research & marketing services exclusively to organizations with B2B tech sector initiatives. Want to learn more about the message testing we deliver? Our B2B Messaging Services can help. 

Special thanks to Sean Campbell, Co-Founder & CEO, Laurie Pocher, Senior Consultant, and Brian Surguine, Creative Services Manager, for advising on this piece.

competitive landscape analysis

5 Pieces of Bad News a Competitive Landscape Analysis Can Deliver

June 22, 2022/in B2B Competitive Landscape Analysis, B2B Market Research Blog, Blog Posts /by Raeann Bilow
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This is one of several blogs in our latest series, “Delivering Bad News to Good People,” where we explore different types of bad news we’ve had to deliver and how these discoveries help companies create meaningful impact within their organizations.

Marketers often have their own preconceived notions about a competitor’s success or failure in the marketplace based on anecdotal stories they’ve heard in the industry. A competitive landscape analysis can confirm many of these assumptions. However, it may also disrupt some of these beliefs by revealing unexpected challenges.

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4 Types of Bad News B2B Brand Research Delivers

May 17, 2022/in B2B Market Research Blog, B2B Marketing Blog, Blog Posts, Brand Research /by Tricia Lindsey
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This is one of several blogs in our latest series, “Delivering Bad News to Good People,” where we explore different types of bad news we’ve had to deliver and how these discoveries help companies create meaningful impact within their organizations.

B2B brand research can help to measure the relationship customers have with your company’s products or services. It may either confirm brand awareness hypotheses you already have, or it may surface new opportunities or unexpected perceptions among your buyers.

Sometimes, the findings uncovered in brand studies come as an unpleasant shock. Although initially upsetting, confronting the truth is a necessary first step to success. Once you understand where your brand stands, you can begin to address the gap between customers’ existing perceptions and how you want them to perceive your brand.

Perception precedes reality. – Andy Warhol

At Cascade Insights, we are often the messengers who deliver bad news to good marketers. Below, we’ve laid out four examples of bad brand news we’ve had to deliver, and how they were able to use that information to change the tides of perception — and reality — for their brands.

Bad News #1: No One Knows Who The Heck You Are

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The context: We once worked with a cybersecurity client that was initially interested in learning about how their product compared to competing offerings.

In the survey that we administered, we asked respondents which cybersecurity organizations they were aware of. Their responses showed that our client’s product was not as well-known as what they had thought.

Key takeaway: Marketers often don’t like what the brand research tells them. But information — especially of the unpleasant variety — inspires action.

Once this client fully grasped the reality of their situation, they then had the leverage they needed to launch a smart B2B brand awareness strategy.

Bad News #2: No One Knows What You Offer

The context: One of our clients commissioned a brand study to investigate how recognizable their core offerings were to their clients. This client explained that its core offerings were foot traffic data, geo-contextual awareness, and point of interest data. Yet, at the same time this client wanted to expand from being seen as purely B2C focused to someone who could handle B2B needs.

We found our client had a very positive brand perception among B2C consumers. While this company’s social media presence was well-known, its B2B offerings were not as recognizable. In fact, almost 20% of survey respondents weren’t aware that this company offered foot traffic data. Given this client wanted to grow their B2B footprint, this was a challenging finding.

Key takeaway: While this may be perceived as bad news for our client, the study revealed key insights regarding its varying B2B and B2C awareness that enabled them to react, adapt and realign themselves with target customers.

Bad News #3: You’re Not Being Perceived How You Think

The context: One client of ours had recently made a significant effort to engage with the open source community and invest in a number of different open-source projects. After this investment, they wanted to conduct brand research to see if buyers recognized them as friendly to open-source.

Unfortunately, our research uncovered that buyers felt our client was not involved in open-source projects at all. To make matters worse, despite our client’s efforts in the open-source space, buyers didn’t feel that our client contributed to open-source projects. Further, our research revealed that buyers were more likely to work with a company that they perceived to be open-source friendly.

Key takeaway: Initially, this news was frustrating for our client to hear after already working to establish themselves in the open-source space. But, the research made it clear that they had more work to do. Additionally, it reinforced the value buyer’s placed on organizations who truly embraced open-source.

Bad News #4: You’re a Well-Known Brand, But Not a First Choice

The context: We conducted a brand study with a cybersecurity client who needed to determine their level of brand awareness. Our survey asked respondents what brand characteristics they felt were most important and how they would rate other cybersecurity on these attributes.

After completing the survey, we discovered that our client had a relatively high level of brand awareness. This result was a positive takeaway considering the market was so segmented. Despite this, only 5% of respondents said they would actually consider switching to our client from another vendor.

Key takeaway: You won’t be a good fit for everyone. But if you aren’t appealing to the customers you want, you need to know why. This brand study unearthed customer values that could inform the strategic messaging pillars to use in the company’s sales and marketing efforts.

We’re Not Always The Bad Brand News Bears

We’re not always the bearers of bad news. We’ve also seen instances where companies’ key brand attributes aligned exactly with what the market cared about.

For example, one of our clients wanted to conduct brand research to measure how well their customers’ perceptions mapped onto the company’s brand values. Our client believed they were perceived as a caring, friendly, and responsive online HR provider. Our research confirmed this hypothesis, and the respondents emphasized how much they appreciated that our client’s values aligned with buyers.

The point is, brand studies don’t always deliver bad news. They can also confirm positive sentiments about your products and services. But until you actually conduct the research, you won’t know the reality of where you stand in the market.

You Can’t Ask Life to Take The Lemons Back

In the well known game series “Portal,” Cave Johnson voices the following quote.

“All right, I’ve been thinking. When life gives you lemons? Don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! ‘I don’t want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these?”

Unfortunately, for Cave Johnson, and all of the rest of us, you can’t ask life to take its lemons back. Nor should you get mad about it. But you can make changes. Those changes can be a simple light that others in your organization can choose to follow. And that change in direction can lead to more prospects, customers, or market share.

If you’re tired of dealing with lemons, or you think you might have some lurking around, drop us a note. We can help you figure out what to do with them – instead of just throwing them back.

 


This blog post is brought to you by Cascade Insights, a firm that provides market research & marketing services exclusively to organizations with B2B tech sector initiatives. Want to learn more about the brand research we deliver? Our B2B Brand Research can help.

Special thanks to Sean Campbell, Co-Founder & CEO, Tyler Honsinger, Director of Research, and Raeann Bilow, Content Marketing Architect, for advising on this piece.

Research Panel Quality Check: Trust Then Verify

Research Panel Quality Check: Trust Then Verify

September 22, 2021/in B2B Market Research Blog, Blog Posts /by Krista Daly
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“Quality, quality, quality: never waver from it, even when you don’t see how you can afford to keep it up. When you compromise, you become a commodity, and then you die.”—Gary Hirshberg

The market research industry has struggled for years to recruit the right respondents and ensure the best research panel quality. It’s a well-documented problem, as evidenced by the small sampling of online articles below:

  • Is Online Sample Quality a Pure Oxymoron?
  • Combatting Questionable Quality of Online Data Collection
  • Does Online Panel Quality S*ck?
  • The Problem with Online Panels
  • How Good are Online Survey Panels?
  • Bogus Respondents, Bots and Bad Data: How to Work with Market Research Panel Providers to Avoid Potential Pitfalls

We’ve talked about issues like this on our blog before, but we figured it was time for a more in-depth exploration of the problem. So, we’re writing a multipart series where we’ll assess what it means to have a quality panel, how to make a great survey, and where panels and panel firms came from.

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Market Opportunity Study

Market Opportunity Research: What’s the Point?

April 8, 2021/in B2B Market Opportunity Research, B2B Market Research Blog, Blog Posts, Product/Service Research /by Krista Daly
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Research needs to be acted on. Otherwise, what’s the point? A market opportunity study is one of the most powerful tools a business leader can use to drive that change.

Too often an organization falls down the rabbit hole after launching a market opportunity effort, simply because they can’t see the path forward.

At Cascade, we don’t just drop market opportunity research on your (virtual) desk and walk away. Instead we stick with you to make sure you learn, apply, and drive change inside your organization.
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Concept Testing

Success Isn’t Guaranteed: Concept Testing Can Help

February 23, 2021/in B2B Market Research Blog, Blog Posts, Concept Testing, Product/Service Research /by Krista Daly
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You have a new B2B product or service that you’re rolling out to the market, but adoption is slow. How could you have avoided a slow launch?  What should you have known before the launch?

Concept testing is the way to find out if your product or service will sell before you bring it to the marketplace. There are a number of concept testing methodologies to test your idea, each with their own pluses and minuses.

And if you have more than one idea, you can test multiple concepts with your prospects, too.

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