A market intelligence gathering strategy is critical to identifying and closing on opportunities, defining emerging trends and tracking critical competitor data. However, it isn’t merely a question of knowing what your customers want, when they want it. Instead, it’s about gathering vital information from multiple sources and using that information to better position your company. To help, here are five B2B market intelligence gathering strategies that cost nothing, are easy to implement and will give your company the upper hand.
1. Customer Reward Programs: Firs to make our list is a strategy most often employed in consumer markets. However, it also has a place in B2B markets. The premise is simple: Every customer purchase goes towards a rebate, one that is redeemed once a predetermined volume is attained. The customer doesn’t need to sign a contract. All they have to do is continue to make purchases. The more they buy, the faster they reach their volume threshold and consequently, the larger their rebate.
The program helps to increase customer retention. However, there are other benefits. When properly implemented, the plan forces your customer to contact you once a competitive bid is received. Why? Because they want the new price and the rebate they’ve accrued in their account. You get up-to-the-minute competitor pricing information and most importantly, you secure the right of last refusal with your customer.
Tracking gross profit on sales is an essential part of deciding whether to match the offer or hold firm. If you customer leaves the program, they lose the rebate and you don’t see a reduction in your margins.
The above video and excel table is from the article: Sample Back-End Rebate Excel Sheet for Customer Retention
2. Key Vendors and Strategic Partners: Your supply chain is the first part of your value chain and a critical step in shortening your product to market lead times. Your vendors are excellent sources of vital information about your market, your competition and your industry as a whole. Their knowledge is incredibly useful.
Focus on your strongest vendor relationships and strategic partnerships as a source of vital market data. Your vendor’s position within your supply chain is also an important consideration. Identify those vendors that provide time-critical parts for your industry. These vendors are constantly up-to-date on new material and consumable requirements. They often have pertinent information about emerging market trends and competitor strategies.
To read more, please go to: How Can Strategic Planning Help Your Business Grow?
3. B2B Social Media: Make sure to focus on market-specific online sources. Ignore Facebook. Stay away from consumer-related social media sites. They play no role with respect to business-to-business markets. Instead, concentrate your efforts on social media forums and websites specific to your industry and market.
None of your customers will ever Facebook like an industrial finished good, a new design or a favored product offering. They’re more likely to reference your company and its capabilities on LinkedIn and other business forums.
Learn about the essentials of branding industrial finished goods in a B2B marketplace by going to: Building a B2B Brand: Management and Strategies to a Better Market Position
4. Credit Rating and Financing: Monitoring your customer’s credit involves far more than making sure they stay within terms. It means tracking purchasing volumes, credit ratings and payment habits. Your market intelligence gathering strategies must incorporate your knowledge of your customer’s finances. For instance, it’s not uncommon for customers to run up credit limits across multiple vendors. The strategy is simple: Max out the credit limit with one vendor before moving onto the next. These customers treat your company as a bank. While you struggle with long receivable collection times, your customers benefit from an inexpensive source of immediate financing.
You must pay close attention to any sudden increases in demand, the kind of which is out of the ordinary and not in sync with your business cycles. It may be a sign that your customer is having financial issues: They buy as much as they can at one time in order to avoid being cut-off later. A critical tool for capturing this data is to use a customer grading system like the one described below.
You can read more on this subject, and gain access to your own customer grading sheet, by going to: Sample Customer Scorecard Excel Sheet: Grading Your Customer’s Value
5. Market Influencers and Industry Stalwarts: Every industry has a guru. Every market has a major contributor, one whose influence extends across the entire industry. Knowing these individuals is critical to knowing your market. However, it’s not about getting to know them personally. Instead, it’s about knowing where they are, what they say and what influence they hold.
These individuals are constantly in the spotlight. They have blogs, websites and frequent social media sites and forums. Podcasts are one tool to track what these influencers have to say. If it means joining a subscription or getting a monthly publication, then so be it. Identify who these individuals are and listen to what they have to say.
Ultimately, you want your B2B intelligence gathering strategy to be multifaceted. It’s not simply a question of pestering your customers for information. Instead, it’s about making it easy for them to share vital information with you by incentivizing them to continually purchase from your company. Your most important vendors also play a role as they are dialed into emerging market trends and competitor needs. Social media also plays a role, provided it’s applicable to your industry. Frequent customer credit checks and reports is also important. Finally, identify your market’s biggest influencers.
However, none of these five tools work if you’re not willing to share the information within your company. Gathering market data is one thing. Using it properly is something else entirely.
Here are some additional sources of material.
Should Your Company be a Market Follower, Market Leader, or Market Expert?
B2B Sales Strategies: Importance of Market Data in Price Negotiations
When Defending Market Share Use Calculated Risks, Not Gambles
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