Companies that sell raw materials or simple components face a marketing problem - how to give their products recognisable benefits which differentiate them from competitors. A popular tactic is to cut prices in the belief that this is the principal motivation influencing buyers; there being little to choose between other features such as quality, delivery and service. The unfortunate result may be a price war, as competitors retaliate in an attempt to maintain market share. It is our contention that to sell non-differentiated products chiefly on a price platform, is both economically disastrous and unnecessary. This article seeks to show how to avoid price cuts by adopting a more professional and profitable marketing stance.

For more information on this area or for more white papers, please visit our company website at www.b2binternational.com. Visit our b2b-blog for more audio content, free eBook, and much more.This podcast is brought to you by Business 2 Business Market Research Specialists

Why not subscribe to our podcast using

Listen Now:

 How To Avoid Competing On Price [24:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

What does make people switch? What is it that makes someone change their mind or their behaviour? These are crucial questions to any marketer and particularly baffling to the business to business marketer. This is because we b2b marketers operate in a world complicated by the multi-faceted decision making unit comprising buyers, technicians, management policy setters and so on - all who claim to make their decisions rationally. This podcast offers thoughts on b2b switching behaviour and the forces that shape these decisions.

This weeks podcast was written by B2B International Director, Paul Hague.

For more information on this area or for more white papers, please visit our company website at www.b2binternational.com. Visit our b2b-blog for more audio content, free eBook, and much more.This podcast is brought to you by Business 2 Business Market Research Specialists

Why not subscribe to our podcast using

Listen Now:

 Getting People To Switch [11:24m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The sizeable sums involved in acquisitions, and the dire implications they have on a company’s future, demand that these decisions are in the hands of the senior team running the organisation. The chairman plays a leading role, assuming a high level of responsibility for directional changes, group growth and corporate strategy.

This weeks podcast was written by Paul Hague, and covers the following topics:

• The traditional approach to acquisitions
• The role of market research in acquisition studies
• Research to guide investment
• Technology transfer
• Summary

For more information on this area or for more white papers, please visit our company website at www.b2binternational.com. Visit our b2b-blog for more audio content, free eBook, and much more.This podcast is brought to you by Business 2 Business Market Research Specialists

Why not subscribe to our podcast using

Listen Now:

 Guiding Acquisitions and Investment Policy [18:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

As already discussed, no agency has in-house fieldwork coverage of the whole of China. However, most major agencies do have 3 offices – one in each of Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. Head Offices are spread across the three cities, although there are more in Shanghai than in Beijing or Guangzhou. Companies with a strong business-to-business focus tend to be headquartered in Beijing, reflecting the importance of speaking to Government officials in such studies. The most common model is for the majority of research executives and management to be located at HQ, with a limited management presence at the other two offices. It is common for the Guangzhou office to consist of fieldwork operations only, the role of this office being to cover off the requirement for Cantonese interviewing in Southern mainland China and Hong Kong. Clients will find themselves liaising with just one office, depending on the location of the executive carrying out their particular project.

This week’s Podcast, written by Matt Harrison, Director of B2B International, looks at the Market Research Industry In China and covers the following topics:

The ‘Typical’ Chinese Market Research Agency
Data Collection In Chinese Agencies
Desk Research
Data Analysis and Interpretation In Chinese Agencies
How Do Chinese Agencies Market Themselves?
Recommendations For Research Buyers

For more information on this area or for more white papers, please visit our company website at www.b2binternational.com. Visit our b2b-blog for more audio content, free eBook, and much more.This podcast is brought to you by Business 2 Business Market Research Specialists

Why not subscribe to our podcast using

Listen Now:

 Market Research In China - Part 2 [18:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

To most Western companies, the idea of conducting or commissioning market research in China is a difficult, if not daunting, concept to grasp. Frequently, the perceived barriers of researching a Chinese market are seen as so insurmountable that no serious consideration of the potential benefits is even made. Too often, research agencies and potential clients alike are beaten before they begin.

The barriers to researching the Chinese market are, it is true, substantial. Indeed, in a country of over 1.3 billion people (one fifth of the world’s population), 200 language dialects and 57 ethnic groups, it is often difficult to even talk of ‘the Chinese market’ as one coherent entity. And then of course there is the ‘information’ issue – what, Western companies ask, are we allowed to ask, and how reliable will the information be?

This week’s podcast, written by Matt Harrison, Director of B2B International, looks at the Market Research Industry In China and covers the follwing topics:

Origins Of The Chinese Market Research Industry
Market size and sectors
Business-To-Business Research – Size & Sectors
Companies Active In The Chinese Market
Market Research Providers
Over The Next 5 Years

For more information on this area or for more white papers, please visit our company website at www.b2binternational.com. Visit our b2b-blog for more audio content, free eBook, and much more.This podcast is brought to you by Business 2 Business Market Research Specialists

Why not subscribe to our podcast using

Listen Now:

 Market Research In China - Part 1 [18:27m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

There must be more misunderstood money spent on business to business promotions and advertising than on anything else in the marketing budget. Maybe your promotional spend is excessive; maybe it isn’t enough. What we do know is that it is difficult to measure its effectiveness and very few people even try.

This weeks podcast, written by Paul Hague looks at “Making the promotional pound go further”. The following issues are covered:

How to test the effectiveness of promotions
measuring the effectiveness of other types of promotions
some principles that can be drawn from advertising research

For more information on this area or for more white papers, please visit our company website at www.b2binternational.com. Visit our b2b-blog for more audio content, free eBook, and much more.This podcast is brought to you by Business 2 Business Market Research Specialists

Why not subscribe to our podcast using

Listen Now:

 Making The Promotional Pound Go Further [13:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Focus groups take their roots in the social sciences and have been adopted by market researchers as a valuable interface between businesses and their customers. Focus group research has been used in the industry for more than 30 years and there is a wealth of published literature on the relative merits of the methodology and its contribution to business practise. Whilst some idea of frequency can be gained from focus groups, in essence, focus groups do not seek to measure; they uncover issues, unravel processes and test reactions and perceptions. They can be used stand alone, and they can augment and complement other methodologies. When choosing this data collection methodology, the purpose of the study needs to be considered carefully.

Today’s podcast, written by B2B International Director Carol-Ann Morgan, is the second and final part of our podcast on ‘Using Focus Groups In Market Research’. You can hear the first part of the podcast by clicking here or by subscribing to the podcast. This Podcast covers the following topics:

• PLANNING AND RECRUITING GROUPS
• Number of groups:
• Venues and Timing of groups:
• Getting respondents to attend:
• THE GROUP MODERATOR
• TOOLS OF THE GROUP MODERATOR
• ANALYSIS AND REPORTING

For more information on this area or for more white papers, please visit our company website at www.b2binternational.com. Visit our b2b-blog for more audio content, free eBook, and much more.This podcast is brought to you by Business 2 Business Market Research Specialists

Why not subscribe to our podcast using

Listen Now:

 Using Focus Groups In Market Research - Part 2 of 2 [18:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Despite their recent shunt into the public eye over the past decade, focus groups are nothing new. Within the social sciences, they can be found detailed in the literature as far back as the 1920’s. This non-directive approach increased in appeal in the 1930s and 1940s as many sociologists were looking for alternative ways of conducting interviews as the traditional closed response choice questionnaires were being questioned. Paul Lazersfeld, an academic also involved in marketing,used and documented the approach in evaluating audience responses to stimulus material such as films, radio and written manuals. Robert Merton, himself a Sociologist was introduced to the focus group technique by his colleague Lazersfeld, and he pioneered the approach with his work during World War II exploring morale in the US military for the War Department (Merton & Kendall 1946).

Today’s podcast, written by B2B International Director Carol-Ann Morgan, is part one of our two part podcast on ‘Using Focus Groups In Market Research’. The second part of the podcast will be published next Monday (2nd Oct).

Part One covers the following issues:

- HISTORY OF THE FOCUS GROUP
- WHAT IS THE FOCUS GROUP?
- WHEN DO YOU USE FOCUS GROUPS?
- AREAS OF SPECIAL CONSIDERATION:

- Culture
- Sensitivity of the Focus Topic
- The Effect of the Group Hierarchy
- Difficulties with Disclosure
- Match of Moderator

For more information on this area or for more white papers, please visit our company website at www.b2binternational.com. Visit our b2b-blog for more audio content, free eBook, and much more.This podcast is brought to you by Business 2 Business Market Research Specialists

Why not subscribe to our podcast using

Listen Now:

 Using Focus Groups In Market Research - Part 1 of 2 [16:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Recently, when preparing for a presentation, Dan Park was re-reading some material that suddenly struck him in a different way compared with his previous reading of it. Drawing on original USA research from customer satisfaction surveys the American marketing specialist Jack Trout makes the following points:

* More than 40 per cent of customers who claimed to be satisfied switched suppliers without looking back. (So many choices, so little time.)

* Eighty nine per cent of people who owned cars from a certain manufacturer said they were very satisfied and 67 per cent said that they intended to purchase another car from that manufacturer.

* Fewer than 20 per cent actually did so.

Source: Trout (2000) p 33.

Clearly the above raises interesting questions about the subject of customer satisfaction and it has prompted a very lively exchange of thoughts between the two authors named above. Out of this came the decision to jointly write this short B2B White Paper that forms the basis of this podcast.

This podcast “Beyond customer satisfaction�, which was jointly written by Paul Hague and Dan Park, covers the following topics:

Is everybody happy?
Loyalty is stronger in most b2b markets
Measuring customer satisfaction
Measuring loyalty
Robust loyalty
Durable loyalty

For more information on this area or for more white papers, please visit our company website at www.b2binternational.com. Visit our b2b-blog for more audio content, free eBook, and much more.This podcast is brought to you by Business 2 Business Market Research Specialists

Why not subscribe to our podcast using

Listen Now:

 Beyond Customer Satisfaction [15:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Ever since the emergence of the Internet, the market research industry has sought ways of using online research in order to achieve more effective results. Desk research conducted over the Web is a long-established technique that has made desk research quicker, easier, more up-to-date and more cost effective. Similarly online surveys are widely regarded as an excellent way of obtaining the views of large numbers of respondents in an accurate and cost-effective way.

This week, our audio podcast “Online Focus Groups As A Business To Business Research Technique” covers the following topics:

Online technology in the market research industry

Principles behind online focus groups

Benefits of online focus groups

Volume of information

Depth of information

Quality/reliability of data

A better spread of respondents

Incorporating different time zones

Researching senior respondents

Participation rates

Introducing stimulae to the conversation

Providing a viewing facility

Limitations of online focus groups

The Future For Online Focus Groups
For more information on this area or for more white papers, please visit our company website at www.b2binternational.com. Visit our b2b-blog for more audio content, free eBook, and much more.

This podcast is brought to you by Business 2 Business Market Research Specialists

Why not subscribe to our podcast using

Listen Now:

 Online Focus Groups As A Business To Business Research Technique [15:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download