Small business, big opportunity

Editor's note: Bonnie Chiurazzi is a research director at Murphy Research, Santa Monica, Calif.  

In recent years, more and more companies have become interested in conducting research with small and medium businesses (SMBs), those with between one and 500 employees. The good news is, there are millions of them. In fact, over 99 percent of businesses in the U.S. are considered SMBs. But while that can make it easier to recruit them for marketing research, their incidence rate in research panels is still low and they can be trickier to research compared to large businesses (with over 500 employees) because their business structures and offerings are more varied.

Even though researchers tend to lump SMBs into one category, they are quite diverse. Businesses at different stages of development have different needs, priorities and budgets. For that reason, it is important to include a variety of respondents that represent the entire spectrum of businesses within the SMB research target. The size of the business, in terms of both employees and revenue, plays an important role in how researchers approach targeting the right respondents within the business. 

Technically, the research methodologies typically used on B2C studies are also effective on SMB respondents; however, due to the low incidence rate of SMB respondents, they can be much costlier. The cost-per-complete is anywhere from five to 10 times greater than that of a typical consumer study. Even though a large quantitative study may be logistically feasible, it may not make sense to spend that much. The following research designs and tips are cost-effective ways to obtain the necessary insights without overspending. 

Here are some general tips for B2(SM)B research design:

• While designing research that targets SMBs, keep in mind that a business is not akin to a consumer. A consumer is one person, with one mind. A business usually involves a group of people who must come to a consensus to make decisions. But researchers can only ask for one SMB professional’s vantage point at a time and they may not know every detail about the business for which they work. Decide which details are most important to achieve the research objectives and make sure to talk to the person who is intimately familiar with those details.
• Be mindful of SMB professionals’ busy schedule. It may be much easier for them to participate during nights or weekends rather than typical business hours. Similarly, they may do better with activities that can happen on their schedule, like journals or surveys, rather than a scheduled in-person interview.
• If the research team is designing a SMB study for a brand for the first time, consider conducting a short series of five-to-10 in-depth interviews over the phone or online. Use these interviews to discuss how a variety of SMB professionals within the brand’s target view the category. It will help the researcher team develop the right vocabulary for the study as well as determine which topics of discussion will yield the greatest insights for the primary research objectives.
• Make sure to target the correct B2B stakeholder. Many times, researchers go after the decision maker. However, the decision maker may not be the end user or someone who even understands that category especially well. Design a screener to target the person who has the most influence and knowledge on the subject rather than the person who has the final say.
• Plan for a longer field time. On average it takes about twice as long to field a study targeting SMB professionals.
• To ensure the best quality of respondents, include an articulation screener that is designed to gauge their knowledge of the category at hand. Do this for both qualitative and quantitative studies in addition to your regular as a backup measure to make sure each respondent is credible. It is time-consuming to read through the articulation screener for each survey respondent but it is well worth the effort. The number of fraudulent respondents increases with extremely low-incidence samples. Open-end articulation screeners are the best way to capture the fraudulent respondents that the survey platform is unable to weed out.

Digital in-depth interviews

SMB professionals tend to be very passionate about their work. This makes them excellent research participants. They are so enthusiastic and knowledgeable that it usually makes more sense to conduct digital in-depth interviews (IDIs) rather than focus groups. The in-depth interview gives respondents more time to dive into details and explain their unique experience within the SMB whereas focus groups are a bit higher-level. 

Another benefit to digital IDIs is they are easier (and therefore less expensive) to schedule because the respondent can attend the interview from their preferred location as long as they have a mobile device and a Wi-Fi connection. Busy professionals often don’t have time to drive to a physical meeting spot but they can usually find a window in their schedule to log on to a meeting for an hour. Additionally, digital recruits allow researchers to access business respondents from a much wider geographical target rather than being forced to concentrate on a handful of cities.

This methodology works very well for customer journey studies, UX tests and ethnographic deep-dives as well as product and concept reviews. That said, researchers can use an in-depth interview to cover just about any topic they like. However, unless the research team conducts at least 50 interviews, do not expect to be able to extrapolate the qualitative findings to the greater market. 

Some tips for digital IDIs:

• Demonstrate knowledge of the SMB professionals’ category throughout the recruiting and interviewing process so they are more likely to take you seriously. Carefully research screener questions and run them by someone who is familiar with the industry first. Use a moderator with experience in the category to establish trust and build rapport. 
• Recruit from a national level rather than relying on a single city or DMA. Take advantage of the national recruit by using recruiters with strong national lists rather than local recruiters with only a handful of locations.
• Be very flexible in scheduling interviews. These professionals are extremely busy so you may even want to offer time slots during nights and weekends. 
• Develop a flexible discussion guide that is appropriate for SMB professionals from any industry or role that may qualify for the study. Allow respondents to spend more time on topics where they have the most knowledge with the understanding that they may be less helpful in other areas of discussion.

Key-driver analysis

Another approach to use is a key driver analysis, which uses a multiple linear regression to uncover the relationships between potential drivers and the desired customer behavior. Most frequently, the customer behavior will be their likelihood to recommend a product or service and the potential drivers will be attributes that describe the product or service in question. The benefit of this analysis is that it measures the relationship between drivers and the behavior rather than simply asking the customer what is important to them.

Typically, we see customers respond in a hyper-rational fashion where they say they choose products or services based on their needs and the best price. However, a key driver analysis will often uncover the true attributes that lead to recommendations, purchase or satisfaction. Not only is it useful, it can be run with a sample size as small as n=250 (depending on the variance of the sample). This is good news for researchers targeting extremely low-incidence respondents like SMB professionals because they may not be able to achieve a large sample.

This analysis works especially well for prioritizing features and attributes of a product or service in a competitive category. If a brand is designing a new software package, for example, a key driver analysis is a great way to determine where the brand should focus its energy and attention. The metrics required to run the key driver analysis require satisfaction and brand rating questions. That means competitive analysis and key drivers go hand-in-hand and fit very well into an attitudes and usage study.

The setup for key driver analysis is simple. If the research team is already planning to field an online survey among SMB professionals, they will need to set up a brand rating section where respondents rate brands with which they are familiar or currently use (depending on the research objectives). Make sure the attributes in the ratings battery are relevant and exhaustive and include areas where there is potential for the brand to take action. Then include a question that asks the respondent’s likelihood to recommend, purchase or be satisfied with the product or service they are rating. More often than not, this input will be the typical Net Promoter Score question where the respondent is asked how likely they would be to recommend the product or service to a friend, family member or colleague on a scale of zero (not at all likely) to 10 (extremely likely). 

Some tips for key driver analysis:

• Consult with a statistician. Draft the inputs for the key drivers and have the statistician review them beforehand so they can advise on any necessary changes before the survey is fielded. 
• When including a rating section, limit the number of brands or products rated to two. If a respondent is familiar with all the brands listed, they could be looped in for so long that they lose interest and drop out of the survey. SMB respondents are a precious resource, so every effort should be made to keep them engaged in the survey.
• The key driver analysis is most effective when the inputs are distinct. One way to ensure the inputs are as distinct as possible is to first run a factor analysis of all the attributes. Then input the resulting factors into the key driver analysis to better understand how the factors relate to the outcome as key themes, rather than each individual attribute.

Online activity groups

An online activity group is a platform through which respondents interact with prompts and activities throughout the duration of the group (usually a week). Activity groups can be set up to allow respondents to interact with each other for some activities, while other activities can be private between the respondent and the moderator. It is even possible to give stakeholders access so they can interact with respondents.

When targeting a low-incidence subset of SMB professionals, this is a great option. A week-long online activity group allows the SMB professionals to participate on their time, making it much easier for them to squeeze the research project into their busy schedule. Additionally, the online activity group offers a wide array of research activities There are journals, discussion boards, image uploads, video uploads, short surveys, image mapping, concept reviews and more. This type of methodology works well when the objectives include a better understanding the daily flow of SMBs, category overviews, product reviews, concept reviews or brand affinities. 

Some tips for online activity groups:

• Allow plenty of time for recruiting and utilize a national recruit if possible.
• If the topics are a little dry, consider adding engagement activities such as an industry-specific discussion board with other professionals in their field to keep respondents excited and engaged. 
• Encourage stakeholders to block off time in their schedule to participate in the activity group. This will help them gain a valuable perspective on their customers as well as keep the respondents more engaged in the research.

Integrated B2(SM)B workshops

An integrated workshop includes five-to-10 SMB professionals who best represent the brand’s target, the research team and the brand’s internal stakeholders. Together, this group can set aside a day to tackle the most important research objectives. Having the respondents integrated in the workshop allows stakeholders to get to know them and better understand what drives their decision-making behavior. It also presents a unique opportunity to engage in an iterative concept test where respondent feedback can be integrated on the spot. 

The key to hosting a successful integrated SMB workshop is finding SMB respondents who are highly knowledgeable in the core areas of discussion and having a well-planned agenda. This means having clear goals and planning activities and discussion that will directly address those goals. An example of an activity could be breaking into small teams where each team works with one SMB professional. The stakeholders would then have to design a product or service that specifically meets the needs of the SMB professional in their group. Then the groups can come back together and discuss what changes they made and why it best suited their specific SMB professional. This is a great way to generate concepts and improvements to develop and test down the road.

Some tips for integrated B2(SM)B workshops:

• To find the best SMB professionals, pick the respondents who were most helpful and cooperative in a previous study. For example, if the research team kicked off the project with a set of 15 IDIs, they could pick the best five respondents and invite them to the workshop. 
• Plan the workshop far in advance so the SMB professionals can work it into their schedules.
• Pay an incentive that makes it worth their while to show up. 
• Send the itinerary to all participants ahead of time and give them a short homework assignment to get them thinking about the core objectives. Yes, this includes the stakeholders as well.

Creative solutions 

Researching SMBs can be difficult but there are lots of creative solutions that will help get it done without overspending. Hopefully this article helped spark some new ideas that will spur your research team to plan innovative and insightful research among SMB professionals.