5 key takeaways from the MRS B2B conference

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the MRS B2B Conference, which if you weren’t there, was a fantastic event and provided a fabulous opportunity to catch up with clients and old colleagues. Aside from the networking, the conference itself offered plenty of thought-provoking insights for those in the market research and insight industry.

It highlighted key trends and strategies that our industry is adopting to stay relevant and effective in today’s business landscape. For me, there were five key takeaways from the event’s wealth of presentations. Most of these are well established principles at Adience, but the conference provided a valuable reminder of their importance, and an inside view of the innovative ways people are implementing them across the industry:

1. Keeping research human

One of the most crucial reminders was the importance of humanizing B2B research. Often, we treat B2B decision-makers as purely rational, driven by data and logic alone. However, just like consumers, B2B buyers are emotional beings. Fear of messing up, desire for innovation, and other personal factors influence their decisions. As researchers and marketers, we need to understand these emotional drivers and reflect them in our research and messaging to connect more deeply with decision-makers.

2. Sourcing the right respondents

Finding the right respondents for research is always a challenge, but the conference highlighted how agencies are increasingly aligned with Adience’s belief that online panels are rarely an effective method of recruiting and interviewing B2B audiences. Platforms like LinkedIn and other digital spaces offer fresh avenues for targeting niche B2B audiences alongside CATI, which appears to be experiencing a welcome resurgence. These wide-ranging techniques require more effort than simply using an online panel, but the reward is the ability to reach more relevant respondents, who provide richer insights that are more aligned with real-world buyer behaviors.

3. The 3% rule

A recurring theme was the “3% rule,” a vital concept in B2B marketing. On any given day, only 3% of your potential audience is actively in the market for your product or service. The remaining 97% aren’t currently looking to buy. This rule is crucial to our research and a key reminder that we should think beyond the point of purchase to the wider relationship that businesses have with their customers. It’s essential to create content and strategies that engage the 97%, providing them with value, an emotional connection and keeping your brand top of mind, so that when customer do enter the market, they remember you.

4. Pushing boundaries as client-side researchers

One of the most empowering messages from the conference was the call for client-side researchers to push boundaries, or as one presentation put it, ‘form a cult around your narrative’! Rather than waiting for permission, researchers need to go rogue, demand boardroom access and make bold, informed decisions. To support this, the speed at which insights are gathered and delivered is critical, fast beats perfect on many occasions. Agencies that can embed themselves in their clients’ journeys, offering a more longitudinal relationship and moving away from the traditional view that research has a fixed start and end date, will be better positioned to work in this way and provide value. This is where agencies truly become an extension of their client’s team, a term we all too often use, but don’t live up to.

5. Growing use of AI

The hot topic of AI was also fundamental to a number of presentations at the conference. It’s possibilities (whilst in their infancy), are huge. Whether it’s helping find the right respondent, conducting interviews or building out personas, AI has the ability to consume insights and analyze data on a scale that human minds are simply not capable of. However, insight professionals should not despair, as we were also reminded that the data feeding these AI tools is critical. For AI to be successful, high-quality insights must be fed into these models and so primary research will always be vital. We were also reminded throughout the day that our industry is one of people, relationships and emotion. Three things AI is yet to master, and as we heard in one afternoon session, it will be our role to do what AI can’t.

Conclusion

The MRS B2B Conference reminded us of several key principles that shape much of our thinking at Adience. By keeping research human, innovating in recruitment, thinking beyond the 3%, embracing AI and pushing boundaries in our relationships, we can drive more impactful insights and help our clients thrive in an ever-changing landscape.

So, back to work, it’s time to get emotional, go rogue and JFDI!