When moving into a new region, such as Europe, it’s crucial to make informed choices about which markets to penetrate. This decision isn’t as simple as merely placing a pin on a map and deciding to conquer the area, as we discussed in a blog post describing the steps to take.
The Behavioural Digital Market Study framework I outline here is created by Aboad and has been utilized over the years with clients ranging from publicly traded B2C companies to B2B start-ups.
Naturally, this concept of a behavioural digital market test isn’t only applicable when choosing among different markets but also useful when validating a single market such as a country – you’d rather know the real potential as soon as possible.
The What and Why of a Behavioural Digital B2B Market Study
When entering a new market, it can be challenging to determine which approach will yield the best results. A digital B2B market study can help save time, effort, and money, while identifying the best messaging and language approaches for your business. This method allows you to rank potential countries and align the data with your business objectives.
Compared to more traditional market studies, there are several benefits:
- It’s usually cheaper to conduct
- You get a larger data set
- You gain information on what people would actually do, not what they say
- You don’t need to rely on 3rd party data which may not translate to your case
- It’s scalable and reusable in the future
In the end, we don’t really care what Statista’s data or market questionnaires say. We want to see proof that people are genuinely interested commercially in what we’re offering. That’s the benefit with this solution.
Identifying Channels and Markets
To start, identify the most relevant channels to reach your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). If you’re unsure, I recommend conducting a quick channel test with channels you believe to be most relevant. These can be simple campaigns designed to see if you can effectively target your ICP and if your messaging gains traction.
Once you’ve identified your channels, narrow down a few countries and markets you’re interested in testing. This decision can be informed by other analyses of market potential, such as the top 5 largest addressable markets, ease of operation in the market, or other variables related to your business.
Building a Testing Framework
After choosing the markets, build a testing framework. It’s crucial to ensure that you’re testing similar audiences in each market and that the different messaging angles are as comparable as possible.
The goal of this testing is to answer questions like:
- Can we find commercial interest toward our offering?
- Which countries should we start with?
- What messaging angle is most interesting to the audience in that country?
- Are there any geographical or other hotspots?
- Which language should we use: local or English?
The sentence we want to be able to fill in could be, for example: The most interested audience can be found in [fill in country], [fill in language] language, promoting [fill in messaging angle] in our messaging.
How to Measure Success
Measuring interest based on behavior is often the main focus of this approach, though it varies somewhat:
- On-channel, we’re looking at engagement and click-through rates.
- Post-click, on a landing page, if applicable, we’re often looking at engagement and dwell time, as well as key events such as conversions.
- We’re also interested in identifying which companies have shown interest and comparing their business potential to your business goals.
After the testing period, the results often provide a clear answer to the research question.
What’s Next?
Once you’ve received and analyzed the results, the next phase is determined by either your go-to-market plan or based on the one we’ve outlined. By applying this method, you’ll be able to make informed decisions that are strategic and data-driven.
Also read:
[CASE] Tactical Marketing Planning Turnkey Service – How to Ensure Your Marketing Performs as Its Best (Digital B2B)
Ideas for A/B Testing in Advertising
Choosing the Right B2B Digital Marketing Agency for Expansion