Introduction

The focus of market research surveys is to reach decision-makers from all works of life. These decision-makers who are sometimes household consumers or corporate professionals can be hard to reach.

This is where executive interviewing, a concept based on surveying top-level business professionals comes into play. Due to the high-demand environment where these executives work, their response rates can be slow and oftentimes low. This is most likely the most challenging part of executive interviewing.

In this post, we would discuss the concept of executive interviewing, how to conduct executive interviewing, how to recruit your B2B audience and the process of B2B market research.

What is Executive Interviewing?

Executive interviewing is the process of speaking to business gurus in a particular industry. Such business leaders often fill positions like CEO, Presidents, CFO, etc. These are the corporate decision-makers who determine the road map for their organizations. involve an interviewer speaking with business professionals or experts within a particular industry.

Thus, most B2B businesses aim to reach these c-level executives to have an in-depth understanding of their vision, budgets, and requirements over a certain period. This is where executive interviewing is considered and these B2B businesses engage the services of market research firms to recruit B2B leaders to gather the insight they need for their own business.

How are Executive Interviews Conducted?

An executive interview entails having a professional interviewer in a similar niche of the business being studied. Here, the interviewer asks a series of questions virtually via phone, a zoom call, or in person at an agreed location.

The essence of having a knowledgeable interviewer is to facilitate a smooth conversation experience where both parties can understand each other flawlessly.

Both methods of interviewing have their different benefits. The face-to-face interviews allowed a deeper conversation and detailed feedback due to the human connection that allows you to ask for clarity, in areas where there are gaps in the responses.

The virtual interviews, on the other hand, are more cost-effective, as you can reach the participant at the click of a button in real-time irrespective of their location.

The process of conducting executive interviews can be summarized into 2 parts; data collection and data analysis.

For data collection, you can adopt either a qualitative or quantitative process or use a mixed methodology that involves both.

Qualitative Approach

Qualitative research connects with respondents directly to gather information. It usually involves face-to-face conversations, is more time-consuming, and analyzing the data gathered might require more effort.

However, this method provides more depth and insight, due to the ease with which you can use open-ended questions and also pursue new lines of inquiry as they arise.

Quantitative Approach

This approach derives its strength from volume and with a standard survey questionnaire the researcher can administer the same set of questions to a large audience. With this approach, your interviews can be administered online via emails, QR codes, and telephone.

How to Find B2B Professionals for Research

The next step is finding these B2B leaders and reaching them. This can be a bit challenging because of the profile of these business leaders. Unlike B2C audiences who can be reached and persuaded via social online channels to participate in surveys, it is not the same with B2B experts.

You hardly find them in regular places, hence finding them requires a strategic and deliberate procedure.

Craft The Right Questions

The first step is to target your questions to a specific audience, this would help you identify the right people for your executive survey.

So spend time refining your questions. here is the guide you can adopt when crafting your questions:

1. What is the aim of the research?
2. What business decisions would this research influence?
3. Who are the stakeholders responsible for this decision?
4. What knowledge is required to guide the stakeholders in making informed decisions?

The answers you provide to these questions would deepen your understanding of what you are trying to achieve.

Determine Your Criteria

The next step is to set your criteria, as it would aid you in determining the kind of participant you need.

The criteria depend greatly on the goal of the research. There are some factors to determine when setting your criteria and they are;

• The specific knowledge and experience the ideal participant should possess.
• The position and job title of the potential respondent
• The years of experience they possess
• Their salary range
• The specific industry they work in
• The demography of the participants(age, sex, gender), etc.

The more specific your target criteria, the easier it is for your recruiters to find a perfect match.

Finding the Right Recruiter

Hiring the right recruiter is another important step in finding the right B2B professional for you. The ideal recruiter should have a clear roadmap to finding the right candidate for you.

The best recruiters have a wide reach and can help you, source candidates, by putting out your requirements on job boards, using targeted campaigns, and sourcing referrals from their network.

The best recruiters for your B2B research are concerned with quality over quantity and are bent on finding the right pool of candidates for you to select from.

Finding B2B clients is more challenging compared to B2C participants. This is because the research space is saturated with similar organizations that want the same things as your organization.

There is also the issue of gatekeepers and a whole line of people you might have to reach to get through to your target audience.

However, with the steps outlined, you will be able to sort your sourcing seamlessly.

Process of B2B Market Research

The process for creating and carrying out a successful B2B market research involves a detailed approach in a systematic order. Here is a 7-step guide to help you with your B2B market research:

Step 1: Define the Problem

This involves understanding and outlining the problem your survey is expected to address.

Step 2: Identify Your Target Participants

This is simply knowing who is fit to be consulted and interviewed for your executive interview. This is key because their feedback or response is of great value, due to their strategic position in the company that they represent.

Step 3: Survey Design

B2B market research survey design is an important step in your market research process, as the structure of your design can make or break your research survey. Your target audience comprises busy professionals with very limited time, hence repetitive questions, prying into their private life, or using double-barreled questions would put them off.

The value or worth of the incentive you offer is also part of your design because your participants are high-net-worth individuals and the regular incentives given to B2C customers would not suffice in this case.

Secondly, you also need to consider certain factors before deciding on the appropriate incentive. For instance:

• Is the interview in-person or virtual?
• If it is in-person, is any traveling required on the side of the participant?
• The length of the executive interview.
• The timing, Is the interview during business hours or after business hours?

The channels for administering your survey should also be considered when designing your survey, as this will determine the type and length of questions to be used.

Step 4: Survey Timelines

Once your survey has been distributed, the timelines for completion must be indicated, so respondents know how much or how little time they have to turn in their responses.

Step 5: Gather your responses

B2B research utilizes a mixed methodology at different stages of the survey. The most common methods are qualitative and quantitative. The quantitative method involves the use of surveys, and questionnaires are used to aggregate a large amount of data.

Qualitative methods, on the other hand, focus on in-depth interviews, focus groups, etc. Hence at the end of the survey, it is important to collect all responses in one place for easy analysis and reporting.

Step 6: Analysis

This involves selecting the appropriate technique suited to analyzing the data you have gathered. If your survey were conducted using digital delivery methods you can take advantage of the available automation features that sort out your data analysis effectively.

Step 7: Reporting

This is the final step that entails articulating the results of your research to your stakeholders in a detailed easy-to-understand report, based on their different information requirements.

How Formplus Can Support Successful Executive Interviews

Formplus is one of the leading automated data collection software that would support your market research surveys across all the select participant’s requirements.

With the wide array of beautiful and professionally designed customizable templates, there is something for everyone, B2C or B2B.

With the advanced features of Formplus, you can carry out quantitative surveys, digitally, in a seamless manner and have your data, delivered, analyzed, and articulated in your preferred form of reporting, all in real time.

With Formplus you can conduct successful executive interviews using the available executive interview templates.

Conclusion

Executive interviewing is the process of engaging B2B business leaders with titles like CEO, CFO, Manager, and the likes. It can sometimes be a challenging process because you have the task of finding the appropriate business leaders for your surveys and having them willing to participate in your research despite their very packed schedules.

However, there are steps you can adopt to simplify the whole process, and using automated survey software like Formplus, can make the process of delivery, administration, analysis, and reporting a walk in the park.