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Top B2B market research companiesA guide to finding the best match for your needs

The right job title doesn’t always mean the right person for your research. Establish who influences the purchase, what experience they need, and how a partner will verify it. This guide names no firms; antedote is a strategic research and innovation consultancy.

Settle the scope before fieldwork.

  • Who influences the purchase.

    Include the people who can block it, as well as those who specify, sign and use it.

  • How recently they must have been involved.

    Say how recently people must have bought, used or evaluated it to take part.

  • How they’ll be verified.

    Ask how identity, responsibilities and relevant experience will be checked.

  • What happens if they can’t be reached.

    A good partner says plainly what is feasible before fieldwork, and what a shortfall would change.

Ask your AI assistant about your buyers.

Describe what you sell, to whom, and whose view you need.

Ask for sources and for what the assistant doesn’t know. Use a summary with nothing confidential in it, or an AI tool your company has approved for it.

Treat the answer as the start of your own investigation, then meet the people who would do the work.

A prompt to copy. Fill in the blanks first.

We sell [product or service] to [kind of company] in [markets]. We need research with [roles, such as IT or procurement] to [decide where to focus / test our messages / shape a new offer].

Using current web sources, suggest B2B research companies that have published work like this, and link each source. For each, say why it may fit, what it has shown and what we would still need to check, with one question to ask the people who would do the work. Don’t guess who would be assigned, and don’t invent fees, references or results. If you can’t search the web, help me define selection criteria instead.

Questions that separate proposals.

Not every project needs to hear every role, or both interviews and a survey. Existing evidence, feasibility and the question decide.

  • Do we need current customers, lost prospects or buyers of alternatives?

    A view of whose experience the decision depends on, and why.

  • Is the question about individuals, buying groups or whole organizations?

    A design that matches who actually makes the decision.

  • Interviews, a survey or both, and in what order?

    Interviews to hear how a decision moves through a company; a survey to measure how common each view is.

  • How many of these people have you reached before?

    Recent, comparable work in your sector or one close to it.

The people behind the purchase, heard.

“antedote brought simplicity and clarity to a complex challenge and provided us with a clear strategy and pathway forward to achieve exponential growth. Our leadership and team at large is excited about what is possible.”
General Manager, Asia-Pacific, outdoor equipment

Check the team, and ask for a reference.

Ask who will speak to your buyers, how they will find and verify them, and what they have done in your sector.

Then ask a past client, with their permission: did the team understand the buying process well enough to challenge the brief?

Before you scope the work, list who else has to say yes.

If your customers include consumers as well as businesses, our guide to choosing a market research company covers the wider choice.

If you need to understand the people who shape a business purchase, that is the work of our B2B research.

Tell us who you sell to.

We’ll say whose view the decision depends on, and how we would reach those people.

Talk to us hello@antedote.com

A partner or director will reply.