After joining BIG in 2021, I was tasked with helping with the marketing of the group, aiming to not only attract new members, but ensure existing members still valued their membership and we were shaping our events around their needs. As a market researcher, my first instinct was to do a survey! We decided to build two member surveys; the first on memberships and the second on our Forum Events.
We’d like to thank everyone who took part in these surveys. We closed with 53 survey responses in total across both surveys and the results have certainly given us food for thought, hopefully enabling us to continue to deliver a service that helps develop and support B2B market research.
Here are some of the things you told us and what we’re planning on doing as a result…
More face-to-face Forum events in 2023
Now that Covid is hopefully behind us for good, we will be ramping up the number of Forum events that take place in person, maximising impact and giving great networking opportunities. The majority (75%) of current members are satisfied with the BIG membership, and this satisfaction is largely driven by the events that they attend. Of those who have attended an event recently, 100% were positive towards the content and 90% found the content relevant. This was very pleasing to see, but we want to make our events even better. Networking opportunities is the top expectation from a BIG event, and 91% would like at least some of the events to be in-person. We couldn’t agree more so this year we’ll be hosting a mixture of online and offline events, providing the opportunity for face-to-face interaction but also acknowledging that virtual events do still have value.
More knowledge sharing
Almost everyone (90%) said access to knowledge and information was an important feature to receive from a research body membership. Just 20% said that BIG currently do this well, so we will be ramping up the content on our website, including blogs, links to articles and of course, continuing our Forum Events.
Most (75%) are not familiar with the BIG knowledge hub or the white papers available on our website, and over half would like to find out more so we will be updating these more regularly and communicating more effectively so our members can take advantage of them.
Attracting the next generation
There is a constant influx of new talent entering our industry and those new ideas and innovations are something we want to attract at BIG. We understand that at the start of a young researcher’s career, guidance is very much directed through peers and management. We will be actively reaching out to our existing network to try and encourage them to invite their junior colleagues along to events, and get exposure to all things B2B. With the help of our members, we believe we can start to attract this new generation and expose them to content that will help them navigate their careers as researchers.
Hosting social events
Appetite for a BIG F2F networking event is high amongst members, and most agree that this could also be an appealing event to attract younger researchers.
To maximise attendees, we’ll be hosting our events at times that best suit the new hybrid-working world, meaning Wednesday and Thursday evenings for face-to-face, and mornings for virtual events. We had a lot of fun at the summer wine tasting event, but will be considering widening our event types going forward, to hopefully attract even more friendly faces to join us.
Thank you all again for taking part in the surveys, and we look forward to seeing as many of you as possible throughout the rest of 2023.