How do we research buyers for our communications?

Define what you need to learn by identifying a genuine uncertainty about your audience or brief. The purpose is to discover what is true, not to gather support for an assumption already accepted internally. The Frameworks starts its research process by asking questions to validate the brief, then listening for answers and opportunities to learn more than expected.

Frame the question around what you need to understand about buyers before deciding what to say. Choose methods to suit the question: The Frameworks uses interviews, workshops, quantitative surveys and direct engagement where appropriate. Keep the enquiry open enough for unexpected concerns to emerge, while asking precise questions about the communication challenge. In Content Marketing Institute's 2025 findings, 20% of B2B marketers across company sizes and industries, mostly in North America, identify understanding audience informational needs as a top-3 content marketing challenge.

Listen to customers and informed stakeholders about buyers' circumstances, concerns, ambitions and experience of the business. The Frameworks argues that knowing your own business includes understanding how customers experience it and the value they see in it. Direct conversations create room to hear about needs that internal knowledge alone may miss.

Combine customer conversations with interviews with people who know the audience, relevant documents and desk research. For Siemens, The Frameworks digested more than 50 documents and interviewed key stakeholders to establish whom the communications needed to reach and how to engage them. Use each form of enquiry to deepen your understanding rather than treating documents or internal views as substitutes for listening. Keep listening beyond the immediate brief: The Frameworks notes that conversations can reveal useful concerns and ideas outside the original research scope.

Turn findings into communication priorities by identifying the practical problems buyers care about, differences between audience groups and the information each group needs. The Frameworks recommends considering why buyers should care, when communication can reasonably interrupt their day and how much detail they can use. Use those decisions to shape the brief, rather than stopping at a summary of interviews and documents.

For a software vendor promoting a niche capability, The Frameworks examined a dense white paper and spoke to people familiar with the intended audience. Some prospective readers were not technically minded. The resulting experience presented the subject through relatable practical challenges rather than abstract software features, with different layers of detail for different levels of expertise or available time. Apply the same discipline to your findings: decide which challenges to address, what language to use and how much explanation different buyers need.