Despite the current worldwide financial crisis, the long-term prospects for the Russian b-to-b market research industry look bright. The growth of middle class, declining inflation and a record-low unemployment rate are the reasons to start your business in Russia right now.

If you are concerned about the situation with COVID-19, in our country it is stabilizing and a number of such cases is reduced. Also the vaccination starts that’s why Russia will win this terrible disease in short time.

So don’t waste your time, you can start to prepare your advertising campaign now to have results in the near future. And we will help with it!

What should you know about B2B promotion in Russia?

By and large, it is the same system as in USA or in Europe, but there are some differences:

• 1. Another culture of business negotiations: we have already discussed this question in our other article.
• 2. Clients’ expectations are distinguished from those of European or American consumers.
• 3. The range of marketing instruments, of course, aren’t the same.
• 4. Basically, to start working with client, in Russia there are two tools to use: telemarketing and e-mail marketing.
• 5. Other system of payment (according to the legislation of Russian Federation).

Let’s talk about some of them in detailed form.

Establishing contact with a client

As we have already said, you should use two ways to communicate consumer in Russia – telemarketing and e-mail marketing.

Telemarketing

Big and middle companies prefer to create their own call-centers to handle orders of potential clients promptly, the little ones hire sales managers or organize the own sales department.

It allows to make acquainted them with brand in a personal way and maintain contact constantly. The client will be easier to push to contact with you if he will feel important to your company.

E-mail marketing

Yes, it is a very effective method in B2B sphere not only to tell about your services and company to the consumers, but also to build a really strong brand awareness and strengthen loyalty of them.

It is indispensable that the client understands that an e-mail you are referring to him, and not just to a representative of the company you need. According to the results of the Experian’s 2013 Email Marketing benchmark report, personalized letters accounted to 6 times the greater income than non-personalized mailings.

The range of marketing instruments

One of them is e-mail marketing, as we have mentioned it, but there are also other methods:

• 1. Content-marketing: it is not only about developing corporate blog, but also organizing webinars, distributing personalizing content on different platforms: thematic sites and etc.;
• 2. Social Media Management: if you want to gain popularity among your target audience and attract their attention, so you should try this type of promotion. It simplifies your communication with them.
• 3. Behavioral targeting: if you sell your services or products through the site, use this type of advertising. It allows you to allocate different segments of target audience based on their behavior and then apply this information to modify the site or some of its pages.
• 4. SEO in Yandex: yes, it is really indispensable to have a well-developed site and to improve its positions in Yandex. The higher your site is situated, the greater chance that the user pay attention to it.
• 5. Contextual advertising: the most popular service of contextual ads is Yandex Direct. Also we have published an article on this thematic.

Of course, before starting your advertising campaign, you will have to make a detailed analyses of target audience.

And in place of conclusion, here are three recommendations from our experts:

1. 1. Russia is a vast country and it is impossible to research it all at once.  Is it really the whole of Russia you are interested in?  Are your customers really spread equally throughout the country, or are they concentrated in one or two regions?  Far better to focus on the region or regions that are important to you.
2. 2. In ‘European’ Russia, travel, flights, rents, hotels and most other overheads are comparatively expensive. This has a direct impact on all businesses’ prices.  Most importantly of all, professional and experienced business-to-business researchers are a rare and precious commodity in Russia and their fees tend to reflect that.
3. 3. Face-to-face contact is key. Incentives, which are seen as an acknowledgment of a respondent’s expertise, are more necessary than in Western Europe.  Telephone questionnaires are shorter than in the US and Canada, whereas face-to-face interviews in Russia can take as long as an hour. The line of questioning tends to be more direct and less projective than may be the case on a Western questionnaire.  The good quality agencies that are now operating in Russia are ideally placed to advise you on these issues and ensure that you get the most from your project.