Audience research
Part of Why SAAS marketing audience research pays off before you spend
Pick SAAS marketing customer interviews that survive scrutiny
How to choose and run SAAS marketing customer interviews in England, covering inclusion criteria, question design, recruitment, incentives and consent.
What to take away
- Decide first the single decision the interviews must inform, then choose the method that fits it.
- Apply written inclusion criteria and a stated geography before you recruit anyone.
- Budget for recruitment and incentives as line items, not as an afterthought.
- Keep the question set short and open, and record consent before you start.
- Plan a sample size for the decisiontypically 8 to 12 interviews for message testing.
- Feed findings into SAAS marketingaudience research guide for England rather than a folder nobody opens.
Set the decision before the method
Message testing in paid social needs a different sample from tier pricing. Write the decision on one line at the top of the brief. Typical planning ranges are 8 to 12 interviews for message testing, 15 to 25 for pricing, and 20 to 30 for broad market patterns.
Write inclusion criteria you could defend
Set out the role, company size, sector, buying involvement and geography. If the rule covers England only, say England, not UK, because recruitment costs and privacy expectations differ across the four nations.
Worked example. Inclusion: B2B software buyer or strong influencer, company 50 to 500 staff, based in England, evaluated a competitor in the last 12 months. Exclusion: current staff, agency partners, competitor employees, anyone who took part in paid research in the last six months.
Inclusion and exclusion criteria
- Role
- Company size
- Sector
- Buying involvement
- GeographyEngland, not UK
- Exclude competitors, staff, agency partners
Match the format to the decision
A 45 minute one-to-one call suits detailed buying stories. A 20 minute session suits one narrow question. A written survey scales but rarely explains the reasoning behind an answer.
Match format to decision
45 min one-to-one
- Best for
- Detailed buying stories
- Limitation
- Time cost
20 min session
- Best for
- One narrow question
- Limitation
- Limited depth
Written survey
- Best for
- Scale
- Limitation
- Rarely explains reasoning
Keep the questions comparable if you run two formats.
Recruit from named sources
A single source produces a single bias. Use your own customer list, User Interviews, Respondent or Prolific for external recruits, and LinkedIn outreach for hard-to-reach roles. Budget roughly £50 to £150 per completed interview including the platform fee and incentive.
Competitor work shows who else to approach, which is why SAAS marketing competitor research in England is worth running alongside recruitment.
Design questions people can answer
Ask what happened, in what order, and what else was considered. Avoid asking people to predict their own future behaviour.
Keep the guide to eight to twelve questions. UK GDPR and ICO guidance on consent and retention should be documented before you ask anything. Guidance on native distribution creative standards is separate.
Handle incentives and consent
Incentives improve completion rates, particularly for senior buyers. Typical UK B2B incentives range from about £25 for junior roles to £150 or more for senior buyers, often paid as a voucher.
Consent matters more than the recording. Under UK GDPR, document the lawful basis for processing and the retention period, following ICO guidance. Ask for permission, explain retention, and give people an easy way to decline.
Record and store the material properly
Keep recordings in a controlled location, limit who can listen, and delete them on a stated schedule. Anonymise quotes before they reach a slide deck.
UK GDPR and ICO rules require a defined retention period. Stripe Elements documentation on custom payment UI in SAAS products explains checkout detail, but it does not set your retention schedule.
Turn interviews into usable patterns
Tag each transcript against the decision you set. Count how often a theme appears, and note the counter-examples. Two people out of eight is a signal to investigate, not a finding to publish.
Glossary
- Screener
- the questionnaire that confirms someone meets the inclusion criteria.
- Guide
- the list of questions the interviewer works from.
- Incentive
- the payment or voucher offered for taking part.
- Theme
- a repeated pattern across several interviews.
- Counter-example
- a response that contradicts the emerging theme.
Common questions
How many customer interviews do I need?
Typical planning ranges are 8 to 12 for message testing, 15 to 25 for pricing, and 20 to 30 for broad market patterns. Treat these as starting points, not guarantees.
Should I pay interviewees?
Paying is common for business buyers and helps with scheduling. Typical UK B2B incentives range from about £25 for junior roles to £150 or more for senior buyers. Choose a fixed amount and state it in the invitation.
Can I run interviews without recording them?
Yes. Take notes against the guide and write them up the same day. If you do record, document consent and retention under UK GDPR.
Where should the findings live?
In a shared summary that product and sales can reach. Use thought leadership formats, such as sponsored content on LinkedIn, only after the internal summary is agreed.
