Synthetic data for B2B market research, a case study
To win more referrals from the account managers of a global cloud computing provider, our client needed to understand how those account managers choose from thousands of potential partners.
Traditional research would have been prohibitively expensive and likely unable to reach this audience shielded behind the corporate wall.
Additionally, these account managers typically don't last longer than 18 months in the job.
Surveyed Client Proxies (synthetic personas) representing hard-to-reach enterprise account managers. The resulting Strategic Intelligence (synthetic data) showed how our client could secure more referrals.
- High-value segment discovery: Nearly 1/3 of target audience actively sought partnerships AND invested in networking.
- Resource allocation transformation: Client moved from scattered efforts across all account managers to precision targeting of specific segments.
- Competitive advantage: Strategic Intelligence revealing drivers potentially unknown to competitors.
- Decision psychology insights: Fundamental misalignments between how most providers position themselves and actual referral drivers
Our Asymmetric Strategic Intelligence (ASI) Research methodology delivered Strategic Intelligence that:
- Revealed hidden market patterns.
- Identified a previously unknown high-value target segment.
- Provided five precision targeting strategies to transform immediately how the client allocated their limited business development resources.
The research uncovered that nearly one-third of their target audience actively sought partnerships AND invested significant time in relationship building — a “partner-hungry” segment concentrated in specific markets that competitors had not recognised.
Most critically, the intelligence revealed fundamental misalignments between how most partners positioned themselves and what actually drove referral decisions, creating immediate competitive advantage opportunities.
The impossible research challenge
Some B2B audiences are nearly impossible to research through traditional methods:
- Extremely limited populations: Addressable markets measured in thousands, not millions.
- Corporate access restrictions: Enterprise professionals heavily protected from external research.
- High-pressure environments: Professionals facing intense performance reviews with little time for surveys.
- Geographic distribution: Scattered across multiple markets with different operational patterns.
- Short tenure patterns: Constant population turnover making relationship building challenging.
These challenges make conventional market research approaches problematic:
- Survey response rates typically fall below 5% for enterprise audiences.
- Interview scheduling faces significant corporate access barriers.
- Sample sizes too small for statistical significance.
- Skewed responses towards less busy participants.
- Struggle to segment by operational style or performance level.
The ASI Research solution: Strategic Intelligence through synthetic personas
ASI Research represents a fundamentally different approach to impossible-to-research markets. Instead of trying to survey busy professionals directly, we create sophisticated AI-generated Client Proxies (synthetic personas) representing the exact target population.
Each Client Proxy is unique and surveyed individually. Together, their answers create synthetic data. From this synthetic data we create very real Strategic Intelligence.
Methodology overview
Client Proxies are synthetic personas built using AI trained on trillions of data points about human behaviour, decision-making psychology and professional contexts. Client Proxies provide consistent, unfiltered insights into how specific audiences think and decide.
Recent academic research from Harvard, Yale, Stanford and other universities shows correlations of 75% to 95% between Client Proxy responses and real people.
There is particularly strong validation in professional B2B contexts where behaviour patterns are more structured. EY compared the responses of synthetic personas to those of 500 senior decision-makers at major corporations. The synthetic data overlapped 95% with the human responses.
Why ASI Research works when traditional methods fail
Consistent availability: Client Proxies never get tired, distracted or refuse to participate
Unfiltered responses: No social desirability bias or corporate messaging constraints
Comprehensive segmentation: Can model any combination of demographic, psychographic, and operational variables
Scalable sample sizes: Generate insights from hundreds of synthetic respondents representing precise target segments
Cost efficiency: Fraction of traditional research costs with faster turnaround times
Strategic Intelligence discoveries
The ASI Research revealed market patterns invisible to traditional research methods and potentially unknown to competitors operating with standard market intelligence.
The high-value segment discovery
The research identified that nearly one-third of the target audience actively sought partnerships AND invested significant networking time — a previously unknown high-value segment with distinct characteristics and concentrated in specific markets.
The decision psychology revelation
Competitors might assume certain factors drove referral decisions. The ASI Research revealed that successful approaches depended on psychological factors. These factors likely differ significantly from industry assumptions. They include relationship pathways, credibility hierarchies and trust factors.
The operational sophistication mapping
Different operational styles among account managers showed distinct engagement patterns that required completely different relationship strategies. This allows for precision targeting based on professional behaviour patterns rather than demographic assumptions.
Business impact and strategic advantage
Precision targeting transformation
Instead of scattered efforts across the entire market, the client could focus on:
- High-value segments with systematic targeting criteria
- Specific markets where relationship building delivered highest ROI
- Approach matching ensuring strategy alignment with target psychology
Resource allocation optimisation
The five priority actions delivered immediate efficiency improvements by:
- Concentrating relationship building in markets where networking investment yielded highest returns
- Refining positioning to emphasise factors that actually influenced decisions
- Eliminating primary barriers that prevented successful partnerships
- Matching engagement strategies to professional work patterns
- Aligning capability positioning with successful partnership psychology
Competitive advantage creation
The strategic intelligence created immediate market advantage because:
- Traditional research struggles to access these populations efficiently, giving ASI intelligence significant strategic value
- Market patterns revealed might be unknown to competitors operating with standard industry intelligence
- Early movers building authentic networks based on Strategic Intelligence could gain sustainable advantages
- Precision targeting allows focused relationship building before competitors might recognise patterns
ASI methodology spectrum: Research and advisory working together
This project demonstrates how ASI Research and ASI Advisor methodologies complement each other for complete strategic intelligence solutions:
ASI Research provides market intelligence
- Target identification: Who are your ideal customers and how do they think?
- Decision psychology: What drives their choices and referral patterns?
- Competitive landscape: How do they evaluate alternatives and what creates preference?
- Strategic positioning: What messaging and approaches resonate most effectively?
ASI Advisors provide implementation capability
- Strategic execution: Custom AI trained on your business context and research insights
- Consistent messaging: Maintains strategic positioning across all communications
- Scaling intelligence: Makes research insights actionable for daily business operations
- Competitive advantage: Combines market intelligence with execution capability
Integrated approach delivers transformational results
Clients implementing both ASI Research and ASI Advisors create sustainable competitive advantages:
- Market intelligence reveals strategic opportunities competitors cannot see
- Implementation capability executes strategies with consistency and sophistication
- Continuous optimisation refines approaches based on real-world results
- Competitive moat combines market understanding with execution excellence
What this means for B2B strategic intelligence
This project demonstrates how ASI Research using synthetic personas and synthetic data transforms impossible research challenges into competitive advantage opportunities.
When your ideal customers are too busy, too protected or too specialised for traditional research methods, ASI Research provides Strategic Intelligence that competitors cannot obtain through conventional approaches.
The methodology works particularly well for:
- Enterprise sales teams protected by corporate access controls
- Highly specialised professional audiences with limited populations
- Decision-makers under performance pressure with minimal time for external research
- Geographic or demographic segments requiring precision targeting strategies
The combination of ASI Research intelligence with ASI Advisor implementation creates sustainable competitive advantages that operate below competitor awareness while delivering measurable business transformation.
The Strategic Intelligence advantage
Asymmetric Strategic Intelligence (ASI) represents the next evolution in B2B market research. Your competitors can struggle with traditional methods that cannot access critical audiences. Meanwhile, your ASI Research provides precise insights into customer psychology, decision-making patterns and competitive positioning opportunities.
This transformation demonstrates how strategic intelligence translates into immediate business impact: precision targeting instead of scattered efforts, optimised messaging instead of generic positioning and competitive advantages instead of market following.
If you’re facing impossible research challenges with critical B2B audiences, ASI Research methodology can transform market intelligence disadvantages into strategic advantages.
For a practical conversation about how ASI Research would work for your strategic intelligence challenges, please use the form below or email Steven Lewis at steven@taleist.agency.
Read more about Taleist's use of synthetic data for market research.