Surveys and original research bring marketing and public relations teams a wealth of information to use in powering content development, when they are executed correctly with the end result in mind.
But surveys can also be a valuable source of data to be mined for content creation to be used to drive inbound marketing and thought leadership. B2B buyers have been clear: they want credible, useful content, not another thinly veiled sales pitch.
Research consistently shows B2B buyers prefer content that is educational and non‑promotional, and they’ll consider it from vendors as long as it’s credible. (See more here.)
Original research, including surveys, can provide that credible, educational content. But surveys require a significant investment of time and resources, so you don’t want a few avoidable mistakes to keep you from maximizing the return on your survey data.
Mistake #1: Not starting with a story (or stories) in mind.
If you know your intention for the survey is to provide data for content development, it just makes sense to start by thinking about the stories you want that content to tell. Begin by reviewing your marketing and PR campaign plans for the coming year and flagging the themes that would be stronger with fresh data behind them.
From broad topics, consider the stories involved — problems to solve, conflicts and challenges to overcome, and characters for readers to root for. These are the keys to quality content.
Use the stories you want to tell to guide you as you write questions for the survey. In that way, you know the answers will be useful, rather than simply a random collection of data with no direction or purpose.
Take it one step further: for every key question or section, draft the exact sentence you hope to use later in a press release, blog post or pitch (for example, “XX% of [audience] do Y when Z happens”). If you can’t write that future sentence, the question probably doesn’t belong in the survey.
This step and clear communication amongst everyone involved are especially important if your survey is being written and executed by an outside firm. Everyone needs to understand the stories you want to tell.
Mistake #2: Not finding all of the potential stories in the data.
While the stories you want to tell drive how your survey is written, the content created from the survey is driven by the data — including when the story is different from what you originally expected.
You can’t tell a story without real information to back it up, or create content from something that’s not there, but you can ask questions that may validate your suspicions.
But don’t stop with just the stories you set out to tell. Chances are good there are many more stories to be found in your survey data if you take the time to look. Don’t settle for a quick executive summary of “top findings” if you work with a research firm.
Review the data line by line yourself so you won’t leave useful stories on the cutting room floor — every question has a story to tell.
The ability to read and analyze data is one of the most-often overlooked skills a marketer (or marketing agency) needs to have to make sense of the numbers involved, whether survey data or measurement and metrics of your marketing tactics. (This infographic covers other skills you need from your in-house marketing team and why a full-service integrated agency partner makes sense.)
Mistake #3: Treating the survey as one story instead of a slate of stories.
Another common trap: going hunting for “the one big headline” and stopping there. A well-designed survey should give you a portfolio of storylines you can sequence over time — for different audiences, channels and purposes — not just a single report and press release.
Think in terms of a slate: a lead story that challenges a common assumption, supporting cuts for specific segments (for example, by generation, income or industry), a few contrarian angles for earned media, and additional stories held back for follow-up campaigns and sales enablement. If you aren’t planning that slate up front, you’re almost certainly leaving strong stories on the table.
Mistake #4: Not maximizing the survey with content creation.
Once you’ve taken the time to identify all of the stories your survey data can tell, don’t fall into the trap of creating a single master report, a single press release to promote, and one or two social media posts, then moving on to the next project.
Instead, create a content creation plan that uses those stories in a wide range of marketing and public relations content that reaches all of your customer personas and every stage of the sales funnel, from awareness material such as contributed articles in industry media all the way to the sales proposal.
Start by writing an abstract for each of the stories you have identified, and work from there. (More about using a marketing abstract to guide content creation can be found in this blog post.)
By thinking about different ways of presenting the same stories — in blog posts and as downloadable reports, visually as graphics, in video format and more — with less or more detail and supporting context, you can turn a single survey into as many as 100 different pieces of marketing content, plus the social media posts used to promote that content.
Mistake #5: Splitting research, content and PR across different teams and vendors.
Another reason even well-designed surveys fall short is that the work is fragmented. One firm designs the survey, another writes the report, and a third handles PR and social. In that model, nuance gets lost, story ideas never make it into the brief, and some of your best angles never see daylight.
I’ve seen teams generate great media coverage from a survey while the marketing side never once promoted the report or repurposed the findings — the research lived in PR, but it never powered the broader content engine.
When the same team designs the survey, analyzes the data, develops the content and leads media outreach, it’s much easier to spot patterns, move quickly from data to story, and make sure every strong finding shows up where it will have the most impact — whether that’s in a headline stat, a byline, a sales enablement asset or a pitch to a specific outlet.
If you’re tired of juggling multiple vendors to turn research into content and coverage, it may be time to put surveys in the hands of one integrated team that can own the whole arc: design, analysis, storytelling and distribution.
Download Maximizing Original Research to see how. And never let a good data point go to waste again.
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