Research for Content Marketing

It is difficult for a brand to stand out from the competition in today’s saturated media environment. Many brands, especially B2B, also want to be seen as a thought-leader in their industry. Original content marketing research is a way for brands to generate awareness and position your brand as a differentiator – this ultimately leads to higher brand engagement. 

Why Content Marketing Research? 

The real value of content marketing research is that your target audience engages deeper with your brand. It can improve awareness, engagement, search rankings, and ultimately conversion. 

As there is so much clutter online, the challenge is producing content that isn’t redundant and unoriginal. Brands are competing in a crowded marketplace. There are 54.2 million blog posts written monthly just on WordPress alone, 350 million photos are shared on Facebook daily, and over a million podcasts (30+ million episodes). As a result, brands must generate new, compelling information, which draws the audience’s attention to want more.  

It’s not just other companies competing for the consumer’s attention, but consumers themselves: social media is filled with posts about their latest vacations, baby pictures, restaurant reviews, and more. This is where market research plays an essential role in the content marketing revolution.

Market research studies bring novel, thought-provoking ideas to a comprehensive content marketing initiative. They provide new and original information, keeping the reader’s attention. One research study can be broken up into several content marketing stories and spread across various media channels (e.g., web, emails, news, podcasts, infographics, videos).

By leveraging market research to provide content that your target audience wants to engage with, your company can make it’s content marketing initiatives work significantly better. 

Research for Content Marketing Method

If you decide to conduct research for content marketing, you should follow the following steps:

1. Assess the Landscape

Research potential topics beforehand; this is a crucial component to the success of a content marketing research initiative. Discover trending topics that have high engagement. Also, determine and steer clear of overused topics. Pouring over available research can spark unique ideas or new perspectives on a subject.

2. Develop Headlines to Craft the Questionnaire

Headlines need to excite and interest readers. Focus on the topics discovered during the secondary research process. These headlines can be geared to cover issues that have yet to be addressed. This guarantees a fuller, more exciting picture of your industry. When developing headlines, keep SEO in mind for the best results. 

3. Write Multiple Stories

Once the survey is closed, and the data is collected, you can create more than one story from the research. That means developing a series of mini-decks for each topic. Storytelling is an art form. It is crucial to keep your audience engaged. Many times, researchers are hyper-focused on the details of the numbers as opposed to the big story. It is essential to write the research report in a way that makes the readers want more.

4. Leverage Research for the Highest Awareness & Engagement

Even before the research is completed, it’s important to determine multiple channels to help get the stories out. It is vital to discuss a plan where the study can also be leveraged for all media.

Multiple Media Channels

Content marketing research provides a plethora of opportunities to repurpose the information for multiple channels, including:

• Podcasts
• Blog entries
• Infographics
• Newsletters
• Direct mail/email
• Social media posts
• Online ads
• SEO/SEM
• Sales collateral

The Metrics & ROI Are Proven

• 7X higher article engagement (Readership)
• 6X more engagement on social media (Shares/Likes/Reposts)
• 13X more viewership on social media
• 43% increase in website visits
• 15% increase in new leads from a website providing contact information to get more information.

If your company is interested in content marketing research, please reach out to [email protected], and we will be happy to schedule a call to discuss the research objectives with you.

In addition, check out Provoke Insights research services here.

Read some of our latest blogs here:

1. Content Marketing Research for Tech Companies
2. The Pros and Cons of Survey Research
3. The Pros and Cons of Online Focus Groups

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