Brands generate original research to increase their visibility as thought leaders in their industry.
But the excitement won't materialize if the marketing team doesn't encourage research. Whether you have a huge budget or not, consider these five strategies to ensure your organization's research maximizes its direct and indirect benefits.
You can start with these five ideas based on my experiences and those of others:
1. Choose topics that promote themselves
Buffer is a social media management SaaS company. Between 2018 and 2023, it published the state of remote work. Instead of creating another “State of Social” report like its competitors – an approach tied directly to the services they offer – Buffer took a creative thematic turn by addressing the growing trend of remote work, even if it wasn’t directly related to its core offerings.
Buffer realized that a study on remote work would generate more interest for marketers than another report on social media. The strategy worked, as top media outlets like Forbes, Harvard Business Review, TechCrunch, and Fast Company regularly reference and link to Buffer's State of Remote Work reports.
This media coverage earned Buffer helpful backlinks that show search engines that Buffer research deserves consideration in the results rankings. However, the State of Remote Work report received surprisingly more attention in 2022 than in 2020.
As these Ahrefs reports show, the 2022 study generated over 1.8 million backlinks over its lifetime (621,000 of which are still active), while the 2020 study received 9,000 backlinks (more than 3,000 are still active).
What explains the huge difference? Remote work was a trending topic in 2022 because back then everyone had access to COVID-19 vaccinations. Employees considered returning to the office voluntarily or were forced to return by their employers. The media was looking for quotable data on this increasingly important topic and flooded Buffer's new study with press mentions and backlinks.
2. Publish the report on a more popular website
When I created the first edition of the How To Build a Credible Blog report, I planned to publish it on my website (socialmarketingwriting.com) and do a lot of outreach.
Then an idea came to me: “What if I published the study on another website before my own?” I’ve seen other companies do this and get mentions in the press.
So I asked Jeff Bullas, who has a large social following, to post my report on his website, which gets a lot of traffic and for which I had previously written. I told him I would feature the study on his website and he said yes.
The idea paid off. People who visited Jeff's website, which gets a lot of organic search and direct traffic, discovered my work. Jeff also shared the link to the blog post on social media and tagged my handle. This brought the study into greater focus and strengthened its credibility.
A week later, I republished the study on my website and used that link for other websites that mentioned my research.
TIP: Convert some of the results of your study into an infographic and promote it to journalists so that their websites only need to embed one image.
3. Send email to study participants
An easy way to get some views quickly is to email the published research link to all participants. But to achieve this, you need to think ahead.
At the end of the survey, I like to add a line that says, “To be among the first to see the report, be sure to include your email address.” Lots of people submitted their information. Just make sure you stick to your promise and contact them before sharing it with others.
TIP: You can also use the notification email as a request for them to help with the promotion. Share descriptive text and an image or two and encourage them to share with their social followers.
4. Collaborate with influencers
I came across this LinkedIn post by Matt Navarra, Geekout newsletter author and social media consultant with over 250,000 social media followers, including over 64,000 on LinkedIn.
In the text of the post, he previewed Metricool's study on LinkedIn and published a 10-image carousel with the results. Both ended with a call to see the full report. In the end, I provided Metricool with my contact information and downloaded the report.
TIP: Support the influencer partner after the promotion is published. When someone commented on the lack of surveys as an option in the study, Matt responded and tagged Metricool, whereupon he thanked the commenter for the suggestion and noted that it may be added in the next survey.
Of course, for this strategy to work well, you should work with influencers who have access to the audience you want to reach.
5. Tease the content of blog posts and ads
Even if you want to generate leads and require registration to access the report, you can use some content to attract the audience.
Publish a blog article with some key findings that would entice the reader to provide their contact information to read the rest of the research. Include a registration field on this page or at least provide a link to the research registration landing page.
You can also run ads that direct people to the content blog article. You'll likely find that the cost per click is lower than ads that direct readers to a landing page where they simply have the opportunity to sign up for something.
TIP: The increased traffic and time spent on the blog article will also likely result in more positive results on social media and search engine algorithms.
Make the most of your original research
Original research is one of the best types of content to create. It's unique. However, your target group can't marvel at its uniqueness if they don't know about it. So plan a promotional strategy and expand the study as much as possible through survey participants, well-known websites, media, influencers and more.
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
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