In a landscape where user preferences evolve rapidly, staying attuned to the pulse of your readership is not just beneficial—it's imperative.
Content surveys are a great tool to generate copy and selling points to help position the value a company provides to its customers.
In this blog post, our content marketing research company dives into the what, why, and how of content surveys.
What is a Content Survey?
A content survey is a method used by businesses and marketers to gather valuable information and insights from their audience or target market.
The goal is to understand the preferences, needs, and opinions of the audience, which can then be used to create more targeted and relevant content.
This process involves creating a survey or questionnaire and distributing it to a specific group of people, such as customers, website visitors, or social media followers.
Based on this information, businesses can generate various types of research-driven content, including blog posts, press releases, website copy, sales collateral, and more.
Why You Should Conduct Content Marketing Surveys
Conducting content marketing surveys can offer various benefits to businesses, especially those who are looking to convert more of their website traffic into actual leads.
Here are several reasons why you should consider integrating surveys into your content marketing strategy:
- Audience Understanding: Surveys provide valuable insights into your audience's preferences, behaviors, and needs. And by better understanding your audience, it allows you to create content that resonates and engages effectively.
- Content Relevance: With survey data, you can tailor your content to address the specific interests and concerns of your audience. Ensure that your content remains relevant, timely, and valuable to your target demographic.
- Improved Targeting: Use survey data to refine your target audience segments. Then, develop content that appeals to different segments based on their unique preferences and characteristics.
- Ideation and Planning: Surveys can also help gather ideas for new content topics, formats, and styles from survey responses. Based on your reader’s feedback, plan your content calendar based on the most requested or popular themes among your audience.
Types of Content Using Survey Results
Of all types of market research, there may be no other methodology that offers as much ROI as a content survey. That's because the results can be repurposed into endless deliverables for business development, customer acquisition, and more.
Here's how each type of content might be generated using survey results:
- Blog Posts: Identify popular topics or themes from the survey responses. Then, create blog posts that address the interests and concerns of your audience. You can also use survey data to support your points and provide relevant insights.
- Press Releases: Craft a press release to share these insights with the media and your target audience. Be sure to emphasize how the survey results are relevant and valuable to your industry or community. Here is an example of a press release Drive Research published based on survey results.
- Website Copy: Tailor your website content based on the preferences and needs expressed in the survey. For example, you should adjust product descriptions, value propositions, and messaging to align with customer preferences.
- Sales Collateral: Use survey data to create compelling sales pitches and presentations. This can be accomplished by highlighting features or benefits that resonate with your audience based on survey insights. You can also incorporate customer testimonials or quotes obtained from the survey to add credibility.
Recommended Reading: Want to Increase the ROI of Your Research? Publish it as Content.
Content Survey Case Study
In recent years, our team has conducted content or PR surveys for a variety of industries, products, services, and audiences (i.e., B2B and B2C audiences).
Typically, the results of these studies are used to create blog posts, social media content, white papers, reports, and more.
In this section, our content marketing research company shares a case study to give a better idea of how a content survey works.
The Challenge
Drive Research was hired to complete a survey project to generate headlines, coverage, PR, and brand awareness for the company.
The purpose of the survey was to replicate what was done for the previous study that was also conducted with our team.
Objectives of the content survey included:
- Understanding key metrics to help position the company as a thought leader
- Gathering insight to help the company position the value it provides to customers
- Using the data collected to create reports/shareable information throughout the industry
The Solution
Knowing the goals and objectives of the study, Drive Research conducted an online survey to the target audience identified by the client.
Below is an overview of the target audience for the survey.
- Target industries: Food and beverage, retail, building materials, industrial machinery/equipment, technology and electronics, plastics/paper/packaging, and automotive. A minimum of n20 will be obtained from each.
- Target titles: Transportation buyers, load managers, transportation managers, VPs of supply chain, directors of transportation, logistics managers, etc.
- Company size: A strong mix of company sizes to segment the data by the market which includes a distribution of SMB, MM, and ENT:
- SMB (~33%) = $10 to $99M annual revenue
- MM (~33%) = $100 to $499M annual revenue
- ENT (~33%) = $500M or more annual revenue
- Incidence rate: This was expected to be 30% or higher (meaning those who meet our target profile would qualify based on having deep knowledge of the company’s operations for the survey). Learn more about what incidence rates are.
There’s a common misconception that target audiences for surveys need to be really broad to get high-quality data.
However oftentimes, surveys can reach specific and unique audiences to help make the results of a content/PR survey even more powerful.
The Approach
Below is an overview of how Drive Research approached the content survey.
- Proposal: During this step, our team learns about the objectives, target audience, and how the results of the survey will be used. This gives us the information needed to provide a detailed scope of work as well as pricing.
- Kickoff: When the proposal is agreed upon, our next step is to hold a kickoff meeting. During the meeting, our team discusses each of the objectives in more detail to ensure teams are on the same page. Also during this meeting, the team will confirm how the process works, key details about the study, and the next steps.
- Survey creation: After the kickoff meeting, the team will use all of the background information and objectives to create a survey draft. Oftentimes this process takes roughly 1 to 2 weeks to complete.
- Fieldwork: Our team recommended a mixed-mode approach to reach this challenging audience. Due to the nuances and challenges in reaching these roles, titles, and responsibilities within organizations, a combination of email and phone methodology was utilized. This helped us ensure greater feasibility, greater accuracy, and better management of mixes and quotas. Fieldwork for studies like this typically takes 2 to 3 weeks to complete.
- Reporting: When fieldwork is complete the team will then start preparing the deliverables for the content survey. Depending on the deliverables, the team may need just a few days up to 2 weeks to complete the requested reports.
While the process for content surveys remains similar, it’s important to remember each survey is unique. Through each step of the process, our team keeps the goals and objectives of the study in mind to help ensure success.
The Results
While the results remain confidential with the client, the deliverables for this study took the team approximately one and a half weeks to complete (i.e., 8 business days).
The content study deliverables included:
- A topline report with data visualizations in Word (4-6 pages of insights), including a background and methodology snippet to utilize for PR outreach.
- One total responses portal and up to 4 crosstabulation reports (exportable into Excel, PDF, PowerPoint or Word) and a CSV file of all responses.
- A 60-minute virtual debrief of the findings and insights.
- And a banner file in Excel detailing crosstabulations of segments with significance testing.
The results of a content study tend to look a bit different than a typical market research study. Oftentimes, these results focus on headlines and eye-catching results.
Learn more from our ultimate guide to custom PR surveys.
Final Thoughts
By leveraging survey results in this way, businesses can ensure that their content is more customer-centric and resonates with their target audience.
This approach can lead to increased engagement, better customer satisfaction, and more effective communication overall.
Additionally, using real data from surveys adds credibility to your content and positions your business as responsive to customer needs.
Contact Our Content Survey Company
Drive Research is a full-service market research company specializing in content surveys. Our content marketing research fuels businesses to create unique, lead-generating content that will move your bottom line.
To learn more about our services, contact us today.
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040
Emily Taylor
As a Research Manager, Emily is approaching a decade of experience in the market research industry and loves to challenge the status quo. She is a certified VoC professional with a passion for storytelling.
Learn more about Emily, here.
