Understanding content marketing in this new era will be critical for businesses everywhere.
- What type of content is most appealing to my target audience?
- What distribution channels are best to reach my target audience?
These are the questions that are asked in marketing meetings every day -- and for good reason.
Fortunately, there is a proven process to answer these quandaries.
Online surveys are the greatest, yet underutilized tool in most marketer's tool belts. Conducting content marketing research helps uncover actionable insights to make data-driven decisions on future marketing strategies.
With 80% of business decision-makers preferring to get company information in a series of articles versus an advertisement, investing in content marketing seems like a no-brainer.
Learn more about the process of using online surveys for better content marketing in the case study below.
The Challenge for Marketers
Our market research company, Drive Research recently conducted a successful content marketing study for a marketing agency.
In this case, the marketing agency client needed answers to understand how to remain competitive in a post-COVID environment among their top-performing industry: banks and credit unions.
Therefore, the objectives of the market research were to better understand marketing and content strategy trends among marketing decision-makers within the financial services industry.
The client planned to utilize the survey data to fuel their marketing strategy and create content that was most enticing to this demographic.
The Solution: Online Content Surveys
To address the objectives at hand, Drive Research recommended using an online survey to collect feedback.
This type of market research often delivers fast, quality results for organizations to quickly apply to new strategies.
The respondent criteria matched the client's target audience. This included those working in
- Banks
- Credit unions
- Wealth management organizations with local, regional, national, or international presences
Additionally, respondents of the content survey were pooled from a variety of marketing department sizes.
The Approach to Using Online Surveys for Content
Drive Research begins all studies with our clients with a kickoff meeting. This helps us understand the client’s expectations and introduce our project management style.
For this study, the kickoff meeting was spent recapping objectives from the proposal and discussing the timeline for the study.
Like most studies, we drafted the survey based on these initial discussions and sent it over to the client to suggest any changes or answer any questions they may have.
Once they signed off on the survey, we started programming it into our software and had it tested among our team.
We partnered with a third-party panel company to help us release the survey to our targeted audience.
They were able to recruit enough respondents in a short amount of time to keep us on our initial project timeline.
The survey included 21 questions and took an average of 6 minutes to complete.
The topics discussed in the survey included:
- The importance of marketing activities
- Changes in marketing budgets
- Greatest challenges in marketing and content marketing
- Familiarity and effectiveness with content marketing
- Trends in financial services marketing
The Results of the Content Survey
The study recruited approximately 425 responses and reached its targeted number of responses of 400 after data quality checks. The margin of error was +/- 4.9%.
Our content marketing research company planned to over recruit knowing that not all responses will meet our quality standards.
Not reviewing all of the data and failing to eliminate poor responses could diminish the integrity of the study.
We incorporate several data quality checks and procedures throughout the course of the study to ensure the results are accurate and valid.
Example of Invalid Responses in Surveys
An example of an invalid response would be someone who took the survey in an incredibly short amount of time.
This suggests they were not reading through questions and just selecting options at random.
On the other hand, someone who took too long to complete the survey is also unacceptable. The respondent’s attention was elsewhere and not on the contents of the survey, jeopardizing the quality of their responses.
Looking for more ways to maximize online survey results for better content marketing? Watch this short video below.
Client Satisfaction of the Online Content Marketing Survey
The client was very satisfied with the results. They felt every question they had going into the study was answered explicitly.
Additionally, they were even more thrilled with what questions the data proposed.
We tell our clients that the data from the study answers a lot of questions but also raises more.
These next-level questions are what most businesses and organizations find as the most valuable addition when conducting market research.
Depending on the depth of the study, we offer recommendations and next steps to consider based on the data but we also incorporate the questions our clients should start approaching next.
There is no singular way to tackle these questions as everyone approaches them in a different way.
It could be as simple as something being brought up at their next team meeting or maybe conducting another market research study in the future.
Conduct Online Surveys for Better Content Marketing Today!
Marketing is a critical activity in all industries and understanding key aspects such as content, channels, and trends are important for any organization.
Content surveys are a terrific way to learn what aspects and drivers are most prominent in the industry.
No matter the size or scope of your next marketing study, we know how to provide you valuable insights!
Interested in partnering with Drive Research on your next market research study? Learn more about our services or contact us below.
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040
Justin Eisenhauer
As a Research Assistant, Justin works directly with all team members on client projects. He knows how to approach market data from a client perspective and provides valuable insights to help them be successful.
Learn more about Justin, here.
