The Power of Research in B2B PR and Marketing Campaigns: Driving Real Results
In today’s business landscape, it’s getting harder to stand out from competitors. It seems everyone is launching a new product or service, announcing a new customer, or sharing an exciting new appointment. Promoting these key milestones is a critical part of building your credibility in the public eye and telling your brand’s momentum story.
But, continually finding ways to bring something genuinely novel to your target market can be challenging, especially when there’s so much noise from competitors and other industry players, which is where research comes in.
Conducting your own research can play a pivotal role in shaping effective communications and marketing strategies. Evidence shows that 69% of buyers are influenced by primary research data relevant to their business when agreeing to meet with a seller.
Whether it’s showcasing that you understand your customers’ preferences, creating conversation starters with prospects, or proving your knowledge of key industry trends, research adds weight to your sales pitch and helps you build compelling marketing campaigns and communications assets.
However, creating your own research report – or even starting a project to build one – can seem daunting. Where do you start? How do you ensure that you capture valuable data to tell an interesting story when, surely, you don’t know exactly how your audience will respond? And how do you harness it to drive real results for your business?
Here are some tips for how to maximise the impact of a research project.
Craft an angle worth researching
The first step when you decide to conduct research is to ensure the insights you unveil will be relevant, compelling, and provide a fresh take or perspective. Critically, you want this research to align with your company’s key messaging, so think about – in an ideal world – the type of statistics that would highlight a need for your product or service, but in a way that’s not too self-serving so that it resonates with your audience.
For example, if you’re a solutions provider, you might want to look at the hurdles your target market has so you can highlight how your solution solves for these. Equally, consider what your target audience really wants to know. What’s in it for them, and what will capture their interest the most?
You need to ensure you’re bringing something new to the market, so research the research! What topics have already been covered recently? Take a look at the types of research being published by industry magazines and news sites, or see what activity your competitors are doing, and critically, what insights or intelligence are currently missing?
Knowing what you want to achieve with your research and what you hope the end result will be will enable you to work backwards to develop questions that point in this direction. It’ll also help you shape who your audience needs to be – and whether you want qualitative or quantitative results.
Plan your approach
Now you have your research idea in mind, the next step is to start planning. You need to consider a timeline, existing capabilities in your team, and costs.
Do you have the capability to gather research insights yourself? What assets do you want to create from the data and who will be able to develop these? What budget do you have for the project? It may be time to pursue a market research agency that can help you capture the responses you need, or an external communications function to draft content, such as a whitepaper, a press release, a breakfast roundtable, or support with social content.
Maximise its impact
The last thing you want to do is complete a well-meaning and interesting piece of research, but not make the most of your investment or the valuable insights unearthed. Any research needs a robust marketing and communications strategy for maximum amplification and ROI.
Examples tactics as part of this strategy include:
- A paid LinkedIn campaign to boost the whitepaper in the feeds of your target audience
- A newsletter series to your contacts, highlighting key takeaways
- A digital advertising campaign showcasing findings in publications your target audiences read
- Video interviews for your website (and to be shared on social media) with key spokespeople sharing main findings from the research
- A PR campaign launching the news to target media, with supporting thought leadership articles to showcase your research’s main findings
- Blog content on your website
- A dedicated event such as a roundtable or webinar where customers and partners can join the conversation around the research’s key topics
The great news is that the insights uncovered in your research can have a shelf life of a whole calendar year if executed correctly, so think further ahead than just the launch of the study. Do you have events where you’re exhibiting that you could also pitch to be a speaker at? The research findings could be a great hook for this. Don’t forget compelling quotes or statistics can make great banners, handouts, and talking points at a tradeshow booth or on your website.
Investing in research has huge benefits for sales, marketing campaigns, and communications activity, and holds the power to drive real results for your business. In a world saturated with content and claims, research cuts through the noise.
Creating evidence and concrete insights helps you to gain a competitive edge, highlighting that your product or service and your expertise isn’t based on assumptions, but on hard data. Done well, it will deliver not just insights, but real, measurable impact.
For more information about how we can support your research project as part of your B2B marketing campaigns and communications activity, get in touch today.