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Publish your own survey
We all love to read survey results. At least,
journalists often write news stories about them, which is one indicator of our interest in them.
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Do a search on Google News for ‘survey ’ and you’ll find tens of thousands of results. I got 91,000 results just from the last month: I repeated the search on the New York Times and found over 77 stories in that newspaper alone from the last seven days.
This hunger for survey results is well known in public relations (PR), and its practitioners regularly feed survey stories to newspapers and other media. Do a survey story well and you can create excellent content for your website, get great coverage, and generate lots of inbound links.
You must be careful that your survey is objective and unbiased.
There are two approaches you can consider. First, you can comment on other peoples’ surveys. This saves you all the work of conducting your own. Or, you can conduct your own survey. Let’s have a look at some surveys that have created press coverage for the companies that commissioned the research. As you look at these examples, ask yourself a number of questions:
What did the sponsors of the survey want to achieve?
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What is the real story?
How might the story and survey results have benefited their business?
How can you conduct research of the same value?
How might others use the information you provide in your results?
Example 1: Compete survey of Smartphone users
In March 2009 Compete, a web analytics company, published findings on how people use their
Smartphones such as Blackberries and iPhones. They found iPhone users spend over three quarters of their time using their cell phone for personal rather than business use. These findings were picked up by the New York Times , TechCrunch and Geek.com .
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Section 2: Recipe No. 17 | Publish your own survey
Example 2: Mom Central survey, back to school clothes
Hot Tip
Be very clear about how you’re going to
conduct the survey and analyze the results.
SurveyMonkey.com is a simple, inexpensive tool to help you carry out surveys.
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Mom Central (an online parenting community) conducted a survey in August 2009 asking 1400 parents if they were likely to reduce spending on their children’s school clothes in fall 2009. The results showed only 17% anticipated spending less, but 92% said they would use special offers or take advantage of discounts. This survey was picked up by Fox Business and Reuters .
Example 3: Curious Wines blog, wine for wedding day
In September 2009, the Curious wines blog published findings of a wedding survey in which it looked into what kinds of wine couples would like for their wedding day. They found that one in four respondents bought wine from online retail shops rather than from the hotel venue where they were getting married.
Curious Wines’ blog post was picked up and used on other blogs.
These results were picked up by the Wedding Dates blog , which used the survey results to include a post on five top tips on how to choose wine for your wedding day.
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Section 2: Recipe No. 17 | Publish your own survey
Using survey results
These are just three examples from the many thousands of surveys published every year. There are bound to be interesting surveys in your area of business, and here’s how you can use them to create content for your website.
1. If you’re looking to create keyword rich content, you can simply publish the news release that accompanies the survey. However, many
other sites will do the same - so it is much better to add your own original thoughts to the news release. (To have news releases emailed to you, sign up to sites such as www.prweb.com ).
2. If the survey confirms the need for the sort of product or service you’re providing, you can write an article that draws on its results to highlight the problems you solve and why people should buy from you.
3. You could create an article summarizing the survey results and adding your own opinions. Disagreeing with survey results or pointing out
weaknesses in a survey can bring attention.
4. You could write a summary of the survey and include it on an industry resources page.
5. You could use the survey results to give you article ideas. You could
write an opinion piece on one its conclusions.
Researching and publishing your own market research survey
Commissioning your own survey can be a rich source of content and publicity. However, it does demand a lot of work to get it right. Here are important questions to consider:
1. Do you really need to do an original piece of research? Consider whether
you could use surveys that have already been published.
2. Have a clear objective. What do you want to research? What will you do with
the results?
3. Be very clear about how you’re going to conduct the survey and how you’re going to analyze the results. SurveyMonkey.com, an inexpensive online
research tool, has a handy pdf guide - Smart Survey Design .
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Section 2: Recipe No. 17 | Publish your own survey
4. One of your most important objectives is to remove bias . Many
amateurs ask leading questions such as, “Do you like the friendly attitude of our customer service staff ?” This question assumes the friendly attitude. It would be much better to ask, “Do you think our customer service staff are: friendly, average or unfriendly?”
5. Make sure that you:
• Publish the full results on your own website or blog.
• Write and distribute an accompanying press release, linking to the results on your site.
• Send copies of the results to key influencers and bloggers in your industry.
• Use the survey results as inspiration for further articles.
Finally, if your survey is successful, consider turning it into a regular event, as LonelyPlanet.com does with its Annual Travellers’ Pulse Survey.
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Observe
Active observational skills can enhance the quality of your website content.
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Godin: A master in observation
Marketing guru Seth Godin is a prolific writer. His
Typepad blog is consistently in Technorati’s list of most popular blogs . Why is this? I’ll stick my neck out and say it’s not because he’s the world’s greatest writer: that’s not what makes him a success. It’s his acute attention to detail and observational skills that have made him a ‘guy in the know ’. He’s seen as someone who is keenly aware of his industry and understands the trends and challenges for marketers. He doesn’t just ignore what’s going on around him, he actively observes and analyzes it. Godin doesn’t go to a baseball game, a restaurant, or get into a taxi without thinking about the ways in which his choices have been marketed to him. His brain is never ‘off’.
One of Godin’s blog posts focuses on a trip he made to the Apple store in New York . He writes about his experience of walking through the door - nothing about the software, the gadgets on the shelves, or even the store layout. Godin dedicates a post to the fact that the door didn’t automatically shut behind him. This is Godin’s opportunity to talk about customer care in its truest sense. He says: “It’s the customers that care who actually have a huge impact on your business. If no one
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cares, you’ve got trouble. Goal one is getting people to care. Goal two is listening to them.”
Brain training
In the past Godin has written about a local restaurant closing down, poorly designed branding he’s noticed on the street, queues outside a car rental shop, and even the way a bought sandwich was prepared. Godin’s secret to success…he asks why?
Too many of us observe passively. Rarely do we question why something is the way it is. In a world where we are bombarded with images, slogans and advertising, the general hubbub of life whizzes past us in a blur. To harness these experiences for your website you have to train your brain to put ordinary experiences into sharp focus.
From observation to search engine optimization
Take a single word or phrase from your observation and enter it into Wordtracker ’s Keywords tool.
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