Alterra Group Newsletter: March 26, 2010
Alterra Group's newsletter provides insights on how professional services firms can increase awareness of and demand for their services.
Making a business book pay off
Business books can be powerful marketing tools for consultants, accountants and attorneys. However, many underestimate the effort required to develop a powerful, substantive book that engages and energizes readers and motivates them to call the author to learn more.
See our insights on developing a successful business book, from identifying the right topic, to creating a logical structure, developing the author’s point of view, and ultimately writing and marketing the book.
The value of thought leadership surveys: Part Three
This final installment in our series on high-value survey research focuses on making the most of a research effort with structured analysis and comprehensive marketing. Previous installments explored survey design and securing participants.
Analyzing the data and writing the report
After closing the survey, a firm should use its initial hypotheses as a guide to analyzing the survey findings, relying on the appropriate number and types of cross-tabulations to determine whether the hypotheses have been supported or refuted and identify the strongest storylines emerging from the data.
We can’t stress enough how important analysis is to the strength of the ultimate report. There are many instances in which firms have spent considerable time, money and effort designing the research and conducting the survey, only to rush the findings to market. In our experience, a firm should dedicate the same amount of time on analysis as it does on research design and data collection.
Three iterations of analysis are typical. The first should focus on the aggregate responses to each major survey question, while the second level of analysis involves conducting crosstabs to find potentially interesting storylines. For instance, the survey may reveal interesting discrepancies between large and small companies, different industries, or leaders and laggards. The final stage of analysis typically is done in a workshop setting, in which the findings of the second level of analysis are reviewed with the firm’s subject-matter experts to determine the implications of the findings for clients and prospects and identify any opportunities for further analysis.
At the end of the three rounds of analysis, the firm reaches consensus on the main storyline emerging from the findings and develops a detailed outline and ultimately the prose draft of the final research report. The more in-depth and substantive the report, the more content the firm has to fuel subsequent marketing activities that help communicate the firm’s expertise and insights on the research topic.
Marketing the research
As any research initiative is only as valuable as the attention it generates, a firm should aggressively promote its findings and its resulting point of view via a set of integrated, tightly synchronized activities.
First, the firm should appoint and train designated research spokespeople—as well as business development leaders and anyone else who should be conversant on the study—on key findings and the firm’s “take” on them, as well as basic details of the survey (methodology, who was surveyed, how many participated, etc.).
Next, the firm should create news releases and bylined articles on the most interesting slices of the survey findings, and pitch them to relevant media outlets. Beyond these PR activities, the firm should promote survey results directly to clients and prospects using the full range of marketing tools at their disposal. In our experience, effective channels include conferences, webinars, direct marketing campaigns, and presentations that can be delivered by any account executive to his or her contacts.
Perhaps the most effective way to leverage the research is to prepare and deliver tailored presentations on the survey to the management teams of select companies that participated in the research. Such presentations often are viewed by executives as providing added value and “free insights,” and they give the firm’s professionals the chance to have meaningful and relevant conversations with prospects.
A firm’s website is another effective channel for the research. In fact, a number of firms we’ve worked with have created dedicated microsites which provide ways for visitors to interact with the firm—for example, by hosting a version of the original questionnaire used in the survey that visitors can take themselves. This approach not only engages people and gives them a reason to visit the site, it also provides ongoing, fresh data the firm can use to update its findings.
Finally, firms that have maximized their investments in surveys typically have “institutionalized” the research—that is, they have made the research an annual, semi-annual or quarterly initiative. In doing so, these organizations have created anticipation for the research among target executives and enabled year-over-year comparisons that executives find valuable.
Would you like to learn more about high-value thought leadership surveys? Visit our survey research minisite.
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