Survey Says: Research Fuels Thought Leadership Marketing Content

Alterra Group has long preached the value of original research and its ability to fuel thought leadership content. Time and again, we’ve seen companies that use research as the basis of compelling content be rewarded with substantial market interest and increased demand.

A recent survey reinforces our experience.  According to a survey of 700 marketers released in May 2018 by Mantis Research (with BuzzSumo), about half of B2B marketers are using original research as part of their content development efforts and almost all marketers currently using research plan to conduct more research in the coming year.  The reason: Research has exceeded or met expectations for the majority of marketers, with only 3% reporting a failure to live up to expectations.

However, also evident in the Mantis survey results is the fact that the vast majority of content created from that research is superficial:  blog posts (77%) and infographics (55%), for instance, are the most-frequently created. Such pieces are good for communicating simple trends or messages.  But even if the numbers are interesting at face value, short and simple pieces don’t allow a company to deeply explore an issue in a way that sheds new light on a topic for the company’s intended audience—which is what executives are hungry for.  This means those companies are really failing to maximize their research investment and get the most mileage and impact from those efforts.  In other words, maybe they’re happy with the results because their expectations for what their research can generate are too low.

A well-designed and -executed research effort can and should be the basis for far more content than a blog, infographic, or web copy.  These all can be effective in their own way, but they should be just part of the mix of content types research should spawn.  One of the most important pieces should be a comprehensive research report that not only covers the key research findings (i.e., the facts and figures), but more important, conveys a company’s take on what those findings mean for its target audience.  This point of view, which is based on the company’s deep analysis of the data combined with its own customer or client experience, is what makes the report a thought leadership piece instead of simple recitation of data points that any survey house or magazine could generate.  White papers that explore different angles of the research in more depth, byline articles—and, if the research is compelling and comprehensive enough, maybe even a book—can follow.  All of these mutually reinforcing pieces based on the same research help fill the marketing content pipeline, keeping a company in front of target executives across 12 months or more while illustrating the depth of the company’s thinking on the subject.

The Mantis survey has an interesting parallel with Alterra’s own recent thought leadership review of midsize supply chain software companies and the preliminary findings of our current review of blockchain-focused thought pieces by strategy consulting firms (more to come on that later this summer).  Both of these studies found most companies, like those participating in the Mantis survey, tend to invest in short, easy-to-produce pieces (especially blogs).  On the other hand, our research projects found far fewer firms using original research as a foundation of their marketing efforts.  That’s likely due to differing thoughts on what constitutes true original research and disparities across the industry segments we explored.

The fact is, companies that don’t use research to fuel their thought leadership marketing content are truly missing out on the chance to stake out strong, fact-based positions on important topics and differentiate themselves in the minds of executives.  Even those companies in the Mantis survey that are doing original research could be doing much, much more with the data they collect.

If you’re thinking about adding research to your thought leadership program, or want to raise the level of your existing research efforts, we encourage you to read our white paper for some more helpful tips.