As a marketer, I am a big fan of presentations about best practices. They are a great shortcut for learning and people are usually pretty honest about their experiences both good and bad. I went to a presentation recently about market research. The presenter, a marketer from a large company, talked about her process for understanding customer needs. She described how they went into homes, interviewed people, and how they drew conclusions from a mountain of data. They gained valuable information for product development. It was a very good presentation.
At least until the honesty part. When asked how the information was used, she said that the development project had been put on hold. Bottom line: the information had not been used yet. Too bad, I thought. A better answer would have been that while the project was on hold, through content marketing, they were able to use this research to build awareness of their brand and enhance their standing as industry experts. An even better answer would have been that this was a goal from the beginning.
In today’s world of content marketing where educational and informative content is actively shared to draw prospects to your brand and build trust, a good market research study is like hitting the brand-building mother lode. Results can be used to help gain publicity through traditional media which can then be re-purposed through your website, blog, newsletter and social media channels. This can be done without giving away competitive information. Ideas to develop newsworthy content include identifying trends, relating new ways that people are using common products and describing emerging needs. There are many more. By sharing this content, a company is demonstrating its knowledge of the market and building a relationship with customers as an informative and helpful resource.
I would love to show you some examples of how we create quality content, and then how we communicate it to our clients’ target markets through multiple promotional channels. Call me on 952-697-5269 to get started with your content marketing plan.
