Public relations and market research are hardly ever mixed.
I assume this is because the entire existence of PR is centered around creating newsworthy and shareable content – whereas findings from research practices such as focus groups and customer surveys are typically kept confidential.
Well, I challenge you to rethink this ideology. One of the best-kept secrets in the public relations industry is PR surveys. This is the idea of using data to support a brand’s message and garnering media attention.
What are public relations surveys?
Public relations surveys collect feedback from a brand’s target audience or a general population of consumers. Survey questions are written in a strategic way so that the results can easily be translated into juicy headlines and help feature key messages of an organization.
What is an example of using surveys for PR?
Here is an example of a PR survey in action.
Let’s say you are a healthcare facility that is launching a new eHealth platform. You work with a PR survey company to create and field a survey to 1,000 adults who have had an online consultation in the past 12-months.
The survey shows that 72% of respondents experienced a level of frustration with their eHealth appointment – whether it was with scheduling, level of care, etc.
The headline of your press release reads, “Is telemedicine an effective healthcare solution? 72% of consumers don’t believe so.”
The press release details a few findings from the study and touches on why consumers were most frustrated with their appointments.
This allows your healthcare facility to introduce your new eHealth platform as a solution to these challenges such as:
- Find and review doctors from across the country
- Schedule appointments
- Consult with doctors via chat or video calls
The press release is picked up by major news and trade publications, which helps grow brand awareness and thought leadership.
How else can I leverage a survey for marketing?
Press releases are not the only way marketers can leverage findings from a survey. In fact, I like to think one survey can result in content and marketing deliverables for an entire year.
Here are a few ways you can repurpose the findings of a public relations survey.
Blog Posts
Think beyond one post summarizing the entire survey. Each survey question can tell a story and be recreated into a blog post.
15 survey questions = 15 blog posts.
Journalists are regularly reviewing blog posts to find third-party data or quotes to support their articles. By recreating your findings into several different blog posts, journalists will see your site as a reliable resource and be more likely to choose your data to feature.
Graphics
Market research data can be displayed in more than just Excel sheets, charts, and graphs. Use your plethora of statistics to feature in:
- Infographics
- Social media shares
- Animated videos
- Designed downloadable reports
This is your chance to get creative!
Website Copy
Another unique display for PR polling survey results is your website copy. This can be especially impactful if you included questions about competitors.
For example, an email marketing platform conducts a PR survey with markets from across the country. They asked respondents to choose their most preferred email marketing platform from a list of 10 options.
The list included the private sponsor of the study and their 9 competitors. The results showed 8 in 10 respondents preferred their email marketing company over others that were tested.
The homepage of their now says, “80% of marketers prefer to use [INSERT COMPANY NAME] over our competitors.”
Read more: Forms or Survey – Responses and Results