How To Successfully Utilise Market Research To Amplify Your PR Strategy
By Louise Care, Director of Research Operations
In PR, market research surveys are not just one-dimensional tools - they are an essential element that drive strategic decisions for your business, shape your marketing approach and help to deliver results in campaigns. Effective research can uncover insights about target audiences and product performance, identify market trends, measure campaign impact, and guide your overall business and PR strategy. But how do you ensure success in this critical area? Here we will explore key steps and best practices to excel in research and consumer surveys for PR professionals in agencies or in industry.
1. Define Clear Objectives
Before diving into any research project or survey, it’s crucial to establish clear objectives. What are you hoping to achieve? Whether it’s understanding audience behaviour, gauging public sentiment, or evaluating brand perception, your objectives will guide the entire research process. Clearly defined goals help in designing the survey, selecting the right methodology, and ensuring that the outcomes are both useful and actionable.
OnePoll tip: Align your research objectives with the overall PR goals of your campaign or client. This ensures that the insights you garner will directly contribute to strategic decisions.
2. Choose the Right Research Methodology
In PR, the choice of research methodology can significantly impact the quality of your insights. Broadly, methodologies can be classified into qualitative and quantitative approaches.
- Qualitative Research: This involves collecting rich, non-numerical data through interviews, focus groups, and open-ended survey questions. It’s ideal for exploring attitudes and motivations, and for getting to the heart of people’s real lived experiences.
- Quantitative Research: This involves numerical data collection through structured surveys, polls, or using secondary data sources. It’s suitable for identifying trends, measuring frequency, or establishing correlations.
OnePoll tip: Identify the methodology that will provide the insights you need and consider a combination of approaches to deliver insights that are broad and deep.
3. Design Effective Surveys
Questionnaire design can make or break your research efforts. To get the best results:
- Ask the Right Questions: Keep questions clear, succinct, and relevant to your objectives. Avoid leading or biased questions that will skew results.
- Use a Logical Flow: Structure your survey logically, ask demographic questions at the beginning and set the scene for the rest of the topic. This keeps respondents engaged and reduces survey fatigue.
- Keep it Short and Sweet: Aim for brevity. Lengthy surveys can lead to drop-offs and incomplete data. Focus on the most critical questions that will drive meaningful insights.
- Mix up the Question Types: Try to vary the question types used, including single and multi choice questions, matrix style and sliders. This also helps with respondent engagement and ensures you’ll get the best data out at the end.
OnePoll tip: Avoid asking the same question in a variety of different ways until you get the answer you want. This might seem smart but it’s off-putting for respondents and isn’t best practice.
4. Target the Right Audience
In PR, targeting the correct audience for your research is essential. The insights you gather are only as good as the relevance of your respondents. Use demographic criteria and thorough screening questions to define your target group.
OnePoll tip: Try to put yourself in the shoes of the respondent you want to hear from when writing your survey questions and figuring out who best to survey
5. Analyse Data with an Insight-Driven Approach
Once data collection is complete, the next step is analysis. Look beyond the numbers and focus on what the data is telling you in the context of your PR objectives. Identify patterns, correlations, and key insights that can inform your strategy.OnePoll tip: Segment Your Data - Break it down into relevant segments (e.g. by demographics, generations, behaviours, attitudes) to understand how different groups respond.
6. Report Findings Effectively
The final step in successful research surveys is effectively communicating your findings. Tailor your report to your audience. Use visual aids, key takeaways, and actionable recommendations to ensure your findings are not just understood, but also implemented.
OnePoll tip: Visualisation tools can make your data more digestible and compelling to your audience. Interactive charts, graphs, and infographics can help present your findings in a way that’s easy for stakeholders to understand and act upon.
7. Use Insights to Inform PR Strategies
Ultimately, the goal of any research survey in PR is to inform strategy. Use your insights to guide and shape messaging, refine target audiences, select the right media channels, and optimise your overall approach.
OnePoll tip: Continuous measurement is key - use ongoing research to refine and improve your strategies over time.
Conclusion
Successful research in PR requires a strategic approach, clear objectives and a focus on actionable insights. By defining your goals, choosing the right methodologies, designing effective questionnaires, targeting the right audience, analysing data insightfully and reporting findings clearly, you can elevate your strategies and drive impactful results. Remember, knowledge is power - make your research count.
If you’d like to know more about powering your PR surveys you can get in touch here: louise.care@onepoll.com
