Marketing Your Research: Are You Asking the Right Questions?

Research is vital to organizations and society. It ensures that decision-making is well-informed by accurate data and facts, rather than by hearsay or biased intuition. But there’s another thing about research: there’s a lot of it out there. So much, in fact, that data often gets lost in the ether. That’s why marketing your research is crucial to getting across to a wider audience. To ensure your invaluable research doesn’t get lost in all the noise, it’s key to have a marketing strategy informed by the answers to four important questions.

4 Questions To Inform Your Research Marketing Strategy

1. Why is it relevant?

It’s important to note at the outset that all research is important in some way. Even if it doesn’t seem so on the surface, it’s becoming part of the sum of human knowledge. But to ensure it gets noticed, think about its relevance. Some research that touches on hot-button topics may be self-evidently relevant; other more niche research may need to be more explicitly linked to emerging trends or widely-discussed topics. Articulating the relevance of research is the first step in designing a research marketing strategy.

2. Does it tell a compelling story?

Again, all research is important but not all research is obviously interesting to a wider audience, and making it interesting is what getting media attention or invitations to speak at high-profile conferences requires. That means sifting through the prosaic, non-biased, non-emotional data to find the story that will make an impression on audiences. That’s where a solid communications strategy comes in: find the stories laying under the graphs and charts. This involves treating research not as existing in a vacuum but tying into the bigger picture.

3. Does it offer a solution?

The answer to this won’t always be affirmative, but it’s worth trying to draw conclusions about possible recommendations to any challenges related to your research findings and including them rather than just leaving the audience hanging. Why? Because human beings (including potential clients) aren’t typically just curious and dispassionate. They want answers. They want solutions. And if you can offer a glimmer of hope, you’ll be someone they want to talk to. Potential recommendations to address the issues raised by your research should always be part of your marketing communications messaging.

4. How can you leverage it long-term?

As noted at the outset of this blog, there’s a lot of competition for audience attention when it comes to research. That’s why your strategy should involve not just planning for the launch but for ensuring it has long-term staying power. One way to do that is to plan a series of mini research pieces derived from the bigger report or survey, perhaps in the form of owned blog content or contributed articles. This ensures your research stays visible over time, fueling ongoing media and conference opportunities in the process.

One thing we should note before closing is that if you just have data and research in the first place, you’re already ahead. Ultimately audiences want substantiation for your claims and point of view, so you’ve won half the battle. The next step is asking these four questions about the information you have – and marketing your research as best you can.