There are three tiers of survey research common in public relations, only two of which can truly optimize your PR:

Serious Surveys.  Beyond providing rich material for news releases, serious surveys are designed to establish true thought leadership.  They are leveraged for publication through white papers, conference presentations, or peer-reviewed journals.  The surveys we conducted and published about ulcerative colitis are excellent examples, and for the last three years have been used by the client to demonstrate a deep understanding of the issues faced by patients and physicians.

Solid Surveys. Solid surveys answer interesting questions or document issues that people care about, with solutions that people can use.  The primary goal is media placement, but a solid survey can be leveraged further.  For example, one client we worked for got significant story placements by surveying people about skin cancer myths and reasons for not taking simple precautions like wearing sunscreen.  Another gets ongoing coverage for a survey of IT professionals about future trends in the marketplace.

Silly Surveys. These are unfortunately not designed to answer authentic questions, but to grab attention in ways that may not even be relevant to your business.  We saw one survey not long ago that measured which song titles, from among five or six listed, captured people’s optimism or pessimism about the decade ahead.  The client?  An office products company.  Another recent survey announced the percentage of women who would give up TV, cell phones, computers, or sex in exchange for losing 10 pounds.  Who cares?  These are not meaningful comparisons; they’re just silly.

To be fair, silly surveys can attract good media, but there are costs.  First, they diminish your (and our) long-term credibility as journalists start to ask whether they’re reading yet another gimmick survey or whether your latest effort offers something of real value.  Second, there is an opportunity cost.  You could be investing in information that not only gets media attention, but is leveraged in multiple ways and for many years.  We have a client from whom we did a solid survey back in 2004, which they are still using on their website to engage consumers in 2010.

If you’re in the business of PR, we suggest leaving the silly surveys to Facebook polls.  Instead, focus on building a credible foundation with expert research and data analysis.  Versta Research can help you with this.  We can help you answer questions with expertise, turn data into stories, and ultimately help you  communicate those stories to the audiences you need to reach.

—Joe Hopper, Ph.D.

We were reminded of the importance of communication and writing research for multiple audiences from Eric Zorn’s recent column in the Chicago Tribune, from which we quote:

How many of us feel this way? I asked [the researcher] for percentages and she responded by e-mail that her research was qualitative, not quantitative.

I asked then in what sense is it “research” any more than choosing anecdotes out of random interviews? Journalists do love numbers.

“I don’t write my research for journalists,” she wrote back. “I write it for the community of scholars who conduct this type of research, and who have since the 1930s when the Chicago School of Sociology began at the University of Chicago. Honestly, if you are going to interact with researchers who conduct perfectly legitimate qualitative research, I strongly suggest that you gain some knowledge of that type of tradition before you throw around words like `random interviews’ and `anecdotes.’”

Ouch.

Mr. Zorn’s question was a good one. It could and should have been answered. It’s really no different from the kinds of questions you and we often hear from the executives to whom we are presenting our work. “How do you know?” “Why does this matter?” “How does this help me?” We nearly always have multiple audiences. Good researchers can and must communicate beyond their own communities.

We at Versta Research have done a great deal of research and survey work to support newspaper stories and communications materials, so we definitely do write for journalists. They love numbers, but they also love stories, so we give them headlines and storylines and numbers to support it all. At the same time, we write for communities of scholars and see our work published in academic journals. The two need not be at odds.

We also write for top level executives (we give them a three page deck focused on implications with supporting evidence) mid-level managers (we give them a ten page deck focused on problems, diagnoses, and solutions), and market researchers (we give them a thirty page deck and a clear story supported with data).

Each audience requires a slightly different approach, answers pitched at different levels, varying degrees of detail, and so on. Need help? Our clients say that our experience and skill at turning data into stories adds significant value to the work they do, all the way from design to implementation, reporting and presentation. Research can make a difference in back offices and boardrooms, and with the right reporting and follow up it can make a difference among journalists asking tough questions as well.

—Joe Hopper, Ph.D.

What do we know about the kinds of stories and research reports that can achieve this?  A recent study reported in The New York Times provides some clues.  Researchers looked at which types of NYT articles get e-mailed by readers the most.  One surprising result was that science articles (stories that convey research findings!) get e-mailed the most.  The reason is not that readers like science more than other topics – it’s that science articles, at least those in The New York Times, have content characteristics that people find compelling and want to share.   The researchers analyzed thousands of articles (both science and non-science) and noted the characteristics of those most likely to go viral.  They tend to be articles that:

• Elicit strong emotions
• Have positive themes rather than negative themes
• Inspire awe, or a sense of discovery and grandeur beyond oneself
• Challenge the reader intellectually
• Are surprising in some way

When it comes to market research, this does not mean that all your research presentations need to be awe-inspiring and emotional calls to action.  But it does mean that your research should tell a story that relates to people and what they do, feel, and care about.  It should show them opportunities as well as barriers.  It should provide context.  The numbers do not need to be easy, but remember they help tell the story rather than being the story.  If you’re writing a story for media placement and would love to see your story leveraged beyond the initial hit, incorporate as many of these characteristics as you can.

A lot of surveys and market research reports today sit buried in PowerPoint charts that nobody has bothered to read – a sorry state of affairs that inspires Versta’s mission to help you turn data into stories.  With the right approach, your managers and audiences will not only listen to your findings and act on them, but they will be eager to share them with their managers and their friends and family as well.

Joe Hopper, Ph.D.

Looking back, here are what we consider to be the five biggest changes that shaped current challenges faced by market research and opinion polling:

1. Online data collection using sample panels became the dominant mode of surveying, displacing a huge industry in telephone surveying.  Plus there has been a dramatic decline in households owning landlines, which makes the ideal of probability sampling extremely difficult to achieve.
2. Survey technology made data collection easy and cheap which means that a lot of market research became a commodity, resulting in industry consolidation and need to find new ways of adding value.
3. An explosion of too many surveys, which are everywhere, powered by simple tools like Survey Monkey.  Along with this there has been a dramatic decline in response rates, bringing the issue of quality to the fore like never before.
4. Statistical and mathematical expertise grew in demand.  There is so much data and information, and it is so easy to get.  But who knows what to do with it all?
5. “Audience-ready” reports became more valuable.  Newspapers laid off staff and market research departments downsized, demanding a level of professional involvement to ensure that research reports are easy to read, interpret, and ready to deliver to the audiences who need them most.

One product of these five trends is Versta Research’s focus on high-level expertise and academic brainpower so that you get smart, creative, and flexible market research.  Another is the skill and commitment we have in helping you communicate research to managers, clients, reporters, and the audiences you need to reach.

In our next post we’ll highlight what we predict will be the five biggest trends that will shape market research challenges in the decade to come.

–Joe Hopper, Ph.D.

There will always be a need for good storytelling. This point was eloquently made by Susan Howe, President of Weber Shandwick Chicago.  The media through which stories are told is shifting, but the fundamentals of good PR remain.  Likewise for research, the tools we use are changing every day, but turning data into stories is a constant that underlies change.

You know the story better than anyone. Rich Jernstedt, EVP of Fleishman-Hillard argued that good PR professionals own and communicate the client’s story at every phase because a reporter will never know that story as deeply.   Likewise, an effective research partner helps a client communicate data from beginning to end, long after the “report” is delivered.  Nobody knows the research as thoroughly as we do.

We need to add value. Janet Cabot, Co-President of the Chicago Office of Edelman, highlighted the importance of research and intellectual capital because effective tactics are now a “given” and clients are looking for more.   The same goes for research itself.  Focusing on data collection and tabulation no longer adds value.  We need to leverage our considerable intellectual capital by helping clients interpret, grasp and communicate the research.

It was an optimistic and inspiring forum that was consistent with our thinking at Versta Research:    Change is an opportunity to focus on (1) the fundamentals of what we do (designing rigorous research to answer critical questions) and (2) the value we add (turning data into stories), both of which make for strong and lasting partnerships with our clients.

–Joe Hopper, Ph.D.

The first approach is to mine data.  Find data that you already have, analyze that data, use it to answer interesting questions, and then tell the story.  For example, financial services, HR, benefits, and other outsourcing companies like Hewitt Associates track a wealth of data about employees and employers as part of their business.  They can then use that data to write interesting stories about how many people cash out their 401(k) plans when leaving a job, or how many companies are switching healthcare plans as costs continue to rise.

The second approach is to generate new data by commissioning a survey that answers interesting questions to drive your story.  For example, one client I worked for got significant story placements by surveying people about skin cancer myths and reasons for not taking simple precautions like wearing sunscreen.  Another gets ongoing coverage for a survey of IT professionals about future trends in the marketplace.

With both approaches, the trick is to (1) build a credible foundation with expert research and data analysis, and (2) turn data into stories. Versta Research can help you with both pieces.  We can help you answers questions with expertise, turn data into stories, and ultimately help you  communicate those stories to the audiences who need them most.

–Joe Hopper, Ph.D.