Michele Linn
I admit it: I have a lot of research pet peeves because I look at a lot of surveys. But there’s one that gets me every. single. time. You start taking a survey because you want to to be helpful (or add to your swipe file of survey questions that work or don’t work). Then […]
Read MoreHave you ever started a survey project with one idea in mind but realized you have something different once you get the results? It’s easy for this to happen. After rounds of feedback and the (seemingly endless) iteration, where you initially plan to head may not be where you end up. If this is something […]
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Are you looking to improve your research findings? One easy win: ask influencers to provide a quote about your findings. You can use these quotes within your report, blog posts, newsletters, social media, and more. Here are 5 things to consider when asking for quotes about your findings: Remember: you aren’t asking someone to provide […]
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Recently, I was working with a client who wanted to include community member quotes in their survey results. Of course, they could have pulled anonymous quotes from responses to the write-in questions, but this client wanted to share quotes from actual people. Enter: a second survey. More specifically, we created an additional survey that asked […]
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“We ran this survey but have nothing interesting to report.” My heart drops when marketers tell me this. And, unfortunately, I’m hearing this more often. A possible issue? The survey is focused on inventory stats. Inventory stats essentially report on the “state of the state.” They seek to learn as much about the industry as […]
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Recently, I was asked, “What is the best way to communicate your methodology without overwhelming readers with a lot of details?” For those of you who aren’t familiar with a methodology, it describes how the data was collected and who participated in the survey. While you would think (hope!) that a methodology would be standard […]
Read MoreIf you have ever tried to publish your own survey-based research, chances are you can appreciate this recent sentiment from @StoriesWithGill: Well, “more people” (aka me) are trying to do it, but it’s bloody hard! For ex., there is this freelancer survey I’m trying to get answers for (https://t.co/59qcBdl1lx). Takes literally 1 minute. 2 days […]
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There are few topics that spark more passionate debate among marketers than thought leadership (except, perhaps, the Oxford comma). What does thought leadership mean? Can anyone be a thought leader? Can a brand be a thought leader or should this term be reserved for individuals? How are marketers approaching thought leadership? And, more specifically, what’s […]
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When we recently joined forces with Typeset to understand how business communicators are approaching writing — and if the writing they are publishing is effective — I knew we’d learn some things. But, when we published the State of Writing in 2020, I was surprised to see how many of the challenges and gaps that […]
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Last year, we conducted our first State of Original Research for Marketing with BuzzSumo to understand if and how marketers are publishing original research. At that time, we discovered about half of marketers were using research and were generally feeling confident but had an opportunity to do more. This year, we wanted to explore year-over-year […]
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