Looking for new angles on content marketing to go viral socially? Try market research. While most companies use market research to test new concepts, measure brand performance and/or perform market segmentation, some innovative brands like Netflix and Wrike—a project management software company—are using it to fuel their content marketing efforts.
In December 2016, Netflix partnered with SurveyMonkey Audience and ran a survey on Netflix Cheating. Netflix published their findings from the survey in an article, “Netflix Cheating is on the Rise Globally and Shows No Signs of Stopping.” Contents from the research were picked up by numerous outlets including The Guardian, Reader’s Digest, India.com, EsquireME, and dozens of other online publications.
Engage customers with fresh content
Netflix, Cosmopolitan, and Business Insider are using SurveyMonkey Audience to create viral, engaging content.
Wrike took on a different topic: swearing in the workplace. Their findings garnered over 80 pieces of coverage from publications from across the media landscape, including Fast Company, Bloomberg, and even a segment on the Today Show.
So how do you create your own buzz-worthy content? Well, we recently published 'The ultimate guide to using surveys for content marketing'—so we definitely recommend that you read that. In the mean time, here's a five step process to get you started:
- Brainstorm engaging topics to explore with your customers or the general market
- Use a market research solution that offers access to a quality panel like SurveyMonkey Audience to reach your target market
- Review your results for unique and memorable insights
- Draft a blog post or press release and reach out to the media
- Publish and promote!
SurveyMonkey gave us a lot to work with and made it easy for our team to turn results into impactful pitches. It turned out that journalists were most interested in demographic data, for example which gender or age group is most likely to swear.
Brad Sanzenbacher, Senior Corporate Communications Manager, Wrike
To break through the noise of “me-too” content marketing, you need to innovate and stand out like Netflix and Wrike. Using market research can fuel original content marketing programs that engage and provoke your community.
About Netflix’s Cheating survey: The sample was representative of an adult online population who watch TV shows via streaming services with a significant other all over the world. An example of a key finding of this research was, “46% of streaming couples around the world are watching ahead of their partners and most only plan to cheat more.” See Netflix’s Cheating article to learn more.
About Wrike’s survey: Wrike conducted their survey in the late summer of 2016 and included more than 1500 American workers. They found that 57% of respondents admit to swearing in the workplace. Of those who do swear, 93% have coworkers who also openly swear at work, compared to 63% of those who don’t. See Wrike’s news release about their swearing research to learn more.
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