The gold standard of demand-gen content is original research, which can be sliced, diced, and reused
Publishing original research online, independently or in partnership with a research body, is a powerful source of lead generation
Original research can come in all shapes and sizes, but what matters most, beyond originality, is the relevance it bears to the priorities of your buyer persona. Prospects will gladly part with information about themselves in exchange for evidence on how to solve a problem they're facing or build an argument they're making. Ensure that your research speaks to the needs of your target audience and ties back to your offering to attract the types of people most likely to qualify as leads and opportunities.
Experiments, surveys, and interviews are go-to sources of data for primary research. Consider the data your business is collecting, whether it can be analyzed and used publically, and if any of it is an interesting source of benchmarking or reveals any new, unexpected, or compelling behavioral trends. You could also approach a partner who's likely to have a complementary data source and explore whether combining the two would reveal something useful for you to co-publish. Another option is to aggregate and analyze data from public sources to reveal something new.
A juicy gated research report will drive those leads, but don't forget to create a small army of other content assets using intriguing data points to drive people to the gated document. Think blog posts, videos, infographics, and social cards.
Write your survey or interview questions with a compelling statement about the results in mind, so that each question helps you to build a compelling story. It's important to take the time to do this, or you risk ending up with a rather limp body of results that make it near impossible to build any interesting arguments.
If you're running a survey and your data-set is large enough, you can split out results by the variances in demographics that make up your different buyer personas, like company size, job role, industry, and location. This allows you to create reports that focus more squarely on your personas and markets that are therefore more likely to capture leads.
One way you can add credibility to your research findings and broaden the reach of your research reports is by interviewing relevant experts and thought leaders about the results. This will help you develop your analysis and contextualize the findings in your report. Featured businesses and experts will be more inclined to share the report with their network, surfacing your work and your brand to a broader pool of potential leads.
You can generate even more leads from your research by using it as the basis for a webinar series. Invite customers, experts and partners to discuss the findings, with a Q&A for the live audience.
