Research can be expensive. But research is always valuable. In fact, if you’re an SME , you may have already gained a crucial insight into your product offering by the wonderful data sourced and mined by either a professional research outfit or you may have handled it internally. You poured over focus groups painstakingly and analysed data to the nearest decimal point in an effort to make sure that initial product launch is perfect.
You did all this to make sure that you understood the market inside out. But sometimes, once it’s been used for internal reasons, it’s forgotten that it has more marketing potential. So, how do you use old data to create new content?
You’re never finished with research, your focus just moves on to something more pressing. When the early start-up stage is over, the research you once put so much faith in, is cast aside as the next phase takes over.
Creating new content can be daunting. Coming up with a new blog topic every week can be a real grind. Never mind whitepapers or Internet articles. If only you had a list of information nuggets that you could form an article around every week. Better again if these points of information told a story unique to your product or service offering.
From feasibility study research to your first customer survey, you already have access to plenty of your own data which you can splice, dice and create new content from. If you’re lucky enough that some part of your own research proved right – that’s a blog. If it proved wrong, that’s a blog too
For example, when researching potential for your new product, you may have interviewed hundreds of people or analysed vast lumps of data in the form of your initial market research. If your questionnaire was well prepared, you would have gathered information on why people need a product like yours, who was likely to use it and similar highly specific information that is yours to use. The research was hard enough to get done in the first place. Now you must make sure it works hard for you.
Every single point of data or info that you collected could easily be a central focus for a blog or article.
So – no more wondering about where to get your inspiration. If it’s not right under your nose, it may well be in a dusty folder entitled ‘Business start-up’ or in one that’s on the bottom shelf of your cabinet called ‘early market research’.
And don’t forget secondary research – but that’s another blog.
If you’re finding coming up with content topics or indeed a complete content strategy a bit difficult, just get in touch and we can have a quick chat about your options.