Data reports are one of the best ways for a technology company to plant its flag in a particular industry. Published reports can illuminate a previously overlooked problem or highlight an emerging trend. They can also give a longitudinal view of market evolutions. As a result, tech companies that center their content marketing programs around data reports can garner instant credibility as industry leaders – especially if the data is fresh and previously unreported.
As a top tech PR firm, we frequently hear, “but data reports are a lot of work on my marketing team.” First, we’re experts in making the process manageable, efficient and effective. But moreover, there are 4 key reasons why your tech brand should invest the resources in this type of content marketing:
1. Research helps you get to know your customers.
Chances are, you are sitting on a gold mine of data that the industry would find interesting. Typically, it’s housed in your own platform and solutions. By aggregating and anonymizing customer and end user data contained in your backend systems, you can create an interesting data report story. More importantly, these collective insights can give your product marketing and customer success teams a wealth of info about your users’ tendencies and preferences.
2. Surveys help you qualify leads.
Another method for gathering data report content is through surveys. If your company issues an online questionnaire or partners with a trade media outlet to survey its subscriber database, you’ll likely be surveying potential customers – which is marketing gold. The response data will give you valuable insights into your buyers’ behaviors and perceptions. And if you ask respondents for company and contact information, you’ll receive lead data that you can score based on survey responses.
3. Journalists love original data.
Years ago when I was first entering PR, media outlets actually had the finances to afford entire research teams. Press organizations would conduct their own opinion polls and report on these proprietary findings. But as newsrooms shrunk and shuttered, so have these data capabilities. As a result, media are hungry for original research that others provide them (yes, even tech vendors).
To illuminate this trend, ARPR’s 2019 Technology Marketing Report: The Role of Media Relations in the Sales Cycle looked at which types of press releases were most impactful. We found that releases on data reports got the most clicks, more than triple the closest competitor of product press releases. Simply put, reporters are interested in the content of data-rich press releases more so than any other type of announcement.
4. Data drives conversions.
The aforementioned study also found that press articles covering data reports drive the most conversions to tech company websites when compared to other types of articles, like feature stories, for example. What does this mean exactly? Readers are more likely to click a hyperlink in an article to learn more about a particular statistic – ultimately landing on a vendor’s website. Bottom line: data reports are strong components of demand generation programs.
Ready to see a real-world data report example? Click here to learn how ARPR’s HealthIT team helped Updox create the first annual Virtual Care Report during the COVID-19 pandemic. The content marketing campaign garnered 55 media hits and drove over 700 website referrals.
