I’ve often found that the best way to stay on top of the industry you’re in is to catch as much news as you can on the topics you care about.
However, each day, nearly 7 million blog posts are published each day- about 7,000,000,000 words on average. To put that in perspective, James Clavell’s Gai Jin has about 437,000 words.
My personal best blog-reads-per-day statistic so far has been 10. And even then I’ve found myself skimming through the last few bits without actually reading them.
So what I do is I set alerts for keywords on google news- keywords such as content marketing, copywriting, content strategy and so on. While this is a reasonably good way to manage a largish beast, I find myself drawn to some content more.
Recently, one article caught my eye- How to Create and Publish Survey-Based Research for Your Marketing
As all marketing professionals in general, and writers tasked with research in particular know, if there is a magical way to make people fill forms and give us honest answers, we shall exchange our souls in return.
So, of course, I landed up on the page. It was happening in a different time zone, so I proceeded to make the relevant calculations.
And then, something happened that caused me to close the tab.
The webinar was being hosted by SurveyMonkey.
Now, I have nothing against SurveyMonkey. They’re amazing. In fact, I feel like the webinar might actually be fairly beneficial.
But fresh off of the pandemic boat, I’m not willing to settle for ‘fairly beneficial’ anymore. I’m simply not signing up for 45 minutes of learning, in which there will certainly be at least one product plug.
But, what about the marketing perspective? What is the marketer supposed to do?
Now, this is one perspective I get. I’ve been on the giving end of these very ideas for far too long now to not get it.
One can see why this must seem like a very good idea to a content marketer. There are a few hypotheses on which we operate
- expose customers to at least seven pieces of content
- let your content add value to the consumers’ life
- gently guide people through the marketing funnel instead of shoving them through somehow
And this is exactly where the good marketer’s ability to adapt rapidly comes into play. In March 2020, if SurveyMonkey had hosted the same tutorial, started with a rhetoric about how tough the times are, and so on, people would have lapped it up.
But in 2021, people are tired.
Do you not feel that weariness in your bones? Of waiting for something, anything to move? Learning opportunities are great when we’re doing the waiting, but not so much when we want to do the action instead.
Awesome sermon, but what would you have content marketers do?
Workshops.
That’s what I’d do.
In fact, I’d limit registrations to no more than ten people per session, and I’d ask them to fill a form (built on SurveyMonkey) to understand exactly why they’d like to attend.
And then, for forty-five minutes, I’d put them to the task of grueling research for their own use cases. And I’d do it without mentioning the product even once.
Now, this is where we need experts. It isn’t enough for a company’s presages executive to do these workshops.
Not anymore.
Remember what I said about ‘fairly’ earlier? Nope, people now demand ‘damn-well’.
A workshop like this would be most impactful when led by a research expert, a statistician who’s amazing at cutting through the randomness, an anthropologist who can read the person behind the form.
Now, please note that I have nothing against SurveyMonkey, the presenter or any of it. All I’m saying is this- why not go the extra mile?
True, what we have right now is a good idea. But is is a great idea? And what are we doing putting ideas out there if they’re not great?
These are a few of my favourite links
This is a footer that appears at the end of every blog- a small treat for reading up until here. None of the links mentioned below are affiliate links for now, even if a product is mentioned in there.
From the ideas discussed in this article, a few completely tangential links I’d like to share include
