Optimizing Survey News Releases for Prospects

Ultimately publicity is about generating business for organizations, yet most press releases aren’t optimized for this. Only 13% of 2016 survey releases linked to a lead-generation form (up from 7% in 2013) to capture a prospect’s contact information in exchange for a white paper with more detail about the survey, despite the fact that 32% of survey news releases offer a corresponding white paper (up from 19% in 2013).

While creating a white paper sounds daunting, and some are rich, professionally written and well-designed ebooks, many white papers are simply PowerPoint presentations of the survey results, with an introductory slide, one slide per question and a methodology slide. A quick “white paper” of this format is better than not offering a white paper at all and is probably more likely to be read in its entirety than a traditional narrative format anyway.

This is an excerpt from the free Researchscape white paper, “Amp Up News Releases with Newsmaker Surveys”;. Download your own copy now:

Author Notes:

Jeffrey Henning

Jeffrey Henning, IPC is a professionally certified researcher and has personally conducted over 1,400 survey research projects. Jeffrey is a member of the Insights Association and the American Association of Public Opinion Researchers. In 2012, he was the inaugural winner of the MRA’s Impact award, which “recognizes an industry professional, team or organization that has demonstrated tremendous vision, leadership, and innovation, within the past year, that has led to advances in the marketing research profession.” In 2022, the Insights Association named him an IPC Laureate. Before founding Researchscape in 2012, Jeffrey co-founded Perseus Development Corporation in 1993, which introduced the first web-survey software, and Vovici in 2006, which pioneered the enterprise-feedback management category. A 35-year veteran of the research industry, he began his career as an industry analyst for an Inc. 500 research firm.